Awhile ago I tried a Hubpages challenge, to get Hubpages making me real money within a short space of time. Unfortunately it was started just before the Panda update, which hit Hubpages hard, as a result I was forced to abandon it for more fruitful endeavours. Awhile back I read about the Hubpages inhouse ads program, and how it could be used to make money. Intrigued I logged into Hubpages and promptly forgot about it. I received a couple of payments, but for some reason this didn't click. Then, about a week ago, I signed into my Hubpages account looking for something specific that had nothing to do with money. Which meant I was pleasantly surprised to see that my hubpages hubs were again getting some pretty good traffic and making money. Not huge amounts, sure, but enough that I was interested. The Hubpages Hubs are paid on a CPM basis (they ask people not to reveal what CPM they get, but suffice to say it is very good compared to most programs). This means if you are good at driving traffic, or SEO, then you can make some good money. The New Challenge So I thought I would try again, give a new Hubpages challenge a bash. This one is going to be a little different though. I now run plenty of sites where I am chasing keywords that have no interest to me but can make money, and I am writing about them constantly. What I want is something of a break from that. Which is where this Hubpage challenge comes in. I'll still be looking up keywords, but my target need is lower as I will be targeting a niche (within the gaming niche) that interests me. It has lower search volume than I would normally go for, and lower CPM (I'm guessing), but this is personal rather than strictly business. The aim is simple - to make money from writing about a niche I love, and doing it through Hubpages. What I'll be doing Creating a minimum of 3 Hubs a Day NO Backlinking other than interlinking between the hubs Targeting keywords between 100 and 1,000 monthly searches, but with low competition Using numerous keywords per article My aim, initially, is to try get to $10 a day as quickly as possible. I'll be documenting my efforts here so that others can see. For those that want to make money this way - you are far better suited to targeting low competition, high volume keywords rather than going down my route. I would strongly expect this case study to be a case of the lowest that anyone can expect to be earning, anyone with sense should be able to earn far more than I will. Where I stand I've already started acting on this (as of a few days ago) via a new hubpages account. At time of writing I have roughly 20 Hubs making about $0.20 a day. Not much but these have only just gone on so I would expect their SERPs position to improve in the next few weeks (especially with interlinking). I'll be updating as to how I am doing fairly frequently.
That's rather the point of what I am doing! But rather than talk about previous money made (since you will know little of amount of work done, what was targeted and not etc), I thought the case study would be a way for people to see more.
Next step. Since writing that post I have got my articles up to 25. It would be 26 but oddly one of my hubs was flagged as having the wrong category/tags...which makes no sense as I wasn't trying to game the system and made everything relevant. It was an indepth look in finding something specific in the game and can see no reason it was flagged. It's been resubmitted - first time I've ever had to do that. I have about 3 more ready to go live when I finish tweaking at some point this evening. Currently making just shy of $0.30 a day with them. Not a massive increase I'll grant you, but the SERPs for a number are still slowly increasing, with most having edges to top of page 2/bottom of page 1 and are still heading in the right direction, so I'm hopeful on increasing them. Cross linking is also helping a lot - with many people arriving clicking a link to another hub, so at least doubling the page views they would normally have given. As more and more hubs get put up this should increase exponentially as I will have more hubs to link to, and more simply spend time browsing through them (I am aiming to ensure I have at least 2 hub links inside the first couple of paragraphs and another at the end of the hub). I also put one link to my own site in the hubs (I have started a blog and forum on the subject), and I'm currently seeing about 10 a day clicking through to my own forums (which I am pretty much only linking to atm to try increase the user base/membership), which is an added bonus. No new sign ups from hubpages as yet though. All in all, going in the right direction - it's just a case of keep on pinging them out there!
I have all my hubpages accounts (I have about 4, one of which I am debating including in this effort as it might speed things up a bit) linked in to one google analytics section. From what I can see roughly 60% of the traffic I got was from the US (UK 2nd with 10%, Canada and Australia joint 3rd with about 6% each) I'm guessing this varies from person to person, but I hope what I'm seeing helps!
do these hubpages you make rank good in google Nick? and another question, do you put backlinks on them for some other external page?
I'm afraid I have to sit on the fence here. Some rank well, others don't. Obviously a big part is to do with the SEO strength of the opposition. I find that they will rank in the top 3 for weak keywords without any backlinking (something that at this stage my own site doesn't), which makes it very useful for that. Yes, I constantly put on 1 backlink to my own site in each hub. You can put up to two to one site per hub, not sure about the limit of the amount of sites you can link to per hub though.
i think it's 3 per hub, similar to that of ezine. Anyways, I'm looking forward to this thread for your updates. Let's hope you make good money.
