Advice for New Hubbers - How To Begin Writing Successfully

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Introduction

I wrote to a friend who had just published her first Hub, giving her advice with making her writing on HubPages a success.

Then I realized it could be useful for any new writer. This is what I sent her...

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I just read your first hub and I think it's great! You are very creative.

Writing can be self-therapeutic for you. But you can also make money from it if you keep writing and learn the methods to monetize your Hubs as we call it.

If you don't mind, I'd like to give you some guidance. If you follow it and allow yourself to learn the proper methods, you will start earning money. It takes time and it takes prudence.

First of all, you want to consider how Google ranks you and a good way to determine that is to watch how HubPages ranks you. Do you see the score Hubpages gave you? You have a score on each of your Hubs, and also an overall score on you profile. They start at 50 and go up or down based on how well your readers respond to your hubs.

Your score and Google’s ranking will be affected by how well readers respond to your Hub. If they stay and read, it shows that they are interested and this means that the article much be of value.

If readers go away real quick then Google will think the information you presented is of no value and they will rank you lower.

The ranking is important because that controls how many people are sent to your Hub when they do a search for the subject.

There are many things that can negatively effect how readers respond. Even if you have a great Hub with useful information, you need to first attract the reader. They don’t know that you have useful info there yet.

The first thing they see is the blob of text before they start reading. So how do you get them to start reading? There are several things to consider…

Keep paragraphs down to 2 or 3 sentences. People don't read when they first see a blob of text. By leaving white space in the article you will find that people stay and read. If they click to your page and see no spaces between paragraphs, they tend to click away without starting to read.

You can also help readers stay with you by giving them some "eye candy." This is no joke! Our eyes need a rest now and then. I’m talking about adding some pictures to your Hub.

Don’t use images that are not related. You want something that helps with interpretation or helps understand the subject better. Also don’t use images from the web that may be copyrighted.

If you do use images that are in the Public Domain or have a Creative Commons License, then give the proper credit. Many image sites like "Flickr" and "Google Images" will indicate how you need to include a credit reference.

Google determines how good your article is by how long people stay on the page. If readers click away in a few seconds then Google thinks your article is of no interest or is not useful. Your ranking will go down.

Another thing that might make people click away is if they run into poorly constructed sentences, poor grammar, or misspellings. You used "alot" a lot. That is not a word. You need to fix it.

Use a spelling checker before you publish your Hub. And proof read it several times. If you are doing this to make money you need to consider it a business. You need to put your complete attention to what you are doing and not take shortcuts just to get something online. It may come back to haunt you and you won’t even know why.

Believe me, I have found the most profound mistakes I’ve made when proofreading after I thought I was finished. We all make mistakes and we need to be professional about it and check out own work before considering it worthy for the public.

When I proofread, I also keep the reader in mind. I think about how it might be interpreted. Sometimes when I read something I wrote I realize it could be misinterpreted. Or worse yet, it could be confusing. Either way, it needs to be refined, redone, rewritten, whatever!

If you feel it is too much effort then you are not being professional about it and that will negatively affect any income you can make out of your writing.

I hope you don't feel intimidated by what I just said and I hope you use it to your advantage.

There are a lot of great Hubbers writing helpful Hubs to guide you. You will need to keep up with those and learn from them to make a good income from your articles. You can find them in the forums and also by clicking on the "Hubbers" tab at the top.

One very useful Hub I found from another Hubber is The Main Mistakes that New Hubbers Make and I highly recommend it.

I literally spend hours reading and learning from other Hubbers. Don't think you can do it all alone. No one can do that. We all learn from one another. I am still learning now!

As for your question about getting Google to pay you…You need to first have a few articles before they will approve you as an affiliate for AdSense. So continue writing original content and improve the ones you wrote.

Don't publish anything you already have somewhere else. Your Hub will be tagged as a duplicate if it is elsewhere on the web. Google will think it is not your original creation. If you see your title under the "Copied Hubs" report under the "My Account" tab, then this means a duplicate has been found. Not a good thing.

Okay, so once you have a few good articles and the scores are over 70 or so, then you can sign up for Google AdSense.

You probably already noticed the ads that are scattered throughout your Hub. Well, since you do not have any Affiliate accounts yet, HubPages is getting paid for all of them.

Once you have an affiliate account with Google AdSense, you can place your affiliate code in the proper field in "Affiliate Settings" under the “Earnings” tab that is under the "My Account" tab. Then you can also apply for the HubPages Earnings Program. They place ads on your Hubs and pay you directly after you accumulate $50. AdSense pays once you reach $100.

I find the Earnings Program pays better. But you still need to apply for AdSense first since HubPages includes AdSense ads. Per their terms with Google you need to be approved by Google for that reason.

You can also apply for eBay under the Earnings Program and place eBay capsules in your Hubs to earn affiliate income from eBay as well.

In case you're wondering how the residuals get split, your affiliate code will be used 60% of the time and HubPages' code is used 40% of the time in your Hubs. That is how you get paid for 60% of the clicks.

The 40% you share with HubPages is the reason why you have so many powerful tools on HubPages that help you be successful at writing. They need to get paid too.

One last thing. Don't click on ads yourself thinking you will generate income. That is against the terms of use for AdSense. You get paid from legitimate readers who have found an ad in your articles that interests them. That's how it works.

When you're ready to apply for AdSense, I wrote a Hub to help you get your account… Steps to Successful AdSense Activation for HubPages

…But remember to wait until you have a good score on at least three Hubs. For now, work on that and you will do well. I see you have it in you. You have a lot to say that can help other people and you express yourself well.

Now that I wrote all this to help you, I realize I just wrote another "Tutorial Hub" that I can share with the HubPages community. You see? When you answer your friends in emails, you might just as well have written an article that you can make into a Hub. How easy is THAT? Just take the time to clean it up and make it work well with its presentation.

I wish you all the success you deserve and I'll be watching and following.

Copyright © 2011 Glenn Stok

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