How Long Does It Take To Make Decent Money On Hubpages

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   badcompany99posted 15 years ago

   Just curious on how long it takes to make a profit on the site.

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      lindagoffiganposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      The effort, quality, content and originality of your articles along with its length and relevance has a lot to do with what you make on HubPages.  If you have a tremendous amount of drive with quality relevant articles, you can do well.  However as the HubPages creaters said on a frequently asked question forum, royalties from GoogleAdsense, Amazon, and ebay should not be relied upon to bring in income like a salary or a job.  But everything is possible and if you are a prolific writer, maybe you can change the odds.

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      belief713posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Define: decent?

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      1. 48

         badcompany99posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         $300 a month !

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   Dame Scribeposted 15 years ago

   Our longer standing HP writers will have that answer. I suppose it depends on how well you get traffic and the quality of your writing welcome to HubPages

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3. 48

   badcompany99posted 15 years ago

   Many thanks for the welcome and I hope my writing will improve by reading others.

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   Edwin Clarkposted 15 years ago

   Welcome badcompany99, yes it does depend on the quality of your hubs as well as how many people are interested in the content of your hubs.
   
   As far as profit goes, you can make extra side money but I wouldn't quit your day job and buy that Ferrai just yet

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5. 83

   Whitney05posted 15 years ago

   It depends on what topics you write about and how well you compose your hubs. It also depends on how unique your topics are. If you use the search feature in the forums, you can find that many threads have been started on this very topic. It has taken some people 10-12 months for their first Adsense check, but others not nearly as long. It takes work, and this isn't a make cash quick site, but once you really get started, you should have NO problem receiving a nice check each month from each of the affiliates.

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      oliviaplants2posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      '"What's a nice check"...in your estimation?"'

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6. 48

   badcompany99posted 15 years ago

   Cheers for the replies and no worries as I have patience and enjoy both writing and reading so money is not my main aim, just curious, many thanks again.

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   sunforgedposted 15 years ago

   Many factors need to be taken into account:
   
   What do you consider to be a decent income?
   
   Although many state they had to wait around 8-9 months to reach their first payout - how many hubs did they write in that time.
   
   Perhaps if you can keep up an increased output, you can decrease that time.
   
   Can you write about any topic and do the research required to find categories/niches that are in demand and have profitable related ads.
   
   You can very quickly increase your income if you also work in affiliate marketing links into your hubs.
   
   I have no answers for you - in 5 months, 3 of them with only moderate activity - my hub related commissions would not have reached payout on their own, but including my other affilaite income i have made more than min payout would have been.
   
   So theres a whole bunch more questions for you, good luck.
   
   It is very cool to know that once you do get to payout levels, that you are most likley to continue to get that that income for as long as your real estate has traffic

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   badcompany99posted 15 years ago

   Cheers Sunforged and to be honest my target is a modest $300 a month and am giving myself a 2 year target to reach it. I can write about most things but am still finding my way around the site and need to study on making my hubs more professional looking but all in time.

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      relacheposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Having been here for a few years, I think you've got a good, realistic concept of online earning.  It will take about that long, but how many hubs it takes depends on what you write about, what keywords you're hitting and if you get traffic that converts to clicks. 
      
      For instance, Whitney just said she makes about $400/month and she's got 514 hubs, so that's about $0.78 per hub if you average it.  My 2008 earnings averaged $260/month but I only had 111 hubs by the end of that year, in fact, I only created 36 new hubs in all of 2008.  So my Hubs earn more like $2.34 per hub.

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         lindagoffiganposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I have published 198 hubs after three months as a hubber and have yet to reach the $100.00 payout.  Do you have any suggestions on promoting?  Google Adsense sometimes only hit cents a day that can be a little disppointing when you are a prolific writer.  I thought that time would garnish a bit of compensation but I have written far more than 111 hubs that garnished one reader $260 a month.  Also my reading audience is amost at 20,000 people in the three months. 
         
         I think that hubbers should be talking about advertising, learning more about Google Adsense and affiliate marketing to get compensation once you have conquered relevance.  My goal is to continue writing, maybe ten hubs a day and to educate myself about Google Adsense and Affiliate Online Marketing.  Learning from other hubbers will be great too.

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            Whitney05posted 15 years agoin reply to this

            I agree he has a realistic concept of making money online, which means he probably won't get frustrated within the first month when his account doesn't show $100.
            
            I sure wish more of my hubs received traffic, as I'm sure my earnings would be increased, by hey I'm sure happy with the averaged $0.78 a day from each hub, especially since I know a handful of my hubs don't receive daily traffic, some not even weekly. Those I need to revamp, just haven't gotten around to it.
            
            
            
            It takes time to earn. Being that you are a prolific writer, it will pay off in the end. Just keep at it. Just make sure that if you do decide to write 10 hubs a day, that you don't neglect originality and uniqueness. Also consider the topics that you write one just may not be what people are searching.

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            relacheposted 15 years agoin reply to this

            I probably do some of the least promoting of anyone here.  I don't do MySpace, Facebook or Twitter.  And I don't promote my own stuff to social bookmarking sites.  I'm not interested in spending my time that way.
            
