Unofficial Hubpages Blog

Turning Your Hubs Into a Book

2013-08-27T07:39:00.004-07:00

This week I published my first book on kindle, it is something that I always wanted to do and to be totally honest with you, it was one of those things that I thought that I would never do.
I have a series of Hubs based on the trenches of World War One and they get a lot of search traffic from schools and colleges as well as from people who are researching the war for other reasons.
Anyway to cut a long story short, I took those Hubs sorted them into chapters and made them into an ebook which is now available here on Amazon
It is easy to set up and easy to publish on kindle and best of all it is free to do so.
Another good thing that is an added bonus is that because it is in an ebook it will not be classed as duplicate content on Hubpages so it gives you more scope to make money from what you write.
Why don't you give it a try too, do you write poetry or recipe's or have a few Hubs in a series you should try it and see if it works for you.
you get 70% of every sale of your book and you get to make the price of your book.
My book is free today 27th of August for one day only so feel free to download it to give yourself an Idea of how your book could look.
Please leave some positive feedback on my Amazon page, for other readers to see, Thankyou.

Chalk And Cheese Hub Accounts

2013-07-25T13:41:00.002-07:00

It was The best of times, it was the worst of times seems to be an apt way to start off this blog post today, with one Hub account soaring in ratings and another account dropping to an all time low.
With 7 Hubs in just over 2 months my new Hub account getting over 800 hits every day and the Hub account that I have had for nearly 7 years which has 342 featured Hubs at an all time low with just over 900 hits a day.
Panda is really taking its toll on my old Hub account and if it keeps going the way it is, I feel that apart from a few select Hubs I will have to delete over 90% of my work and rethink my whole strategy of writing.
Since Panda began the visitors to my old account have slowly but surely fell from over 20000 visitors a day to under 1000 today.
My earnings are just a fraction of what they once were and if I were a business I would be on the brink of filing for bankruptcy.
My new account is soaring and for the past 3 days the earnings from it are actually more than those of my old account by a few cents.

My New Hubpages Account Stats

My Old Hubpages Account Stats

Hubpages really has been good to me over the past few years and I cannot see me quit just because things have become difficult for me, but I do have to come up with a plan to help me try to get back to the position I was in before Panda, If I do find that way I will be sure to let you know.

Hubpges.com Key To Success?

2013-07-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

Six Weeks, Six Hubs and my experimental new Hubpages account is soaring to success.
It seems to me that apart from following Hubages strict new rules and writing guides that the secret to financial success on Hubpages is to specialise in one type of Hub and write it to death.

Hub Stats

Up Up and Away!

Six weeks and I am already making a dollar a day from this account and with only six Hubs so far, this could be the start of a great little earner.

I love to write, I love to write on many different topics and for that reason I will keep my old account going, it still makes me good money, but for my new account I will be sticking to the same topic and hopefully it will show that niche writing is definitely the way forward.

The first Hub of my experiment

New Hubpages Account Update

2013-06-26T16:08:00.000-07:00

Ok so most of you who have seen my blog in the past will know that just over a month ago I created a new Hubpages account http://jamespaterson.hubpages.com/
Yesterday I wrote my 5th hub in that account and passed through the Hubpages "Boot Camp"
Today I will pass my first visitor milestone if thinks keep going they way that they have been and my Hubs have been earning a few cents since publishing my first.
Concentrating on ways to save or make money, my new account seems to be heading in the right direction and all of my New Hubs have a good standing with Google search.
I am not sure though that it is due to them all being similar in topic or if it is because I am almost following the new Hubpages templates to the letter, but what ever it is I am seeing traffic which I did not really expect this early and I hope that it continues to grow.
Maybe a new account is the way to go whilst you update the Hubs on your other account as I have been doing.

Saving Money Making Money I Hope

2013-05-25T11:29:00.001-07:00

I made a new Hubpages account a few days ago, to test if writing on one type of topic would be a better way ahead rather than the mish-mash of Hubs under my main account.

I have written 3 Hubs all dedicated to saving money in my new account and am planning a few more in the next few weeks.

My experiment is to test a long standing Hubpages piece of advice which says that if you have a group of Hubs on one topic you will be considered an expert by search engines and get a higher search result.

Because it is a new account it will probably take a few weeks or even months to see the results come to fruition. Watch this space for the results of my experiment.....jimmy

http://jamespaterson.hubpages.com/http://jamespaterson.hubpages.com/

Hubbers Challenge/Experiment

2013-04-13T06:44:00.002-07:00

The Challenge is on, Travel The World On A Hub will begin on May 1st 2013, Initially the challenge will be for the whole month of May but depending on the success of the experiment it may continue through June and even longer.
After speaking with Hubpages, whom I must add are 100% behind this experiment/challenge and are offering to help in any way that they can we have a few rules that must be followed if this is going to work.
Of course there are also some rules to follow that are always relevant when writing Hubs and if we are going to do this right we all have to follow the guidelines.
It goes without saying that all of the usual rules for writing Hubs apply, original content, original or legal use of images and the correct citing of reused images. Hubs must be at least 500 words and all of the usual Hub Rules are applicable; all of the Hubs written will be subject to the usual Hubpages checks.
There are only really Three main rules for Travel The World On A Hub as discussed with Hubpages and they are all related to linking and tagging the Travel The World On A Hub, Hubs Together.

