Hubpages Income - The Real Story
Hubpages Income
Hubpages is one of the best places to come and write on the internet without outlying any of your own money.
It's free to join Hubpages today.
You have the opportunity to make money by sending traffic to your hubs and sharing the potential ad revenue with Hubpages. This happens in one of two ways; Google Adsense or the Hubpages Adprogram. It's important to remember that you will still need a Google Adsense account to participate in either potential income stream.
How You Earn Money on Hubpages
1. You monetize your hubs with Google Adsense.
You split the ad impressions with Hubpages 60/40. This means that sixty percent of the time the page will load your Google Adsense code and the other forty percent of the time Hubpages will display their ad code. This doesn't mean you'll get sixty percent of the income. It's almost impossible to tell what percent of the income you will get as Hubpages don't disclose their earnings from individual hubbers.
However, you only get income when someone clicks on your ad code. It doesn't matter how many times your pages are viewed as it's all about clicks and click values. Of course, more page views increases the chances of someone clicking.
There's no way to tell how much you will earn each month from Adsense or from account to account. It's down to what you've written about, how many clicks you get and the values of those clicks. That can vary significantly from month to month.
2. You monetize your hubs with the Hubpages Ad Program.
This means all the ads on the page, bar one, shows Hubpages ad code. They then decide what to pay you on a "cost per mille" basis, otherwise known as CPM. Basically you get paid a certain value per thousand impressions. You don't get paid the CPM on total views. Instead, the CPM only applies to sixty percent of your total page views. (This will be made clearer in this article later when we use actual figures to show you exactly what this means.)
CPM values vary from account to account and day to day as Hubpages decides what your CPM will be for each day you participate on the Hubpages Adprogram. It's not very transparent and there's little to no way to know how Hubpages calculates your CPM. Remember you are not paid for clicks on any of these ads. All the clicks are credited to Hubpages one hundred percent of the time.
You are only paid for clicks on a single ad unit located at the very bottom of the page, underneath the comments on the right. Again this ad is split 60/40 with Hubpages. If you are on the Adprogram then the income from this ad unit is unlikely to add significantly to your bottom line as the reader has to scroll past at least four other ads before they get to the one you are paid directly for.
Write About Anything You Want (within reason)
As mentioned above, it's virtually impossible to say with any kind of certainty how many views you would need to make XXX amount a month from activating Google Adsense on your hubs. For this reason, we can only do this accurately with hubbers who chose to implement the Hubpages Adprogram.
When people first hear of Hubpages they wonder if it's a scam or fake or some kind of dodgy deal. They can't believe that someone will pay them to write articles about whatever they want to write about. It doesn't matter if it's about belly button fluff, as long as it's written well and hasn't been copied from elsewhere on the internet. Although why you'd copy an article about belly fluff is a little bizarre, but I have seen stranger things... Anyway, you can get paid for writing articles, but before you rush out and think it's going to make you rich please think again.
How Many Page Views Do You Need to Make a Decent Income on Hubpages?
The purpose of this article is to give new and potential hubbers a reality check, so they aren't disappointed down the line after writing numerous articles and wondering why they are no closer to that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
In order to calculate how many views you need to make a decent income on hubpages there are a few maths skills we need to implement. I have made the maths as simple as possible. A lot of hubbers struggle understanding how their income is calculated or even what they have to do to achieve a decent income level. Hopefully, by the end of this article, you'll know exactly what goals and targets you need to make a decent level of income from Hubpages.
The first step is understanding your CPM. You can find this in your Earnings Report. CPM's seem to fluctuate between $1 and $7, according to what people have said in various threads in the forum and in the questions and answers section. It's hard to specify exactly what the range is as you are not supposed to share your CPM value. You can lose your Google Adsense account for this and also Hubpages tends to delete these kinds of comments very quickly.
Are You Towards the Lower, Middle or Higher End of the CPM scale?
So if your CPM is let's say $2 (just to make the figures really easy) then for every 1,000 impressions you'd receive $2. For 2,000 impressions you'd receive $4. However, if your CPM was $5 then for every 1,000 impressions you'd receive $5. For 2,000 impressions you'd receive $10. This shows you how important the CPM value and the number of impressions are in determining your income and success on Hubpages.
It's important to understand the difference between total views and total impressions. Total views are how many times your hubs have been viewed. Impressions are how many times your ad code was shown on the page, which is sixty percent of the time. So if you need 1,000 impressions to make $2 then you actually need 1666.66667 views (1,000/0.60 = 1666.66667)
If you want to make $1,000 a month from Hubpages then the table below will help you to set traffic targets so you know what to aim for. If we assume that every month has 30 days it will make the calculations easier, we just have to figure out how to make $34 a day ($1,000/30 = 33.3)
Daily Hubpages Income Goal
| CPM
| Daily Impressions Needed
| Daily Views Needed
|
|---|---|---|---|
$33.30
| $2
| 16650
| 27750
|
$33.30
| $3
| 11100
| 18500
|
$33.30
| $4
| 8325
| 13875
|
$33.30
| $5
| 6660
| 11100
|
$33.30
| $6
| 5550
| 9250
|
$33.30
| $7
| 4757
| 7929
|
Yes you read that right. If your CPM is $2 then you need over 27,750 daily views to your hubs to make $33.30 a day, in order to make $1,000 a month. However, if your CPM is $7 then you only need 7929 views to make the same amount of money. That's almost a difference of twenty thousand views! This drives home the point about how important the CPM is in determining your success rate on Hubpages.
If you extrapolate this data out and show how many views you need a week, a month or a year, the differences become staggering. It becomes even clearer the task that lies ahead for hubbers with low CPM values.
Monthly Hubpages Income Goal
| CPM
| Monthly Impressions Needed
| Monthly Views Needed
|
|---|---|---|---|
$1000
| $2
| 499500
| 832500
|
$1000
| $3
| 333000
| 555000
|
$1000
| $4
| 249750
| 416250
|
$1000
| $5
| 199800
| 333000
|
$1000
| $6
| 166500
| 277500
|
$1000
| $7
| 142710
| 237870
|
Yearly HubPages Income Goal
| CPM
| Yearly Impressions Needed
| Yearly Views Needed
|
|---|---|---|---|
$12000
| $2
| 6 million
| 9.9 million
|
$12000
| $3
| 4 million
| 6.7 million
|
$12000
| $4
| 3 million
| 5 million
|
$12000
| $5
| 2.4 million
| 4 million
|
$12000
| $6
| 2 million
| 3.3 million
|
$12000
| $7
| 1.7 million
| 2.9 million
|
Is it Possible to Earn a Decent Income on Hubpages?
Well I guess by now you should have your answer on whether it's possible to earn a decent income on Hubpages with the Hubpages Adprogram.
$12,000 a year may seem a lot for writing online, but for a normal full time job this would not be a lot of money. Is it likely that you'd make this kind of money from Hubpages within your first year? It's highly unlikely as my poll shows on my Hubpages experiment for 2012. Most hubbers struggle to get their first paycheck, let alone $1,000 a month consistently.
Most hubbers don't get anywhere near these type of traffic figures, and if they do it's over a span of years.
Although this hub doesn't go into how many hubs would be required to sustain these levels of traffic, it's understandable that more than a handful would be required. If I take one of the most successful hubs I have written that averages around 500 views a day then that would be approximately 180,000 views a year. On this basis I would need less than 100 hubs. Unfortunately, it's more realistic that most hubs I have written average less than 100 views a day. Some only get a handful a month if I am lucky.
If I average out the number of views I currently have (which is 670,000) against the number of hubs I have (86), then on average each hub gets 7,800 views a year (670,000/86 = 7,800. You can figure out the average on your own account so you can get accurate figures for yourself and know how many hubs you'll need on average). If we use my average hub views as an example, then we can roughly calculate how many hubs I'd need to write to meet the yearly traffic target.
Writing hubs that bring in thousands of views is part luck and part strategy or experimentation. Not every hub you write is going to hit the traffic jackpot. In fact, the majority of them will be slow burners that take a while to reach their peak traffic stream. Some will wither and die and never see a decent stream of foot traffic.
