Hi everybody. My name is Yan and I'm a medical student from France, so please forgive me for my bad English!
I've joined hubpages about 2 days ago and I've been lurking around, trying to absorb all the information and I can tell you that there is a lot to learn from the community here. I've come across the 30 day hubpage challenge and I found it very interesting. I am a goal driven guy and competition always motivates me. So I'll come straight to the point here.
I find that creating 30 hubpages in a month is not challenging enough for me. Before anybody says I have too much time on my hand, I am a 3rd year medical student. I have to attend 6 hours of classes everyday, work 4 hours at the hospital and still find time to study what I've learnt at night. Creating one hub day for 30 days is quite feasible for most people. I mean I'm sure everyone can find 30 minutes a day to write one hub.
So here is my challenge to you and I invite all fellow hubbers to join me. Try to create 100 hubs in the next 30 days from the 24th of Februrary 2010 to the 25th of March 2010!
Here are the rules:
- The hubs must not be personal blurbs or short story-like hubs. They must be hubs with keywords that people will actually be searching for in search engines.
- They must be informative and not spam. A short hub of 300 words can be informative and a hub of 800 words full of nonsense. So the numbers do not matter. But personally, I find that the more words your article have, the better it tends to do on google.
- They must be clearly written, spell checked and formatted. I'm not a native English speaker but I always try to write correctly. Use a spell checker to proofread your hubs.
Why am I doing this?
I have been hearing a lot of good about hubpages lately. Personally I prefer to build my own sites on free mediums like blogger, etc where I can keep all the money to myself. But I have done 4 hubs during the last two days and 3 of my hubs have been indexed under 1 hour and 3 of them are on page 3 for the keywords I have been aiming for without any backlinking to them. Even if I do not earn any money from the hubs, I can use them later to build backlinks to my websites. So I've decided to push it and see where it goes.
Lay out a business plan
Tackle it as a business, as your second job even if you are not earning any money on it for the moment. Here is how I'm going to go about it. Break your business plan into parts and manage each part individually. I'll try to make 33 hubs in one week, 20 hubs during the weekdays or 4 hubs per day and the rest during the weekends when I'll not be working.
Say that you have 33 keywords for the first week. Create a spreadsheet. List all your keywords on it. Start with the most difficult keywords to work with. I mean the ones which you have no knowledge of. Research it and then work on it. Schedule a weekly time table. Stick it on the wall before your work station. Find keywords that you have a certain knowledge about to work with. For me, it will be things associated to health and my hobbies. Your business plan must be something like this:
Keyword Research:
Keyword research is very crucial. Research keywords that are getting less than 500 hits per month with PR (0 - 1) on the front page to be sure to make it to the front page. Aim for long tail keywords. Check that there are advertisers for the keywords you are researching by googling it. I'll research my keywords before attempting the hubs for one week, that means I will have atleast 33 keywords to work with before attempting to start the hubs. I'll dedicate about 30 minutes to each hub. So it'll take me about 2 hours every day, give or take. If you don't know how to search for keywords, just google it. There are plenty of materials on the research of keywords. If you need any help, let me know and I'll do my best to help you.
Monday: Fishing net, Airwalk Shoe, Bellini Shaving Razor, Selecline Microwave
Tuesday... 4 Keywords
Wednesday...4 Keywords
Thursday... 4 keywords
Friday.... 4 keywords
Saturday... 13 Keywords
Sunday.... Catch Up Keywords and Research
Let's say that you managed to make 4 hubs on Monday but only 3 on Tuesdays. Don't sweat it. Stick to your plan and do the keywords planned for Wednesday. I'm free on Saturday and so I can do my 13 hubs if I stick to it. If you are busy on Saturday too, I suggest you divide your workload between Saturday and Sunday.
For Sunday, I'll catch up with the keywords I've missed during the workdays and I'll do my research for the next set of Keywords I'll attempt for week 2.
Time Management:
Try to identify key areas of your day where you will be free and do your huds then. I'll be using google calendar to do this. I work in the hospitals from 08 00 to 12 00 and I have classes from 13 00 to 19 00 with short breaks in between. So I'll wake up earlier and work from 05 00 - 07 00. At night I study till 22 00. So I'll work from 22 00 - 23 00.
Wednesday 23/02/10
05 00 - 05 30 - Keyword 1
05 30 - 06 00 - Keyword 2
06 00 - 06 30 - Keyword 3
06 30 - 07 00 - Keyword 4
22 00 - 23 00 - Catching up and Polishing my hubs
Stop wasting your time! Do not worry about how many hits you are getting, or your rank on google or the amount of money you are making at this stage. Forget about backlinking too. Just focus on hub creation. Normally your hubs will have a steady ranking on google after approximately two weeks.
Motivation:
You'll find it hard on some days to stick to your business plan. Stick a list of immediate, practical goals in front of your workstation and look at it everytime you are feeling depressed and not motivated enough. By immediate, practical goals, I mean short terms goals that you can achieve in one week like running 15 minutes tomorrow. Some of my immediate, practical goals from this week are:
Finish my physiology textbook, cook a thai dish,...
Treat each finished hub as a motivation to complete your next one.
Sacrifices and Rewards:
I've learnt in my life that if you want something, you need to make some sacrifices to get it. I don't define sacrifice as the act of losing or surrendering something but to forgo the instant gratifications for the long term rewards. See sacrifice as a positive thing and you won't find it strenuous and hard work to build your hubs.
Balance and Discipline:
Balance is key in life. You must not cut off important parts of your life to dedicate yourself entirely to building your hubs. Eat well, sleep well and do some exercises every day. Enjoy some time with your loved ones. But do not stray from your goals. You made a list of goals and you must stick to it. Discipline yourself!
Helpful Links:
Easy Ways to Increase Google Adsense Revenue
Passive Income Online
Keyword Academy
Internet Marketing
Make Money Online
Video Blogging
These are the main ones I follow. Read them from back to back.
Key Ideas:
Tackle this as a business and lay out a realistic business plan.
Break down your business plan into weeks, days and hours and treat each on its own.
Set the number of hubs you can create in a month. I'll suggest more than 50 hubs.
Do your keyword research first before creating any hubs.
Design a time table suited for you.
Stick to the time table.
Create hubs for six days and find a day per week to catch up.
Do not focus on earning money, getting backlinks, number of hits, etc... at this stage.
You must find a balance between the rewards and the sacrifices you are willing to make for them.
Discipline and hard word are the keys to success.
Last and not least and I think the most important thing here, Enjoy Yourself!
I will not monitor anyone and no there is no price for the winners. But atleast you will be better off with your money making endeavors with 100 more hubs in your pocket. Do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions. I'll do my best to asnwer them. But please note that I'll try not to waste too much time on the forum here.
