This guest post was written by Nelle Hoxie who has become one of the most prolific eBay Hubbers that HubPages has ever seen. This is a post that I asked her to write based upon what she’s learned after publishing 33 eBay-focused Hubs over the a span of 30 days and generating $95.02 in earnings as a result. Nelle is the real deal and if you would like to catch up with her you can currently find her neck-deep in the November Hub Challenge.

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This was my first serious month of promoting Ebay – prior to this I just stuck an Ebay capsule on the end of my 200 Amazon hubs. The result was that I made about $10 each month. Actively promoting Ebay this month, I made $95.02 on 33 Ebay hubs.

Ebay also made substantial changes to its program this month, it is now a pay-per-click program instead of paying a commission (which is known as Quality Click Pricing). The first thing you have to learn is that what you’re paid per click will be determined by the value of the traffic that you send to Ebay. Of course the traffic has to convert and lead to a sale, but that sale will have more value in Ebay’s eyes, if it is from someone who has never shopped on Ebay before. And while the Ebay has a 7-day cookie, a sale that results in the beginning of the cookie will be valued more than a sale that occurs at the end of the 7-day period. That’s why several of us requested that Hubpages include a way for us to focus on Buy It Now products which the visitor would buy immediately. Auctions can take several days to complete so those may be valued less under the new system - although Ebay has stated that they take that into consideration when valuing the click.

To compensate for this I looked for Ebay sellers that focus on Buy It Now items. Hubpages’ Ebay capsule does allow you to limit items to particular sellers. So whenever possible I focused on Buy It Now Items, by looking for sellers who had them in the niche I was looking for.

You also have to be aware of what an Ebay Campaign is – because each campaign gets its own click value each day. If you create too small a campaign you get pooled in with other small campaigns and you lose the control over your click value. A campaign is a way for you to track the efficiency of your marketing, similar to channels in AdSense, but make the campaign too small and you might be in trouble. I highly suggest that if you’re going to start promoting Ebay, (or if you want to get accepted into the program) that you very carefully read their blog, general instructions, TOS, and anything else they write. Because the changes were so recent, it is still quite confusing in places.

To protect your Ebay account, it is important that you start to make sales and become a productive affiliate.  Ebay gave an important hint to what they considered a good affiliate when they wrote the following statement on how to optimize for their Quality Pricing Click.

“From our experience, the publishers that are set to gain the highest increases in commission are niche content, shopping comparison or review site publishers who direct link to the related product and category pages or publishers who surface some of eBay’s great deals or products available in a user’s area. “

They are really looking for sites that have lots of organic shopper traffic, who haven’t been to Ebay before,  and who sell targeted products.

That was my basic strategy to create hubs that would be positioned for an immediate traffic burst and to target lots of products. Of the 33 hubs, about 7 were responsible for 80% of the sales and sales weren’t based on age of Hub. Those hubs were no better or worse than the others – and all were in the same targeted niche. That’s why I truly believe in writing a lot of hubs – regardless of the program. Most of my hubs were indexed by Google and Yahoo within 24 hours and started making sales within a few days.

I never optimize for Google Adsense so I don’t worry about the value of a Google click when I choose my niche or products. I look for lots and lots of existing traffic, and I scour the shopping malls and shopping channels looking for hot new items and trends. I also subscribe to 3 different keyword tools.

So enough of this chatter, thanks for having me Ryan, back to my HubChallenge Hubs – and the Greenbay / Vikings game.

Believe it or not, when I’m lurking through the forums day-to-day I’m doing more than just amusing myself with what gets posted in the Religion section — I’m also looking for great Hubber stories that need to be shared with the rest of the community. One of my favorite types of story to share is when a Hubber reaches their first $100 payout from Google, which is always a very exciting and memorable milestone for anyone who is looking to generate some earnings here on HubPages.

The latest ‘YAY!!! I made payout!!‘ forum thread was posted just a few days ago by a habee, a Hubber who has been a part of our community for over 5 months, but who has just started getting serious over the last couple. I shot her over some questions so that we all could get a better sense of what helped her get to the  sometimes seemingly unattainable first payout and here’s what she had to say:

1. I guess that some champagne is in order — according to this forum post you have officially hit your $100 AdSense payout for the first time, ever. Did you earn all of this first payout on HubPages and what was it like seeing that total add up to more than $100 bucks for the first time?

Yes, Ryan. It was all from HP! I was psyched! Even if I enjoy a lot more success here, nothing will ever match the excitement of this first payout.

