Hubpages Success

It has been a while since I posted here, and I apologize for that. As you can imagine, I have been extremely busy with my store starting to get ready for the holidays and also working on a very large commissioned project.

In the meantime, however, I have not been idle online. I can report wholehearted success on my Hubpages experiment. I have been extremely happy with the success I have found on Hubpages creating focused articles. I have been working with articles mostly focused towards increasing my Adsense revenue, and have hit my very first payout. You can read about it in this Hubpages blog post. But what I wanted to let everyone know is that now started, my Adsense income is increasing exponentially. Every day my average daily income on Adsense goes up significantly and I expect my second payout in no more than two months, maybe one.
Hubpages has had another benefit which is helping me understand keywords and SEO even better than I did before. If you are not already on this site, I recommend that you write 10 to 15 hubs to get a better feel for how to write a focused article. You can really tell how you do by the Adsense ads that get placed on your article. If they are not related, then your article is not focused enough. (You do have to give Adsense a few hours to scan the article properly).

Another thing that has happened recently, is that I have joined the Fresh Wonders network on Ning which is a combination of the Fresh Squids and the WiWon Team both run by lensmaster a_Willow. Willow joined Squidoo about the same time I did and we became Giant Squids at the same time. She has taken her time on Squidoo, and become a very successful mentor for new squids, and for squids trying to become Giant. I am thrilled to become part of this network, and invite you to apply if you are serious about Squidoo.

You do have to apply, not everyone can get in. To find out more about this terrific network, read this lens Fresh Squids Moving to Ning!.

I will be posting weekly blog posts there that are a little more geared to newer lensmasters than the blog posts here.

My last note is to make sure that everyone is aware of the Squidoo Charity Cookoff. Squidoo is giving away money during November to charities that are on their charity list. You can help by creating a charity recipe lens. Here is my contribution: Thanksgiving Menu Ideas: Pumpkin Spice Biscotti. I urge you to join in and make a lens. You are welcome to post a link to your charity lens for the Squidoo Charity Cookoff in the comments to this post.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Hubpages Report - October 2009

I have steadily been publishing hubs since mid June of this year. Before that, I only had a few. Now that I am more comfortable with the site, I have found that I really like using it. It is very straight forward and easy to write articles on because it is so streamlined. The only thing I have to focus on is what my topic is, and how best to use the keywords that will attract people to it. I have been publishing a few hubs per week for several weeks now. I now have 74 hubs and I have deleted a couple of my very early efforts. One because it was not really a very good article, and really couldn't be fixed. Another because it relied on Youtube videos that are now not available. I have about 100 hits a day, and make something on Adsense about 14 out of 15 days. My average Adsense income as of today is about $20 per month, but it is steadily increasing.

For those of you looking for an alternative to Squidoo for writing, or just want to spread out your writing, I highly recommend Hubpages. Before Hubpages, my Adsense income was dripping along, $1 or so per month. Now I understand it much better, and am earning more on all my Adsense sites, although Hubpages is by far the best. Hubpages also is adding to my Amazon and eBay income.

If you have any Hubpages questions as related to Squidoo, feel free to contact me to ask them. I will answer what I can and refer you to someone better if I can't. If you would like to take a tour of Hubpages to get a better sense of the site, click here.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Hubpages Progress

I am two thirds the way through my Hubpages Hubchallenge, to write 30 hubs in 30 days. I think that I will make it, but even if I do it in 31 or 32 days, I still plan to write 30 hubs.

I have to say that I am pleased with the outcome of this experiment so far. I have been getting adsense income about 4 out of 7 days a week so far. I have had numerous clicks on Amazon, and some sales, and today I got a sale on Shareasale which is one of the affiliate companies that I am signed up for. I am only getting about 550 pageviews per week so far, and many of the pages are brand new, so I am sure that all of this will go up as the pages mature, and I have more of them.

The Hubpages Community has been quite helpful and supportive, although it has not been hard to figure things out.

Hubpages forces a person to be more focused on their pages. Since you are only allowed two affiliate links per page, I have chosen on any given page to have both of them go to the same company, one at the beginning and one near the end of the page. In addition, I can add products from Ebay and Amazon.

