Tips 4 Web

This post is part of the Friday Q&A section. Just use the contact form if you want to submit a question.

Christopher asks:

Do you know anything about hubpages.com? Is it a credible source to publish content on and get paid?

Also, can you post content on Hubpages, that you have posted say on your own site?

Yes I am familiar with Hubpages. It is basically a publishing platform where people from around the world can create pages, called hubs, on topics where they have expertise or interest. It is a legitimate website, and yes you can make money with it, because Hubpages will display ads on your hubs, and you earn a percentage of the revenues generated.

How much money can you make there? Well, it depends on how much time and effort you are willing to put into your hubs. I have seen people who make over $1,000 monthly from their hubs. But then again they have hundreds (if not thousands) of these.

Do I think this is a solid business model to make money? No.

First and foremost because you won’t own the hubs you will create. You will retain the copyrights over the content you write, but Hubpages owns the hubs, so they control the traffic, the brand, the backlinks and the revenues, and then they share a part of it with you.

A much better strategy is to publish your content on a platform you own, for example on a website or blog. This will give you complete control over the elements involved. For instance, you would be able to sell the website in the future if you decide to. The same is not true with your Hubpage hubs.

Does this mean that Hubpages is useless? Not at all. Just like any online platform, it can be used to promote your own online properties. For instance, many online marketers use Hubpages to build backlinks. All you need is to create some pages on topics relevant to your main website or blog, and then link back to it as a resource for people looking for more information. The only detail to pay attention on is your Hubscore (a kind of quality score assigned to all accounts). You need to have a quality score of 75 or higher if you want the links inside your hubs to be followed.

Finally, try to avoid creating hubs with the same content that is already published on your website. This is called duplicate content, and it might get you in trouble with Google if you do this in mass scale. The best thing is to create new and unique content for every marketing activity you will carry out online (e.g., hubpages, article marketing, social media marketing and so on).

Source
Making Money with Hubpages (Or Not)

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This is a guest post by CMP. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

A lot of people want to make money blogging, and a most of these people will fail miserably. There are 1000 reasons why this happens (and happens so often), but I find that one of the most common reasons a blog fails is because of the subject it is about.

No, not because you picked a subject that is way over saturated. And no, not because you picked a subject that is hard to monetize. What I am talking about here is when you pick a subject that you, the writer, have no business writing about in the first place.

You see, the number of people with blogs about a subject they either have no real interest in, no real passion for, no real experience with, no real knowledge about, or any combination of the four, is, quite frankly, pretty freaking insane. And hilarious.

Seriously, do you have any idea how many blogs there are about “making money online” that are written by people who have never made a cent online? Or how many blogs there are about “blogging” that are written by people who don’t actually have anything close to a successful blog? It’s kinda like a fat guy writing about weight loss. They lack significant knowledge about it, and they certainly lack first hand experience with it, but they see other people blogging about it successfully and making decent money, so they decide to try it too.

I mean, if it works for these people, it will surely work for you, right?

The obvious problem (well, obvious to me at least) is that you don’t actually have any knowledge about or experience with the subject. And, no matter how talented of a writer you may think you are, this tends to come through to your readers. You’d be surprised at just how easy it is to tell when you are reading something written by someone who is truly knowledgeable about a subject, and when you are reading something written by someone who is mostly just rewriting stuff they’ve learned from someone who actually IS knowledgeable about the subject.

It’s a big difference, and it’s usually quite noticeable. The result? Your blog will probably fail. People seeking information want to get that information from someone who is truly qualified to give it. You aren’t, and they will most likely notice.

It’s also entirely possible to be knowledgeable about a subject, but still not really be interested in it or passionate about it. This will again come through to your readers, but the even bigger problem here is that one of the keys to having a successful blog is time. It is extremely rare (you might as well read that as “impossible”) to see a blog become a success overnight. As I’m sure has been mentioned on Daily Blog Tips before, it takes time. In some cases, lots of time. And, if what you are blogging about isn’t something you are truly passionate about and interested in, guess what? This will be the slowest passing time you’ve ever experienced in your life.

In most cases, you will completely lose interest long before that time is ever reached. The result? Your blog will probably fail. You can’t fake passion, at least not long term. You may be able to fool your visitors for a while, but you won’t be able to fool yourself.

In the end, it’s pretty simple. Blog about a subject that you are at least somewhat knowledgeable about, and a large amount passionate about. If you don’t, you are putting your blog in a position to fail from day 1.

So the question now is, how do you find this magical blog subject that fits the above description? Well, there’s a few ways, but here’s my personal favorite tip:

Go to your family and close friends and present them with this question: If they had a problem of some kind, something that they needed help with, something they couldn’t figure out, something they didn’t understand, something they had questions about… what would make them say “Hey, I need to call [insert your name here]!”

The responses they give should give you a really good idea of the kind of stuff you should be blogging about. And once you have that, you’re set. Only 999 other possible reasons for why your blog will fail. Look on the bright side though. At least you’re starting off in a position to succeed. Many people don’t even have that.

CMP blogs about blogging, internet marketing, and making money online over at Create Market Profit. Amazingly though, these are all subjects he actually has some knowledge about and passion for. Who would have thought?

Source
Are You Sure That Niche is Right for You?

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