            I travel regularly (a few weeks every couple of months) and I do it sans internet so most of my stuff is meant to be able to take care of itself with minimal supervision or support from me as far as day-to-day activity goes.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

            Linda, don't panic!  I wrote 55 Hubs in my first two weeks here, because I had some time off work and thought I'd build my portfolio while I could.  I earned almost nothing for the first three months.  I was so disappointed!  At the time I didn't realise it takes time for the search engines to notice your Hubs, and that's where your paying traffic comes from. 
            
            In the fourth month I earned $5.  Fifth month, $10. And so on.   These days I earn $30 to $40 a month, which is not bad considering I've written only 15 more Hubs in that time.
            
            Have you set up Google Analytics?  There's a pie chart on there that shows where your traffic is coming from. As your search engine traffic rises, you'll probably see your earnings go up too.

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               lindagoffiganposted 15 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you Marisha for your advice.  Just out from the real world and was used to getting some compensation for all of that writing.  After looking at Google Adsense, I learned that the number of people have nothing at all to do with your earnings.  I was elated at receiving 10,000 then 20,000 readers visually imagining my small town of readers.  Then I found out that it was the Google crawlers that determined the earnings with tubes and tubes of bots winding through my articles looking for a keywords to sell for a bid o a click.  I am calm in writing for my relevant audience now and letting the Google bot do its thing.

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                  And I have to thank you, Linda, for making me take a cool hard look at my HubPages experience!  I have always said I'm happy with my earnings on HP but when I look at it, I've earned a total of $350 - which means an average of only $5 per article.  Not much to show for 2 years!
                  
                  However, that's not a fair reflection.  Unfortunately I only set up channels in Analytics this year, so I don't have exact figures - but I can already see that 10 of my 71 Hubs are making the lion's share of my income. 
                  
                  So it would be truer to say, I've been paid about $30 per Hub for those Hubs - and they're earning at a higher rate all the time, so they stand to earn a lot more.
                  
                  You could say it's unfair to disregard the non-productive Hubs - but if I was writing in the real world, I would have sent my articles off to publishers and they wouldn't all have been accepted, so it's not that much different.  And here, I have the opportunity to look at those Hubs, work out why they're not earning, and try to do something about it.

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                  Lisa HWposted 15 years agoin reply to this

                  Somewhere back when I started to finally earn I realized my thinking was kind of stuck in the "conventional writing earnings" mode; and that I needed to stop applying my old mode of thinking to writing on HubPages.  It's kind of an apples/oranges thing.  I have a couple of fairly short (not great writing) Hubs that I can't imagining ever selling to anyone in "the real world" but that have earned me hundreds and hundreds of dollars over the course of a year and a half or so.
                  On the other hand, I have stuff that I think is well written and of substance; and I know it could (theoretically) have earned me more upfront somewhere else.  Then again, though, I think some of that "better writing" has contributed to overall Hub score, which may have contributed to the fact that those other Hubs got traffic in the first place. 
                  
                  Not that anyone ever knows how things will go earnings-wise; but if you picture that those same articles could earn you $60 and then $90 a month, and then - who knows - after a year they may continue to earn that or more, in the long run they could eventually pay off well.  If you keep adding stuff here and there and/or if you write material (and maybe promote it) that will pick up speed more quickly, those kinds of things contribute to overall earnings too.
                  
                  It's so different from x amount per column-inch, x number of words, or hour.  On the one hand, you can spend two hours writing "the meaning of life", and it will earn you a quarter a month and $3 the next.  On the other hand, you can spend 20 minutes on a useful, in-demand, subject and end up getting a thousand dollars from it, over the course of several months.  It's just "messier" than x dollars an hour.     The good thing is, though, while your Hubs are doing whatever they're doing, you can do something else and earn some other way too. 

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      Dorsiposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      That is a very reachable goal. I have been here 14 months, got my first check after 10 months, my second in 2, now a third on its way soon. The next check (for this month) has far exceeded my expectations. I have already reached three times the payout amount and it's only the 16th.

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         badcompany99posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Nice to hear Dorsi and well done, that deff gives me hope of achieving what I want to earn.

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         BaliMermaidposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I believe that part of Google's Adsense policy states we are not really supposed to discuss publicly our earnings. Having said that I think I can give you some good "in general" information.
         
         The key is to finding a niche, a place that you fit for the hub pages you write, that also attracts a strong evergreen steady market.
         
         My ad sense earnings took 4 months to make it over the first payout amount. During that time I spent no where as much effort on hub pages as I do now. Currently I get ad sense money every month and while not all of that comes directly from Hub pages, every bit of it is a part of my efforts to attract traffic to my hub pages.
         
         Bottom line. You  should be able to make $500/mo or more if you write good content and spend the time and effort to drive traffic to your published hub pages. If you, or anyone else would like more information on doing that I would prefer to discuss each case separately. Any advice  offered would be  totally free of charge, just so no one thinks this is a commercial posting.

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            badcompany99posted 15 years agoin reply to this

            Now that was just the reply I was looking for and most helpful. Thanks for taking time to point me in the right direction, I was getting there but what you wrote here has deff helped a lot. Cheers my friend !

