Articles that Don't Generate Page Views on Associated Content

There are many articles that fail to get page views on Associated Content. Sometimes when an article doesn't generate traffic, it's because it hasn't been properly optimized for search engines. In other cases, the article simply was written on the wrong topic. When you're trying to generate page view traffic on Associated Content, you must write about topics that people want to read about with the keywords they are searching on.

At the time of this writing I have in excess of 724,000 page views with 325 articles published on Associated Content. Despite my successes, I still have articles that fail to generate page views. I'll detail some of these failures with some explanation of the possible reasons why an article fails to bring in web traffic.

Articles that Don't Generate Page Views on Associated Content: Movie Reviews

While I had one movie-related article, titled "The Most Romantic Movies of All Time," that did very well, most of my movie reviews have failed to generate any page view traffic. The article "Movie Review for I Am Legend" has generated only 86 page views since February of 2008. In these days of DVDs, cheap cable and satellite television and dollar theaters, I don't think that people feel they're taking much of risk when they plunk their money down on a movie.

Articles that Don't Generate Page Views on Associated Content: Spam

"Product Review: SpamBully Spam Blocker for Outlook Express" and "Don't Depend on Laws to Protect You from Spam" produced just 24 and 26 page views respectively over about a year and a half. To me, this is a clear sign that spam is just a bad topic to write about. When you see poor article page view performance such as this in your queue, the best thing to do is to just stop writing on that topic.

However, I have still made some money from these articles. The review of SpamBully was originally published on Helium.com, and a publisher paid me $20 for a non-exclusive distribution of the article. So, I figure, all is not lost.

Articles that Don't Generate Page Views on Associated Content: Certain Niche Articles

Many people write on niche topics in order to create lots of page views on the Associated Content site. While this strategy can be successful, it can also be a phenomenal failure. Some of my eBay niche articles took off running with lots of web traffic. However, the other articles I wrote about eBay brought in very few page views. For example, "Using Selling Manager to Manage Your eBay Sales" and "Using eBay's Markdown Manager to Increase Sales" were page view failures.

So there's no blanket prohibition against eBay articles. The best strategy in this instance is to write to the keywords that people are searching on. For this, I usually look on Google AdWords for 3 to 4 keywords that are being searched on together. Also pay attention to the keyword suggestions that Google AdWords makes below the main search results, as these keywords can increase the relevancy of your page. Using a text analyzer like Textalyser.net can help you determine your keyword focus.

When I got a lot of page views from holiday articles, I thought this was a sure-fire winner. I began writing niche topics here as well to increase the chances that I would receive upfront pay. However, the fact that some holiday articles generate 100,000 page views or more is no guarantee that others will perform well in terms of web traffic.

While many of my general holiday articles have gotten a lot of online traffic, "Christmas Gift Ideas: Personalized Gifts that Last" was probably a little too general. "Christmas Gift Ideas for Vegetarians" and "Christmas Gift Ideas for Yogis" were niche articles that got me upfront pay, but created very few page views. These holiday articles were probably a little too off-center to get online traffic. Although Halloween is my best topic for bringing in the page views, "Jack Sparrow Halloween Costume" didn't create much traffic. Similarly, "Where to Find Free Thanksgiving E-Cards" has been slow to create page views. The last two articles were both AC assignments and were probably being picked up and written about by many other writers on Associated Content. Add this to the fact that these topics are already very saturated on the web.

When you and other writers have had great successes with these types of holiday articles, you have no choice but to just write the article, optimize it for search engines and keep your fingers crossed. However, if you're not getting upfront pay, I recommend publishing the article as display only so that you can delete it if it doesn't create page views.

Articles that Don't Generate Page Views on Associated Content: Partner Assignments

Many partners refrain from giving a keyword focus when they submit an assignment. It's usually best not to fill the article with keywords in this case. If the partner accepts the article it will be published on their site, and will neither accrue page views nor count against your page view per article total. However, if for some reason the partner rejects the article, Associated Content wil purchase the article for the promised price and it will be published on this site. This has happened to me only twice, through no fault of my own, but in each case the article has failed to generate page views.

One of my worst performing articles was written for an assignment entitled "Beat the Summer Heat." The publisher failed to mention that they didn't want articles about common water parks. Guess what I wrote about.

"Take a Trip to One of These Dallas-Fort Worth Water Parks" was chosen by AC as a title without my input. Despite the fact that the article is quite well written, it doesn't have the right keywords to get online traffic.

"Burger's Lake in Fort Worth, Texas" was another "Beat the Summer Heat" article. The publisher accepted it; then there was a bizarre incident. On July 17, 2008, nearly two months after my article was published, 8 Burger's Lake customers became ill with a disease caused by a parasite. The lake was closed for investigation and water testing. Again, the publisher had not specified a keyword focus, so I just wrote the review as I would for any print publication. After the incident, the article appeared on my site. It is still on the publisher's site, as well. It has brought in only 15 page views so far.

The solution to this problem could be to find your own keyword focus for the article. However, you have to be more careful with partner assignments than with your own articles for publication on this site. Especially if the customer has not provided a specific set of keywords and a percentage for search engine optimization, optimizing your articles too much could cause a rejection. For partner assignments, I would keep the keywords rather thin, allowing them to fall naturally within the text instead of finding every opportunity to repeat them. 1 percent per keyword is a good goal. You can use Google AdWords for this, as well. There are many keywords you can add to increase the relevancy of your article on Google's search engine. These can be sprinkled lightly throughout the article, but the primary concentration should be in the first hundred words.

So there are certain article topics which should be avoided altogether, and others that should be approached with caution. If you notice a topic such as holidays that is bringing in web traffic very well in multiple articles, go ahead and write more to that topic. However, if you find that a topic like eBay or summer travel that often fails to generate page views, it might be best to write about that topic less frequently.

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