The best practices of online writing (at least when it comes to search engine friendliness) have been shifting in very interesting ways. Have you updated your writing style accordingly?
Listen in to this week’s Online Writing Insider podcast (Content Characteristics that Drive Traffic) to discover some important methods that can help your writing be found online. Sharing these insider tips is none other that HubPages CEO Paul Edmondson himself.
Gone are the days of many old tricks that, quite honestly, I did not like much at all! The new characteristics of search-friendly content might surprise you, and are better for writers and readers alike.
[UPDATE: Several of you have requested a written version of this podcast. While we do not provide transcripts, Paul Edmondson wrote a Hub about this subject (which actually inspired the podcast) which covers this issue. You can check it out here]
Do you have any suggestions for future Online Writing Insider podcasts? Send them over to podcast (at) HubPages (dot) com. We would love to hear what online writing obstacles and challenges you are working hardest to overcome.
HubPages Blog 
I would have loved to READ these tips. I cannot play the media player and when I download it, there’s an expensive software I am prompted to buy. Please remember that not all of us are on super duper computers with lots of rich media players. I want to learn from Hub Pages about issues like this and think you do a great job to help your writers, but please….can you post them in writing so everyone can benefit from them?
Interesting stuff! I have always read that people looking for help or information (hopefully that I can provide and make a sale somewhere in the process) are not interested in me or my opinions. What Paul is saying here is the opposite, up to a point, and I think this really makes sense. Develop an online personality, write naturally but with authority, and people will listen and take note.
I wonder, though, if this approach will ever really take over from our obsession with links or – more precisely – Google’s obsession with links? I would like to think so but, in the meantime, I think that I will play it safe: try to write naturally and interestingly, but still try to increase those backlinks as well!
@Jeanne – Paul wrote a Hub on the subject here: http://pauledmondson.hubpages.com/hub/Writing-Content-Online-to-Promote-Products
We touch on some different things in the podcast, but the Hub can make for a close approximation 😀
And thanks for listening in, Karen! I would like to believe that the obsession with links may someday die down. I don’t imagine the links will leave, however- they’ll just evolve. For example, likes, tweets, and +1s seem to be gaining precedence.
At any rate, it shall be interesting to see how things proceed!
I rarely click on a YouTube, Pod-thing or video, and even then I leave the sound off. It only takes me seconds to determine whether there is action or a transcript. Print text is why I use HubPages rather than visually oriented sites. (Beside the main point of this comment.)
Last night I wanted to check on how recommendations for the use of a couple of hub tools have evolved in recent weeks and months (as this blog title suggests). I went to the Learning Center and read about Links capsules and how to create hubber-centric RSS feeds. A big problem I have had with Learning Center topics–even worse post-Panda–is determining how current the advice is. Hubs which do not have the comments turned off have some indication based on the age of the oldest comments. Learning Center hubs, by convention, permit no comments.
I recommend that all official how-to and policy pages be given a creation date and, if applicable, a revision date. This should appear either immediately beneath the title or at the very bottom of the hub. This need is more critical during periods of rapid changes when the most current advice is in forum posts by staff, leaving contrary advice in more formal but undated Learning Center hubs.
Thanks for the information in this podcast. What you say in it makes sense!
Thanks Peggy!
And Howard- everything we put in the Learning Center is regularly updated, so you don’t need to worry about out-of-date advice. Robin takes great care of it!
I do not learn from listening, I learn from reading. I would love to READ this. Please accommodate those of us who learn differently.
I’ve added a link to a Hub Paul Edmondson wrote on the subject to the post, and here’s the URL: http://pauledmondson.hubpages.com/hub/Writing-Content-Online-to-Promote-Products
Hope that helps, Becky!
I really enjoy the podcasts! Saturday mornings are my time to listen in and learn more about this crazy world of on-line writing. Thanks for the valuable information! 🙂 I really enjoyed this one.