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               BaliMermaidposted 15 years agoin reply to this

               You are most welcome. Look at the "other sites" you use to drive traffic to your hubpages as components of a funnel that brings traffic to your good content hubpages. The ultimate is when you find other sites that have revenue sharing programs so that every aspect of your work brings results, some sooner, some eventually. Good luck.

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         2. 83

            Whitney05posted 15 years agoin reply to this

            I agree that if you find a niche that works for you, then stick with it.
            
            I think I got my first payout in like 5-6 months, but every month thereafter. I now get just over $500 a month from HubPages alone. The only thing I've done different is write more. The longer you're here, the more you write, and the more opportunities for making more money.
            
            If you do keyword search and all that fun stuff, it may not take as long to get as much money, but I just write and compose whatever I want to and whatever I think of. If I like it, and if I'm able to compose it and lay it out nicely, I figure others will find it.

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            seamistposted 15 years agoin reply to this

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   sunforgedposted 15 years ago

   Well dont spend to much time on aesthetics...income isnt based on how pretty the site is, its based on how often you turn up in search results, what rank you have in search results and what topics you are covering.
   
   your own pride should make you care about the quality of writing and a professional appearance...but that really doesnt help your income level, because quite frankly the only way you make money is by convincing your visitors to leave!

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      Whitney05posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      $300 a month in 2 years is pretty simple to achieve if you keep up writing at a steady basis. I try to do at least 3 a week, or 15 a month. I've reached about $400 a month in 2 years.
      
      
      
      You can easily focus on appearance AND content. It is good to have a nice looking page, bc I know in my opinion, if a page doesn't look nice, I probably won't ready anything, and just as easily push the back button and not an ad to get away. The longer people stay on your page, the better you look to search engines, and the higher up you will find your page. If people see a poorly laid out design, they will typically just push back and that won't look good for you by any means.
      
      
      
      I have heard this as well, but personally, I find that it's better to have all the info related to that topic in the hub.

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         badcompany99posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Cheers for that boost, deff makes me more determined now because when I was blogging I gave up but on here it's like you are not on your own and you guys are great, muchness thanks.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

            I had the same experience - I found blogging very discouraging because I was getting no traffic.  Because the HubPages site as a whole has a high profile, you'll find your Hubs get readers far more quickly, even if you don't do any promotion, which is a real boost to the ego!  Plus, as you say, it's good to feel part of a community.

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         Anamika Sposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Actually, it is right.I have a well promoted Blog which has over 500 views a day but my income from it is so pathetic.

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    badcompany99posted 15 years ago

    That is a fair point and one I read once about making a website. Someone once said don't give the reader too much of the information they are looking for or they will have no need to click that adsense advert. It is I guess all down to getting that balance, cheers for your input.

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       sunforgedposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I dont think that you will find any disagreement to this in the internet marketing world.
       
       Hubpages isnt only about marketing, it has real writers whose goals arent only to make money
       
       I guess one would have to pick their position.
       
       1. I am a writer, I am happy to receive residuals for this, but I want to focus on writing, not marketing, and i consider feedback and exposure to be payments in their own right.
       
       2. I am interested in deriving the greatest income possible from my writing skills and am willing to make concessions to my style and topics in order to follow winning strategies
       
       3. Some sort of middle ground has to exist, but its hard to discuss something so vague.
       
       
       If your 1, dont do anything different, just write quality writings in topics you have enthusiasm and interest about, with time the quality of your work should lead to a natural following and respect.
       
       Not to say he doesnt also market effectively but Christoph reilly is  agreat example of this in my opinion ..when i see a new hub is published i always swing by for a read because I know that it will be chockful of humor...will have dozens of comments and further humorous stories and will be active for months after publication, plus he will answer your comments.
       
       2. If your a 2..then your thought that you dont want to completely answer anything is true, you want a system -
       
       as maddie pointed out - you want to target people who are searching for an answer - product reviews and comparisons work well for this - use amazon to see what is the current bestseller, check ebay pulse for top sellers (they havent changed in months)..How to's -walkthroughs work well also
       
       Your keyword research and methods of gaining traffic are more important than your final hub
       
       you need to have multiple spiderwebs that funnel traffic towards your hub
       
       teaser Articles/ social media links/ social networking activities work well for this as do creating small niche specific blogs that have summaries and teasers
       
       usually these would lead to a squeeze page (im sure you have seen hundreds of these they usually look the same - and they always have
       a limited choice of external links,usually just a checkout now option)
       
       That is the final landing page (the solution) that has your targeted income source whether that is an affiliate offer or adsense is up to you -
       
       ------------
       with hubs- the hub can be the teaser and the squeeze..and you would hope to leave just enough questions to the searcher taht they may pursue an external link for the final answers
       
       this is probably rather disjointed, but there are plenty of hubs and websites that will explain these details a little better
       
       ill throw in my own plug as i wrote it cuz it was something i wish i had when i was first trying to figure everything out- you will be so overloaded with information! remember taht the most important thing is ACTION. dont just read...experiment, attempt see what works well for you
       
       heres my plug...http://hubpages.com/hub/Post-Hub-Pages- … ng-Lexiconthe internet marketing lexicon so you can have an idea of what many of teh jargon words and acronyms mean

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          Lisa HWposted 15 years agoin reply to this

          Sunforged, this sums up the differences in reasons people write really well.  Part of what I think the problem can be for people who are either just here to write, or else kind of a mix, is that it can take some muddling before figuring out the best way (or mix of ways) to earn.

