Beginners Guide to Successful HubPage Writing - Part III

Welcome to the 3rd part of the Beginners Guide to Successful HubPage Writing. This Hub, and the earlier parts 1 and 2 of the Guide, are more a diary of a typical new Hubber's experiences than a definitive expert's guide.

Do you seek instant HubPage glory and tons of traffic?

Are you looking for Click-through rates of over 20% guarenteed?

Not to mention, all the very highest paying Keywords that no one else knows about?

Well then, this is NOT the Hub for you. Why not check out the many spammers lurking in the lower depths of HubPages who will gladly lure you away to their pet site where they will happily mug you and take your cash in exchange for useless advice. Here you'll find a few tips from one beginner to another.

The great thing about HubPages is we have loads of knowledgable people who will share their considerable experience for nothing (as long as you don't try to insult their intelligence or con them!)

• PART 1 of the guide described my first 12 days of Hubbing.
• PART 2 my first 3 weeks.
• And here is PART 3, the first 8 weeks.

My production of Hubs has slowed and this is my 15th Hub. Although I have loads of ideas, I'm trying to be a bit more focused in what I write. More recently I've drifted into fiction which is fun but not a great source of revenue. I'll say more about traffic and earnings later but inspite of some relatively high hub scores neither humor nor fiction have earned me any cash so far.

Linked Hubs - Any Value?

One of my thoughts about increasing traffic was to produce linked hubs (like this series on HubPage writing). The theory goes that once part 1 has disappeared from 'latest hubs' you can revive it by publishing part 2 and linking back to part 1.

I tried this with a spoof romantic story about Coffee, inspired by TV commercials for Nescafe Gold Blend coffee in the UK (starring Anthony Head of Buffy fame). Incidentally, only the British would be daft enough to believe that Instant coffee was sophisticated and romantic!

This was moderately successful but the traffic for part 2 was significantly lower than for part 1. The same thing happened with this guide. However, in each case, publishing the second part did boost the traffic for the first part. I would guess that there is a law of diminishing returns, however, in going beyond 2 parts. (A bit like the movie series 'Police Academy'?)

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The first part of this guide was by far my most successful hub in terms of traffic. The Guides continue to do well, presumably because HubPages is growing rapidly and there are always newcomers needing advice. That said, my traffic has dropped considerably since I stopped producing a hub every few days. There is no doubt that Hub production is the best form of self-promotion on Hubpages.

(Don't you love it when the get rich quick brigade promote via the forums or hub comments rather than bothering to write Hubs. Typically they have one Hub which takes you straight to a site called 'Make millions every week while you're asleep'. They then shamelessly post anywhere on HubPages asking people to check out their Hub).

Some of my Hubs are now getting most of their traffic from search engines or social networking sites such as Stumbleupon. A good example is: JackSpeak the language of the Royal Navy. This is because it is a niche subject that interests a small number of people world-wide but has a limited appeal on HubPages.

It is therefore relatively easy to make this Hub the number one destination for anyone wanting to know the derivation of a JackSpeak phrase such as LOGGERHEADS. (Stick LOGGERHEADS and JACKSPEAK into Google and you'll find my hub). The downside is the traffic is still not large and those who visit don't click on the ads.

Money isn't my primary concern or i wouldn't be here, but earning a little does add some extra spice to writing.

Amazon

Still nothing at all. I get a few clicks a month but only Sales pay. Some people do well with Amazon and earn more than from Adsense (see Forums). Amazon is much less predictable than Adsense, however. I suspect you could earn nothing for a year then suddenly make $50. I've not bothered with Ebay yet but some Hubbers find it better than Amazon.

Adsense

I made $9 in my first month (January 2008) but was fairly active in creating new Hubs. February wasn't so good. I strayed into fiction and humor, traffic fell and earnings slumped to $1.50. March might be better. I made over $1 by about 4.00am on March 1st (California time). Even better, this wasn't from my own Hubs but from Referrals (will say more about this later).

So how did this break down across Hub types?

Those of you who are big time Hubbers, serious SEO experts and internet entrapreneurs are probably saying to yourself by this time, 'Who cares - If you aren't earning $100 a day then you should shoot yourself.'

However, It is interesting to know what works and what doesn't. The first part of this guide has received 17 clicks (around $6) while the second part earned nothing.

Hubs on Presentations, Helium, Tim Berners Lee, Creativity and Guinea Pigs got 1 or 2 clicks each and earned a total of around $2

The rest of my Hubs, including Budget Airlines (funny), Kylie Minogue (tongue in cheek, celebrity gossip), Real Musician (romantic story) and Coffee! (funny/romantic serial) earned nothing. You can probably see a pattern here. It looks like business and technical articles may pay more than entertainment, humor or fiction. This may be partly because the advertising is more focused and also because the Keywords pay more.

There is one more source of revenue, however, Referrals.

The rest of my earnings come from referrals. I deduce this because they come from HubPages but not from my own Hubs (If you use URL channels in adsense then add an extra channel for hubpages.com so you can identify referral clicks and values).

If you are new to Hubbing and want to use Referrals then go to your My Account page and then select URL Trackers.

Referrals are of two types. The first is where someone with your tracker signs up with HubPages. You then get around a 10% share in their Hubs (this doesn't affect their earnings - your 10% comes from the HubPages 40% share. If you are lucky enough to sign up a natural HubStar then you could do really well.The second type of Referral is where you link to other HubPages (with your tracker) and you get around a 10% share of their earnings (again from hubPages 40%). This is a Win/Win. The Hub you link to gets extra traffic and you get around 10% share in the page views.

Overall I seem to be getting around 30% (some days more than 50%) of my traffic from referrals but a lower percentage in terms of earnings. It therefore appears that you can potentially get far more traffic and earnings from referrals than from your own pages.

In the past, you didn't know who your signups were but that has now changed (updated June 2008). I have one prolific hubber who signed up through me who has produced twice as many hubs as me (around 50). The hubs draw relatively high traffic but the payouts are low and are mostly picture galleries of (very decorative) Bollywood actresses.

Remember the three factors to Adsense earning:

1. Maximise Traffic
2. Maximise Click Through Rate (CTR)
3. Maximise Click values (based on high paying Keywords)

If you can maximise all three then you have the Golden Egg Hub (remember the story about the goose that laid the golden egg?).

Meanwhile, write about what you are passionate about and enjoy yourself here. Don't worry too much about earnings. if the content is good then a modest amount of cash will follow!

Postscript: Where I am now

I've now been Hubbing over 18 months and have 68 Hubs. My income fell to almost zero at the 4 month point. Since then income has grown steadily through to the present day and I should reach $100 dollars a month AdSense revenue in the near future. Revenue growth seems pretty independent of how many new hubs I write.

One of the big successes has been referrals. I have 57 signups who have produced 779 hubs that have generated about 1.8 million views. This generates more traffic/earnings than my own hubs.

I only have 2 Amazon sales but one yielded over $50, a woodstove. The other was a book.

The moral is stick with it. Don't give up at the point where your revenue collapses. Hang in there and wait for the traffic and Adsense earnings to pick up!