I understand that some Hubbers are having trouble being accepted as an Adsense or EPN associate. I already had a well established though not very productive Adsense account from Blogger, and had no problems with EPN. If nothing else, I am learning how to use the Adwords Keyword tool better, and understand the SEO information better, which can then translate both to Squidoo and any other site I use including my main website Lake Erie Artists Gallery.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Day 1: Taking the Hub Challenge

I have decided to take the 30 Day Hub Challenge which is to write one Hub each day for 30 days. I had already decided that I wanted to focus my attention for one month on each of my income streams to increase them and stabilize them. Since Hubpages already had a month long program, I chose to work on that site first.

You can read my reasons in my first challenge hub, My Art Gallery Business (or Why I Have Joined the 30 Day Hub Challenge), but Hubpages is providing me a growing regular income through Adsense, and there is a lot of potential there.

So at the end of each post on this blog, I will attach my newest hub for you to peruse. We will see how much it increases my income by September 15.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Learning a Lot Through My Hubpages Experience

Inventions that Changed the World - Microscope Art Print

As I have already mentioned, I have been spending some time getting to know Hubpages. I have to admit that learning Hubpages is way easier than it was to learn Squidoo only because I already was extremely familiar with Squidoo. It made the learning curve much smoother on Hubpages.

That being said, Hubpages is very different than Squidoo, and lensmasters can learn a lot about better lens writing from creating a few hubs. One terrific clue that I learned is that your Adsense ads reflect your hubs keywords closely, so you can see if you have conveyed your keywords properly by the ads that show up. They show up pretty quickly after you publish, usually within 15 minutes or less. The first ads that show up are the default ads, then if you refresh the page a few minutes later, you will see the real contextual ads.

Because you earn money differently on Hubpages, it is a great complementary site to work on if you are ready to explore another site. You also have to be a better writer to make it work for you. And by better writer, I don't mean that you have to be a novelist or poet, but someone who writes down focused ideas that clearly state and expound on a topic. Just like lenses, hubs work best when they are narrowly focused.

If nothing else, writing on Hubpages is good writing practice. I think that I will be a better lensmaster having spent some concentrated time on Hubpages.

Now that we know that tag pages are once again searchable on Squidoo, it is even more important that you choose your keywords and tags with care, focusing on the most search topic that relates to your lens. Think of it like a microscope, focusing ever tighter to bring the slide into clarity so that you can view it better. That is what you need to do with each and every lens that you write.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

On Helium's HomePage

Well, I was totally astonished this morning to find out that one of my articles had made it to Helium's homepage. Very cool.

My real life has taken me away from the computer somewhat over the last few weeks, and some of the deadlines that I had created for myself have not been met. I need to really buckle down this month to catch up.

My traffic has been down on Squidoo lately. I am not really sure why although I would guess that summer is not a big time for people to be glued to the computer. But just to make sure that I am taking advantage of all my options, I am currently looking at every lens and checking the keywords and SEO. Some are over a year old and haven't been overhauled, and I am working on that.

In the meantime, though, my Hubpages are doing quite nicely. I only have 21 hubs so far, but they are getting regular increasing traffic, and regular clicks on Adsense ads. So I have a few more hubs planned and will most likely write them tonight or tomorrow.

Back to Squidoo, there is a new internship being offered. If you want to apply, you have until August 10.

Where are you finding success online these days? List your successes here!


You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Changes at Ebay

I know that right now a lot of people are in an uproar about the changes at EPN which is Ebay's affiliate network. For those that don't know, Ebay has made changes in it's TOS that may mean that Hubpages Ebay capsules, and Squidoo Ebay modules will have to be changed or deleted.

I am confident that we will hear from the staff on both sites before August 1, which is when existing affiliates need to change their links. There is discussion about this on forums on both SquidU and Hubpages.

I am going to wait to make any adjustments until I am totally sure I need to do so. The instructions from Ebay have been a bit vague so far, so I am going to wait until they are clarified. I recommend that everyone else do the same.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Report on Hubpages

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been spending some time on Hubpages. This is a progress report of what I am doing there.

It took me a few hubs to get the hang of writing a hub. One indicator of how focused your hub is, is the Adsense ads that show up on your hub after an hour or so of publishing. If you have written your hub efficiently, the ads will be related to the topic you have written about. So for instance, on my newest hub, Why Severus Snape is My Favorite Harry Potter Character, you will see that the Adsense ads are related to Harry Potter topics, mostly about the new movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I think that it is a quicker process for me to write a hub, because they are mostly text, and it is just a matter of writing a densely written, and informative hub with good keywords. The next trick is to figure out the best way to make them profitable which we can through appropriate links, and products.