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    badcompany99posted 15 years ago

    $2.34 a hub I will take young lady lol !

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       Mishaposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       You can do better
       You guys got me interested, and I checked my data, and it appeared that for the last year I was making on HP on adsense a tad less then $6 a day - with probably average of 10 hubs or so. In comparable numbers it sounds like $17 per hub per month

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          sunforgedposted 15 years agoin reply to this

          Looks like Misha would be a good person to emulate ! if you look at his 2008 hubs, there are 2 coach hubs which are certainly a high paying click and a hub about gas mileage which would have been live during the gas crunch, so should have received great traffic.
          
          I never would have guessed the others performed so well- How did you possibly rank with your google or verizon hubs...he must have some good tricks up his sleeves
          
          The Wii hub would theoretically perform well, I dont know if it does and is one of his newer hubs, but I wouldnt have thought he had a chance to rank for those keywords so late in the game. I would have suggested it to you earlier if I had noticed, but there WAS a clickbank product that offered unlimited wii downloads with a commission of 32.80...I used it for facebook ppc and cleared over 2000 in sales within a 4 week period (all with free facebook ad vouchers I may ad) it would have been a great fit..I did request and receive a trial and the product was legit, the keywords that i chased on facebook (mario kart wii wi)!
          
          It seems like they got in some sort of trouble as now the product is relabeled Unlimited Cheats
          
          Anyways- there is much bigger money in affiliate sales

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    Maddie Ruudposted 15 years ago

    I was a Hubber for about a year before joining the HubPages staff as Community Manager.  I am by no means typical, but at 5 months, I was making about $10 a day from AdSense, and the very month I was hired here (so about 11 or 12 months after I started hubbing), I broke $1000 in a single month.
    
    For that first year, I published a hub about once every two days, and was active in the community.  I was also concious of orienting my content towards the type of person who is likely to click on ads (ie, people who are actively looking for to purchase something), and sought out a few quality backlinks for those hubs I thought could do particularly well.

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    badcompany99posted 15 years ago

    That is fantastic Maddie and to be honest if I was only making $300 a month after a year I would be delighted. I enjoy writing and reading with a passion and only learnt of this site 4 days ago and I am just mad I didnt find it ages ago. I hope to get to know all you guys over the coming months but I must say you are all really helpful, unusual in this world we live in. Catch you all later, the daughter needs something in the local shopping centre lol.

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       Dame Scribeposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       They are awesome aren't they Hi Misha! *waving* lol

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    Nelle Hoxieposted 15 years ago

    Thanks Gang,
    
    This is just the info that a budding hubber needs. I've been wondering what type of effort and number of hubs you veterans make - and how often. And how you pick your topics and niches.
    
    Honestly, I never meant to stick around here and make this my second home. Thought I'd "toss up" a few hubs to augment my blog every so often and be on my way.
    
    But here I am rearranging my business plan to make hubpages an integral part of my online and financial existence.
    
    Nelle

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    my-success-guruposted 15 years ago

    Yeah, I agree with this last post.

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    Research Analystposted 15 years ago

    I would say it takes time to build up enough traffic and it takes providing information on topics that people are searching for, hubpages really helps a lot because they will catergorize our hubs for us, we just need to keep on writing and writing more content.

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    badcompany99posted 15 years ago

    Thanks to everyone who left a reply to my question, much appreciated and will deff follow your advice.

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    Janet21posted 15 years ago

    I think earning $300/month in two years is definitely possible.  I have been writing Hubs for about 9 months (it took me over a year to actually get started!) and I just looked at my earnings for the first three months of this year and I made an average of $40/month.  This is with 16 hubs.  My earnings per hub figure is closer to Relaches than Mishas!  I also looked to see where the earnings came from and found that 55% was from eBay, 35% was from Adsense and 10% was from Amazon.  That was interesting.  I didn't realize more than half my earnings came from eBay!  Like Relache, I don't actively promote my hubs on social networking sites.  The only promotion I do, is cross-promotion between my other pages on similar topics.  That's it. 
    
    Anyway, I am involved in other websites plus my blogs, so I don't create as many Hubs monthly as some of the more active Hubbers here.  (I write 1-2 hubs/month). If I was a more active writer here, I am fairly certain that I could get to that $300 figure in the next year or so. 
    
    Good luck to you!

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    roastedpinebarkposted 15 years ago

    Starting out don't get too discouraged either because it took me several weeks to get my first adsense click and now I am getting atleast one per week, my third month in with only around 30 hubpages and taking a bread for a month, lol.  I always wondered what the big dogs were making here,

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    seemorebangkokposted 15 years ago

    It's a slow process in the beginning but if you keep at it you'll reap some great benefits. Most importanly don't give up
    Good Luck!

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       badcompany99posted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks, deff not quitting this time.

