I’m working on getting some traffic to a new website. Everybody is always talking about Hubpages–so I figured I’d give it a try. Whenever one of the Guru’s mentions Hubpages, they say something like this: just sign up for an account, write at least 300 words of content, throw in a couple backlinks to your site, make everything possible your target keyword (profile name, hub name, tag, etc) and voila–instant search engine rankings.

Not.

I’ve now made two Hubs in the last week. One of them has been flagged as too self-promotional. The other has nofollow links.

The point of this post isn’t too bitch and complain that Hubpages sucks. I don’t have enough information yet to tell you whether Hubpages is worth your time. A lot of smart, successful people say it is. But who knows these days? Everybody seems to be a shyster.

I’m just going to share with you my specific experiences and what I have personally learned so far. I’ll keep you updated in the coming days and weeks as to my progress.

The first Hub I made was for one of my niches. I followed the directions completely that were outlined in Ed Dale’s 30-Day Challenge. I ran into two problems:

1. Immediately after submitting my Hub, I checked the code. My links were nofollow. That sucks. I did a bit of research on Google and found that Hubpages will usually make your Hub nofollow unless it has a minimum score of 70. I found lots of contradictory information, but all roads led me to believe that if I added more unique content, my links would be magically transformed into dofollow.

2. Before I even had a chance to add more content, I got an email from Hubpages saying that my Hub was being unpublished because it was overly self-promotional. I was welcomed to make changes and re-publish.

Blerg! That really sucks. Ya see, I had been using Market Samurai, and my Hub had already ranked on the first page two of my keywords (2nd tier). Now the page was going to be de-indexed. My mission was to get it accepted and get the level of content high enough that it would give me dofollow links.

Lessons learned: Hubpages can rank for your 2nd tier keywords very quickly. I saw it happen with my own eyes. Don’t be overly self-promotional on your Hubs. Just give good, honest information. And include one link at the bottom of your hub (by adding a link module). Write enough content to get your Hubscore high enough to make your links dofollow.

I just made my second hub last night. I made sure to include over 700 words of unique content, tons of pictures, a comment box, a poll, and of course–my link. Immediately after posting, I checked my links. Nofollow. Argh.

My Hubscore was 50…my profile score was just 20. After doing a bit of research, I learned that both scores have something to do with it. Your profile score reflects your activity within the Hubpages system. How many Hubs you have. How many other Hubs have you viewed? Commented on? All those activities will help your profile score go up.

Then there’s your individual’s Hub score. Like I said above, the best way to get your Hub score higher is to add more quality content. How much? Not sure yet. Ed Dale’s 30DC says that 300 unique words is enough. But it’s not. I know that for a fact. Unless a higher profile score would have made the 300 words satisfactory. Only testing will tell. I’ll keep you posted on that.

But from what I found around the Interwebs, you need a Profile score of about 50 to make your links dofollow. Reportedly that will occur around the time you have 3-4 total Hubs. I also read that to get your Hub score up to 70 (reportedly the level needed to convert your links to dofollow) will take about 1200 words of unique content. Again, I can’t personally verify this info yet.

I will be adding content to my two Hubs and adding another two Hubs by the end of this weekend. Hopefully that will be enough to get my profile score up to 50 and my Hub scores up to 70-75. I want those dofollow links!

One last observation. I published my second Hub last night. Immediately upon publishing, it had a Hub score of 50. Later in the evening, it was down to 49. This morning, it was up to 56. I just went to verify that it’s still at 56 for this post, and it’s now up to 61. The link is still nofollow.

Now, go kick Hubpages’ butt–and let me know of any success/failure you encounter in the comment section.

I’m working on several projects right now. Of course, all of them are dependent on getting traffic.

I’ve always heard that EzineArticles.com is one of the best ways to get some traffic and some quality back links. If you’re not familiar, here’s the gist of article marketing:

You write an article about a subject in your niche. The article should not promote you, your product, or your website even a little. At the end of the article, there is a resource box. In this box, you can say what you want and promote what you want. It’s a great place for a link to your site with your anchor text.

EzineArticles.com is considered to be one of the best article directories. The articles are actually approved by a real human beings, their pages often rank for niche keywords, and their links have tons of authority.

