Freelance writers who hope to make money online have to establish a presence somewhere, and that place is often found in the form of a content mill website. Although the name sounds bad, writing for one could be your best starting point. Several have been around for the past few years, but I have never experienced anything quite like HubPages – and I mean that in a good way.
I began my online writing journey back in 2009 when I literally had no idea what I was doing. I always enjoyed writing and I began to conduct some simple searches to see if I could make some money from it. The first site I came across was Associated Content (which I’m sorry to say is no longer with us). After reading through the guidelines, I decided it was time to submit my first post. You have NO idea I excited I was to get my first offer – a whole $2.17! Yup, I was on the road to be a millionaire (totally kidding).
Choosing HubPages
From 2009 to 2014, I dabbled in some other content mill sites here and there and published more of my online freelance writing work. The articles weren’t anything great, but they did provide me with more opportunities to showcase my work. By the time I signed up for HubPages in March 2014, I felt like I was finally prepared to actually make money from writing online, even if it was only $50 a month (hey, that covers at least one tank of gas).
Why did I choose HubPages?
- Ease of use
- Good Quantcast ranking (millions of viewers every day)
- Strong sense of community
- The ability to write about (almost) anything
I published my first hub (HubPage’s name for an article) and was impressed with how easy the entire process was. After playing around with the modules for a little bit and finding some good pictures through Flickr, I clicked submit and my first masterpiece was complete!
Submitting Your Hub: Easy Breezy
After you submit your hub, it will go into a review process which usually only takes a couple hours, but some people report that it takes up to 48 hours sometimes. You will have no problem getting through the review process as long as you:
- Use good grammar, spelling, and punctuation
- Don’t post spam
- Aren’t inappropriate
- Don’t plagiarize
Once HubPages decides to feature your hub, it will display on your profile page and on the topic page that you listed the hub under. Congratulations! Now the fun begins!
The HubPages Community
I can’t even begin to describe how awesome the HubPages community is. I promise that if you follow a few new hubbers every couple of days, comment on other hubs, and make an effort to write a new post every now and then, you will see HubPages come to life. Although I’ve never met any of my fellow writers in person, I have interacted with some great individuals and have learned so much from reading their work.
HubPages truly is a place to grow as a writer, to expand your knowledge, and to have fun!
Establishing an Online Writing Presence
Now that I’ve been a member of HubPages for a few months, I now have connections with over 100 people that I didn’t before. Not only that, but I also have been ranking well in Google (in fact, my Facebook Online Yard and Garage Sales: An Overview hub consistently ranks on the first page even with 50 million+ results).
These hubs have broadened my readership and I now have people from all over the world looking at my content. Although I had some traffic here and there with other sites I wrote for, I never had any reach the audience that I have with HubPages.
Money? Yes. Easy? No.
The part a lot of people want to know is how much money you can make from HubPages. I honestly wish there was an easy answer to give you, but there just isn’t. Some users claim to make over $1,000 each month while the majority don’t even reach payout (which is $50). Personally, I didn’t reach payout during the first few months, but I also didn’t put forth a lot of effort into creating hubs.
When May came around, I took a chance and wrote an article about selfies, titled the No Selfie Summer Challenge
. Just a few weeks later, this hub was featured on the HubPages homepage and was given two different awards. My traffic boomed during that time and my motivation did as well. I went on a writing spree and easily cranked out four or five hubs each week for a month.
With a little more than 35 hubs published, I had reached my original goal of earning minimum payout for the month. I felt so accomplished and rewarded myself with some frozen yogurt from TCBY (a girl needs her sugar fix after all that work)!
HubPages Encourages Me in Ways Other Sites Didn’t
I could keep writing about all the wonderful things about HubPages, but I’ll spare you and just leave you with a few final thoughts:
- If you stay involved with the online community, make an effort to use SEO, and publish new hubs whenever you get a chance, then you can also be successful there
- HubPages inspired me to create my own site, and I couldn’t be more excited about it
- The knowledge from some of my fellow hubbers is phenomenal – the more I read their work, the more I learn about what it takes to be a successful online freelance writer
Don’t let anything hold you back – chase the write dream!