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    aniketgoreposted 15 years ago

    i joined before 5 months to promote my blog. But i found hubpages more interested. I am not getting a click per day or much traffic but i am not going to quit as i love being here.

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       badcompany99posted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Must admit I am addicted to this place, first place I log onto to.

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    mugshotposted 15 years ago

    Hi badcompany99 I just sent you an Email

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    badcompany99posted 15 years ago

    Cheers mate, off to read it.

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    mugshotposted 15 years ago

    No probs, got your Email and replied Mr BC!

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    badcompany99posted 15 years ago

    I like it my friend and will sign up to it tonight, sounds a good project, cheers for the nod.

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    Lisa HWposted 15 years ago

    I know people's experiences can be different, but one thing I noticed "in the beginning" was that small earnings slowly snowballed.  I don't recall the numbers, but it was something like 3.00 the first month, 5.00 the second month (a 2.00 increase that made me think, "Oh, and 7.00 next month maybe.")  Instead, the amount of increase continued to grow, as well as the "ceiling" of the total.  Instead of that 7.00 the next month, there was more like a jump to 9.00.  It may have then done something like 23.00, 39.00 (that type of thing).
    
    My point is if you earn 5.00 this month and 7.00 next month that's not necessarily a sign that you'll have that same 2.00 increase the month after.
    
    As others have said, be patient.  It's worth hanging in.
    
    I have one Hub that makes up close to 40% of my earnings (and it isn't even all that "great" in terms of writing).  Another several contribute an additional, maybe, 20/25% of earnings.  The rest seem to take turns at being responsible for 3 or 4% each (with different ones often making up that additional 35/40% of total earnings).
    
    My bigger earners are not great writing (although, I guess, they're reasonably grammatically correct).  Instead, they're practical, useful, information with my personal experience factored in.  One if kind of funny because it was in answer to someone asking how to find percentages.  I just thought I'd be nice and whip up an informal explanation, aimed at someone who wasn't great with math.  That one is my second top earner - and I keep getting e.mails about how "wonderful" it is.  It isn't really even writing.  It's more like "kitchen table coaching" talk to a seventh-grade math student.
    
    Since, when I first came to HubPages, I began answering requests as a way of "challenging myself" to come up with answers, a lot of my Hubs aren't all that useful to "the world", because I answered requests that I felt like answering (rather than the kind that would be most useful to me and others).
    
    Some of the Hubs I wrote are those I kind of like (in terms of my own writing), and many of those get their own modest traffic, but nothing great.  I've wondered if I shouldn't write that kind any longer, but I think, really, that those have contributed to a better overall Hub score than I may have had without such writing.  In other words, I'm not sure that without that "better" (in my opinion) quality writing those higher earners would have been given as much a chance to get the traffic they do.
    
    If I knew eighteen months ago what I have since learned, I would have approached what I write somewhat differently (skipped the B-level requests, added more practical/useful Hubs, been more active on the site).  I would have aimed to make those high earners a little more to my own standards too.  ( I just threw them together.)  (By the way, I don't spend much time promoting anything - links on my blogs and an occasional link on sites like Yahoo Answers.)
    
    As it is, I now have a bunch of Hubs I'm not at all that thrilled with (as a writer, or even as compared to a lot of other writing I've done); and yet I've now discovered that even they have ended up earning me a couple of hundred dollars a month (and more recently, a few hundred a month, at least for now).
    
    To be honest (and apparently like a lot of other Hubbers), when I was first on this site I didn't know how seriously I should take the whole thing, or even what kind of stuff to write.  I had my first month's earnings of about 2.83, and that second month's of about 5.00.  I was thinking I'd get a little $50 bonus in about ten months, and a spare $50 is always a good thing.  I don't spend a whole lot of time on here, for the record.
    
    I would like new Hubbers to know that it's worth hanging in, and my unsolicited advice would be to really aim to build up a very high-quality collection of Hubs (which is NOT something I did, because I didn't take the earning potential seriously enough; instead, I was just "writing what I feel like writing").  It was only at the end of February 09 that I took the time to "activate" my Kontera account, so on that one I'm just now starting to earn.  I didn't do a very good job with tags until recently either.
    
    My aim now is to tweek what I already have on here in a number of different ways, and to approach new writing with higher standards for myself.   Maybe that will boost earnings of what's already on here; but even without that, if things keep going as they have been, I'm expecting to see my goal of $1000 a month in, maybe, another six months (?) (maybe sooner, maybe not at all - I have no real way to know, only guesses and patterns to go by)  I figure, even doing nothing differently than I've been doing, if I simply doubled the number of Hubs I have chances are I can have a comparable increase in existing earnings.   (I'm a little embarrassed by the length of this post, but I thought some of the information may be useful to some new Hubbers.)

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       mandybeauposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       No wonder they chopped me off at the neck...... My money was alot more than that...... and I thought even that was a joke.

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    badcompany99posted 15 years ago

    Great post Lisa and an inspiration to both myself and all newbies, thank you.

