Why I Prefer to Play by the Rules. Hubpages Example.

I can give you no explanation as to why I have always preferred to play by the rules. I grew up in a secular family and nobody ever told me to do anything. I was pretty much left to my own devices with no one every explaining to me what was right and what was wrong. Yet, as far back as I remember, I have had a very strong bias towards doing what worked for the greater good and have always played by the rules. Using Hub Pages as an example, I would like to explain why playing by the rules works for me, and why I would never consider any other way.

First Experience
When I first arrived at hubpages, I had been on the net some sixteen years – since inception, in fact. I had written for numerous websites and had come to the conclusion that those articles that were well written and were in niche areas generally worked their way to the top of google and stayed there. So, I selected a couple of topics that were niche topics and that nobody else had written about. True to form, within a week, my hubs were getting a lot of traffic. The first two hubs I wrote accrued some 20,000 hits within a few months.

The Voices of the Forum
Of course, being keen to learn from others, I started asking questions. I was taught about keywords, backlinks, news and rss capsules, etc. and, very shortly, I was putting them in. The bottom line is that very few of those articles did all that well. In fact, the only articles that continually did well were those that utilized the rule I came in with – write well written niche articles that haven’t been written about before.

Playing by the Rules – Backlinks
Through the years, on other sites I have written for, some of my articles have been backlinked by third party web sites. Those sites have had a lot of traffic and as they  posted a link to my article, I, in turn, benefited from their traffic.  It happened organically and those articles, to this day, still garner a fair amount of traffic. Strangely, I don’t think any of the articles ever gained more than one or two backlinks, but each of those backlinks were high quality links. My articles were good enough to be noticed by the powers that be on those sites and they referred their readers to my work. Recently, a professor of a prestigious creative writing course asked me if he could use one of my articles about writing for his class. I take that to mean that my work was good enough to be professionally recognized. So, it’s not that articles do not get backlinked if one doesn’t do it oneself. It’s that articles that are not that well written and do not bring something new to the reader are not backlinked that frequently.

After I learnt about backlinks, I joined up several other sites like Snipsly and Xomba in order to link them to my articles. It frustrated the living daylights out of me because it meant writing entire other articles just to link to my HP article. That took up hours. It also turned out to be a complete waste of time. I checked to see how much traffic I got from those site. Very little. My article was already on page one of google. The few referrrals I got from those backlinks wasn't worth it. Unlike the high quality backlinks that evolved organically, writing these articles on other sites did not generate much traffic and I'm pretty sure that Google search engines didn't see them as high quality links. Well, perhaps they did, but not that I noticed. And, sooner or later, search engines will disregard them because search engine companies are not fond of artificially induced links.

So, I prefer to play by the rules because if at some point Google and other search engines decide they don’t want artificially induced backlinks to influence ranking, at least my backlinks are genuine and it won’t interrupt my traffic.

Playing by the Rules – Keywords
When I first started writing for the net, I didn’t know a thing about keywords, yet these articles still found ranking on the first page. As I look back, I ask myself why? It’s simple. Well written articles automatically use related words. And if one uses the AP style of writing, then one automatically writes in a pyramid down style with the most important facts in the first paragraph. Even the first few articles that I wrote about in my first days of joining Hubpages were not optimized. They pretty much reached Google first page within days. So did quite a few of my articles. The reason here is that I carefully evaluated what readers wanted to read about and what hadn’t been written about before. Yes, of course, it’s not that easy to find those answers, but they are worth thinking about. For me, it’s a formula that saves me a lot of time and effort. I don’t have to worry about marketing the piece because it markets itself.

That’s another reason I like playing by the rules, because rules are generally made because they work. These days I do use keywords but I still find that if I write something correctly, the keywords tend not to need that much tweaking. The one thing I have changed is my title. These days I do write my title for the web. Previously, I utilized print rules.

Playing by the Rules – Affiliate Marketing
Since joining Hubpages, I have deeply regretted joining the affiliate market sector. I find some of it unethical – not all of it – just some. If you think about it, what motivation does an affiliate marketer have to write anything negative about a product if they’re going to earn a commission from it? In fact, I bought a couple of products as a result of supposed reviews written by affiliate marketers, and I have deeply regretted it. They were a complete waste of my money. The bottom line is that while I will continue to advocate those products that I deeply believe in, I will never be an affiliate marketer. There are some products that one cannot get an honest review on because every single review is written by an affiliate marketer wishing to sell his product. The problem with anything like this is that, sooner or later, action will always be taken against something that is upsetting the status quo. Many got the impression from Google’s recent rearrangement of its logarithms that it didn’t like affiliate marketers. Sometimes, by putting the good of the public ahead of one’s own profit, one is better placed not to have to duck and dive all the time to make a living in the medium to long term.

Playing by the Rules – News & Feeds
I was advised to put in news links so that my content was seen to be constantly updating. This was because Google gave preference to content that was updating continually. Perhaps, that is true. Yet I have articles that have been on page one on google for many years (and while they’ve shifted from one to four on page one, they’re still on page one), and they most definitely are static. I think Google, like all search engines, weights certain aspects of the search. The heaviest weight will no doubt go to unique, well written articles. In any event, it now appears that Google doesn’t want duplicated items, and the news headlines would be a duplication from elsewhere on the web. So, while one tried to put one over Google, in the medium term, it simply did not work. That’s another reason I like to play by the rules. In the medium to long term, one simply doesn’t have to keep adjusting. Doing it right the first time and all the time pays off handsomely. I have found it a pretty solid ethic to live by throughout my life.

So Do People Who Play Fair Earn the Most Money?
No, they don’t. I guess I will always be in the lower income group. I play fair and have always played fair. I live by the rules and have always lived by the rules. I put ethics in my life above everything else. The pursuit of both happiness and money comes after my evaluation of whether something is ethical or not. And that means, because so much about making money has to do with breaking the rules or taking advantage of others, I don’t get as much as some. And that’s okay! To some, of course, this isn’t acceptable. I understand that. But I prefer to play fair. It keeps me stress free and in good health.

So What About My Future Articles On HubPages
I am a writer. I write about things that I think are important to the community. This may be a useful product or it may be a point of view that I think bears thinking about. It may also simply disperse information as a public service.

So How Will I Design my Hub Pages in Future?
Firstly, I will do the research and look for a topic that I think readers will want to know about. Next, I will write it clearly in an easy-to-read manner that enables readers to benefit from what they are reading. Next, I will make it visually pleasing and be sure that it is information dense. Where necessary, I will link to other pages that add to the information I have already provided. I will make sure that my title is appropriate for both searchers and the topic and I will avoid topics that aren’t much searched for. From experience, people don’t do searches for the opinions of others. Nor are there high volume searches for poetry and/or short stories (much as I love the latter and have dabbled in the former). So, with that set in place, regardless of how long the money takes to arrive, at least I won’t be spending my time doing things that don't really sit well with me. I just feel much better when I play by the rules and do things for the greater good of others. I think, if we all work together for the greater good, and that includes writing excellent articles which people really need, then we set up an excellent foundation for a better society. Money, much as I need it, has never been a motivating factor for me to disregard doing the greater good and/or playing by the rules.