1) Hubs should only contain one link to one other Hub in the series hopefully written by a different Hubber.
2) When posting a link to another Hub in the series it is recommended that we should add some text to show the reader that your hub is part of a series of Hubs "This article is part of a series in which HubPages community members share insider tips about their hometowns and surrounding area, you can find more articles....."),
3) All Hubs created for the experiment should include the travel and tourism as the main category.

Them's the rules guys not too bad are they?

I have created a new group on Facebook called Hubber Challenge for anyone who would like to take part, there you can post links to your Hubs in the series and claim a Hub to link your Hubs to.
Good luck everyone and roll on May 1st.
For more info click here.

Travel The World On A Hub

2013-04-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

Curiosity is a wonderful thing and it is curiosity that has probably brought you to this page today.
I have been writing on Hubpages for almost seven years now and I have witnessed a lot of great writers lose out on earnings and views simply because Google does not give them a chance to shine.
I am today Throwing down a challenge to every Hubber who would like to try and beat Google at their own game and hopefully between us all we will become a bigger player in Google's strange game.
Ask yourself why are some Hubbers more successful than others and why are some Hubbers earning a lot more money than me or you even though your writing is just as good if not better than theirs.
The answer is actually simpler than you would probably think and that is where my International experiment/ Hubber challenge comes in.

The Hubbers who do best on Hubpages have found a niche topic to write about and they have written multiple Hubs on that topic, Google loves consistency and when they see a list of Hubs by a writer on one topic they shower that writer with love and give them a great spot on their search pages.
My World War One Hubs for example rake in over 1500 hits a bad day from Google between them.

With that in mind, an idea sprung into my head and I thought that it was something that would either work like a charm or sink like a lead balloon.
What if a large group of Hubbers picked out one Topic and wrote Hundreds or even Thousands of Hubs on that same topic?
Of course there are only a few topics that could be covered in this way by a large group of writers and Travel was the first subject that sprung to my mind.

Travel The World On A Hub
Where do you live? No one knows more about a holiday destination than the people who actually live there. They know all of the tourist attractions, best places to eat and where the best hotels are, they also know those little places that tourist would normally not find on a trip there and all of the little secret places that should be experienced more but are rarely visited.

Hubbers come from all around the world and if we could get at least one Hubber involved from every country then we could in reality create a massive travel guide to rival Trip Adviser or the other big travel guides out there.
If a large group of Hubbers got together and wrote a bunch of Hubs show casing their local areas and their surrounding areas we could gain a lot of Google love between us and maybe cut a large slice of of the travel guide market for ourselves.
Hubpages would also be happy because we would be using map capsules, ratings capsules, lists and original pictures in our Hubs.

Linking Hubs if each Hubber only linked one Hub that another Hubber in the group has writen with "Travel The World On A Hub" as the Heading then in reality a user could in fact visit each country written about just by following a link on each Hub.
Please let me know what you think and if you are willing to take part in this hopefully massive experiment.....jimmy.

I am in discussions with Simone on Hubpages at this moment on how best to go about this experiment and Hubpages seem to be excited as I am about it.

The Joys of Writing on Hubpages

2013-03-09T06:28:00.002-08:00

Hubpages is my personal favorite website on the Internet, not only because I make good money from writing here but also because there is a great community of writers who are always on hand to offer advice and friendship when you need it.

The Hubpages staff are also a friendly bunch and very approachable if you have a problem and they will always answer any questions that you ask as soon as is physically possible for them.

I have been writing on Hubpages for over seven years and in that time I have seen many changes to the site and the layout, with these changes the Hubpages staff have kept the site up to date with the latest web trends.

Hubpages is now not only a great site for writers of all ilk’s but it is also a social meeting place for writers from all around the world to communicate and keep in touch with each other.

The biggest change to Hubpages came when Panda, Google’s Atom Bomb, hit the site with full force, almost every Hubber lost views and earnings and for some it was the end of the road.

The staff made a lot of big changes to Hubpages in an attempt to get the Google love back and the changes are still being made to the site today and are ongoing until a solution is found that works for Hubpages and of course the search engines.

People seem to forget that if the authors on Hubpages are losing money that Hubpages is making less money too, after all 40% of the revenue we lose comes out of their pockets too and that is why they will try everything in their power to get Hubpages back to its full potential and back into the top 100 websites in the world where it once was for a few weeks.

I was lucky enough to be accepted on to the Hubpages apprenticeship program and it has improved my writing and awareness of the importance of keywords and Hub promotion.

