The Politically Incorrect Guide to Making Money on HubPages
95The Politically Incorrect Guide to Making Money on HubPages
Herein we peel back the layers of political correctness to expose the brass tacks of turning a profit on HubPages.
Children under 14 may want to look away now. We are going to Keep It Real.
Serious Writers who value their craft should find something else to do. If you agonize over every word, if you double-check your verb tenses, if you know what a gerund is, please surf away now. Point your browser at SeriousWriters.com; do not continue reading here.
Only 3 Things Matter
According to The Politically Incorrect Guide to Making Money on HubPages, only three issues have any significance whatsoever.
I'm going to tell you what the three issues are, rather than forcing you to read this entire hub to dig for them. If you want details, please read on. Otherwise, go forth and apply the knowledge you have gained.
1. Get your hub indexed by Google
2. Pick appropriate keywords
3. Get people to click on the ads that appear on your hub.
Note: nowhere in this agonizingly simple list is any mention of writing good. Serious Writers, this is your last chance to bail out. You've been warned.
1. Get your hub indexed by Google
Google provides the majority of search results around the world. If your hub is ignored by Google, you've shot yourself in the digital foot.
Indexing is the process wherein Google computers read your hub, analyse it, and add it to their database of web pages. If your hub isn't indexed, Google will never include it in any search results.
Google indexing should take place automagically shortly after you publish a hub. Google knows about HubPages already. You don't have to do anything. However, some hubs may take weeks to get indexed and some worthy compositions may never be indexed. It's a mystery as to how Google separates the wheat from the chaff.
2. Pick appropriate keywords
We all know of the Google AdWords Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. If you can't decipher it, go watch TV instead of writing any more hubs. Your time you are wasting.
Learn the tool, live the tool, be the tool.
3. Get people to click on the ads that appear on your hub.
After mastering steps 1 and 2, light a candle to Step 3. Google and HubPages prohibit you from actually encouraging your reader to click on your ads. In the words of Sheriff Buford T. Justice, "You can think about it, but don't do it." Sheriff Justice went on to explain how Google will shut down your AdSense account quicker than Valerie Bertinelli at a free doughnut bar, but only the Director's Cut included that scene.
You get paid when an ad gets clicked.
Tolstoy could publish a War and Peace hub and still go broke if no one clicked on his ads.
To some extent you're at the mercy of Google; they decide what ads your hubs will host. You can filter out an advertiser now and then by configuring your AdSense account properly. Some Hubbers feel a slight animosity toward Scientology ads while other hubbers are happy to have ads for christian colleges on their atheist hubs.
Write whatever you want
We know it's politically incorrect, but you can write whatever you want. Use bad grammar. Incomplete sentences. Apply abstruse pop culture references that would only be funny to shoe cobblers in Malta on the Fourth of July.
Pretty writing won't make you money.
Only The Three Rules will make you money.
Don't Ignore Any of the Rules
Don't neglect any of the Three Rules. You may find yourself with the inherent ability to dominate Rule 1. You may find yourself manipulating Rule 2 like a Ninja Keyword Master. You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile, but David Byrne never made any money on HubPages. Neglect rule 3 at your peril.
Good Writers are People Too
We need accomplished writers to make our money-grubbing hubs look good. The symbiotic relationship between junior Hemmingways and AdSense trollops is well documented. Google probably like us all better when some of us use big words and literary references. However, a hub about the Top 10 Gas Grills for 2010 will probably monetize more effectively than 1000 words on institutional racism in 17th century France.
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Comments
@CMHypno: Work or fun? Who has fun at work? Not many of us. ;)
Writing for fun is fun. Make toasters fun, or make fun of toasters. The Three Rules will self-align when you least expect it.
Gerund - a large denomination note of South African currency. And I get very tense when adding verbs, although I have a parsable verb garden.
"automagically"...I LOVE That!
I never met a shoe cobbler from Malta, but once I met this really weird guy on the bus who was trying to tell me he was the prince of Malta. I enjoyed this very humorous take on hubbing :).
nicomp, you actually made me laugh twice reading this post:
"Learn the tool, live the tool, be the tool." (chuckle) and,
"Rule 1. You may find yourself manipulating Rule 2 like a Ninja Keyword Master. You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile, but David Byrne never made any money on HubPages." (Hah!)
Cool hub.
Oh you mean I won't get money just coz' my mum says I'm smart? I have to whore my art? I get it now.
Thanks for this very practical approach to making money on hubpages. I think you are right. There are so many hubs circulating on how to get an income here, but it actually boils down to the three points that you mentioned. People read hubs which have good content, but those readers do not pay the hubbers unless they purchase something advertised or at least click on the ads. This is a great hub.