The problem? They take forever to approve your article. I’m talking 7-10 days.

A couple weeks ago, I submitted my first article. I waited. And waited. Seven days after I submitted that first article, I got an email saying there were a couple problems. This sucked! I waited a whole week for this?

Then I saw an interesting link. A “Premium Membership”. It’s a bit pricey, $97 for one month. It goes down to about $50/month if you pay for a whole year. I just wanted to test it out, so I signed up for a month.

I submitted another article. This time with my premium membership. I submitted it at about 8:30 PM EST. By 11:30 AM the next day it was APPROVED! Woo hoo!

Today, I submitted three articles for a different niche I’m working on. All three have already been accepted. The last one was accepted in 30 minutes.

They way Ezine Articles works is after 15 article submissions, they upgrade your account and with it, the time they take to approve your articles. And I’m talking about free stuff, not the premium membership.

So, presumably you could sign up for the Premium Membership for as long as it takes you to get up to 15 articles, and thus have your articles accepted quickly without the Premium Membership–which you could then cancel.

I’ll be testing this out and keeping you posted on this blog. In the meantime, I can’t say enough good things about the Premium Membership at EzineArticles.com.

One you login, just go to “Account Manager” at the top of your screen and choose the Premium Membership tab.

If you have any cool Article Marketing tricks or tactics, please comment below.

I recently helped my sister, Leanne, completely re-do her website, www.notyouraveragebootcamp.com.

It’s been 10 days since the launch of the new site, an she’s gotten 7 new signups.

Just for the record, that’s $679 of reoccurring revenue for her.  And we’re just getting started.

Before the re-do, she hadn’t gotten a new sign-up in several weeks.

What made the difference?

Well, we changed the website all together.  So being sure of the cause is impossible.

I’ll get into the details of all the changes we made at a different time.  For now, I want to focus on what I think made the biggest difference:

Her “total offer”.

What’s the difference between an “offer” and a “total offer” you ask?

Your “offer” is your main product or service.  For Leanne, that would be boot camps.

But your “total offer”?  The “total offer” is your main product or service plus EVERYTHING ELSE.

And when I say everything, I mean absolutely everything: 

• Your product/service
• Logistics – how does the product get to your customer?  Instant download?  USPS?
• Deliverability – does your customer get it now or have to wait?
• Customer support – who your customer contacts, when, what is the process
• Technical support – different than customer support
• Selection – how many varieties
• Risk Reversal/Guarantee  – the stronger, the better
• Warranty – how it works specifically, how long, what it covers
• Terms – payment terms (how you can pay, when you have to pay)
• Quality
• Pricing

This isn’t JUST the fastest and best way to build value…

By making a “total offer” instead of just an “offer,” you can transform any commodity into a unique product—making it something way more than just a commodity.

In Leanne’s case, she went from just offering boot camps to offering (this is just a partial list off the top of my head):

• Initial Consultation – get “before” stuff done – pictures, measurements, body composition, meet trainer
• Unlimited Access:  18 weekly boot camps; 2 locations; 2 monthly bonus Saturday boot camps
• Instant Download:  The “NON-DIET” – Full Nutrition Program
• Recipes, Shopping Lists, Meal Plans, Etc
• Personal coaching – “Accountability Consultation” every six weeks – take period measurement, pictures, etc. to chart your growth
• Custom Support – Leanne’s private email address and phone number – 3-4 business hour response time for questions, problems – anything nutrition and exercise related.
• Price – $97/month
• No contract
• Start when you want

Some of these items Leanne offered before I came along.  But she didn’t tell anybody.  She only advertised the boot camps.  Some of these items were added after some thought.

By making a “total offer” instead of just an “offer,” Leanne was forced to sit down, brainstorm, and think about what she really offers.  Every little thing.  That’s her “total offer”.

And now she has $679 in her pocket to show for her efforts.

ACTION ITEM:

Sit down, brainstorm, and list all the elements of your “total offer”.

Make a list.  Then make sub-lists.   Everything your customer would need to know about your product.  What, when, how, where, how much, etc.  The guarantee, the price.  The way they can pay. When they can contact somebody.   Everything.

Now go write a Kick Butt “total offer”!