My own Hub statistics are slowly rising along with my earnings to the numbers I used to get before Panda and I am sure that the changes made by Hubpages are responsible for the increase and I am also sure that if we all stick it out for the long term we will all have a massive increase that is even better than the pre Panda era.

I have been writing on Hubpages for almost seven years and I love writing here, I have total faith that the staff will find a way back to the top, it may take some time, but the long wait will pay dividends to the Authors who stick it out.

Hubpages Apprentice Program

2012-11-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated this blog for a while because I was taking part in the Hub apprentice program which I would recommend to anyone who likes to write.
The Program is hard going but if like me you will put in with a group of people who are supportive and helpful and push you on to write the required 8 hubs every month.
The program helped me massively improving my writing, teaching me about marketing my Hubs and most importantly it taught me about keywords and the importance of choosing the types of topics that I should be writing about for maximum impact.
I had the added bonus of being paid by Hubpages for every Hub that I wrote during the program which boosted my earnings and helped to keep the wolf away from my door.
If you are considering applying for the program I urge you to do so, you will meet new friends and learn the ins and outs of successful writing.

Losing Visitors on Hubs

2012-04-11T14:59:00.001-07:00

In the past few months I have lost over 3000 visitors a day on my entire Hub account normally I wouldn't worry too much about losing visitors as after a while they always come back.
This time though I am not so sure that my visitors will come back, unless I work my butt off and do something about it.
I have been watching my account over this time and I think that I may have found a solution that will hopefully bring my visitors back and hopefully even more.

Looking and studying my statistics over the past couple of months has been an eye opener for me, normally I would just have a quick glance at them just to see if the numbers were increasing or decreasing, but because of the drastic drop this time I have been monitoring them to find patterns.

Which Hubs are losing visitors, which Hubs if any are gaining visitors and which Hubs are keeping a constant flow of visitors.

My Hubs that are losing the most visitors are single Hubs, what I mean by single Hubs is that I have only written one Hub on a certain topic or category.

Hubs that are holding steady are Hubs that I have written in the same category or topic but I have only written 2 or 3 Hubs in that topic or category.

The Hubs That are doing best are Hubs where I have written at least 5 times on the same category or topic, on some of those I have noticed an increase where as others are a constant source of traffic.

The Upside is now that I have found a pattern to my traffic loss it can be fixed it will take a bit of time but it should be worth it in the end, I just have to look at all of my Hubs and write more in the same topics and categories.

There are a lot of Hubbers out there who instead of looking for a solution to dropping traffic go into the forums ranting and raving. For every problem there is a solution, why not check out your Hub Stats and see if you can find a pattern on your Hubs that are losing traffic, Don't waste your time shouting in the forums, if you have a problem find a way to solve it.

Hub Thefts and a New Layout

2012-04-08T10:24:00.001-07:00

Stealing Hubs

There is a Buzz amongst the Authors at Hubpages this week, Hubs are being copied and pasted onto another website, which I will not name here, why advertise theft?
In my experience at Hubpages this has happened before on a few occasions and it will all blow over, it may take a week or 2 but if Hubbers keep filing DMCA complaints against the site and against the site hosts the site will cease to exist, it may not be soon enough for some but it will happen.

New Hub Layout

Hubpages have rolled out a new Hub layout, a big change to the way hubs look and I for one think it is an utter shambles, Fashion and beauty Hubs were the first to be changed to the new format and it makes me wonder what in the hell the Hubstaff were smoking when they decided that it would be a good idea to plaster the bottom of the Hubs with Hundreds of pictures of so called related Hubs, I want to help other Hubbers as much as I can but at what cost to me?, with all of those links to choose from and even more related Hub links at the right hand side of the Hub the ads on my Hubs have very little chance of getting clicked on. Come on Hubpages I am losing visitors and money already don't make me bankrupt.

JimmytheJock

2012-04-05T03:14:00.001-07:00

If you know about Hubpages then you will probably know me from the site, I write under the name Jimmythejock and I have been writing on Hubpages for over 5 years now.
I did keep a blog in my first couple of years on Hubpages but because of work commitments and additions to my family, I let it go by the wayside and slide into the internet archives.
I am now working as a writer full time, forced into it in December 2011 when I was made unemployed.
Don't get me wrong, I started writing as a hobby 5 years ago not even thinking that I would make any money for my efforts but after a few months writing on Hubpages, to my surprise, I started to see real money going into my account.

I have started this Blog today, which I have called the Unofficial Hubpages Blog, To offer advice and help to New writers on Hubpages, to highlight some fantastic writing by fellow authors on Hubpages in a section which will be called featured Hubber of the week, I plan to add a lot more to this blog which hopefully you will have as much fun reading as I do writing it.

If you are a Hubpages Author feel free to shoot me an email if you have any Hubpages questions you would like answered here or if you would like to be one of the featured Hubbers of the week.....Jimmy