2. According to your profile you have been a member of the HubPages community for over 5 months, but you also said that you have real just gotten down to business and writing more Hubs in the past 2 months, which has resulted in your first payout. What made you step up your writing the past couple of months? Did something change that we should know about?

Well honestly, I spent most of the summer in the pool or at the beach!

3. The topics that you write about range from Asbestos to oyster sauce — how do you decide what ends up getting written and published from your HubPages account?

I have a wide range of interests - practically everything interest me. Sometimes I think about associated adclick value, but sometimes I just write for fun - you know, humorous hubs that might bring a smile to readers.

4. You have published over 200 Hubs, which is quite a feat in itself. How do you stay motivated to keep on creating content and what has kept you sticking around HubPages for these last couple of months?

I have to write - if I don’t my head will explode! I think writing has been a good substitute for my teaching skills since I have retired. Writing keeps my brain from turning to mush! lol

5. There are many Hubbers out there who are still looking for their first payout from Google. What types of advice, tips, insider information would you give them now that you’ve made it to your payout? Also, how would you go about learning how to write on HubPages if you just started today?

I’m probably not a good person to answer this query - I’m technologically challenged. If I were more computer savvy, I’m sure I would have reached payout sooner.

6. Now that you’re going to be getting an additional $100 a month now from Google, what are you planning on spending it on?

I’ll probably spend it on my grandchildren. I have seven!

7. Any last thoughts that you want to share with the rest of the HubPages community? This is your chance.

I’d tell hubbers not to give up. I was very disheartened to start with, seeing only a few pennies in my account. The viewers and adclick revenue seem to grow exponentially, however.

Thanks to habee for answering these questions and if you’d like to become her fan so that you can keep up with what she’s doing from here on out (I just did), add her now by clicking here. Oh, and if you would like to see what kind of amazing progress she has been making on HubPages these past couple of months, look no further than the graph of her daily Hub views, which you can see below. Not too shabby, eh?

(click here to see all of the other editions of The Payout Chronicles)

I’m always up for sharing a good HubPages success story, so when I saw what was happening with ManekiNeko’s Hub about the Swine Flu (titled How Long is the Swine Flu Incubation Period?), I just had to write something about it. What’s hapening with her Hub at this very moment is the result of a Hubber going out and researching a topic that they’re not very familiar with and after finding out the information that they are seeking, creating a Hub on it for the rest of the world to use. Currently, this single Hub is one of the top daily revenue earners on HubPages and is seeing upwards of 6,000 impressions a day! Yeah, I know — it’s pretty amazing.

Here are a few snippets of the emails that we have been sending back and forth after I found out that her Hub was literally blasting off to the moon (and maybe even beyond that?).

Here’s what she said when I asked her why she thinks her Hub is getting so much traffic:

I guess one of the biggest reason it’s getting a lot of traffic is that I posted it back in the spring when the swine flu stuff first started happening. Other than that, I can’t say that I’m directly responsible for the traffic in terms of SEO, promotion, etc. Just a happy coincidence of timing and search popularity.

Here are her thoughts on what was going on in her head when she first started seeing it gain traffic:

Actually, I was really surprised with the amount of traffic it got right from the start. None of my other hubs had even gotten more than 1,000 views at the time, and then this one started getting 1,000+ per day. The traffic kind of spiked and dipped with people’s interest in the topic over time — people were freaking out about H1N1 when it first popped up, and now that it’s flu season, people are obviously concerned again and there are more searches for all swine flu related keywords. I was hoping that I’d see my traffic pick up, and I’m definitely pleasantly surprised that it’s gone up as much as it has. :)

One other thing that she wanted to share (which I thought was interesting):

I should add that I’m definitely not glad that so many people are suffering with the flu, but if my information helps them get help or get better faster, I’m happy for that.

Also, here is the traffic graph for ManekiNeko’s super Hub just so you can see how a Hub is capable of performing given good content and some great timing:

About a week ago something caught my eye in the 30 Day HubChallengers Forum. It was a post from a guy named Ryan Kett who seemed to be pretty confident (aka ‘a little bit cocky’) about his ability to knock out several Hubs in a fairly short amount of time. To be more specific, he was asking people what the fuss was all about with the 30 Hubs in 30 Days HubChallenge after he had knocked out 36 Hubs in only 28 Days.

Well, after chatting with him a little bit more over email I quickly found out that even though he sounded a little full of himself in that forum post, he actually had the stats to back up all of the claims that he was making. In fact, he was seeing over 1,000 daily impressions and was only gaining more and more traffic every day.