CPM
| Yearly Views Needed
| Number of Hubs Needed
|
|---|---|---|
$2
| 9.9 million
| 1269
|
$3
| 6.7 million
| 858
|
$4
| 5 million
| 641
|
$5
| 4 million
| 512
|
$6
| 3.3 million
| 423
|
$7
| 2.9 million
| 371
|
From the table above, I'd have to write at least 3 hubs a day in order to get anywhere close to achieving $1,000 a month from Hubpages.
If you have a high CPM on Hubpages then your chances of reaching a decent level of income are drastically improved.
It's important to note this is just a rough figure based on my average. I should mention that people who have high CPM's tend to write in certain areas or niches and this can result in higher advertizing revenue or income potential tends, but also tends to lead to increased competition. So it could be that those with higher CPM's may not average as much traffic per article. Each account will again differ on the basis of keywords chosen to target etc.
In an ideal word, we'd like to find niches or topics that have high traffic, low competition and high CPM's.
After reading this hub, you should have a better understanding of what's achievable on Hubpages and also the kind of goals you'll have to set and achieve in order to make the income you desire.
Good luck and let us know how you get on!
Related
Comments
That is a fantastic hub. Thanks for doing all the tables, etc. Voted up and shared.
This is super and of course I will have to read it again. You were very clear and did a super job. I am voting up and sharing of course.
Very interesting. When you lay out the numbers it becomes much clearer as to what it takes to earn consistently here on HubPages. Thanks for sharing this with us. VU, Sharing , etc,
Very interesting for many people on HP. It's nice to see the figures so clearly - excellent hub. Up and useful.
Very interesting but how can you raise your CPM?
I wrote a similar hub like this and you came up with the same number of hubs to write per day. We must both be accurate with that figure. Most writers can't do that, but I've seen a few who have.
Best of luck with your goals.
Excellent! all too many hubs give out advice with nothing to back up their claims. thanks for running the numbers and presenting the results so clearly. I've written several hubs that experimented with the new recipe capsules traffic and other topics but none that so vividly displayed the enormous amou nt of work involved to 'make a living' writing hubs
- Author
Thx everyone for the positive comments in repsonse to this hub.
@Barbara Kay - Glad to see your stats tally up with mine. I just rushed off and read yours and I really don't know how anyone can research and write 3 hubs a day to get ranked and traffic.... I completely agree with the 80/20 rule you speak about. It's the same on my account!
@Cascoly - I'm not even sure if $12000 is a living. I don't think most people in the USA or the UK would be able to live off that. I know I can't, although it would be wonderful if I could. It was really a fluke that I ran the numbers. I was going through my HP experiment and suddenly thought about getting down to the facts and the numbers instead of the emotions. My own sites started making more money than my hubs with a lot less work and a tiny fraction of the page views. I began wondering what I would actually need to do to make a stab at a full time income from Hubpages... When I figured out the figures I was shocked (and a bit disappointed) to realize my 1 million views goal on Hubpages for 2012 wouldn't earn me that much...
Thank you for such an informative article. Your figures do tell the true story about writing online.
We have to continue to write as many good hubs as we can and hope we hit on the right keywords to bring in the traffic. I have had a few good hubs that were getting around 300 to 500 hits a day but that was before Panda. I keep writing though because I love it.
Shared on Twitter and with followers.
Thank you! Your article was very informative, since I have only started using Hubpages with earnings set up recently.
Great read! Actually, I'm also into the stuff you are doing (analyzing the number of hubs needed etc). In fact, I also have a page devoted for that (i.e. knowing how many hubs you need to write in Hubpages).
Anyway, this is really a great reality check! Thanks!
Thank you , Lauryallan, for the most informative hub on this subject that I have read so far. I didn't know I could get into the earnings stats until I read this hub. Before this I was really blurred.
One question I hope you can answer. Is this CPM and pay per click an auto program by Adsense, or is there a choice by the site owner to choose either one or both?
Good explanation. You make an excellent teacher and I will be re-reading to milk the detail further - shared.
Hi Lauryallan ,
You have done good work here putting all this figures to explain how we earn on Hubpages. I now understand how important CPM is on my earnings as i have just checked mine which is between 2.5 and 3. Thanks for sharing this, voted up and useful.
- Author
Thx again everyone for the great comments! Much appreciated!
@ Good Guy - You might want to read the first section of this hub again. I explained it there... but if you found it hard to understand then the simplest way to explain it is that you can monetize your ads on the page with solely Google Adsense and you are paid for clicks. Your ad code will appear on the page 60% of time ( which you are then paid directly for clicked ads by Google Adsense). The other 40% of the time Hubpages Adsense code will appear and they get that money for clicked ads.
Or you activate the Hubpages Adprogram and are then paid by Hubpages based on the CPM they allocate to you on 60% of your views. You still have one direct paying Google ad at the very bottom of the page (which pays you as if you had chosen to just monetize your Hub account by Adsense).
You need an Adsense account for both income options as your direct paying ads are highley likely to be Adsense ads.
Hopefully you understand the differences better now.
This is a very useful and interesting hub. The information which you have masterfully laid out in the tables is also very sobering. I guess if a writer wanted to make any kind of money, he or she would have to write a book like Tom Clancy or M.J. Rawlings. Voted up and sharing.
Wow! It is really explained clearly . It makes it very simple.
Thank you very much. :-)
Something to aim for. My frst goal was one hub, then five hubs, thenten hubs, now 25 hubs.
This is great, thanks so much for the effort so that we can understand clearly... I will read this again to understand fully,
lauryallan, you really did a fine job with putting this figures filled hub. A lot of hard work has gone into writing this and it shows. Getting 20 views/hub on an average everyday, as in your case, is no mean achievement.
Great hub. Voted up, useful and shared.
Great Hub filled with info for Hubbers. I never expected to earn big $ here, it is more of a hobby than an income producing site for me. If I make a little money, that's a bonus.
I voted this UP, etc.
Thank you for a very educative post. But the thread that emerges from from your post is depressing, by this I mean hardly anybody can earn $1000 a month on hub pages. The fact is the effort involved to earn money on hub pages is very high. There are other sites like www.expertscolumn.com which with lesser effort will pay 10 times more than hub pages.
One can join hubpages, for personal satisfaction but not money. Its not a site that pays handsomely.
Hi Lauryallan,
Thanks for your re-explaining. Actually I understood your writing for hubpages. Sorry for not putting the question clearer. I'll try again.
I have my own private blog. As far as I know my adsense in my blog is based automatically on cost per click. Is there an option where I can choose either cost per click, or CPM, or both?
Thanks. Vote UP and useful!
- Author
@MG Singh - Yes I know what you mean. However, I'd rather know what I am signing up for before I put time and effort into something. At least then I will know if I am wasting my time etc. It is depressing to think how many views you need, but at least now people can be realistic about how much money they are really going to be able to achieve on HP. Sorry if I burst your bubble.
I will have to check out expertscolumn though if what you say is true. Although it says on expertscolumn that the maximum CPM they pay is $1.50. I find it hard to believe that I would 10x's as much there. I think I would make a lot less there.
- Author
@ Good Guy, sorry I misunderstood your question.
You can get CPM ads on Google, but they pay a lot less than ads that get clicked. I am not sure how you would set it up on Adsense as it's something I would never want to do. Clicks on my sites pay out anywhere from 20 cents to over a dollar. CPM's I find to be really low and result in a few cents per thousand impressions. Even a single click is worth more on this basis.
Nice eye-opener. Fortunately, I don't have to depend on article writing for income. Thanks for the information.
Hi Lauryallan ,
Thanks a million for the prompt and helpful answer.
Greatly appreciated!!
This is the best and most realistic Hub I've read regarding earning potential. Thanks for sharing!
Voted UP! Great HUB!
Voted up and I guess I have a lot of work to do. Thanks for the help. Now I won't feel so let down.
Do these figures apply if you also use the Amazon & Ebay programs? I think the Ebay is based on winning bids from a click through but I'm not sure about Amazon.