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    mandybeauposted 15 years ago

    The rate seems slow to make even bad money, Bad Company, I suggest you do not even consider giving up your job on the High Seas, until the Programme (affiliate ) gets much improved, with better sources of revenue.
    Pirates do way better than adsense affiliaters......Funny thing is Both have all the Hallmarks of daylight robbery.
    just depends wether you want to be the Robber or the Victim Lol
    Mandybeau

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    Lisa HWposted 15 years ago

    I saw those beginnings earnings as "penny candy" earnings that I couldn't imagine ever amounting to anything beyond a "joke"; but I wish I'd known then what I know now, because I'd have done some things differently and be in a better situation right now.
    
    Still, since I don't promote and only write when I feel like it, I don't see the earnings as a joke at this point.  It would be a joke if I were putting in "part-time-job" hours, but I'm not.
    
    My thing now, though, is - joke or not - I do want newer Hubbers to know that if they hang in long enough they'll likely start getting that "nice bonus" that HubPages mentions in its Help section (unless they took that out after making the changes).  I never would have imagined that those first couple of $5 months would ever go well beyond the monthly payout minimum; so I'm pretty glad I didn't tune out in the first few months.  Everyone on here pretty much says the same thing, which is that it can take time.  Still, the person who eventually picks up a few hundred a month here and a few hundred a month in one or more other writing endeavors can have a basic income before even selling the writing or license to use it; and sometimes in addition to their "day job" income.
    
    I don't see it as a joke at all, and - although what anyone else does is not my business - I do want people to know they shouldn't get discouraged if they only earn a few dollars in the first few months. Hey - as far as I'm concerned - if someone wants to deposit a dollar and a half into my checking account it's a dollar and a half I didn't have before.

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    charlemontposted 15 years ago

    I think a good approach to hubbing is something like:
    1. Choosing topic, picking up keywords to include into content.
    2. Writing a hub about 800 words (this is because I heard that Google don't like lengthy pages) bearing in mind that comments will add up 100-200 words more. On-page optimisation: titles, bold/italic keywords, image ALT tags, hub tags, etc.
    3. Promotion. To my mind, this is the key. I prefer commenting in dofollow blogs + submitting articles to directories.
    Promoting a hub is perhaps a more difficult and time comsuming thing than creating one.
    I feel really thrilled when another website puts a link to my hub without any asking on my part. Sometimes such links appear in forums, posted by someone of my readers.
    This is not the smartest approach, but... it works!

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       badcompany99posted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I liked that reply and deff I won't be giving up my full time job on the high seas. Life gets boring these nights as the cabin girl has lost interest in me and I fill my nights listening to the waves and penning a new hub. For me it's mainly a hobby plus I enjoy writing and meeting people like you good folk. Mostly I enjoy the vast spectrum of different interests and cultures on here. I nearly crashed my ship yesterday thinking about AE, jeeez I love that girl, methinks she would indeedy make a good cabin girl : )

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       Dolores Monetposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I'm sure that promoting really helps and keep telling myself to get at it. But there is only so much time in the day. Setting up new accounts on Face Book and whatever else, sheesh. But I guess you gotta do it if you want people to read your stuff and that is what we are here for.

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    scottyy11posted 15 years ago

    wow im shocked at how much many of you are earning. I would say its all about traffic and number of hubs you build.

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    imadorkposted 15 years ago

    I've made a whole $2.00 in the 7 months I've been here on Hubpages!  I'm getting ready to retire on my Hubpage earnings.  I just got to cryogenically freeze myself for the long haul.

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       badcompany99posted 15 years agoin reply to this

       $2 is a low figure, try writing hubs that will give you more profitable ads.

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          imadorkposted 15 years agoin reply to this

          I write for fun and hobby.  If I make a little money doing that -- great!  If I don't -- oh well, I still had fun.

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             goldentoadposted 15 years agoin reply to this

             when did you write something?

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             Lisa HWposted 15 years agoin reply to this

             Although I also write on assignment or otherwise freelance, I do a whole lot of writing for "fun and hobby" too.  I've learned quite a bit just by doing the "fun" writing, and I've found that over time the line has, in ways, blurred some.

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       Lisa HWposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Many people say it takes about nine months for earnings because Google has to find your stuff, "figure out" if it's unique, and start sending traffic. 
       
       If you're thinking about "retiring" maybe hold off for another couple of months.  Add some new, useful, Hubs; and maybe do a little promoting.  Even if you don't do any of that in the next couple of months, you could notice an increase once you get to that nine/ten month point. (Maybe not, of course, but that's when it seems things pick up for a lot of people.)
       
       Also, besides the good Hubs you have, you may want to do a little "soul selling" and write some really "searchable" Hub about something you know people will be.  It doesn't have to be great art - just practical, searchable, subjectmatter.  One or two Hubs like that can give you a good boost.

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    sunforgedposted 15 years ago

    Google finding your hub and then indexing does not take 9 months.
    
    Ive had hubs appear in just a couple of hours, a good trick for quick indexing is to create your own backlinks, as you are more likely to get found by a spider that way.
    
    I finish a hub - use the share this button to post to FB, myspace and a couple of blogs that exist solely for this reason.
    
    Then do some quick summaries and links on my more defined sites - a quick digg or SU, and boom, appearing on google first page. (not necessarily for any great keyword) but certainly can come up in the results.
    