Cheers for that. These hubs are focussed on one niche that I started a blog and forum in so will try limit the outbound links so they pass on more link juice, but useful for other hubs I make Good info
Latest Update: up to 30 hubs, no update on earnings as Hubpages hasn't updated that for me as yet I'm adding in another hubpages account I have to this challenge. It currently has 21 hubs and is making about $0.60 a day. I decided to add this in as obviously the main niche I am aiming at is not well paying and I want to show people who much money can be earned (if any), and the 3 niches (loosely linked) on this account is far better paid and capable of getting far more traffic than the very small niche the original account is aimed at. The rankings for it aren't great but it's getting some useful long tail traffic. This account never really targeted the 'low hanging fruit' and was just created for the backlinks it could give, so this is useful extra money...from now on I will be chasing more low hanging fruit so hope to boost the traffic and income far better. The reason I'm using money NOT traffic is because Hubpages doesn't like you showing your CPM rate, and let's be honest here - all of us care about the cash, which, after all, is the focus of why we are working online. That means I'll be breaking down my earnings into over all/niche 1 (small niche)/niche 2 (multiple larger niches). Currently Micro Niche Account 1 - 30 hubs, $0.30 a day Broad Niche Account 2 - 21 hubs, $0.60 a day Total = 51 hubs, $0.90 a day Need just a $0.10 increase to get up to $1 a day. That's my first mini target that should easily be hit by the middle of the week. The overall bigger target is $10 a day - no time frame on that as yet, but I would hope within 6-7 weeks.
I had a couple of PMs asking me how long it takes me to make a Hub...basically wondering if this is my main focus. Far from it in fact. My main focus is still a combination of writing work here on DP and, of course, my own sites. In the micro niche I know it inside and out and so need very little research time. I can knock out 3 in about an hour with no problems what so ever. In the broader niches I am far less of an expert, though still know it a bit, so more research is required. I usually manage 2 in an hour there I do have other hubpages accounts focussed on different niches, some I know, some I don't, which means this is not my only hubpages income (I actually make more money from those, but they have far more hubs). On subjects I don't know at all, but like the keyword, I can get a hub done in about 40-45 minutes. It would be quicker if I was prepared to just shove out anything, but I want to ensure that people reading the hubs gain as much info as possible. For the sake of this challenge I will be aiming for 3 hubs in the micro niche (so 1 hour) and 2 hubs in the broader niches (so 1 hour), making it a total of 5 hubs a day, so roughly 2 hours work a day. Right now, at just shy of $1 a day, that's hardly worth anything at all - you'd probably make more money picking up change on the streets. But I'm hopeful this will improve, and remember that any work you do now is residual income. So whilst a new hub may only add $.03 a day (on the better paying broader niche $0.60 a day / 20 hubs), that's $0.90 a month, or $11.80 over a year - and will continue for years to come - as well as being able to pass on traffic and link juice to my own sites. Of course that hub has to get traffic. I don't imagine all will, but others will be getting more than that as well so I'm hopeful it will average out.
Latest Update: slow couple of days, only added 4 hubs since yesterday morning - mostly as I was working on other hubs for clients thanks to my new offer. Good news is that I ALMOST beat the $1 a day barrier, $0.97 yesterday. Given that I have added that new account it would probably be easier for people to take the starting point as being roughly $1 a day. Which is a good start. My main target now I think about it is to be making $25 a day on recurring income, as this will allow me to have a 'set and forget' policy which will be paying my rent every month.
Hi there, I wanted to ask: wouldn't you better off by concentrating on the quality of your content instead of the quantity? Just saying.
That depends. I feel I can offer quality content as well as quantity. This isn't like I am trying to spam 20 or so in a day, 5 is very easily manageable for quality - especially on subjects that you know well so can write in depth and at speed. For instance (and this has nothing to do with my hubs), I could easily write 2 rather long hubs on the problems with Welsh rugby inside an hour, that would be significantly better than some of the awful paid journalism we get in Wales (thank you Western Mail). Getting content done regularly and in decent time doesn't automatically mean poor quality hubs.
Today. Quick update. Small Niche Account: 32 Hubs, only 2 added since last proper update. $0.31 yesterday Broad Niche Account: 30 Hubs, increase of 9 since last proper update. $0.70 yesterday Total yesterday = $1.01 First 1 Dollar Day!
I was quoting from my experience in article syndication and how I am more likely to get more quality results by writing one 1000 word article instead of two 500 word articles. I was considering whether or not the same principle applies to hubpages. Best of luck on your ventures.
The advantage of article syndication is that people are picking it up, and so are far more likely to pick up a longer article, which then garners backlinks and traffic. With Hubpages that won't happen, so you are writing firstly for search engine traffic (the views are what gain you money), then readers. So the needs on length are somewhat different That said there still needs to be quality, like you are suggesting I don't agree with spamming out rubbish articles. Thanks for the good luck wishes Got to admit, article syndication is something I have only toyed with, but something I am interested in learning more about. The target here is to get this to $10 a day to begin with, and then examine if it is worth it or whether to try a new experiment, it could well be that syndication is the new step I take (though I am thinking of the next one being a look at getting a new site earning money with plenty of articles in a similar way to using Hubpages here)
My apologies for going missing on this thread - I fell off the pace somewhat after going through a tough personal time, I won't go into details here but suffice to say I wouldn't wish it on anybody. So where are we at currently? Like this thread my hub creation has fallen off dramatically, for much the same reason. Disappointingly one of my hubpages accounts has had some dramatic falls in traffic and SERPS. The other one (the one that started this) is, however, going strong. So what that gives us is Small Niche Account - 35 hubs - $0.75 yesterday Broad Niche Account - 30 hubs - $0.35 yesterday Last week there was also $5 made from Amazon So hub numbers pretty much as you were, and so is income, difference being the two hubs have switched places in which is making the money! But now we'll be back to updating them again on a daily basis this should get kicked into gear and we'll be looking at upping the income consistently It's obvious this won't be a major money earner any time soon, but it could well be a useful side income, plus a very useful source of links to other projects