- Author
@angel4967 - those are extra revenue streams and are separate from the fixed ads that show on your hubs.
Excellent hub and good information for anyone trying to make a living on line.
Wow, when you see it in black and white, without all the fluff, it makes the task seem unsurmountable. Where is my towel to throw in the ring?
It is easy to get caught up in the hype and think it is easy.
Thank you for the eyeopener.
- Author
Yeah Blond Logic, I completely agree. It really does seem impossible. At least you know where you stand. I'm finding I'm moving further away from the achievement rather than closer. Traffic continues to fall as does my CPM. What can you do?
Thank you for taking the time to break everything and down and explain it in terms where people can understand.. I've been here over two years and still do not fully understand it. I never expected to make a lot of money but it's nice to make a little bit now and then just for writing, which is something I like to do anyway. Great hub, voted up, useful :)
You certainly have done your homework on this topic. I agree that making money on hubpages would take quite a good deal of effort and time. I enjoy writing, the community, and the learning on HP, so for me, making money is not a primary concern. Your advice will help others to understand how it works and to decide whether this is something they want to pursue. Voted up.
Thanks a bunch for the useful information. I didn't expect a whole lot of money to begin with and esepcially as a newbie here on hubpages. Thumbs up for a useful hub!
Very informative hub. You really break it down for us newbies....I definitely won't be quitting my day job! Luckily, I do enjoy writing and as you state at the beginning, its free to sign up and participate---so why not try! Thanks for sharing these statistics!
Thank you very much for giving us all a reality check! I think any money made from hubpages should be seen as a bonus. Not a viable way to make a living! I am new here, and shortly after I joined the success stories were running on the front page. I quickly noticed that the 6th or 7th highest earners were only making $300-$400 per month, and that was back in October 2011, which I guess from other hubs, traffic was much higher.
Thank you for clearly spelling out the numbers. I had this vague idea that I had to increase views and CPMs, but the numbers are very sobering. Do you know why it is that when there are more views on the AdProgram, the CPM is lower?
- Author
Millionaire Tips - I can't give you a concrete answer because it's not exactly clear how your CPM is defined on the HP Adprogram. HP allocates this value to your account so it's something you'd probably have to ask them directly. However, I have also noticed that when I have an increase in traffic (doesn't happen as often now) the CPM tends to decrease. That's the biggest issue I have with the HP Adprogram, it lacks transparency.
Hi Lauryallan,
I fully agree with you.
Lately most of our traffic has decreased. Do you know why?
Phenomenal hub, Lauryallan, you really put a great deal of thought into this and the layout looks fantastic! Like Millionaire Tips said, the numbers are quite sobering. I think the CPM goes down when the page views are higher because it's like watering down a drink, there's less clicks per volume? ... I'm still pretty backwards when it comes to all this stuff, but I wonder Good Guy if the traffic for our articles has gone down due to the "idling" of underperforming / under viewed hubs.
- Author
@ Good Guy - There are so many reasons that traffic could have fallen.
Personally, my traffic first started to drop when the new layout was implemented across the whole site. I don't know if this is because the site is now top heavy with ads or was because the backlinking structure between the sub-domains was changed. I noticed this was when the success stories first started complaining of the loss of traffic.
The idle/pending thing isn't helping new hubs at all and nothing is ranking as prominently as it did before, at least for me. The idle/pending thing doesn't seem to be affecting my existing hubs, only new ones.
Externally, Google has had various Panda updates and some people got hit by Penguin.
Each sub-domain may have been effected differently, but I think almost all of us have been affected by the new layout.
- Author
@ Nicole Winter - Thx Nicole.
You could be right about why the CPM decreases, but I don't know for sure.
I can't find any actual information on the site about how this is calculated.
It depends on whether HP pays you 60% of the earnings they make from the page (from clicks) and just call it CPM when they share it with the writer? Or if they figure out a CPM based on the keywords that are searched to find your hubs? Or maybe they just make up a figure and tell you that's your CPM?
Seriously, I am in the dark as to how HP decides on each individual writers CPM. Mine seems to fluctuate by over 50% at times so I really can't make any sense of it. As I mentioned before, the HP Adprogram lacks transparency. You kinda just have to trust HP are giving you your rightful share of the money earned. The only other choice is to switch back to solely Adsense, or write elsewhere.
When I was using strictly Adsense, it was taking 2-3 years to hit the $100 pay-out... when HP started their new ad program I was pretty much overjoyed to find myself getting at least a quarter a day. All in all, it seems like in order to make any kind of money you need to be hugely active not only in the number of articles you churn out, but in the community as well.
Hi Lauryallan,
My most popular hubs are the ones suffering from greatly reduced traffic.
- Author
@ Good Guy. I find it hard to tell. I notice the traffic loss on my best performing hubs the most, simply because I monitor them very closely and it's easier to notice changes to them. However, when I delve into my account it's not as clear cut for me.
I have lost traffic across the whole sub-domain. It doesn't help that I write about seasonal things such as tv shows. Also I do very little in terms of backlinking. Maybe these issues are also starting to have a negative effect on my traffic.
Very well written and very good information
Well done, not sure how many people are thinking of Hubpages as an income generator at least more than token income. The community and the back links to my web pages are more important to me. Once again well done thank you
- Author
@FSlovenec - I think there were a number of people who were making a full time income from Hubpages. This has drastically reduced recently, but it's clear from the success stories that it was possible.
I am glad you are getting some benefit still from writing here, even if it isn't necessaily direct income.
A great and needful Hub. I think you are right on target in your estimations and assessment of the income situation. I am happy to get $150 a month from HubPages and I have worked very hard to get it.
Hi Lauryallan,
Out of curiosity, I Google search on my most popular hub, and it is still on the first page. But strangely the traffic has reduced by more than 60% !
An off topic, just received from Admin that one of my hubs is being "over promotional". This is another of my popular hubs which was published on Oct 2010. I didn't do any editing, and suddenly this notification! I have tried to delete whatever that was possible and republished, and hope for the best. My greatest fear is that Admin may just close my account without warning. If this hub was not the popular one, I would have deleted it, like I did to a number of my hubs just to avoid problem.
It is pity that Admin didn't identify specific violations, and expect us to rectify and to close our accounts should we did the "wrong" editing. This has happened to a number of the Hubbers. I hope it will not happen to me.
- Author
Hi Good Guy. Yeah I have experienced something similar on a few on my own hubs too. If you are still ranked the same in the search engines then traffic could be falling for a number of reasons. I don't know which hub or kw we are talking about so I can only give you general reasons and hopefully one or a few of them will apply to your situation. If not then just message me in private and I'll try to have a look at the hub in question for you.
1. It might be the other keywords that were bringing traffic to your hub have slipped in the rankings. Although other long tail traffic brings fewer visitors per keyword phrase, they can bring more than you'd expect when all lumped together.
2. It might be that your kw isn't as popular as it used to be and not as many people are searching for it just now. Was it a fad? Was it seasonal? Will traffic drop off now that people are shopping for christmas and looking for black friday deals etc?
3. Although you have retained your ranking in Google.com for your kw, what about international traffic? Have you checked that? Could that be part of the missing factor?
4. How are you checking that you are still ranked for the kw? You could be seeing personalized search results rather than the real search results.
In the case of "over-promotional" - you can email the HP team and ask for clarification. Sometimes you can be lucky and get someone willing to explain the issues in more detail. Try and ask them what exactly is wrong with your hub specifically so you can fix it. I've had hubs flagged like that and when I have asked for clarifiaction because I can't figure out the issue it's been republished. Other times I've been ignored and had to guess and other times the response was clearly copied and pasted from the stock answers which didn't apply to that hub or didn't make the situation any clearer.
I expect this to happen more and more as the new HP quality standards are rolled out across the site. The goal posts will change. It doesn't matter if you hub was fine before as HP didn't check it. However, someone has clearly flagged it and decided they don't like it, which has brought it to HP's attention.
