An Honest Review - Making Money On-Line with Hubpages

This article is a raw summary of how making money on-line really works, using myself as a case study. I am writing the information I was looking for when I began. I intend to show the truth of what money is to be made and how much time and effort is needed, as well as tips and links to information to help anyone willing to give it a go. Theoretically it is actually possible to make money on-line, writing on Hubpages or any of the sites set up for this purpose.

It's free to sign up, so it is actually making money on-line from nothing!

So as the year comes to a close, I return to the place I left when my year started. After spending a few months writing on Hubpages in the beginning of the year, I had lost hope, and interest, and gave my time to other things. I became disillusioned as to why I had begun writing on Hubpages, and life became busy. I love writing, and enjoy the community here so I am intent on continuing.

The theory of course is that people read what you write, and if they click on a Google ad, you get a portion of the money the advertiser pays for the click. You can also get commissions on sales if you advertise products eg. Amazon products.

How much traffic your articles get therefore becomes an obsession, and it became mine.

I have had a motivation redirection. I think my loss of direction came when I became obsessive over clicks, page views and backlinking. This is the reason for my first tip. I am posting this as it is hard to find plain truth as how much money you can make on Hubpages. It is funny that the topic of how to make money writing on Hubpages is actually a hot topic for actually making money on Hubpages!

Tip No 1 – Enjoy your writing, don't stress about the statistics it will burn you out and cramp your creativity

Well the reason my attention returned was that google sent me a letter with information regarding activating my account for payment. My sarcastic and unbelieving husband scoffed and laughed that they would be after me to pay them....

Well I logged in to google and saw that my 13 hubs had earned me almost $10 this year. So Google Adsense does pay money. I write this knowing that this is exactly the information I was looking for when I started out. I have heard it said that you should find out how to make a dollar and then just do that one million times, so theoretically I had shown that it is possible to make money writing on Hubpages.

Hubpages isn't the only way to make money writing web content. There are many social networking sites and the income is increased if you can direct traffic to your own webpage, and the more content the more potential for income. The problem I had is that the end didn't justify the time I spent. This was a personal decision. My motivation now has to be personal development and sharing information.

Many reading this will be thinking that I mustn’t know all the ways you can maximise traffic to your web page. I do, and I did. If you don't know, here is a list of ways to increase your google ranking - I linked to a number of social networking sites including She Told Me. I also submitted my RSS feed to a multitude of sites. I following the guidelines regarding writing a good hub, making sure to include video, photo's, links and writing good and lengthy articles. I also used Google Adword tools to conduct keyword analysis to maximise google rankings. I even managed to beat the google machine and make page one.

Looking at my statistics, this is what I found. Most of my traffic is coming from Google and Hubpages. The hubs which are receiving the most traffic are those which are written from my heart, and those which are on subjects based on keyword analysis. My top article was written out of a genuine motivation to help others, then used the methods indicated above to help direct traffic to the page. The response to this, and number of views is about nine times that of the second, third and fourth most popular article I have written.

There is another article written purely on keyword analysis and in order to optimise search engine ranking. I had written it as a sample to apply for freelance work, and decided to post it just because it was there and going to waste otherwise. It was on the first page of Google for quite some time and last time I looked it is at the top of the second page.  So it is possible to get on the first page of Google.

Well what about earnings? What made the most money? The cents came in slowly but unpredictably. My top traffic sight was a minor performer, earning 44 cents. Then there is the article I wrote on anti-ageing products which I thought wouldn't get a look in with the competition for those keywords, but somehow it got a couple of clicks. Getting on the first page of Google earned me nothing.

I am unable to work out any rhyme or reason for why some articles performed better than others. This leads me to my second tip;

Tip No.2 – Write about what you know, and have a passion for

A lot of the articles I have written I had to research the information. This takes a lot of time, whereas the ones which I wrote from knowledge I already had took less. When you are trying to work up the quantity of content necessary to earn some pocket money you don't want to waste too much time trying to find a keyword no-one else has thought of and trying to learn enough for an article.

I don't think the work I put into backlinking and on keyword research was a waste either. I do have searchability on a couple of articles. The problem I had was the obsessing over the statistics to try to work out what was better. As search engines also work over time, these techniques need time to show their value.

Tip No. 3 – Use Adsense Keyword Tools, and Backlinking, but don't stress the small stuff.

You see many of the sites which get traffic and good Google ranking but little clicks are perfect to start adding Amazon and Ebay products, which is another way to earn money writing on Hubpages which I haven't followed as yet. The Moses Basket Sheet article would be perfect, offering an easy purchase for someone searching for that reason. I might give that a go next year.

Tip No 4 - Some articles are better for clicks, and some for on-line sales

The only thing I haven't tried is actually gearing my site for people to click. That is when you write an article with the keywords necessary to have searchability, but written so the person reading will not find what they want but there might be a more appropriate Google Ad they will click on. I could never bring myself to do this, but it is valid and some have found success.

If you look into backlinking, many of the sites you can use to link to also pay adsense, and the feed submitters will pay adsense for feeds as well. Although my contribution has been minimal it hasn't given me a cent and linking through these sites has been only useful for searchability.

Hubpages, as well as other social networking sites also have rewards for referrals. If someone joins Hubpages through your referral you earn a small percentage of that persons earnings. Also, if you link to other articles on Hubpages which leads to a click then you can earn a percentage of that also. This is why there are many articles on the web on earning money on-line offering links to all the relevant sites.

There is other possibilities I have already alluded to. Setting up your own web page means you earn more of the percentage of clicks, and there are other advertisers besides Google who will pay per click, and some even pay per page view. The advantages of Hubpages is that it already has searchability you can't get for years when you start your own page. If you are in for the long term you need to write now for the future.

So what about me now? Well, as I said at the beginning it has all become about motivation for me. I am going to enjoy writing and not get bogged down in worrying about making money which wasn't the reason I started to begin. Above all else, it's a great hobby that I really love. If some pocket money comes in from Google then that's a bonus! If you haven't joined already, why not give it a go. Hubpages is not a scam, it is a genuine community of writers, and a fun place to be!