Help please

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   brandonkeyposted 9 years ago

   Hello everyone. I'm new to the site, I just posted my first hub a few hours ago and noticed it got featured which is pretty awesome to me. My dream is to be a sports beat writer one day. I've read on here that you have to have at least 10 hubs to be approved by Google Adscent, my passion is sports writing. Is there anyway to make a little extra cash via sports writing on this site? It's hard to write about sports and post ebay and amazon ads on my page when they don't really go together is what I'm trying to say. My last question is, once I get approved my google, how does that actually work? How do I write hubs and get paid by them? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and glad to be apart of the community.

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      Sed-meposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      When I first read your name, I read it as Bran donkey... don't worry though, I've figured it out.

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      Dale Hydeposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      You will find most of your answers here, at the Learning Center.  
      
      http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/contents

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      PegCole17posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Bran, Welcome. Earning money here is a long-term thing. We get paid pennies for massive traffic views and some money for valid ad clicks by outside folks (not me on the ad clicks, really) so I hope you're in it for the long haul.
      Best of luck.
      Peg

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      Marcy Goodfleischposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hey, Brandon - welcome to the site!  Congrats on having a featured hub so early in the game.
      
      Regarding sports writing - for what it's worth - if you try to write things that are time-sensitive, such as a columnist might do if covering team sports, there won't be a lot of traffic. You'll certainly have example of your work you can show elsewhere if you want to get a paid gig, but the traffic here won't be very high, simply because HubPages is more geared to 'evergreen' content.
      
      If you write general or timeless information (but with a new flair, so people will want to read it), you'll be more likely to get hits from Google searches. Even so, you'll be competing with all the major sports sites and news outlets, so it will still take time for traffic to build.
      
      Best of luck in your goal to break into sports writing; it's a great field. The sports writers at my local paper are just about the best writers on the staff, and I truly admire their work. They have to be experts ink a ton of different sports, and current in their knowledge about current coaches, team members for each seasons, the politics of the game (or season, or league, etc.) and extremely fast writers.  I've known some of them for many years, and I cannot speak highly enough of them.

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      Phyllis Doyleposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Brandon and welcome to HubPages. You already have a good topic, sports, and should do well with that as your niche.  Being a sports writer can open up a wide field for you. Some of my thoughts are: history of a sport (history of baseball, etc.), writing about famous athletes and their life, writing on sports equipment ... you have a lot of options that will be evergreen and popular. Plus, when you write a hub about any sport, an Amazon capsule for equipment of that sport, or a book on the athlete you wrote about ... you have a of options here.  Best of luck to you.

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   brandonkeyposted 9 years ago

   Haha yeah Im a firefighter and that's my nickname "donkey" because of my name lol

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      Sed-meposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      So is it Brandon Key or did your parents name you Bran?

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         PegCole17posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Now, that's funny, Sed. There's another person with a name that immediately sends me into a fit of giggles but I had better not say who it is, or else, you know.

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            Sed-meposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I'll be trying to figure that one out.

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   brandonkeyposted 9 years ago

   Brandon Key

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      Sed-meposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Gotcha.

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   brandonkeyposted 9 years ago

   Thank you so much Marcy. You info is very helpful for me.

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   Marie Flintposted 9 years ago

   Welcome, Brandon. I'm probably the worst one to answer questions about money; however, I would like to say that a sports writing niche should bring traffic, as there are a lot of sports lovers out there. Amazon ads should be a little easier to find than eBay. Anything remotely relating to your topic should be all right. On eBay, you might find collector's items. Always the best way to find ads is to put in key words in the ad template search.
   
   You are already on payroll if you've set up your PayPal information. Hub Pages ads qualify as soon as you've done that under Earnings Settings. Just follow the prompts if you haven't already.
   
   I'll let someone else answer about Google Adsense, as I'm not sure exactly how that works. (I'm still waiting for a first payout. Tips: Stick to your niche as much as possible; try to do a little SEO (there are hubs here written on the subject and in the Learning Center), and let  folks know when you've written a new hub on social sites, such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.)
   
   Again, welcome, and best wishes for your every success!

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   relacheposted 9 years ago

   Brandon,
   
   HubPages tutorials are here, http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/contents
   
   There are a lot of user tutorials that are both better than the "official" ones and even more that are worse.
   
   The short form is here, http://hubpages.com/faq/
   
   The legal rules you agreed to when you signed up, including the statements that you say you understand the rules and that HubPages can change them without telling you ahead of time, http://hubpages.com/help/user_agreement
   
   There is a lot of mixed info on this site about AdSense requirements, much of it having been written by different people over the years, many of whom aren't here anymore.
   
   Google does not say straight up how many pages of content is required, they want to see you demonstrating having created an established web presence.
   
   I can hear your eyes glaze over as you read the above.  From having been writing here since the site started, my feelings at this time are that you will want to create several dozen Hubs, and use a bit of social media to promote them, AND let them get to be somewhere between one and two months old before you apply for Google AdSense.
   
   Summer money and traffic are both pretty crappy, so this is actually a great time to get started.  Remember, web writers are like surfers, you have to start paddling really hard before the wave even arrives if you want to catch it and ride it.

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