I can see a lot of hubbers leaving over things like this. It may be time for you to widen your net and take advantage of other writing platforms such as Squidoo, Wizzley, Seekyt and InfoBarrel. At least then if you do fall out with HP you are still earning income elsewhere.
Or if you are ready, start your own sites where you will 100% control over content, links, layout and ad revenue.
Hi Lauryallan,
I want to thank you sincerely for your prompt attention and detailed answer. You are most kind and unselfish.
My problem is my lack of IT and internet knowledge. A friend helped me to set up my own website, some time ago, but I found it to be too technical and very stressful trying to do the right thing. Then I came upon HP, and I was very happy. I am still happy with HP. Its program is so user-friendly.
Do you remember one Commentor suggested Expertscolumn" I registered there, but have not been active. I think Expertscolumn is far behind HP, in terms of content and presentation standard. Maybe it's on purpose targeting different readers.
If you don't mind, perhaps you may give us your opinion on the various sites that you mentioned. I am sure many readers like me will be grateful.
Once again, a million thanks to you.
- Author
Your welcome Good Guy. I know how frustrating it can be starting out trying to make money online. So many people are herded in the wrong direction...
I have never tried expertscolumn, but the more common writing platforms I have heard of are Wizzley, Squidoo, Seekyt and InfoBarrel.
I first wrote for Squidoo, but found it difficult to use as I was new to writing online etc and quickly gave up. I then tried HP and also gave up. I then returned once I'd learned a few things online and liked the options here and the simple layouts etc.
I am now starting to spread my wings to diversify in the hopes that if HP gets hit by a Google update again or something else goes wrong, I don't have all my money coming from one source that could potentially disappear overnight. Especially after the time and energy spent building up the income.
I am learning how to use each of these writing platforms as we speak and hope to overhaul my making money online strategy for 2013. I need working online to be a full time income, otherwise I can't keep doing it. I'm hoping that the lessons I've learned in 2012 are a good platform on which to build. I'm not saying I have learnt everything, far from it. But I have seen that it can work with a lot of work and the right kind of effort or articles.
I'm sorry I can't tell you more about the other writing platforms, but I'm not experienced with those yet and wouldn't want to mislead you. However, if you Google the ones I mentioned above you'll probably find lots of free info that will be more than helpful to get you started. That's what I am currently doing.
Excellent explanation of what it takes to earn real income here. Voted up! ;)
Thank you, Lauryallan.
I will follow your advice and search for more avenues as back-ups.
I have one comment only to make. I had a viewership of 22000 in one year, but on experts column my viewersip has crossed 230,000, with resultant better income. The artcle standards are about same.
- Author
MG Singh there are so many factors to take into consideration when comparing one writing platform with another....
Good job, once again :)
Have a great weekend!
Kerry
This is an excellent and much needed article for me to read. I have just joined and am having some problems. I have been reading some fellow Hubbers comments with regard to I guess I could almost translate it to be a "customer service" sort of issue (admin not explaining things, suddenly deleting accounts without notice, writers not understanding what they did wrong etc. I myself have filled out 2 forms on here requesting help over a week ago and still have heard nothing. I hope that in general people are happy with this site as I am not sure what to expect yet. Best of luck to you!
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Bobbi it can be confusing, have you tried asking in the forum instead or using the HP search function to find an answer? I did this when I was first starting out and it really helped.
If I couldn't find the answer I looked for helpful hubs vaguely related to the question and asked in the comments section if they could help me with x or y.
A lot of times if it's a question you are asking as a newbie, then lots of newbies have asked the question before you.
If it's something the HP team have done on your account or hub then there's very little I can help with there. You will have to talk to them directly...
I'll try and answer your question if you ask it here.
Thanks so much. Yes I have taken advantage of this avenue and was so impressed with the support I received as well as the wonderful caring people I met. I will need to add more questions now and will be looking for this support again. I so much appreciate your thoughtfulness!
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Your welcome. Happy to help.
I found this hub very useful. I've been trying to figure out how do they calculate your income. I appreciate the detail and the numbers given in order to calculate income. Voted up.
Thank you for all of the useful information! As a brand new hubber, it's good to see this from the get-go.
Great info! Checking my hubs I find your numbers quite accurate. I have a high CPM in my hubs, however even with this high CPM, it is depressing to know how many views (and hubs) you need to make a decent income writing online.
I too have my work cut out for me - but I knew that going in. Happy Hubbing!
From reading this hub I have a mighty long way to go to reach my goal. At least now I have a baseline of where my traffic should be in order to be within reach of seeing my goal become a reality. This hub is very informative, and took a lot of work. Thank you sharing all of these information with everyone.
It's all about numbers. I was looking out for this type of content in here from a very long time. Seems very useful and at the same time proving HP unreliable to substitute with a full time job. Thanks. Indeed an eye opener for all the writers.
Voted up! For me looks impossible to earn a single dollar my page view is not much that I can earn anything but being here gives lot of opportunity to learn. Money matters less when we have platform like HP to write and share.
Geetbhim.
Wow! This hub is very useful and helpful for beginner like me. I don't really know how hubpages works until I've read this article. Congratulations for a well written hub. Voted up! Thanks a lot!
Lauray.. amazing article which demystifies the world of online money making and CPM. You have very nicely explained about the CPM and ad impressions which were more like a complicated jargon to me until now..... Thanks for sharing the info.......
This is a wonderful hub that everyone new to HubPages should read. I have been writing here for 13 months now and this is the best explanation I have seen for how we are paid. I never understood CPM until now. Luckily mine ranges between $6. and $7. I never understood how important this figure was until now. Now my goal is to write 300 hubs and hopefully make that $1,000. monthly. That would replace some retirement income that I lost. This is one of the best articles on explaining how we get paid I have seen! You did a wonderful job and I appreciate your work! Voting up and awesome! :)
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Hey that's great sgbrown, glad it could help. However, if your CPM is so high does that mean that your average traffic figures per hub are lower? If this is the case you'll probably have to write more than 300 hubs....
This is SUPER helpful for someone who's just starting out. thanks so much!
This is very helpful to me! Thank you so much for writing it! I have been on this site for 20 months and have yet to figure out much. I only have 24 hubs written so I can't really complain, however, most get little traffic except for one. I guess I should be happy I have one with decent traffic however the traffic really fluctuates and I can't figure this out either. Loved that you gave examples. Much easier to understand then other hubs I have read.
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Thx Keeley Shea. Yeah I know what you mean. To be honest most people have the same issue. You tend to find that 80% of your traffic (and earnings if your on the HP Adprogram) will come from 20% of your hubs. I know my top lenses account for the majority of my traffic.
It can be frustrating, but I think it means you can rule stuff out and do more of the stuff that seemed to work for you. Can sometimes be hard to find that first good hub but if you try lots of different types of hubs in different niches, or from a different perspective you'll hit on gold.
Most of it's trial and error and a little luck!
Great hub! But how did you go about calculating your average views for hub? Any tips on increasing CPM? I have a hub with all my earnings stats if you would like to check it out and give me some tips...
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I calculated my average views per hub by taking the total views I've had this year, which was 670,ooo at the time, and divided that figure by the number of hubs I had of 86.
Sure I can help you out with your stats. I'll try and send you an email if you have contact allowed switched on. Otherwise, hopefully you'll see this message and get back in contact with me.
There's a lot of good information here, you'll probably end up scaring a lot of potential new comers, ones with the idea that they can write a handful of articles and quit their day job, lol.
My traffic fluctuates big time with the Google updates, and I notice the fewer impression I have, the higher my CPM, as soon as my impressions start going up, the CPM starts falling, it's a bit frustrating, have you ever noticed that happening Laury?
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Yes eddiecarrara I wouldn't be surprised if this frightens off people who think this is easy, only to discover it's not! it's not my intention. My intention is to make people aware of what it will take to be successful... it's up to them if they decide to out the work in or walk away.
Yeah I have noticed this fluctuation in CPM too. It's hard to comment on it as it's HP that decide what your CPM is. I find the Adprogram lacks transparency and because of this it's hard to figure out how to improve your CPM specifically or what exactly is affecting it when the views increase. If you use the HP Adprogram then you are placing your trust in them completely.