@cally2: think of it as marketing yourself. That sounds much more palatable.
@create a page: Thank you for your complements!
Nicomp, good to know!
@socit2009: Please resubmit your comment without the external link.
Thanks!
*funny as hell* but informative
no offence...but i dont do hubpages for the money..i do it for the fun. read y hubs and you will see i have NO ADS!
@Crazy888: No offense taken. I respect your choice. Thank you for your comments.
I am "catching what you're pitching" in this hub, but I hold a hope that one day creative writing will prevail over product reviews. I have a dream that if you keep writing creative hubs, maybe a couple of chapters to a novel that you have written, and you have enough fans who like your work, then you may sell your books through lulu/amazon? It's a long, slow journey though and maybe a huge dream.
It's sad that if you publish hubs on "sexy Indian Bollywood actresses" or post hubs on "how to make a million dollars on hubpages with little effort" then you seem to get a lot of traffic. These hubs hold little creative or useful information, but they do make money on impulse clicks.
Your information on the 3 most important things is invaluable, and for me I'll mix it up in the future, creative writing hubs (what I enjoy) alongside toaster reviews (what I consider laborious)!
@LeonJane: Keep plugging. Put those used words to good use:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Make-Money-Online-Selling-
I'm no good at the literary stuff so I stick to toasters!
This was a fun hub.
Writing has become chewing gum for the brain so wouldn't you'd be better off doing videos than writing? Thought provoking hub. Thanks Nicomp!
Just great! I enjoyed the irony of listening to you preach about the un-necessity of quality writing and grammar, all the while spinning an article with threads of verbose gold! "The symbiotic relationship between junior Hemmingways and AdSense trollops is well documented."
Well done Nicomp! Also like how you boiled things down. I'm going to link your article to a similar one of mine, it's my way of bookmarking your page and pointing my readers to more quality stuff, hope you don't mind! I'll put the link to yours at the bottom of mine titled:
How To Write A High Traffic Hub Or Blog: Start With The Library, Science Or Iowa
Nicomp, you're a horse's arse! ...no wait, that's a horse's HEAD! Sorry. Anyway, I'm really mad at you because you've gone and taken all the fun out of everything. What can I do now to justify taking time away from my real life duties to come here and horse around (ha ha) with you? (Hey, I just got a new Hub idea... Why I Hate Nicomp.)
Best explanation I've read so far. Thanks for writing this.
@Niteriter: Hate on me 'til the cows come home, just please hub about it.
Please!
You did this well...and right to the point. Love it.
I was expecting more humor here :/
Oh well good hubs for noobs.
Did anyone else get spammed by dovekelly?
"hi all kind of jobs at {redacted} please check it "
That about sums it up nicomp - except I would like to know which are the keywords that really pay the most - can you shed any light on that ?
Then again there are those of us who just want to write. I think I made 30 cents last month from Google Adds. I'm still going to write the same exact way. I'm glad some people are making money here. Commerce somehow validates a vehicle for information. The Internet was not taken serriously until the establishment saw the "gen-Xers" that run Google and Myspace driving cars usually driven by wall street fat cats.
I'm saying we are real writers, all of us. Some of us want to be Hemmingways, some want to be the "Halequinne Rommance" writers of the blogospere just trying to cash in, but the ones who do cash in, validate the ones who are artisans. The artisans give respectability to the "Pulp Fiction" writers (no intended reference to Tarantino.)
@Portamenteff: well said. Those of us who can't spel Hemmingway enjoy a symbyotec relationship with you all who can.
Lol well said my friend !
Nicomp - you are an ignorant ass sometimes but you are a good writer. I enjoyed reading this.
nice info... i'll try it...
@William R. Wilson: Have you read your HubPages profile?
"I don't argue with crazy people or people who insult me personally. But I love a good conversation, whether I agree with the other person or not."
Yes. And I'm not arguing with you. I'm giving you a sideways compliment.
Google "sense of humor".
@William R. Wilson: Sorry! I missed it.
:)
I think you might be the kind of guy I could enjoy having a beer with as long as we didn't talk politics. Best.
@William R. Wilson: We Libertarians have a big tent.
I enjoyed this post. Great hub!
Amusing, but informative hub! Thanks for sharing.
lol...you're funny. I love it.
CMHypno says:
3 weeks ago
Is it work or is it fun? Top 10 Gas Grills = work + money, but not fun writing (unless you really like Gas Grills).
Probably why I don't make much money - I keep writing for fun. Electric toasters for the spring season here I come!