I decided to ask him a few questions about how he got to the level that he is at today and he gave me some pretty interesting information that I thought each of you might enjoy reading about. So sit back, relax and read about what this crazy Hubber has to say.

1. Tell me a little bit about what you’ve learned since joining HubPages and why you’ve decided to stick around and write.
   

   In the two and a half months since I published my first hub I have found hubpages and its community to be a great place to learn and develop my SEO skills, and I continue to learn every day. I genuinely believe that new hubbers can achieve fantastic results through reading about the experiences of other hubbers and feeding off of their knowledge.

2. You have seen some pretty impressive results very quickly here on HubPages. What is your thought process when you’re publishing Hubs?
   I am now finding that the best way to build traffic fast is to publish as much high quality content as possible, whilst also considering the benefits of internal backlinking. In my latest hub challenge success I have tried to write several articles on the same topic, for example my series of hubs on Facebook, and then offering hyperlinks on each article to each all of my related hubs. This has reflected well on my ‘bounce rate’ which suggests that people are staying within my pages. Not only is each hub bringing in search engine traffic, but they now compliment each other by driving some of that organic traffic across some of my other hubs. Seeing an improvement in my traffic stats was all the motivation I needed to push out at least one hub a day, if I missed a day then I would force myself to churn out two the next day; I expect that I will be rewarded for these endeavors in the short, medium, and long term.
3. So it sounds like you have quite a system and strategy in place, so I guess what I want to know now is how is all of this work paying off for you now?
   About 2 months ago I was looking at less than 100 page views per day, this has increased to a current daily figure of between 800-1000, and rising! Whilst and increasing quantity of completed hubs has played a huge part in this, I cannot emphasize enough the need to focus on quality and taking the time to improve existing hubs. It was not until one week ago that I fully understood the hubpages tagging system, at the time I had 78 hubs and I decided to spend two days of hubbing time going through every single one of my hubs to implement my new found tagging skills. I estimate that this exercise alone has added around 100 views a day to my traffic stats, much of which will be organic traffic driven through the ‘related hubs’ box. In addition, I have seen my earnings suddenly double in the past couple of weeks - I cannot remember the last time I had a zero click day, it must be about 4 weeks now.
4. This has been all great information, Ryan! Any last bits of helpful information that you would like to pass on to other Hubbers who might be reading this blog?
   Although writing is a passion, I have to admit that my primary focus on hubpages is the potential for earnings, therefore I now use the google keyword tool as my main inspiration for finding titles. This allows me to identify decent paying keywords on which to base my article title and URL, almost allowing me control over my potential earnings. I recommend that any new or old hubber utilizes this tool, my highest earning article gets just 3 or 4 page views per day, it has earned me about ten times the amount that my ‘hottest’ article achieves; many of my earliest hubs earned a pittance, something which I now know how to avoid.

Looks like the HubChallenge might of paid off for Ryan, eh?

Thanks to Ryan for all of the great info and if you would like to find out more information on the HubPages 30 Hubs in 30 Days hubChallenge, be sure to check out this forum post to see how you get started!

If you haven’t noticed yet, about a month and a half ago we launched an ongoing 30 Hubs in 30 Days HubChallenge over in the Forums so that the success that many Hubbers found after joining the first (and much more intense) 100 Hubs in 30 Days HubChallenge could be made available to all Hubbers. So far there have already been several Hubbers who have stuck it out for the entire 30 days and have not only come away with 30 brand-spankin’ new Hubs, but have also learned a ton of stuff in the process. Not to mention now that they’re done they have seen incredible gains in traffic, which is never a bad thing.

After reading some inspiring forum posts from a few of these first, successful 30 Hubs in 30 Days HubChallengers I wanted to see if could dig into the details of their HubChallenge experience and what they really thought about it. The first Hubber who has stared at the HubChallenge in the face for 30 days is cosette, who I sent a few questions to the other day. Check out what she had to say below:

1. How did you first find HubPages and what do you think of the HubPages community so far?

I followed a link about bunnies, since I own a bunny rabbit. HubPages is a very lively community. It is also very user-friendly and easy to create articles. I really like it!

2. Why did you decide to join the 30 Hubs in 30 Days HubChallenge and was it a hard decision to make?

I decided to accept the 30 Hubs in 30 Days challenge because I saw it as a learning experience, and to see if I could do it. I love writing anyway, so it was fun. No, it was not a hard decision to make.

