What I Learned at HubPages in 2010

The year 2010 is almost over and I think it's time to review what I've learned in my first six months at HubPages. I'm currently in Australia so my year 2010 will be over slightly sooner than your 2010. I'll have to be quick in writing this! :)

I joined HubPages on November 15, 2010 with the idea to write a first hub about Dutch food in Melbourne. I joined HubPages while traveling and that's not ideal if you want to focus on writing articles. I didn't even have internet on certain days. I now have a nice number of hubs and they're getting a little bit of traffic each day. They should earn me money someday really. If you're thinking about earning money online as well by writing articles, I suggest you do so today by taking this tour. It is really easy to get started and you'll learn a lot by doing.

I think writing for the internet and earning money along the way is an important skill. I have the technical knowledge to build a website from scratch but writing good content is a whole different skill. The term SEO is not new when you're familiar with computer technology and the internet but there's a lot to learn. We had to implement a basic version of Google's PageRank algorithm at university but Google has improved the way it ranks the web of course.

By participating at HubPages I hope to learn more about how the internet works. It makes me a good all-rounder with the skills to take an idea from nothing to a hosted website with good content. I can always use these skills to earn some side income. The concepts of passive income and multiple streams of income are quite appealing and they are worth exploring.

It is not very difficult to get hubs that rank into the 70 - 80 range for HubScore and most of my hubs rank there. I guess I'll need to draw more traffic or do something else to take them from good to great (90 - 100). That's what I'll focus on in 2011! I don't want to focus on these scores too much because everyone agrees that they are quite random but they are a nice bonus.

Purely for my own administration I would like to write some statistics so that I can see later what I started out with. At December 30, 2010 I have been here for six weeks, I have 57 followers, 25 hubs (including this one) and a HubberScore of 89. My average HubScore is 74.

The graph below shows my traffic growth:

I think I learned the most about keyword research, search engine optimization and Google's keyword tool. I learned all kinds of approaches to keep your content easily readable, fresh for search engines and pleasant to look at. I need to improve my keyword research skills to find better keywords that pay well but that have relatively low or insignificant competition.

I'm not saying I'm applying what I have learned well enough but the other parts were pretty easy. I signed up for affiliate programs and I familiarized myself with the HubPages platform. The HubPages content management system is pretty easy to get the hang of. There's enough documentation available and then there's always the forums to ask for help.

I also learned that I need to learn a lot more :)

To all those who have decided to follow me: I wish you all a happy and healthy 2011 with many quality hubs and a lot of money to be earned from your affiliate programs!

And truth be told, I wish the same for all the others :) See you next year!

Simeon Visser