I love playing with the numbers :-) It can be encouraging.
This was nicely explained. I understand the process a whole lot more than I did before reading the article. Now that I understand the process, I also understand how I can earn more money using hubpages.
Found this most interesting - thanks. I was hoping to see somebody ask in the comments where to find this CPM in their earnings reports, but I eventually figured it out on my own - I usually just view my earnings report with the setting on "All Programs" (I use only Adsense and the Ad Program) and since I hardly ever earn anything from just the Adsense, I didn't think to change the setting to "Ad Program" (to view earnings for that) and that's where I found my CPM. Thanks again for the interesting hub - voting up and sharing with my HubPages followers.
Good Hub friend, it was well written and well reached. Thanks for sharing the above informative read, it is really a very useful one. Voted UP
I'm not a money man, so the money end of this Internet writing thing generally eludes me, though I understand some of it; it's good to have it clarified with these intricate details and useful information. It's good to have a reality check, and I'm thinking it's good not to put all my eggs in one basket (as they say). Thanks for the enlightening piece.
Great information there Lauryallan. It is interesting to see it all broken down to more realistic figures! I would love $1000 a month but more realisticly I think $100 would be nice. I'm currently aiming for $82 a month as that converts to £50 which would be a nice bit of extra money a month to help towards the house hold bills. My CPM rate is totally yo-yoing all the time, its very difficult. As I have days with much higher impressions actually earn a lot less than days with lower impressions because the CPM drops for no apparent reason!
Thanks for the helpful break down here
You've got some great statistics there, I'm noticing a CPM of just over $1, possible $1.20, though I can't be exact.
Great article and a great reality check, too. Voting up and sharing. Thanks for showing where and what CPM is, I was still a bit unclear about what that was until I read this article.
Up, Useful, Interesting, shared with followers, and bookmarked.
Thanks much for the explanation.
I'm reminded of the 1969 movie They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
So theoretically, if HP has a much higher CPM when their code is displayed, then they would make much more than the writer of the hub? Who assigns the CPM, and does HP have a higher CPM because they get credit for so many--40% of the site's total approximately--impressions?
Is there room for manipulation in the system? Or is it a "simply trust us" situation after all? Thanks in advance.
Extremely informative and well laid out. I am going to earmark this and refer back to it from time to time. Great job at deciphering this information.
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@ B Leekley - sorry I've never seen that movie
@ Randy Godwin - lol Randy it's all up to HP. There's no way to see if they are receiving a higher CPM for your views too. As far as we know they set that value. There is no clear answer given as to how they arrive at a specific CPM. There's no transparency with this model so yes the room for manipulation is huge. It really is a "trust us system" which is why many hubbers have left. People want to have control over their income. How can they do that when a figure comes out a black box with no explanation, varies wildly and there's no way to question it, verify it or even back it up to make sure it's right? It all comes down to do you trust HP? And after the recent changes made in 2012 the resounding answer from a lot of hubbers has been No.
Thanks Lauryallan for being honest. I'm not used to such here anymore and usually get the run-around from TPTB. No doubt there is manipulation going on here as a much more transparent pay system would be a simple thing to set up.
And not to mention the now frequent weekend "glitches" which never seem to update the earnings completely. Funny how our earnings seem to be so bad during these suspicious outages! lol!
I am one of those who came to this site hoping to have some modest earnings. And while I am not a prolific writer, I still expected more. I have been onsite for almost a year; have a decent amount of views; have upwards of 70 hubs; and have yet to receive a check. My CPM is an average of almost 4, but in my biggest month my earnings were about a buck. I loved what you wrote, and will indeed refer back to it over time to see where I stand and what I earn and try to make sense of the mudpuddle I find myself in. Thank you again for shining a light into our world, we appreciate your explanation.
Hello again, Mr. Archer. Not long ago I was making over $700 a month with about 70+ articles. Not any more as HP got slapped by Google and has yet to recover from the garbage it still promotes on this site.
HP talks a good talk but this is all it is. There's no one on staff you can completely trust to tell the truth about the earning situation these days. Even the small stuff is unbelievable. Sorry, this used to be a good site to write for at one time. Now? Not so much.
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@ Randy - Yeah agree with you 100%. I have no reason to lie to you unlike TPTB. I'm just sharing what I have noticed and found to be true. I used to love HP in the beginning. Now... not so much and is why I haven't written as much lately.
I believe if you are going to be paid for your work/traffic etc then it has be built on a model that makes sense and can be verified. Like you said, a transparent system wouldn't be hard to make. At one point I was making over $200 a month with less than 40 articles. 2012 saw many changes by the site on the site and by Google etc that affected everyone. I still feel the new page/site redesign never benefitted hubbers, but instead benefitted HP. I have no real proof except my CPM has continued to fall and my adsense has completely disappeared after the changes. Somehow the extra money the writers were supposed to make never materialized... and in fact declined (for us). I find it hard to believe this didn't work in HP's favor because if it was bad for them they would have changed the site back... but they didn't.
When HP removed the success story graphs but left the text up this showed me how much I could no longer trust them. Now newbies think these people are making lots of money and they have the potential to make that kind of money too. But the truth is that all those success stories reported losing 80 - 90% of their traffic and earnings when the new site design/layouts went site wide. This has not been reflected in the text on the success stories. By removing the graphs that showed the truth HP are being deceitful.
I am still confused and astounded at the Apprenticeship program. I can understand teaching people, but paying them seems crazy. Also, where is that money coming from?? There is no way those new articles are making that kind of money. Some never will and a few will take years to earn that type of revenue (based on my CPM). Something doesn't quite add up there...
I follow the principles of logic and common sense. When things stop making sense no matter how you dice it, then there's something missing, being hidden or being held back. I have begun writing elsewhere. If HP decides to sort itself out and fix the things that are broken, rather than creating more broken things I'll happily come back.
Sorry for the rant - you've reached the end lol
It's good to get it off your chest, eh Lauryallan? It's funny how many writers buy into HP's disingenuous explanations these days and wonder why they can't replicate the earnings touted by HP. The truth is as you said, old news and not applicable to today's rate of earnings experienced by most of HP's writers.
Apparently HP has given in to doublespeak and double standards as far as truth is concerned. Even the top people here have fell into the habit of spinning the truth about the potential earnings available for those capable of writing a quality hub. Of course, the word "quality" has been substituted for "traffic" at the moment. Certainly not a good thing for us. Thanks for your honesty. This is extremely rare on HP these days.
--RG
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@ Mr Archer - While I appreciate that you have written a number of hubs I think I can understand why you haven't reached payout. I hope you take this as help and not in a bad way.
If you want to reach payout you have to look at keywords. Right now you write good stuff. However, who is going to find your stuff? What keywords are they typing into Google to find your pages?
I looked at a number of your pages and most of it's personal stuff about your life and thoughts etc. That's great but you need to tailor it to an audience so they can get something from it. What questions would they be asking to find your content? Look at your titles and try and be more specific to get targetted search engine traffic for free.
Eg "When will we say enough is enough?" - This is a title of one of your hubs. From the title of the hub no-one is going to know what it's about. Google is going to find it hard to rank it for anything that will bring significant traffic. There are no sub-headings to give Google any further clues either. Instead you could try something about When is Old Too Old to Drive? The Dangers of Driving While Suffering From Dementia. Ten Reasons I'll Give Up My Car License Before I Become a Danger on the Road etc. I'm from the Uk so my titles will differ from yours. Yes some of these titles won't get a lot of traffic either, but at least Google will know what it's about as will your readers. Also these are just off the top of my head but you perhaps get the picture.
You could hit on some long tail keywords and this could add up across your account if you did this with many of your hubs. Right now I think many of your hubs will start to be marked as not featured. At that point you'll get no traffic except from other hubbers, and it will be even longer until you reach payout.
If you want to talk to me then message me (if HP haven't removed that feature too)
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@ Randy - Lol I try not to get things off my chest too often. It's too dangerous to say what you really feel sometimes...
