Humanity One World (H.O.W.): Suggestions For Future Hubs
In the Beginning
A little over two months ago I began the H.O.W. movement. It was a concept based on the desire to make this world a better place. My hope in starting this movement was to raise awareness of the fact that each of us can make a difference simply by being more compassionate and caring people.
As with any movement, getting the word out is a large undertaking. Luckily, as a member of HubPages, I had a somewhat captive audience, and this afforded me the ability to reach thousands of writers with the message.
I encouraged writers to pen Hubs and to put the H.O.W. acronym in the title. I was well aware that this acronym was not SEO friendly, but how else do you raise awareness of a movement without mentioning the movement front and center in the title?
Yes, SEO is a reality, and it is one all writers must live with if one wants to increase online presence. For that reason, it is time to change our approach in trying to reach more people with this message.
A Wonderful Suggestion from a Well-meaning Hp Employee
I received an email from an employee at HubPages, and in that email she suggested some changes. I will let her tell you in her own words.
“Hi Bill!
I so appreciate what you have been doing for the HubPages community- you have inspired so many people through your Hubs and I have been hearing the best things about H.O.W.!
My one concern with this initiative is that titles with the word "H.O.W." in them might be hurt on the SEO front. The most important element determining whether a Hub flies or crashes is its title- if a title does not reflect common terms people use when conducting searches on a Hub's subject, that Hub is very, very unlikely to see any long-term traffic.
I've seen some great H.O.W. Hubs get published, but I am devastated to know that most will fail over the long run because of their titles.
Might I implore you to encourage those participating in H.O.W. to demonstrate a Hub's participation in another way? Perhaps a blurb at the bottom would be best- the opening of a Hub must show that the author is clearly delivering on the title and should not refer to programs or community initiatives unknown to casual searchers.
Instead, I feel that H.O.W. would see even more success if Hubbers engaged in some keyword research when composing titles:
1. Review our guide on creating search-friendly titles: hubpages.com/learningcenter/google-keyword-tool
2. Find keywords that have between 50 and 50,000 global monthly searches
3. Create a title that uses that keyword that is (a) less than 65 characters, (b) does not break up the keyword, and (c) preferably keeps the keyword at the beginning
It would give these Hubs much greater odds of success.
Just something to consider!”
Some Firsthand Impressions
I will not mention the employee who wrote this; I do not feel it is my place to name her. However, my first impression, which really has nothing to do with the purpose of this Hub, is to say thank you for the way she presented the idea to me. There is nothing critical about her suggestion at all. It was presented in a compassionate and caring way, one human being reaching out and trying to help another. Rather than tell me she thought I was completely wrong, she simply made a suggestion that she believes will ultimately help the movement, and I greatly appreciate and respect that approach.
She is right of course. I do SEO content articles for a living, so it’s not like I don’t understand the importance of SEO. I believe I was right in the way I approached this at the beginning, and now I believe she is right in her suggestion. We have succeeded in getting the word out about H.O.W., and now it is time to increase visibility by using SEO to our advantage.
So, the Point Is………
I now call on all of you to continue to advance the movement through articles, but to use titles that do not have H.O.W. in them, but rather are titled using the best SEO techniques available. I have found that using “Social Issues” as a category gives us the best chance to have our H.O.W. Hubs seen by those who make up our target audience, but that is completely your choice.
The important thing now is to use keywords in the title that will increase visibility, and then mention H.O.W. in the body of the Hub.
A good friend of mine, Mark (Curiad on HubPages) suggests that we add two things to every H.O.W. Hub in the future. Those two items would be the logo and a link to the H.O.W. website. You can see those to the right of this section. That way we can steer readers to the website and inform them of the movement.
Win/win Situation
By following these suggestions we will have a win/win situation for writers who are helping us. We will increase awareness of the movement and we will help the writers in gaining more views for their Hubs.
I will make this Hub short. I believe I have said everything that I needed to say, except one final point.
I greatly appreciate the work all of you have done so far. I know that your views on H.O.W. Hubs are probably down, so that means you sacrificed views on behalf of the movement, and that speaks volumes about you as compassionate human beings. Thank you so much for your willingness to hop on board and share a dream with me.
I guess that’s it! I believe strongly in this movement, and I am given strength to continue by all of you who have chosen to help me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
2013 William D. Holland (aka billybuc)