Awfully demanding "tips" for writing a winning hub

1. 61

   Xenonlitposted 12 years ago

   I've done just about everything possible, including adding pictures, writing longer and fuller hubs, marketing, and even adding a couple of polls. The hubs are slowly coming along, but I still have to make any real money somewhere else.
   
   Now I get mail claiming that each hub should have a video, poll, photos, 1,500 words, and the whole list of every other available features. This is getting ridiculous.
   
   The pitiful revenue share here only gets better over a long time and either with a lot of hubs, good luck, being pushed by the site, or using a lot of marketing cheats.
   
   There are no upfront payments here, so putting in all those bells and whistles into each hub is a terrible recommendation.
   
   The email claims that a great hub got $16.00 in a short time. Pah!
   
   I'd like to see proof that putting all of the features into each and every hub, nets $16.00 in a month per article, or someone needs to back off of that claim. Citing one freak example doesn't cut it.
   
   In other words, that email offered no proof whatsoever that packing features into each hub gets any decent revenue or is even a good thing to do when there are no upfront payments involved.

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      wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      What kind of proof would you like to see?  Daily traffic and earnings records for a month, maybe in real time?
      
      If the hub were yours would you like to see such stats scattered over the internet for thieves to find?
      
      You might read the blog again, as well.  No one claimed that each and every flagship hub performed that way - just that the average over 156 hubs did.  Do you have even 75 hubs, picking through your site for the very best ones, that are earning $16.50 X 75 = $1237.50?  I know I don't - at best I might find 10 (out of 120).

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      1. 61

         Xenonlitposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I don't know where your mind is headed, so let me repeat the issue: first, claims of big money that cant be backed up by facts and second, claims of big money from what was clearly a push to use all the features.

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   2. 80

      Uninvited Writerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That is just a suggestion. No one is saying that every single hub must be 1500 words or include what they suggested.

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      1. 90

         rmcrayneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         +++

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   3. 74

      Lissieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      You asked for proof - I gave it to you with some rather large caveats. BTW if you were writing somewhere with up-front payments, you would probably give up your copyright for that payment.
      
      You also said you wanted to make money. If you want to make money on hubpages you will need to do SEO and write product hubs.
      
      If you want to make your name as a writer you need to be developing your own website, building your own brand, promoting yourself in social media, self publishing books and either becoming a successful indie and then, if you want, getting a contract with a publishing house.
      
      I have no problem with poetry - but it won't make you any money here - I didn't look at your writing - I looked at your titles - that was all I needed to know in terms of ranking in search engines.
      
      Your camera post won't do fine = because it won't get found in the search engines - you don't have to promote a particular product - you do need to have titles, sub-titles and content which includes phrases commonly used when people are deciding on what new features they want from a camera.
      
      Time helps - but its not enough by itself. Hoping and waiting has never been a very good business strategy

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   4. 87

      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Mark Knowles wrote a Hub documenting how following those guidelines worked for him:
      
      http://mark-knowles.hubpages.com/hub/Ho … first-page
      
      However, it will only work if you pick the right subject in the first place.  If you've chosen a subject readers aren't searching for, no amount of tittivating will make it successful.  That's the key, really.  Before you start a Hub, ask yourself, "what will people type into a search engine to find this Hub?  Is anyone likely to do so?"
      
      Traffic from other Hubbers won't earn you income, so if you can't think how people could find your Hub via the search engines, no amount of improvement will make it work, because readers will never find it in the first place.
      
      If you have a good subject, making the Hub longer and adding more features will keep the reader on the page longer, which Google likes so it will make your Hub rank higher, bringing in even more readers.

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2. 76

   sofsposted 12 years ago

   This is only an indication of what might work..but does anyone really know what works with Google???.. One really needs to adapt to the way the internet changes if he/she wants to make a living out of writing online. IMHO

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3. 67

   tamronposted 12 years ago

   I can understand your frustration!  My best earners are articles that are 300 to 400 word articles.  I have articles that I have done tons of research,photo illustration and videos that never earn.

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   1. 61

      Xenonlitposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      sofs, I have been around for a while, thank you.
      
      Thanks, tamron. the way that it was written, I was given the impression that ALL of the hubs needed to have all that stuff in them. I do put a poll or video in where it makes sense.
      
      Not that I was going to do that anyway, based on anybody's claims of making big money here.
      
      My expectation has been from reading other people's experience that, at this pace, it will take about 6-8 months to start earning much, unless something goes viral, like at my other sites.

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      1. 74

         Barbara Kayposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         What I have learned so far is that choosing the right keyword phrases is what makes money. The trouble is that half of what you'd like to write about already shows a million other articles written. The competition is just too stiff on most subjects.
         
         I have a 1700 word article with 5 pics and it does almost nothing. Then I have 3 that are around 450 words that do well. Who knows?

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4. 64

   2uesdayposted 12 years ago

   One extra thing to factor into why these example hubs might be 'high achievers' is that they have age on their side too.

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5. 74

   Lissieposted 12 years ago

   OK I'm not great lover of hubpages these days - I don't publish here anymore - but there is an AWFUL lot of mis-information on this thread so I'll try to correct some of it.
   
   I wrote a number of "flagship" hubs back in Dec 07 - Jan 08-  and some of them are my best earners to this day. Some of them never made more than 5c a month.
   
   Yes the length is useful, as is having videos etc (increases time on page). But the most critical thing - keywords - look at the list again - look a the titles - we didn't chose those titles - HP put them up - we wrote them.
   
   Regardless of whether you write 500 words or 5000 - you will never get organic traffic to a hub titled "Summer leaves us with a roar" or even "the hunt for a new camera the balance between features and price"
   
   My current best performing flagship hub made $37 last month (in Adsense alone it usually make about $10 in Amazon as well but that's harder to track).
   
   In total since it was published - its made $650
   
   That's not bad for something that took me a couple of days to research and write.
   
   But don't forget the other 3 or 4 I wrote that have made me probably a total of $10 - and took equally as long.
   
   I've also spent money and time over the years building it backlinks to make sure it keeps it rankings.
   
   But its old - and it was published when HP had some authority with Google. Would I do the same investment today on this site? No.

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   1. 61

      Xenonlitposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Well, Lissie, I don't know what your problem is with poetry, but I'm going to write poetry and title it as I please. 
      
      My biggest creative writing posts collectively bring in over 2,000 views a day, have gotten me published, and have been fine for over four years. They are not published here, that's for sure.
      
      
      I like what 2uesday says. Time works.
      
      The camera post will do fine because it is about a  process and does not hawk a specific camera. I'm not a product hawker.
      
      My biggest posts ever didn't have a hot keyword or seo work  to save their lives. eeeek.

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      1. 83

         psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I don't think she has a problem with it, she is just saying it will not be a top financial earner. Which is probably true.
         
         There are certain things that will cause a hub, on average to earn more.  Whether we use all or none of them is entirely up to us.
         
         Me, I don't like videos.  I would probably earn more if I used them, but... I'm still not going to.

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         1. 61

            Xenonlitposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Videos are a good thing, but I only have three of them so far! It's a whole new world of work, but some people make it look easy.
            
            I do a lot of photos, especially for recipes.

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