That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how disappointed I am with the site. I tend to try and get over it and decide what to do next.
To begin with I was angry. I tried to hit my head against the wall telling them what they were doing wrong. Nothing ever got through and other hubbers seemed oblivious to what was really going on.
I really expected far more experienced hubbers to stand up and demand to be heard, but I learned like them it makes little to no difference. I learned that on HP it's just more problems, same sh*t.
I came back to the philosophy of "If I wanted to work for idiots I'd go get a job". The whole point in writing online is to get away from politics and issues like that. Unfortunately, I have found the opposite of that to be true here. Hence why I have taken a few steps back and decided to watch from the sidelines.
I can only see a few ways this can really play out.
1. HP gets their stuff together and sorts it out (not holding my breathe for this one)
2. HP continues on this path
3. HP declines
4. HP gets bought over
In the meantime, spread your wings. Write elsewhere. Compare other revenue streams and see what else can work for you.
I want a passive income where I do my part of providing the content, promoting it and getting it ranked. I don't want to deal with the politics of the site or the constant changes that fail to add anything.
Ha! the same goes for me, Lauryallan. I'm merely trying to prevent other writers from falling into the same trap at this point. Personally, I believe the site has already sold out on honesty, and perhaps to a social network as well.
Apparently they have no compunction to be truthful any longer and have no pride left at all. And no, it does little good to ask hard questions of the minions as they simply will not give an honest answer to any queries concerning our earnings. And yes, where does the money come from to pay the Apprentices for the hubs which will no doubt become idled in a short period of time. Even the Aps are pissed off at this new aspect of the site. I think HP is slowly dying and I can smell the stench already.
I hate dealing with such dishonesty. Hang in there!
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Yeah I began writing on other sites and make more there than I do on HP now. I started writing on squidoo and it's really different over there. There seems more of a community over there and when the site changes things people are pretty vocal about what they like/don't like and I have seen action taken to alleviate members concerns. Not saying it's perfect. It's very different from HP and takes some getting used to.
I've only been there for about 2 months but am enjoying learning to make lenses. It takes longer to get paid as the tier payments are 2/3 months behind. However, it is easier to sell things on there as affiliate links are easier to use and amazon modules are bigger, more prominent and you can use more.
Once I get comfortable making lenses then I'll try wizzley, zujava, seekyt, infobarell and a few others. I want to make sure I'm not relying on one stream of income. It's too dangerous to do that.
I also want to have a limited number of websites to run. I'm hoping to make authority websites that help people in areas I know about.
Since we've already established that I am an honest person I want long term businesses that people will want to visit. No scams, spam or just link through schemes. So it's gonna take time to set up and make work, but it's another challenge I look forward to.
Follow-up to my earlier comment: The Jane Fonda 1969 movie THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY? was one of the most depressing movies ever. It's about a dance marathon contest at a town in the USA during the Depression. In hopes of getting the prize of $100 (or $1,000 or whatever the amount), the contestants dance for most of the hours of every day for weeks in a small city dance hall. It's very grueling, and most contestants soon give up. Management uses gimmicks to keep up enthusiasm and hope. When one contestant dies of a heart attack on the dance floor, his partner keeps dancing with the body for the brief time remaining till a break is allowed. Another contestant has a nervous breakdown. Finally, the winners are the last couple still standing. Then they find out that the management is subtracting a big chunk of money for a long list of goods and services from their prize money, leaving almost nothing.
Of course the Depression was long ago, before our time, and has naught to do with hubbing.
I've been actively writing hubs for circa 15 months and, working several hours per day, I am at 30-some hubs, and I still have negligible traffic, am still making only $2 or $3 per month, and am still far from my first payout. I use the Google Keyword Tool; I choose evergreen topics; I write articles within the recommended length of 500 to 1500 words; I write related hubs that I can group; I jazz up my hubs with photos, videos, polls, quizzes, tables, links, etc.; I include a summary; I keep my capsules short; I write reasonably well -- all to no avail. I am a slow writer, so I thought my lack of traffic and income was due to my having written half or less the number of hubs that most hubbers write in the same amount of time. But a commenter above reports still no traffic or income after 70 hubs. You gave an excellent critique of his hubs, but even so, his experience has added to my feeling of discouragement. My novel isn't selling. Job hunting achieves nothing. Hubbing achieves nothing.
Not having other options, I'll keep trying.
I tried Demand Studios, but each of the few articles I wrote took me days to write instead of the expected hour or two, with most of that time being research. At least at HubPages, a hub keeps making income for the author long after it is published.
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@ B Leekley - "At least at HubPages, a hub keeps making income for the author long after it is published." With the idle hub thing that's no longer true. Although some would say it was never true as they've never managed to get their hubs to make money in the first place. Also this doesn't work for things that are fashionable or in other words not evergreen. Even if you had written something that was evergreen and was on the first page of google there's no guarantee it will stay there.!
HP is really a numbers game. If you only want to write a few hubs then they are going to have to be on really high traffic topics to get any kind of decent income. The CPM tables above highlight why this is the case.
In your case, the topics you are writing about just aren't popular enough to get you the kind of income you are probably looking for. So you'd have to write more to achieve it or write about something else completely.
Also writing hubs that are broken down into parts doesn't really work. It only works if they are in a series that explains something else in the niche. That way they rank individually and get traffic in.
An example would be if you wrote about grammar rules. You could write grammar rules - part 1, part 2 etc. However that's very general and you won't rank. If you made it a grammar series and interlinked the content and made the first hub about apostraphe's, then the next one about comma's, the next about semi-colon's and colon's etc and interlinked them that would work better. Not telling you to write about grammar, just using it as an example.
You can message me if you want to discuss further like I mentioned to Mr Archer.
Thanks much, Laury, for your helpful critique and kind offer.
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No problem. I was there once too and answers weren't always easy to come by. It was like panning for gold and sifting through muck to get to why things were/weren't working. I know how frustrating that can be in the beginning when all you want to do is get off the start line and make some kind of progress.
Offer is always open. I really don't mind helping. I don't know everything but have learned a lot in the last few years.
Interesting Hub. A nice reality check for experienced beginners like me on HubPages. Voted Up and Useful.
Hi Lauryallan. Thank you for this hub so full of helpful content. I shall save it for reference.
Voted up and all / Following.
Graham.
Hi Lauryallan,
Great informative hub with really interesting stats you have worked out for us! Thanks very much for doing that, it is difficult to get your head around all the facts and figures. Earning online here is a slow process but as a new writer I have been expecting it. Yes it would be great to earn $1ooo a month here but realistic, not for awhile that's for sure. Many thanks again, Vu, useful, Interesting and pinned!
Thanks for spelling it out so clearly. Now I don't feel so bad about not cranking out the hubs lately. I really need to look at HubPages as a hobby, and not as potential income.
This is a very informative hub. Thanks for keeping it real. Your stats show that, while there is no way to guarantee any amount of income with certainty, it is possible to make $1,000 per month, assuming we get the right amount of traffic.
HubPages has changed so much over the last year or so that nothing can be relied upon anymore. Don't expect a straight answer from the staff minions--as you know if you read their comments on the forums. This used to be an honest site until they hired some "spinners" about a year or go and now you can't believe anything they say anymore. Sad but true. Sorry, I don't like it either, but there it is.
Reality check! Thanks for spelling it all out so clearly, great hub! I especially liked being able to see the charts, they really put the facts and figures into perspective. Voted Up
hello, Im a new member of the community, Im just asking about those code how can i get one?
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What codes? I don't understand what you are asking...
oh, sorry If i did not specify, anyway it is the ad code that you mentioned above. by the way thank you for the reply :)
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do you mean Google adsense? If that's what you mean you have to apply to get a Google adsense account. Just google google adsense and the details should come up. I'm sorry it was so long ago and I already had adsense before I wrote for Hubpages...
oh.. I thought so, thank you. well iv'e been trying to have one but I can't verify my old google account so now I am trying to create a new one instead.
Great hub, voted up and shared. The sad part is after reading this, I almost want to Google belly button fluff. LOL!!!!
