Getting Started on HubPages: Step #1 - Create Great Content

Welcome to HubPages! Now that you are ready to start your first Hub, it's important we let you know about what it takes to be a successful Hubber. First off, HubPages is not your personal blog. Many new Hubbers make this mistake and come on HubPages to leave a blog-type Hub. HubPages provides a platform to express yourself and share your expertise. Purely personal topics, substandard content, and proposals of dubious value won't make the grade here. HubPages is the best place to publish online, but the content has to be high quality or your readers will quickly go elsewhere which hurts our whole community.

Our job is to get you off to a great start from the get go! To do that, we want to give you a couple of tips about what type of content does well here.

So you want to be an online writer superstar, adored by legions of faithful readers? Don't laugh--if you have talent and some great things to share, you might very well be the next online phenom. You can also earn money from your content because the more readers you get, generally the more you can earn via Google AdSense or the HubPages Earning Program.

Here are the things that make a great Hub, to help you organize your creative process:

1. Write about topics that interest people like you.
2. Add original, high-quality pictures, videos, and other useful capsules.
3. Review your Hubs for spelling and grammar mistakes.
4. Make sure your writing is your own.
5. Include enough information to make it really useful to your reader.
6. Final check: is your content better than what's out there?

Let's go through each point in a little more depth.

The first step in publishing a Hub is knowing what you want the Hub to be about. What's your topic? Ideally, it's something you're well-informed about and want to share with others. But before you start typing, make sure you read these 5 suggestions.

1. Will readers be interested in your topic?

   This is an important question to ask yourself before you sit down and begin composing your Hub. There's nothing wrong with having specific, niche interests, but make sure you would be interested in the topic if it were written by someone else. Articles that are useful will always do better on HubPages; Hubs that promote products or services such as: Multi-level marketing, getting six-pack abs; how to get your ex back; acai berry and other "wonder supplements," TV on your PC; selling an eBook, etc. will not meet HubPages' publishing standards. These Hubs will more than likely be unpublished by our moderation team, so don't even spend your energy creating them. Being a good Net citizen means creating high-quality content that others will find useful. HubPages is the best place to showcase your expertise through high-quality writing.

2. Share your tips and advice. Many people turn to the Internet to find solutions to their problems and answers to their questions.

   If you can think of a question that many people ask, but very few seem to have the answer to, that question can be a springboard for a fantastic Hub. Many Hub ideas come from personal searches that render poor results. If you conduct a search on a specific topic and come upon only lackluster results, write the best article on the topic and you will own it in search. We've assembled a large list of the questions fellow Hubbers are asking on HubPages. Check out our Answers Section to give you some inspiration on topics for new Hubs.

3. Review products that you know well. Have you tried a product, appliance or service that you'd like other people to know about?

   If you have a lot of information on a product, give it an extensive review, compare it to similar products, and include original pictures and technical specifications.

   Use the Amazon and eBay Capsules to provide links to relevant products for sale, and earn a commission if visitors follow your links and buy (make sure your affiliate codes are active for both in the Affiliate Settings section on your My Account page). Remember, you need 50 original words for every Amazon and eBay product you list.

4. Share your opinion on a subject. Are there any hot topics that you feel passionate about, and would like to educate other readers about?

   If you're the "go-to person" in your circle of friends when it comes to chatting about a certain topic, because you're exceptionally knowledgeable about the subject, you should share your expertise with a larger group of people by creating Hubs on it.

   Any opinion on any topic that you could address in detail, and possibly open for discussion via comments with other readers, would make for a great Hub.

5. Share your artistic expressions. Are you a poet or a visual artist?

   Have you written a novel and want to publicize it by sharing a chapter on HubPages? Any original work that is not already published online, and that you have the rights to, can be shared in the form of a Hub. Here are some things other Hubbers have shared in their Hubs:

   • photographs
   • poetry
   • paintings
   • personal reflections
   • videos

We all know "a picture is worth a thousand words," and we all know the power of television and film to communicate. Carefully-chosen, relevant original pictures, videos, and other related capsules help communicate some messages that words never can, or they can complement text nicely, giving the reader a visual foothold into the topic you're writing about.

