Jimmy Tells Us About His Hubtastic November

Sometimes when people hang around somewhere or like something for long enough they begin to claim themselves as someone who knew all about something before it was even cool to like it. You know, similar to your friends who claim to have known all about Coldplay before they hit the mainstream or that they watched Napoleon Dynamite way before it hit the all of the major movie theaters.

I’ll be the first to say that one of HubPages most seasoned veterans, jimmythejock, has never been one of these types of people, but with over 2 years and 687 Hubs under his belt he deserves the title of being called old school as much as anyone around this place. Well, after talking to Jimmy the other day I learned that out of all of the time that he has been on HubPages, this past month of November 2008 turned out to be his highest earning month by far. After I heard this I found myself getting curious on what was different about this past month than any other and decided to ask him some questions in the interview posted below so that I could try to figure it all out.

Hup: So Jimmy, I hear that you had a pretty good month on HubPages in November? So good, in fact, that it was your best month ever?

Jimmy: Hi Ryan, November was a great month for me in terms of visitors to my pages and of course that increase led to me making more money from my hubs than ever before, according to Google analytics my visitor count increased by almost 20%. In the month of October my hubs received 71,068 visits compared to 79,086 in November.

Hup: What do you contribute to this extra-spectacular month of earnings? Did you change anything up or focus on anything new?

Jimmy: For experimental purposes I have been trying different types of Hubs over the past few months to see if it makes a difference to how much money that you can earn from the site, along with the writing I have been focusing my attention on the advertising from Ebay and Amazon to make the ads suit the topics better than randomizing their ads.

I don’t really do any S.E.O on my hubs but I do link them on Digg.com and on a blog that I created just for that purpose.

Hup: So your Ebay and Amazon Revenue Capsules have given you quite a boost then, eh? Which Hubs in particular have been great as far as Ebay/Amazon sales go?

Jimmy: Ebay and Amazon have been very good to me but not only this month, over the past 3-4 months my earnings have increased at a steady rate, the secret seems to be to review a product that Ebay or Amazon has on sale and add relevant Ebay/Amazon ads in your Hubpages Capsules.

From 1 Sale on Ebay in November I earned a commission of $126.00 The sale came from a Review I published about Rolex Watches. The hub had only been published for 36 hours when the deal went through.

I did have a relatively poor month with Amazon in November but I received a lot of clicks on the ads, although in November I only earned $15.00 I made $22.00 from a single sale in October from this Hub.

My ads on Kontera average between $25-$30 every month and November was no different my sales from there were $26.00.

My ads on Google usually run between $120-$150 per month but in November I made an extra $30.00 and finished the month with $182.00 the clicks came from my new review hubs and as a special bonus I received one cent every time one of my three mini pc review hubs were visited.

For the first month in over 2 years writing on Hubpages my earnings total broke the £300.00 mark and it was such a good month that I made over $350.00.

Another added bonus is that because the UK Pound is at a low rate against the Dollar it means that I am earning about an extra 20-30 cents extra for every dollar I earn 3 months ago if I earned $100.00 I would get paid around £50.00, In November for every $100 I now get £67-£70 depending the rate on the day Google pay out.

Hup: What would you like to let the rest of HubPages know about your new success? Any tips, ideas or best practices to share with other Hubbers so that they can cash in on their Hubs, too? Don’t hold out on us, Jimmy!

Jimmy: There really is no secret that I know of and I am positive that some people on the site make a whole lot more money than I do, I am more of a hobby writer and any money that I earn from Hubpages is a bonus.

If you really want to make a lot of money on Hubpages though and you have some spare time on your hands it could easily be accomplished by marketing and publicizing your work, I write my articles link them on my blog and on dig and Hubpages seems to be loved by the search engines which takes care of half of the battle, I have seen hubs that I have published on the first page of Google search in around 20 minutes and I put this down to the reputation of the Hubpages site.

Product reviews seem the best way to make money from Amazon and Ebay, Especially if you handpick the ads yourself. Google and Kontera ads just seem to be clicked no matter the topic of your hub the more visitors to your pages the more people will click on your ads and the more money you earn.

Thanks for the interview, Jimmy and keep up the great Hubbing!