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Who knows you might find someone making money in that niche lol
I wrote a hub about how to earn $1000 a month. According to your figures, it still comes out the same for me. I need to write a lot more hubs than I have. Too bad all the articles we write don't come up as #1 in Google.
Useful hub. But it seems you need to mention about one more important point.That is- submitting our hub URLs to search engines. I did not know of that for a long time- more than a year of starting my hubbing. Then a co hubber told me how to do that. Then I started submitting my hubs to SEs.There are certain tricks about that also. After doing thaat, I got more traffic.But even now, I have much less income per day than what you suggest. The reason may be that, I am not after popular topics. I neither take pains to search for key words.But these are all to be done, if one wants to earn a livelihood by online writing.
Very informative, thanks for sharing!! :)
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@prasadjain - Thank you for your comment but my hub wasn't about how to get traffic etc. it was purely for hubbers to understand the task ahead of them in terms of the sheer amount of traffic they are likely to need to make an actual income on HP.
I know you said I could add one more thing... but that one more thing is a huge topic in and of itself.
When you say you have less income per day than what I suggest, I have no idea what you mean by that? Do you mean your CPM is lower, or are you saying you get a lot less views, or are you saying your average income per hub is less? Everyone's income is going to be different. Everyone's average per hub is also going to be different which is why I explained that's my average and showed you the maths I used so you could figure out your own average.
I know when I started out I was dying to find out what people'e averages were, how many views I really needed to make this writing online thing viable or if it was even a viable business/income possibility. Now you have an average you can compare yourself against and see if you're doing better or worse than someone else.
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Hey Barbara - I just read your article now. Good article.
Yeah that's one of the frustrating things about writing for a site like this. You really have no idea for the most part where an article will end up in Google. Sometimes they love Hubpages and sometimes they give you a kick in the shins.
However, at the same time if every article written here came up #1 on Google everyone would be writing on here. Could you imagine the competition on here!
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Thank you, glad you found it useful.
This has been the best explanation of how earning money on Hubpages really works. I now understand what my CPM means and thanks to you, can actually check mine against a chart! Nevertheless I can't help wondering whether the effort one puts into Hubpages will ever result in anything much more than pocket money twice a year. Thanks for a really excellent explanation. Voted up.
I have a google account but my problem is how to link it to my hubs.
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@sallybea - Thx I'm glad you get it! It took me a while to figure it out and then even longer to think how I could explain it to someone else clearly. That's when I thought it would be better to show rather than tell and so used charts/tables.
In terms of your second point, the chart gives you an idea of what you gotta do to make the income you want to make. It really depends on how much time/effort/skill and a little luck too comes together to ensure you hit your targets. But I think you'd have to approach it as a full time job rather than a hobby etc....
Thanks Lauryallan, Transparency certainly enables people and helps to give them a greater understanding of what is required to become successful on Hubpages.
I think you are right, it definitely takes a lot of time, effort and skill to get it right. Some would say you make your own luck, the jury is out on that one.
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@sallybea - yeah transparency is what is most difficult when you first start on Hubpages and other revenue sharing sites like it. Without it most writers continue to make the same mistakes and go round in circles, with no clear direction off how to get off the wheel of doom they are on.
Yeah you can make your own luck. However, when it comes to writing I meant more along the lines of luck that your content stays at the top of Google and isn't knocked off by some new update, because they suddenly decide they don't like it or that HP disappears etc. All factors that are mainly outwith your control.
In terms of effort and skill it's hard to make a full time income. The only way I can see it you would have to write on a regular schedule, or hire someone else. It would have to be evergreen content, otherwise you lose out on the compounding effect of each hubs traffic building upon the previous hubs etc. When you write about fads etc you may get a lot of traffic to begin with but then it dies off, very likely never to return. Lower competition levels would be best so more long tail keywords giving you a better chance of getting ranked in the top 3 of Google. But again this still leaves you open to building a decent income only to come on one day and find out it's all gone, like what happened to the success stories in 2012. HP made a lot of changes to the site, paired with Google updates and many successful hubbers saw their income and traffic fall by over 80%. Call me cynical but it could also be why HP removed the traffic graphs from the success stories but left up the outdated text. Would you sign up to write for a site where it's evident the most successful people are no longer earning? What chance would a newbie have to reach those dizzying heights or make a proper income?
I for one would love to see an updated list of 2013 success stories. Seems I need to do some research on Long Tail Keywords!
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@sallybea - best of luck and I hope you are successful in what you want to do.
Hi guys , nice informative and encouraging post , thanks for u r article
Thanks Lauryallan - extremely informative writing - this is a major eye-opener for me, as quite a new member. I never hoped for Hubpages to do more than add a bit to my income as a painter but this makes that seem like a pipe dream! I too would like to see an updated list of recent success stories...Have voted up, useful and interesting.
What an amazing hub. I love people who use real numbers. It makes it so realistic and relative. Great hub! Voted up.
Hi Lauryallan
You have explained each point in a very simple manner. Easy for beginners to know more about hubpages. Excellent hub.
Hi Lauryallan,
A very well explained hub on what can be double dutch to new and existing hubbers. Your simplified examples are easy to comprehend and takes some of the mystery out of earning and the importance of CPM. Thanks for this, I learnt some really useful tips and pointers. Voted Up, Useful, Interesting and Shared.
Probably the best advice I've seen about monetizing the HubPages experience yet! Will definitely be referring to it again. Vote up & shared!
yes, very informative. I like the honesty. But if you're in it for the money, get a part time job. If you're in because you love to write, hey how 'bout a little money for coffee. lol . Peace. Kawi.
Very, very helpful and full of detailed information. Thanks so much for sharing this. As a newbie, this is a learning experience.
I just saw this hub today and found it very interesting and helpful. I started writing hubs about a year ago and am still learning. Thanks much!
Very inspiring hub. I got new motivation after reading this hub. I believe that we can achieve the goal you mentioned above with hard work. Thanks for sharing with us. Voted up :-)
Prasetio
Thank you for the great hub. It puts every thing here into perspective. I, as with all of you love writing and expressing one's self through these means. Whether opinion pieces or factual. It truly is the most original way of doing so. Plus, do not forget to enjoy yourselves..
Informative with great data for an example. Voted up.
Wow, this really puts things in perspective. I'm lucky to make pay out every month, but it looks like if I try writing more, it may be more lucrative. Hubpages is definitely passive income, but its well worth it if you put the time in. A lot of time....
A great eye-opening piece! thanks, voted up!
Helpful but your statistics makes me frightened. I don't have this much patience and energy. I have very limited time too to spare for all these great tasks. Anyhow finding pleasure with my average going. Thank you for educating us with some convincing data.
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@sunilkunnoth2012 - It really depends what your goals are with HP. This is my personal experience which hopefully will give you an idea of the work/patience and dedication required to make it into some kind of income. At the end of the day if it was really easy then everyone would be doing it and there would be no opportunities for people to join as it would completely saturated.
Lauryallen,
This was very interesting. I had never paid attention to CPM because I did not know what it meant, now I will have to pay more attention to it. I see that it takes a lot to make $33-34 but even the HP minimum per mo. is fine with me. I have both HP ads & AdSense and I have learned that I make more with HP. You keep up with your experiments.
Kevin
A very useful and informative hub. No rose-tinted glasses here, just stark reality - and I thank you for it.
Every one on internet wants to make money though their efforts. Me too. Ad Sense is a great income generation source. But what I could see from this hub information, it is hard to get substantial income on any platform. Of course 'Rome is not built in one day'
Interesting Hub--this follows pretty closely to my own experience. The one thing I think you need to add is time. I've been on HubPages almost 3 years and have just over 2.5 million views with about 300 Hubs. I expect to make about $8,000 this year, maybe more., mostly through HubPages earnings with a bit from Google AdSense and more from Amazon. I have a couple of article groupings which seem to have filled a niche market and which are evergreen, so I think this will be pretty stable. I was also writing copy for Interact Media for a while and could make about $400 a month with that. However, I finally decided that HubPages was a better long term income. I have another "real" job too and a family, so I am focusing on writing for HubPages. I think that if a person keeps on writing, and treats this as a business, writing more of what seems to get traffic, then they can earn money. If you just want to write what you like, you probably won't. My favorite Hub topics are not getting much traffic.