The Photo Capsule: You can upload as many images as you'd like, either from your computer, your iPhone, or a Web page. Original pictures are always the best, but if you find a picture from a site like creativecommons.org, be sure to cite the owner. We do not allow pictures that are watermarked, pixelated, or where the owner does not give permission for re-use. If your Hub has photographs with any of these criteria, you will most likely be moderated and asked to take them down. Plus, your readers won't be too happy to see unoriginal, poor quality photographs and as a result may not trust your content.

Video Capsule: You can add relevant videos using the Video Capsule; all you need to do is insert a URL.

Link Capsule: Likewise, carefully-chosen, relevant links to other pages on the Web or on HubPages that help complement your Hub, and would be genuinely useful to someone reading your Hub, are a great way to drive up your Hub's usefulness. You can point your readers to other great resources on the Web in case they want to learn more. Links that are purely promotional or lead your reader to prohibited sites are not allowed on HubPages, so we recommend only including links that will enhance the usefulness of your Hub!

Amazon Capsule: The Amazon Capsule can be a great resource for your Hub. If you keep in mind that it is an addition to your Hub, not the reason for your Hub, you should be fine. We recommend creating a rich piece of content that is enhanced by a related product or two. Our policy states that a Hub must contain at least 50 original words for each Amazon or eBay product listed.

Other Capsules: There are several other capsule options (map, table, poll, quiz, RSS, etc.) that you might consider using as well to make your Hub more engaging to a reader. Relevant capsules tell your reader that you care about the topic and are willing to give them as much useful information as you can. It also makes your Hub more engaging and you are more likely to have your reader stay on your Hub longer and go to another Hub that you've written.

You don't have to be able to win a spelling bee to write a great Hub, but perfect spelling makes your Hub understandable and credible. It's easy to do with the spell-checker that we've built into the Text Capsule.

In the Text Capsule menu bar, you'll see a blue check-mark with ABC above it. If you click on that button, your misspelled words will have a red squiggly line underneath them. You can correct the mistakes, run it through a second time, and make sure your Hub looks professional.

It's always a good idea to re-read your Hub before publishing. Checking your grammar as well as your spelling will help you build your reputation as a high quality writer and attract readers!

We all see and read interesting stuff on the Web, and sometimes our instinct is to reproduce it here by copying and pasting it into a Hub.

Don't do it. Here are 4 reasons why you shouldn't:

1. The text that you're copying is probably copyrighted and owned by someone else. Copying and pasting or even paraphrasing text that you do not have permission to reprint is illegal.
2. There is relatively little value to you copying what's already available on the Web. People want to read something unique that you've written.
3. Search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others will know that you've copied the text from elsewhere (they're very clever that way), and they won't send any visitors to your Hub. They'll just send visitors to the original Web page that you copied the text from.
4. And last, but not least, HubPages doesn't allow duplicate content or close paraphrasing. We'll take your Hub down and you can possibly be banned from the site.

What you can do: Post a link to their content, or copy a short excerpt, and then add your own commentary--your impressions, analysis, and complementary research or advice to what the other person has written.

If you're looking for something on the Web, you want to find the page that will give you the best answer to your question. If there is a subject you're particularly passionate about, share your expertise by creating a useful, well-formed and researched Hub that is the best resource available.

Here's an example: If you wanted to learn about flowers in national parks, would you like to get your answer from this Hub or this Hub? The first has a very specific, search friendly title and provides a lot of information through maps, original photos and descriptive text about the flowers of Central Park in April. The second, on the other hand, barely scratches the surface. It has original photos, but would greatly benefit from more information.

One last check before you publish: Is my new Hub better than what Google, Bing, and Yahoo think is the best on this topic?

For example: Let's say you want to build the best page on the Web on building a birdhouse. First, go to Google, type in "how to build a birdhouse," and have a look at the potential competition. Would your Hub be better than the first listing from Google? Could you either add more useful information, better pictures, clearer explanations, or more in-depth feedback? If there's room for improvement on what search engines think are the best, then there's an opportunity for you to create a Hub that's truly a winner.

In short, the idea is to create really great, high-quality Hubs, that other people will want to read. The HubPages format allows you to make truly rich pieces of content, utilize the features available to you to own a topic in search and gain readership. If you have additional questions, check out the Forums. They are a great place to get advice! You can also submit a Hub to the Extreme Hub Makeover Forum and let our community give you tips on how to improve your content.