Oops - sorry. A super longie post here, but I think it may be something worth posting, when it comes to offering new Hubbers some hard-earned-lessons picked up through a couple/few years on HubPages.
I'd know that I could actually earn money if I joined today, so I wouldn't just go looking through the "questions" section for ideas on any old thing to post about. When I first signed up I was just looking for a place to write in my spare time, looking for some ready-made ideas as a way of brushing up on writing-on-demand in a wider range of areas than I'd been writing. I didn't have a clue that how a title is worded matters, so I just went to "requests" (now called "questions") and answered in the form of Hubs, without changing the wording of titles.
The HubPages "Help" section wasn't anywhere near as thorough as it is today when I signed up. Even so I read it at that time. I think reading it is even more important and valuable today than it was when I signed up, just because there's more there now.
Almost three years after signing up, I now know that it isn't just product Hubs that earn people money, but I'd also know how very, very, important it is to create the right title and pay attention to keywords.
I'd know not to be discouraged that non-product Hubs can/do take more time to earn, and I would write a whole lot more of those non-product Hubs that I enjoy writing; because some of them may require more volume and time in order to have their earnings build up better.
I probably would throw in a few product Hubs to boost the earnings more quickly.
I probably would not have wasted a lot of the rest of my spare time, writing in other places or trying to figure out what else I needed to do/learn in order to earn more. Instead, I would have used all that spare time just writing Hubs and building them up so that today they'd be, maybe, 2000 instead of 300-plus.
If I had done the things above, today (two-plus years after signing up) I'd be earning well over that thousand dollars a month I'd like to be picking up "writing what I feel like writing" (HubPages/Google alone - no other affiliates/sites factored into that estimate).
To back what up I just said there, I just went to look at some of my October earnings for my Hubs that are "low earners" but not "rock-bottom earners". The individual, October, earnings for that group of Hubs runs from between $1 to $3 for the first part of October. Some other half-month, maybe what's in that group will be different Hubs, but in general, the same Hubs tend to be in that group. So, even if that particular set of Hubs earns nothing the rest of this particular month; do the math on, say, 2000 Hubs that get whatever those particular Hubs get (and that's without my ever trying as far as SEO goes, particularly when I writing those particular Hubs).
Even if only x percent of 2000 Hubs "lucked out" the way those did, as long as the x percent of 2000 was high enough I'd be earning a lot more than I am today. Someone new doesn't have to trust luck if they know how to create the right kind of title and if they bother with keywords.
The one thing that that particular group of Hubs I'm mentioning has in common is that I'd call them "day-to-day life" Hubs. Some of them are clearly more useful than others "how to's", but some are subjects people have searched that relate to just day-to-day life/living. None of them are creative writing (I don't do that on HubPages. None would be considered "memories" or a personal story (even a non-fiction one). They're written from the angle that other people may run into these subjects/situations in day-to-day life.
Also,
I wouldn't be discouraged by people who said "you can't earn if you just write what you feel like writing". I wouldn't listen to the people who said, "Nobody on the Internet wants to read more than 500 or 800 words." I'd know that "magazine style" writing is not "standard web article", and that "magazine style" actually does work for the right kind of subject and writing.
One reason I didn't take my approach to HubPages all that seriously when I started was that I'd come from other sites, where the standard web article was "The Standard" and where someone who enjoyed "magazine style" was often made to feel as if he was a square peg in a round hole. Messages from "all over the place" were, "You can't really earn anything writing what you feel like writing." I saw HubPages as a site where I could write what I felt like writing without being made to feel bad about even wanting to write the kind of stuff I did. All I expected from it was that - not being made to feel bad about wanting to write what I felt like writing. That's why I didn't take it seriously; but it's also why I stayed long enough to see that I could earn just doing what I was doing. Today I see I could have been earning a whole lot more by spending that free time of mine doing what I enjoyed more, rather than spending a good part of doing what I find boring and exhausting.
Based only on my existing Hubs (bad titles, no keyword efforts) if I'd produce 2000, rather than 300 in the time I've been on here, I'd be earning quite a chunk. If I'd bothered with keywords and know how to create the right kind of title, I would have been earning a lot more each month long before now, even if it wasn't a couple of thousand dollars.
So, if I signed up today I would know to learn about creating the right kind of titles, pay attention to keywords, and don't pay attention to a lot of those messages that writing about subjects that people run into in their day-to-day lives (or over the course of a lifetime) "don't pay anything". I'd also know not to discouraged six months into writing on HubPages if I'd only earned a hundred dollars by then.
A collection of "the right kind of" Hubs (AND their potential to earn) is like any collection. It takes time to build up. Of course, if you only add something here or there every week or month or so, it's going to take longer for it to build up.
The only other thing I think I learned (based only from my own perspective, so this could just be a matter of having what I thought confirmed as "not incorrect", rather than having what I think be "the only correct thing") is that Hubs need to written in basically good grammar that's correct enough that won't lose readers, and that the writer needs to include enough substance in what he's saying that he has some credibility. That can be through research and references, or it can be by explaining where the writer's ideas come from (in the case of personal experience) or his reasoning.
The only other thing I might do differently would be to realize that Amazon ads really do work too, and I'd probably take those a lot more seriously if I signed up today and if I signed up with the idea of making as much money (even on those non-product Hubs) as possible. Obviously Amazon ads won't work as well on (hypothetical example here) "Why 18 is too young to get married" as well as "Wedding decorations for 18-year-old couples". Still, I would have taken the Amazon ads more seriously even on a lot of those non-product Hubs. That's a whole other area of earning that I could have been doing a lot better in, and it's a whole different type of endeavor. My "earning expertise" on here is just when it comes to Google ads.
Keep in mind that I don't do niche writing on here and that my writing is not aimed at "as many teenagers who are interested in free music downloads as possible". (So my experience/perspective are just kind of aimed at a grown-up, general, audience.)
If I were signing up today I'd also know that there are Hubbers who are earning and who aren't going to give out details about which Hubs earn the most and why. That's why it's important to keep in mind that the group of non-product I refer to above doesn't include rock-bottom Hubs or particularly high-earning Hubs (or any kind). I should also add the group of Hubs I'm referring to above aren't particularly wonderful pieces of writing. They're just kind of straight-talk that offer ideas/associated issues on one subject or another.
It occurred to me that I could have turned this long post into a Hub, itself; but I thought there may be new people here who won't find all the zillions of Hubs there are about earning on HubPages, and it would be better to offer this perspective on this thread. I just think if new people get the idea that I once I did (which is that they shouldn't even bother thinking about earning if they don't write product Hubs), they might get discouraged and give up too soon. It's all about whether search engines find your writing, but it's also a good part about whether people click away in disgust if they think they found " poorly written foolishness" that lacks substance when they find it.
All I'll say about my own earnings is that I've been being paid monthly since about eight months into being on HubPages (with quite a few duplicate-content pieces I added because I thought they were among my better articles and wanted to "establish" my profile with some solid writing); and that I haven't yet reached that thousand-dollar-a-month goal (but I can now see exactly what it would have taken to have reached that some time ago; and I now see that if I'd done nothing differently but add lots more Hubs, I'd probably be well over that goal by now).
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