How to Earn Money on HubPages Hints & Tips

Did you click on this Hub because you thought I'd have some previously undiscovered pearls of wisdom about how to make money on HubPages? Or did you read my summary and decide to give me a chance anyway?

Well, thanks for the click. Actually this is a little unfair of me, I have enticed you to click on my Hub by choosing my title carefully, knowing that it would peak interest. I want to highlight how we can all get sucked in with the promises of knowledge and cash, and how a lot of articles on HubPages about making money on HubPages are just regurgitations of the information that can be found in the Help Centre, Forums, Answers and other Hubs. Just the title alone grabs an awful lot of traffic. I am also not a fan of other articles that promote other click to earn sites as some can be a be a big old fat scam. Does every Hubber have an article in their arsenal about how to make money or SEO or backlinks in their portfolio, is it just a sure fire way of getting hits or do you really want to share. I suspect it's about 50/50 and I do not wish to insult any Hubbers who genuinely have written guides to help others in the community, it's just those that write about it for clicks that get me.

I do want to share a couple of tips though, if you'll allow me and keep reading, just things that I have learnt and not about the usual 'how to make money' tips, it's how I try to make good useful hubs and enjoy myself on this brilliant website. I haven't been in the forums or read a Hub about what I want to tell you, it's just good old fashioned observation, trial and error.

You see, until recently, each time I saw a new article published about how to make money on HubPages I did click on it, I couldn't help it. When I found what I thought was a good one I would keep it open on my desktop as I tried to gleam every last bit of information for success, but I often ended up confused. What is my niche (I like loads of stuff) where I should promote my Hubs (Reddit is the strangest site I've ever visited), what are back links and how do I make them and what on earth are SEO's?????

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of very helpful Hubs with very useful information and you can be greatly inspired by an authors success story. But some leave me baffled, do I really need to read them all (they all seem the same to me) and have I got the time to try everything they say to try to increase the traffic to my Hubs?

I have been constantly learning during my time on HubPages, more so in the last few months as I have been publishing more and more Hubs. This is what I have learnt.

You wont get rich doing this (sad face).

I like it when people read my Hubs and leave comments.

I like to read other good quality Hubs.

I would rather read about an exotic flower or Bichon Frise than how to make money on HubPages, because that's what it should be about, good writing not getting rich quick, at least that's what it is for me. Don't worry, I am listening to myself and I completely support writers being paid for their work no matter the platform, but I think some Hubbers may be misled into thinking that they can make some serious money on here and that takes an awful lot of effort and time. I have just broken the $50 mark and had my first payment after a year of being part of the earnings programme. It has turned into just over £30 which I have used to buy myself a new handbag. My new bag is a bonus and as long as people read my Hubs and seem to enjoy them then I'm happy.

As a HubPages community member I think my time is better spent reading articles that truly interest and inspire me, finding new authors to follow who write in my area of interest and joining in with Answers. That seems to me to be much more productive than reading endless repetitive articles about how to make money when actually, really, all you need to do is write some good stuff and the clicks will come, it will take time but they will come.

Choose your Title Carefully

For example, I started this Hub twice with two different title's, the first being 'How to Make Money on HubPages Hints & Tips' and the other 'How to Make Money on HubPages for Beginners'. I wrote the first capsule and copied it into both draft hubs and saved them unpublished. The site has already made a decision about how good my Hub is based on 50 words, a title and two identical key words. The former title, and the one I went with, was immediatley given a Hub Score of 54, whilst the latter got 47. Why? I have no idea, but one is obviousley more favorable than the other.

So, if you have title troubles, try out a few and see how well it scores, it will help you make up your mind.

Save Unpublished

Don't write and then publish straight away, leave it unpublished and keep editing and saving until you are happy and you HubScore has gone up. Then you can publish with a high HubScore (assuming your writing is good of course) and showing your readers that your Hub is worth a read. For me, when Hub Hopping, the HubScore of an article does make a difference to me and even if I am not terribly interested in the subject if the HubScore is good I'll take a look. So based on how I feel, I think it must make a difference to other Hubbers too and I'd like my score to give them confidence that they would have a good read if they clicked on my article.

Oh, and don't save with spelling and grammar mistakes, make sure it's checked and clean so you're score will go up quicker.

Always Write More Than 800 Words or Have Amazing Images

Longer doesn't mean better, but similarly two paragraphs of 300 words isn't going to cut it. Don't waffle on, but don't undersell, if you haven't got more than 800 words to say on a subject then don't publish it, do some more research and write some more interesting stuff.

Unless...

You are writing a recipe. It's hard to write 800 words on how to twice bake a potato, but this is where your photographs come into their own and really set off your Hub. Think about what the images will say when you're taking them, what do they show and are they useful as well as beautiful. Then carefully edit and format them with the recipe. Good looking food photographs will guarantee traffic to your recipe. I get Hubby to take my photographs and one of the best compliments we ever got was for my recipe Hub 'Florentine Twice Baked Potato' from scottrights " I was just hopping around, and your photos stopped me in my tracks. It looks great!" Wow, what a compliment.

Have Fun

The moment you stop thinking of HubPages as work (because of all that money you want to earn) and start to enjoy yourself the better your writing will be - at least that's my working theory. Lots of Hubs explain how HubberScore stats work and we all want accolades - the fact is the more active you are on the site (not only in publishing but also in forums, answers and reading and commenting on hubs) the higher your score will be. Don't panic about it though, it's not the end of the world. I have been over 90 for 6 months now and fluctuate, I have once published two Hubs and then seen my score plummet to 91 and then done nothing for a week or so, logged in and found myself at 95! There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason so enjoy yourself and enjoy what other Hubbers have to say but ignore the HubberScore, more or less.

Play Nice - Comment and Reply to Comments

Be polite, if someone has commented on your Hub, thank them! Its just common sense and its nice to be nice. Don't shy away from a discussion in the comments boxes either, they can really enhance a Hub. A happy side effect is that be replying to a comment, all other followers see that in their feed and your traffic can increase. I just like to be polite though.

Thank you to all who have commented on my Hubs and who follow me, it's nice to be liked.

So, I realised that I was spending more time trying to find out how to make money than actually writing, and if I'd spent more time writing I would have 50 Hubs by now.

For some reason the things that I write about get a lot of search engine traffic anyway, which is good news, I do use Facebook and Twitter to promote my Hubs but that's about it. I know I'm not going to make a fortune on here but I would like to be a successful member of the community. I would like to write and publish a recipe book or maybe something about chickens, or seeing as though I actually am a Stage Manager then maybe something theatrical, but for now I am going to keep on writing as an idea comes to me and just try and enjoy myself doing it.

In the end you get out what you put in, if clicks and payments are your thing then good for you, some will say I am doing myself out of money but I like to see it as this, I have little time to write and be a community member on here, so I will use that time wisely to read things that I enjoy and write about things that I love. So thank you to all who write about how to make money on HubPages, but I'm going to skip it from now on.