As Squidoo lensmasters, we can learn something from writing hubs that we can take back to Squidoo. That lesson is that although Squidoo offers us lots more modules to add to our lenses, we still need to write an efficient, densely written lens to get the proper traffic, and purchases from our lenses. So I am going back to my lenses with my new Hubpages experience in mind to see how I can take my existing lenses and improve the writing on them to improve the traffic and purchases.

Janet21 is an expert on this, and if you haven't seen her interview by Glen on Lensroll, I would definitely take the time to read through it. It has some great tips that Janet has implemented.

In the meantime, Hubpages is a great place to supplement the income you are getting on Squidoo. You can even send people from one site to the other via a link to related articles that you have.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Been Spending Some Time on Hubpages Lately

It's been a few days since I have posted to this blog. Things have been a bit busy in RL (real life). Amazing how life can take us away from our virtual reality.

I have been concentrating some time on Hubpages lately. I wanted to develop my relationship with the site more deeply, and really see what writing hubs is all about.

Since the last time I checked in, Hubpages seems to have gone through some changes, the biggest being a really nice forum, somewhat similar to SquidU. This is helpful for newbies like myself who really need some help understanding the nuances of the site. I think that my favorite feature of Hubpages is the Hubtivity link which lists all of the activity taking place in any of the areas that you have shown an interest. You show an interest by posting in a forum, or becoming a fan of a hubber, or commenting on a hub.

To really test the site out, I have decided to do a series of hubs called How to Artist. This series is aimed towards artists and crafters who are looking for practical guidelines for the business side of their art. I will keep you posted on the success of this series.

Hubpages is a different animal than Squidoo. It is more similar to an article writing site, with the ability to place pictures and related ads. The site has many more restrictions for writing the hubs which makes them more text driven, and less interactive than Squidoo lenses. Hubtivity is what replaces the Duel modules, and other interactive conversation modules on Hubpages.

I think that Squidoo is much more adaptive and flexible, easier to be creative. But there is an active Hubber community to tap with good solid writing.

I think if you check out Hubpages, you will be surprised at how many familiar faces you will find there. Here is the link to my profile on Hubpages: lakeerieartists on Hubpages. The only real way to check it out is to, well, check it out.

I have also recently started a brand new blog Working Artists Life that is geared toward giving advice to artists who make a living, either part time or full time from their art. Feel free to join me there.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Don't Put Your Internet Eggs All in One Basket

We always hear that in business we should diversify. That is true in internet business too. You should not count on just one income stream to sustain you.

Start with one stream, and once you get that going, then start another one, and so on. For example, since we are all lensmasters on Squidoo, we either have or are trying to have an income stream on Squidoo. And that is great! What I am saying is while that one is growing, go ahead and start another income stream.

There are other websites available for you to make money on that would appeal to people who like Squidoo. None of them are exactly like Squidoo, but some have similar elements.

Helium and Associated Content are both article writing sites. You can earn money from them and develop ideas that will lend themselves to expansion into Squidoo lenses. Another site is Hubpages, which has some similarities to Squidoo. What you will find is your fans will find you in all of the locations. You can write related pieces on different sites. For more information on these other sites, follow the links in this post.

Use Article Writing Sites to Create Backlinks With Context

Creating backlinks to your lens or site will drive traffic to it. It will also increase the "authority" of the site to Google and other search engines. Authority basically means that it becomes more important.

There are numerous other article writing sites online that allow you to write on any topic similar to Squidoo. However, each one has different rules on usage. These sites are also there to make money for themselves and sometime can include ways for you to make money too. Most of them will not like being used blatently to drive traffic to Squidoo, but you can do it in a more subtle manner.

Here are a few examples:

Hubpages--Hubpages is probably the most similar to Squidoo. You can write articles on any topic, and you can earn money through Amazon, Ebay, Adsense, and Kontera on your Hubs. Do not put more than one direct link to your Squidoo lens in your hub. But you can write about your topic, sell similar products, and put that one link in. Don't copy your lens, either. Write something different about your topic. Then you can put a "for more information, go here".

Bukisa--Bukisa is a new article writing site that you can write short 2 to 3 paragraph articles on. Still in beta but easy to use. You can earn some money through revenue sharing.

Associated Content--Associated Content is a well established site that is a great place to publish articles. Lots of ways to make money here.

Zimbio--Zimbio is a cool site with many features. It is not a revenue sharing site. You can put your lensmaster feed here, and write unique articles as well.

There are numerous other sites out there, but these are an excellent start. Pick one or two of them, increase your exposure, create quality backlinks, and earn some more money while you are at it.