I just looked at my earnings--Ironically, I made $33.47 yesterday with about 11,000 views (I get more on weekdays because of the topics I write on). I don't usually pay attention to CPM but I think mine is around $6 most of the time, so that would tie in very well with your calculations. I also noticed that I'm now just a 3 commentator ( was up to 8 at one point) but that is because I generally spend all my time writing Hubs and not doing other things on the site.
Thanks so much for sharing this! I like to see data on these things sometimes, so having the tables laid out before me was extremely helpful. I am new to this site but have written for several others and always wondered how these things worked.
Lauryallan...It was very considerate and generous of your time Laury, to write this extremely informative hub explaining in such clear detail how our online income is determined.
Coming in to HP, I knew so very little and I have hustled to learn the ropes. I'm still far from being as knowledgeable as you, for instance, but thanks to people like you, willing to educate, I can keep learning.
UP+++
I just started. I earned one penny my first day with one hub and 17 views. I'll try a few more hubs and see how it all works out.
Wow, that's a complicated equation...thanks for writing this.
Where do I find he CPM number for a hub?
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@CatherineGiodano - I don't believe you can see the CPM for individual hubs (not that I'm aware) but you can find it for your account overall... as that's how HP shows what they have decided to pay you. So it's under earnings then earnings report. You then have to select Ad Program from the drop down list and it will show you the CPM for each day.
On my Squidoo articles, my income was usually about half from the advertising revenues and half from Amazon sales (I used my own account). So it's possible to make a good deal more than this, though of course Amazon sales are impossible to predict for somebody else.
Awesome hub! I'll definitely be referring back to it from time to time. Thanks for the information! Believe me it's much appreciated!
Valerie, what does that mean "I used my own account for amazon sales?"
Catherine, I used text links to insert my Amazon affiliate code. I sold enough to get 6-7% instead of the 4.5% I would have with the Squidoo Amazon modules.
HP lets you insert your Amazon code in the dashboard, and then you're automatically using your own link in the HP capsules. The only thing I don't know is whether you can still do that with Adsense turned on.
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Yeah Valerie I can understand that as I was also a writer of lenses on Squidoo. However, this lens is more about the advertizing revenue potential from the Hubpages ad program versus just the adsense option. Affiliate sales such as amazon etc were not discussed in detail. Also, with the changes Hp have made to the site, it's getting harder and harder to make the kinds of income you did on Squidoo from Amazon specifically on here.
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Your welcome! Thx for letting me know it was useful for you.
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On Squidoo you could use your own amazon affiliate code, or you could use Squidoo's Amazon code. However, Squidoo is closing so it's not really relevant....
Very informative hub and one that really held my interest. Thanks for offering this vital information for Hubbers!
Pretty amazing information, I'd only just signed with Squidoo (nothing published but pending) with the vision of being paid for my efforts. With the knowledge that nothing comes for 'FREE', profit sharing I thought was a fare trade. However, after reading your HUB, it's pretty clear that things are not that clear with HP. It's pretty obvious HP is a nice little money spinner for the owner/s...I have no problem with that...what I do have a problem with, is that it took a person like (yourself) to spell it out for people like me. Like sweet, not everyone on HP or other similar sites are here to make money, but just enjoy sharing. When things get cloudy or things are not disclosed to the end user, sorry but that's dodgy in my book, so for that reason I'll be going back to 'Blogger' till I find other sites to use. Yes I've heard of 'Word Press' but that sounds a bit complicated haa I'm a simple guy really just looking to supplement my income on-line, put food on the proverbial table. Many thanks for the information, your commitment to detail and the way you've written it so easy to understand, HP should put you on their payroll...awsum job...PEACE...
Valerie p Dais Thanks for the info on Amazon affiliate and AdSense. I think I will have to do some more research
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@eno14287 - thx for your nice comment! Really glad it helped you!
Trust me, WordPress is the way to go. It's not complicated. I know it sounds it but if I can do it so can you. Message me if you need some help and I'll see what I can do for you.
I think most of us are trying to make ends meet or at least have some kind of return for the time we spend making content etc.
And in terms of Hubpages hiring me. I think pigs would fly before that ever happened. I like to make things super simple so it's so much easier to understand. Companies could do that too, but then things would be so obvious that most people "would see the light" before becoming involved....
I've gotten extremely curious about the possibility of having a decent flow of income from Hubpages, and this article managed to satisfy this curiosity without a gap of knowledge. At first, I thought having an income of even $2000 a month was possible... but after seeing the values that you have posted and the values that I have recently found out through my acceptance into the AdSense program, I realized how "impossible" it is. Thanks for the enlightenment, Lauryallan.
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@seanspage to have that kind of income on hubpages would be great, but in my experience it would be extremely difficult and take a really long time (probably years). On the other hand, I've found that it's a lot easier to make that kind of income with your own site as you keep more of the income and costs are a lot less than people imagine.
Thank you for this detailed look at earning here at HubPages. I'll be curious to see how my seasoned lenses do here.
Thank you !
I've voted this up and am "following" you now :)
I sure have a lot to learn and will be returning this page, many times. Thank you
Thank you for taking the time to write up such a clear and detailed explanation!
Inch by inch, I'm beginning to understand monetizing hubs more and more. It's complicated, but worth understanding, and I appreciate the information on this page. Thanks!
Thank you for the very detailed rundown and explanations. It was very eye opening to read.
Thank you for the very informative article.
I have to read this again for. It to all sink in. Making money does seem to be a daunting task. Many thanks for this hub.
Excellent info for a Squid learning Hub. I think I'd better accelerate my blog portfolio.
Thanks for putting all this together. It's helpful.
great info for newbies trying to get their heads round this, thanks
I bet this hub gets like 1k views per day haha, but good insight. 3 hubs a day is pretty reasonable if you don't work. Could knock those out in the mornings. I wonder how people are making money with Amazon affiliate on here. Do you do hubs around product niches? That's still a mystery to me.
You made me understand things that used to be just puzzles to me and I have just ignored. You have also clearly outlined with your tables the impact of traffic. You have just refined my goals for me. Thank you.
I am learnring, and this helps.
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@AaronBurton - lol this hub does not get that many visitors at all each day.
I suppose 3 hubs a day would be your work... plus you still need to choose the right things to write about, promote those hubs in order to get traffic and to rank in google (to continue getting regular traffic).
Although I concentrated on info topics where there was little to no buyer intent, I'd think if you did reviews of specific products that are sold on Amazon you would increase your chances of making sales or do top 10 or top 5 lists in a certain category of products. Help people solve their problems...
So you mean to say google ads pay based on clicks and hubpage adprogram based on views? Is it better to opt only for hubpage adprogram?
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@athulnair - that's something you have to test for yourself... There's no way to say which way works better categorically across all accounts. I have found that the HubpPages Ad Program works better for me as I get a lot more views than clicks but your account might be different.
@Lauryallan thanks for the info..
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@athulnair - You're welcome. If you test it out it would be great to know how it worked out for you!
Thank you for that excellent article. I never knew how we earned money if it was not for clicks. When I signed up for Hub pages I was looking for a way to promote and market our books, including my own. I then never knew you could get paid for article writing. I'm now just a year with Hubpages and I leaned more about writing than ever before. I've sold my novels due to hubpages and made made friends who I value more than what I might get paid in the years to come.
I thought that updating our posts and linking them through blogs,websites and other means might make a difference over the years, but writing a hub every day I will never manage.
Good info. Very enlightening.
It's great to make $5 at every 1000 views, but at first I have to make 1000 views/ day, and then wait.
Thank you very much, very useful and inspiring to me
Thank you for this fantastic article !
Great knowledge shared about CPM. NEVER paid it much attention before!
A well-researched hub!
wowww.valuable information.now i can figure out how much hubs i need to make decent amount of money.
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