3. What kept you motivated during the 30 days that you were publishing Hubs for the HubChallenge and how did you make it through to the end?

I was motivated by the threads in the 30 Hubs In 30 Days Challenge forum. It was gratifying to be able to add another hub onto the ‘finished’ pile, which is also what helped me make it through to the end.

4. You said that joining the 30 Hubs in 30 Days HubChallenge busted you out of the terrible writer’s black that you had at the time. Can you explain this a little more and how the HubChallenge helped?

I had just about given up on my endeavour to write articles, hubs or blogs with advertisements on them. I was at wordpress before but they didn’t allow ads. I tried doing it at blogger.com but there was no traffic. This was discouraging and caused me to be a little depressed, so I stopped creative writing and focused on my regular freelance writing. When I joined HubPages, I was immediately struck by the size of its member base, and how alive and kicking the site is. As I started writing hubs, it was fun to see it take shape as I assembled each capsule. Participating in the 30 Hubs in 30 Days challenge forced me to write, and as I wrote, my thoughts started flying about and ideas started formulating in my mind and from each new idea, new ones sprang forth. It is akin to pulling a bunch of weeds from a flower garden.

5. What other results (such as traffic, earnings, fans, etc.) have you seen now that you’ve finished up with the HubChallenge?

I have noticed more traffic and not earnings so much but I know that takes time. I have also noticed more fans trickling in. Not being one to solicit fans, it feels nice and it is surprising to see people interested in my hubs, which tells me that is a direct result of participating in the challenge.

6. Would you recommend that other Hubbers join the 30 Hubs in 30 Days HubChallenge? Why or why not?

Absolutely. It has had a positive impact on not only my hubs, but on my writing and creativity.

7. Any other comments that you would like to say? Let us have it!

Thanks for a great site, and for asking us hubbers what we think

Thanks to cosette for the awesome interview and if you’re looking for a way to get the most out of HubPages, be sure to join the new 30 Hubs in 30 Days HubChallenge now (it’ll be worth it, we promise).

UPDATE: How could I have forgot to include cosette’s stats graph? Check it out below (it’s awesome!)

A blog post caught my eye the other day and I thought that I would post it up here so that everyone else could check it out, too. The blog is called Christian Personal Finance and it’s run by a guy named Bob who is all about helping others figure out their finances. He says that the blog is “a resource for Christians to get practical tips, biblical revelation, and wisdom about how to handle our personal finances” and he does this by posting all types of tips and information about things that he’s learned over the years.

One of his latest posts is about HubPages and how he made $47.14 in the month of July after only publishing just 23 Hubs (he has 24 now). He admits that he doesn’t know much about keyword research and that about 5 of his Hubs generate about 90% of his earnings. he has some great tips about how to publish Hubs with high potential and if you get a chance it’s definitely worth a quick read. If you want to connect with Bob on HubPages, you can hit him up through his profile here.

If you ever see any awesome blog posts like this one (or if you write one), please let us know — we’d love to write about your success stories, too!

A few mornings ago I was emailed by a Hubber named Daniel Carter who has been a member of the HubPages community for just about 2 months. In his profile he describes himself as a Composer/songwriter/Music Publisher/Audio Producer and over the past 2 months he has really started to enjoy everything that HubPages community has to offer.

The title of the email he sent me was “Thanks and guess what??!!” and it really brought a smile to my face and made me feel good to be a part of what HubPages offers all of our awesome Hubbers. So, I thought that I would go a head and share some of what he emailed me with all of you so that you can crack a smile while you read this, too. Here’s a part of what he sent over:

I published a hub called My Email Account Was Hacked! How I Regained Control of It and it was read by Associated Press writer, Beth Harpaz in NYC. Beth was so impressed with the hub that she referred it to one of her writers, Fritz Faerber who interviewed me by phone for about 45 minutes the other day, and is using my article and the interview as the basis for his article on what to do if you are hacked. It will be released through AP in the next week or so. I’m pretty excited about all that.

Whod’athunk? I couldn’t see that coming it if was a meteor!!

So, anyway, I’m tickled about this community, about being able to write profound, helpful things, as well as completely silly things.

So, again, thanks for such a great community. I love it there, and will continue to write.

All best wishes,

Daniel Carter

As I always say, all of us here at HubPages absolutely LOVE getting emails like these, so if you have a great HubPages story to share please send it to us so that we can share it with the rest if the community.