    Personally I think the 9 month thing for many hubbers has to do with the amount of time it takes them to write a good collection of hubs - if one can quickly write 200 hubs in a month they may see earnings much quicker..plus those that are after earnings, need some trial and error time to learn what pays well and get familiar with the format
    
    thats my theory, i have no proof in the matter

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       Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Not true, Sunforged.  I wrote 55 of my 71 Hubs in my first month here, yet I saw hardly any earnings for my first 3 months.  I was over-simplifying when I said it takes the search engines a while to find you - I didn't actually check - but I'm guessing it takes them a while to decide you're worth a high ranking.  Because I hardly got any search engine traffic at all for the first few months - then I watched my earnings rise as my search engine traffic rose.
       
       Now, I just write what I like rather than targetting keywords, and I don't promote my Hubs much.  I'm sure if I did both those things, things would happen faster.

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       Lisa HWposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I probably used a bad choice of words to say it takes Google 9 months to "find you".  Maybe a better choice of words would be "to establish a better presence" or "be noticed more".  The point is the 8/9/10-month thing is very common for many Hubbers.
       For me, it definitely was not a matter of building up a collection of Hubs.   In at least one Hub on here somewhere,
       
       Helpful idea about the links to blogs and MySpace.

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    badcompany99posted 15 years ago

    How do you share a hubpage to stumbleupon, digg or reddit. I know how to post from my website but how do you post the hubpage ?

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       sunforgedposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       id suggest getting the shareaholic plug in for firefox
       
       http://hubpages.com/hub/10-indispensabl … od_2061939
       
       or digg,su ,reddit toolbars (but thats to much clutter for me)
       
       Every one of your hubs has a built in share it button that will do that for you anyway
       
       be very careful with self submissions though - do some research on social bookmarking strategies on the web or even on hubs as you might find yourself banned

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    sunforgedposted 15 years ago

    @MW
    
    Well it is just my theory as to why the 9 month line is so frequently stated...but 55 or 71, doesnt match the 150-200+ many make in that time.
    
    This means nothing about quality - just more fishing lines that could bring in clickers
    
    indexing is not a theory - as I said i have seen newly published hubs up in hours - backlinks are factors in indexing
    
    a timely hub i did on auctivas site meltdown - was indexed in under an hour
    
    it seems like you have a more obscure niche and as you said you dont focus on creating search engine friendly titles (i looked it seems like most of them are anyway) like "banish cold sores" is an unlikely search term IMO - i wpuld have gone with "How to Get Rid of Cold Sores" solely for searchability - with hubs authority you prob would have ranked high by now
    
    
    Just curious, how did your BANS sites workout, did they ever start generating?

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       Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Sunforged, not disputing that indexing is not a theory and that Hubs are indexed quickly.
       
       I'm just saying that based on the many discussions in the forums, it seems like a common Hubber experience that search engine traffic takes a few months to build and that earnings build in line with that traffic.  And I'm assuming that's because even though they're indexed quickly, it may take a while for them to rise up the rankings enough to be noticed.
       
       Of course, Hubbers like yourself who are already internet-savvy can speed up that process markedly by writing the right kind of Hubs and self-promotion.
       
       
       If you read my BANS articles, you'll find that I dumped BANS quite quickly and switched to phpBay.  You're right, my niche (dancing) is obscure but it wasn't chosen with money-making as the primary goal - my belly dance site is more of a community endeavour.  However it's earning a small but steady income so I'm trying out a flamenco site, too (so far with less success!).

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    aidenofthetowerposted 15 years ago

    As you can see...there is a wide variety of success here and many people have different statistics. There are two things that can really be summed up for you though. One keep writing...eventually the money will be there. And two keep writing (oh was that number one?) :-P. I write for a lot of sites, Hubpages is just one of them and no matter where you go...the biggest point is that you need to keep writing. The more you write, the more you will earn.

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       Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Aiden, I don't think anyone is disputing that if you write a lot of articles, you will earn money.
       
       Linda's concern is whether the amount is a fair return on effort, and I agree with her.  I started out on Helium, where people with 1,000 articles proudly boasted they were earning $1,000 a year (one dollar a year? - at that rate, it would take 20 or 30 years to earn a fair return on each article. 
       
       The internet has changed writers' perception of the value of their writing - unfortunately!  You'll see writers selling articles for $5 or $10 and thinking they're doing well - when in fact, they're earning less per hour than if they were cleaning toilets.
       
       HubPages is certainly the best earner out of all the writing sites I've researched - where I've picked a good subject, my articles are earning well.  The trick is picking the right subject, of course!

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    JYOTI KOTHARIposted 15 years ago

    Number of fans does matter. It seems that earning per hub goes better with number of fans!!
    
    Thanks,
    Jyoti kothari

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       Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I don't agree, Jyoti.  Fans are Hubbers and Hubbers don't click on ads.

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       sunstreeksposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       If your train of thought is that earnings are coming from within hubpages, Fans don't usually click on links. If they are with intent, they really are doing the author a disservice as Google may look at these as invalid clicks if there is a pattern.
       
       There might be something behind the number of fans giving strength to the author hubscore, which in turn gives strength the hubscore of the hubs themselves.
       
