Making Money on Hubpages With Google AdSense: The Unanswerable Question

A few days ago hubber Sharyn's Slant posted a good question, often asked, How much should I earn three months into my Hubbing career? The hub has drawn lots of attention and replies, some of them my own.

It is a common question among new hubbers, I joined almost two years ago, hoping to make a living writing. I dipped in and out of Hubpages and played around with some of the techniques others here and in books suggested. But I never really hit the thousands of dollars hoped for, just modest returns which pay for the odd present or treat. I am happy with that though.

So if you want to make a living, there must be some trick?

There is a trick. The trick is time. Increase time and the number of sources producing cash and things will get better. Sadly the headlines ofearning cash online promote the idea of instant cash. I'd bet most people here are like me, earn a little for the extras in life. A few earn good returns because they have invested the time required.

I want you to imagine yourself stranded in a big city. You need $100 to get the train home, no frills just for the seat. Do you go to people tell them your plight in the hope they will pull a nice crisp $100 bill from their pocket? You could, but How likely do you think such an outcome would be?

The second plan, same scenario, same $100 train fare. How about approaching people and asking for a dime? OK you need to approach more people, much more work, and also a greater chance of success some might search their pocket and give you a quarter, others may give a handful of change. But each success breeds hope rather than despair. It will take an investment of time but you will get home.

So in terms of hubpages. You want to get home, that figure you see as your cash reward. The crowd you must approach are the advertisers who Hubpages and Google send to your hubs. You have to get the story across to customers, give them a good story to get them to give up their pocket change.

Each time you publish a hub, you have recruited a helper who works the crowd for you. Gaining a dime or quarter here and there. The cumulative action of two, ten, one hundred and more hubs, brings the small change in quicker and quicker. The more and better work you produce, the better your hubs work at selling advertising. There is also a value level for advertising, more on that later.

 The value of advertising varies in the online world as it does everywhere. There are luxury items and the mundane items. Of course there are more mundane items than luxuries.

Luxuries are in a good position, most people know them as luxuries so aspire to them already, the Mercedes-Benz, the designer dress or jewelry. They don't need you as much as you want them. You want them because they pay well but they don't pay often, people don't click on tads for things they aspire to but can't afford.

Most people look to more affordable luxuries, a new camera, vacation or a gift or treat for themselves or loved ones.

Everyday items still advertise but these will pay the least, but don't ignore this sector, pennies will make dollars too remember, it gets you on the train to your home.

We are selling advertising here so, we also need to bear in mind the economic climate. In times of recession or depression advertising revenue falls, business doesn't spend money on advertising when people don't feel like buying. Advertising revenue generally lags a little behind the economy, so as people feel better about spending we will see a rise in advertising revenue. The good thing is advertising revenue often rises very quickly in responce to increased consumer happiness. So keep one eye on the economic news in the media, what's good in the economy is good for us.

 At the top of each of your hubpages are a series of buttons. The stats button gives you lots of information.

You can check daily, weekly, monthly and all time views and importantly the numbers of viewers from particular sources. Good to see it Search engines are sending people your way etc.

Next there is a selection of keywords for your hub, very good for tweaking your hubs visiblity.

Finally there is a Hub Matrix button, this gives a word count, short URL to the page good if you Tweet your hub. Also it includes an indicator of the advertising value, The value ranges from $ to $$$$$$ the more $ the more the advertiser pays.

Don't chase the highest values all the time, go for mid range $$$ advertising to bring in the steady stream of lower income bread and butter advertising. But do aim for a few luxury itemed hubs, just in case you do catch a good spot and bring in that high value stream.

Linking your hub to others is very important. But always pick the best links you can.

When using the suggest links button, I try to pick hubbers of the higher scores. I admit to being a 'Hubscore Snob.' The better the hubbers score generally means the better hub, read the suggested hub first to make sure you want that information in your hub. Some links suggested are not always appropriate for the subject you are writing about. I aim to use Hubs with scores over 90 if possible, higher if available.

In the past couple of months I have also opened a Blogger account. I write a blog post at least once a week on , ideas for hubs, musings on things in the news etc. I also post links to my hubs and have created an Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed from my hubpages account to my blog. This RSS feed upd ates every 24 hours and since opening the blog my inbound traffic has increased by 10%. .

I Decide early if you want to monetize your blog or blogs. Monetizing the blog can put off people coming to your hub, but you also could gain from some sales from your blog site.

If you do take the blog route, bear in mind the reason. you can monetize with Adsense but consider if it is really worth it.

Hubs do have the attraction of having the possibility of views paying you some revenue, so if that is your main goal, keep monetization low.

Also be careful of the amount of monetization you have on your blog. Recently, in November 2012, Google tightened up its definition of SPAM blogs. One of my most popular blogs about my local book club was designated SPAM and closed, along with my Google Accounts for a couple of days. The reason? I linked our book clubs monthly choice of book to my Amazon affiliate account to perhaps sell our various books for the month. Butt Google saw this as SPAM and pulled the blog.

So keep in mind what you want a blobg to do. Drive traffic or expand on hubs. Then be cautious as to how you link back to non Google pages, too many links to one page can get you blocked as a SPAM Blogger.

 So to conclude. There is no way to say how much someone should be earning at any stage of a Hubpages career. There are so many variables, what worked two or three years ago doesn't always work today. Whether one claims Google changed search criteria have made things more diffivult or that the economy is not as geared to advertising as it was.

Producing lots of good material over a period of time is the only means to have a chance of producing cash returns. It is hard work at times, especially after the immediate rush of enthusiasm has waned, when hopes of fortunes has sunk into the mire of a $10 or twenty payout for three months work.

That work however was not wasted, it is still out there, and maybe will be out there for decades to come, loyally bringing you a dime a day for the rest of your days.

In order to get value from AdSense it is necessary to know how the system works.

I personally recommend Google AdSense for Dummies, it is entertaining and simple and did improve my investment in time and money. It does cover how to create advertisements for Blogs and use of HTML code in basic areas too. The book does have a valuable section on how to use Google Analytics and how to create specialized reports. Proper use of Analytics is vital if you are to utilize the Adsense program properly. Analytics tells you which ads are producing clicks on ads, and where those ads are so you can see which hubs or blogs are your best sources of revenue and gear your writing towards those topics.

It is not the only good book out there but it is the one I personally found to be  of most use

Investing a few dollars in a good book on your primary income tool is well worth it. After all would you buy and use any product for the first time without a cursory glimpse at the instruction manual and expect it to work perfectly. These books reduce the time spent learning in an ad hoc manner and answer the basic questions as to increasing income in the most effective ways.