End-of-October Update
It's been just over a year since I joined Bright Hub. The site has really taken off spectacularly in the past year and is now in the top 400 websites. I'm happy to have contributed to it. :)
In January, the site implemented a policy of minimum viewcounts. We had to average at least 80 per article per month or face being booted - and a few months later it went up to 100. I wasn't sure I could do that at all, especially not with science articles, but I decided to try for it anyway. I heard that gaming articles tend to start with high views and then die, so I joined some gaming channels. My overall long range goal was to write gaming articles to carry my science articles with their initial low viewcounts, then, by the time the gaming articles died, the science articles would've gained enough momentum to carry themselves.
All spring and summer, the top of my article list was basically all gaming. I considered that they were doing terrible if they got less than 100 views per month. Meanwhile, the science ones were doing great if they got anywhere past 80.
Then fall happened. The very top article is still a gaming one - but the next eight are all science. The oldest ones are now doing outstanding. Meanwhile, most of the gaming articles are sinking toward the bottom. So, basically, although I do have new gaming articles that do badly and new science articles doing great: the overall trend has been pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.
So what's the next strategy? Well, now that I actually understand SEO and how to make it work for the science articles right from the getgo, I could quit writing gaming articles altogether, I suppose. The channel editor seems pretty hellbent on kicking out anyone who doesn't write a dozen articles per month, and that's definitely not me. On the other hand, it might be good to write a second rouund of good gaming articles to carry the next batch of science articles (if any need carrying). For now, I'll probably stick with my current plan to contribute the bare minimum one gaming article per month, just to keep my hand in in case I need to ramp up in there again.
Of course, the rest of this year is pretty tied up in fiction anyhow, so it's not like I'll do many science articles either. It's the first day of Nanowrimo 2010 and I have 2595 words so far. :)
My articles for October:
Competition in Ecology - one of the foundational ecological concepts
How to find the Little Dipper
Geology of Other Planets - Mars, Venus, Mercury, Pluto, and Ceres are covered here
An Overview of the Bloons Tower Defense games
The astrogeology one is going to be a three-part series eventually, probably in December. I want to do one about the moons, and also talk about how one studies other planets in the first place. Should be fun when I can get to it.
In January, the site implemented a policy of minimum viewcounts. We had to average at least 80 per article per month or face being booted - and a few months later it went up to 100. I wasn't sure I could do that at all, especially not with science articles, but I decided to try for it anyway. I heard that gaming articles tend to start with high views and then die, so I joined some gaming channels. My overall long range goal was to write gaming articles to carry my science articles with their initial low viewcounts, then, by the time the gaming articles died, the science articles would've gained enough momentum to carry themselves.
All spring and summer, the top of my article list was basically all gaming. I considered that they were doing terrible if they got less than 100 views per month. Meanwhile, the science ones were doing great if they got anywhere past 80.
Then fall happened. The very top article is still a gaming one - but the next eight are all science. The oldest ones are now doing outstanding. Meanwhile, most of the gaming articles are sinking toward the bottom. So, basically, although I do have new gaming articles that do badly and new science articles doing great: the overall trend has been pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.
So what's the next strategy? Well, now that I actually understand SEO and how to make it work for the science articles right from the getgo, I could quit writing gaming articles altogether, I suppose. The channel editor seems pretty hellbent on kicking out anyone who doesn't write a dozen articles per month, and that's definitely not me. On the other hand, it might be good to write a second rouund of good gaming articles to carry the next batch of science articles (if any need carrying). For now, I'll probably stick with my current plan to contribute the bare minimum one gaming article per month, just to keep my hand in in case I need to ramp up in there again.
Of course, the rest of this year is pretty tied up in fiction anyhow, so it's not like I'll do many science articles either. It's the first day of Nanowrimo 2010 and I have 2595 words so far. :)
My articles for October:
Competition in Ecology - one of the foundational ecological concepts
How to find the Little Dipper
Geology of Other Planets - Mars, Venus, Mercury, Pluto, and Ceres are covered here
An Overview of the Bloons Tower Defense games
The astrogeology one is going to be a three-part series eventually, probably in December. I want to do one about the moons, and also talk about how one studies other planets in the first place. Should be fun when I can get to it.