       The higher the hubscore the more likely the hub is going to be found on the sides of other hubs, I'm pretty sure that these links on the sidebar are DoFollow and that these would be considered backlinks giving strength in the search engines. But that's just my guess.

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    Kmadhavposted 15 years ago

    It is totally depends on how much pain you are taking for hub pages. If giving quality content on hub pages traffic should be come.

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39. 59

    adv05posted 15 years ago

    When is suitable time to apply google account with these hubs?
    
    I have just joined Hub about 2 weeks ago and I have 4 Hubs now.

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40. 64

    Lisa HWposted 15 years ago

    I believe most people sign up for their Google Ad Sense account when they sign up as HubPages members.  The longer you wait, the longer it may take to start earning.

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    Next Paris Hiltonposted 15 years ago

    You will never make decent money on hub pages because it is a revenue share.  You would be much better off purchasing a domain, adding your own adsense to it, and put all of your posts on that site.  Do some seo and internal linking and you will make way more money.

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       Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Why have you joined HubPages, then? 
       
       I'll look forward to your Hub telling us about your experience making money with your website.
       
       You'll find several Hubbers have tried what you suggest, and found it's not so easy as it sounds. Yes, HubPages is revenue share - but that's better than 100% of nothing, which is the likely readership of your own blog (unless you pick a great niche, work very hard at it and know exactly how to self-promote).

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          BundleBoyposted 15 years agoin reply to this

          I'll have to agree with Marisa. The hubpages platform since it is already immensely popular gives you a great platform of audience! The domain might supplement hubpages or vice versa. Hubpages is one big piece of the pie.

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       Dorsiposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I do agree that it's a good idea to have your own domain and learn how to make money that way too. However I disagree about making decent money here at HubPages. It's a totally achievable thing, but takes time and patience and alot of learning. I don't mind sharing revenue with Hubpages. It's the best revenue writers site I have found, and I've tried a few. Hubpages is superior, I think.

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          Lisa HWposted 15 years agoin reply to this

          I second the agreeing on the part of having your own domain and not putting all your eggs in one basket; and I also disagree about making decent money at HubPages.  In fact, I agree with Dorsi's whole post.

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42. 66

    RKHenryposted 15 years ago

    http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Increase … -Your-Hubs
    
    This hubpage was written by our very own Chuck! A hubber here on hubpages.  I think it is a terrific article that addresses this very topic and answers many questions.  I think you can make money here on hubpages.  If you want an idea of how long or if ever, check out this hub.
    
    I myself, am beginning to realize that before I post a topic in the forums, it might be a good idea to see if someone has written about it first.  Now I know Chuck just wrote this one, but there plenty of other great hubs that address this very topic. 
    
    Please check out Chuck's hub.  It is really beneficial.

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       imadorkposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       But then you don't get a chance to post a topic asking for advice on some hub you have written (hit seeking).
       
       Or you can't post some inane question you already know the answer to, in hopes that it will start a surge in fans and hits.

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          Cris Aposted 15 years agoin reply to this

          heat seeking would apply nicely too

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          RKHenryposted 15 years agoin reply to this

          Ha!  I see. Do pardon me my fellow entrepreneurs.

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43. 0

    Nelle Hoxieposted 15 years ago

    While I enjoy reading hubs written on specific topics. It's also great to have folks post in threads such as these, because they offer viewpoints as well. And perhaps they didn't have the time or interest to write a hub on this particular topic.
    
    As a person new to hubpages, I've found this thread very useful and it's been interesting to see the variety of comements.

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    imadorkposted 15 years ago

    Is that the term for it Cris?  I had no idea; I just typed hit seeking for lack of nothing better.

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       Cris Aposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       No, Dork, I would use the term you used myself. I just figured that heat and hit, in terms of HubPages are quite the same. If your hub heats up, it means more hits and vice versa

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    imadorkposted 15 years ago

    I'm just not hip to all the hub-lingo.

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       Cris Aposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       LOL dork it's not some word or a term that's been used around. I just thought of it myself when I read your previous comment. You may not be hip, but you totally (surprise!) rock!

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    imadorkposted 15 years ago

    I've been arguing all night with Jesus freaks and Indians!  I'm tired!

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       Cris Aposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Sheesh! And why should you be waging war against the Jesus types? They'll only cause you a wrinkle or two. But Indians, whyever for and what about?

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    badcompany99posted 15 years ago

    In the end if you can post on hubpages at least once every other day then within 2 years you will make money. Ok 2 years sounds like a long haul but trust me I gave up 3 years ago and I regret it now, don't be the one having regrets in 2011.

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    indian cookingposted 15 years ago

    I am happy to see the Confirmation that one can indeed make money on HubPages.

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    BundleBoyposted 15 years ago

    I am in complete agreement with Lisa and Dorsi.
    Hubpages is a great platform to write in. You have several other sites like Triod, but do a simple comparison of incoming traffic in alexa between hubpages and other such site. The results will amaze you, hubpages are way ahead of any other writing sites in terms of traffic.

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    Janettaposted 15 years ago

    For-ev-er  That is, of course, my professional opinion

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