I was recently talking with former colleagues about HubPages and I was asked the usual questions. The first question is usually why should I write a hub as opposed to a blog.
I’ve already covered this question so I will focus on the other questions that I was asked:
How much money can you really make on HubPages?
Ultimately, that’s a tough question. It is much easier to talk about how the money gets calculated. At HubPages, authors get 60% of all AdSense revenues from their hubs as well as 60% of any the eBay, Amazon, or Kontera affiliate revenue. That’s all good and fine but how much money? It depends not only on traffic but also on the type of traffic. You need to attract traffic that matches the ads and promotions that you have on your hub.
How much money does our top hubber make?
You could focus on the hubbers that make the most money but that is misleading. You wouldn’t judge how much a typical book author makes by looking at J. K. Rowling’s salary. Of course, if you are writing your hub solely to make money, that is also not a good indicator of money potential since readers may not come back and Google search may penalize your hub page and you will be deeply buried in the Google search results.
Hubber revenue is private so I can’t state definitively the top revenue earner. I do know that one hub has often made over $100 in one day. This hub took about 30 minutes to write and it is over 2 years old. I’ve talked about it in a previous posting so go there if you want more details. Still, it is very misleading, in my opinion, to use this result as your yardstick.
OK, already, can’t you give me any dollar amount for an average hubber?
Well, assuming that you focus on providing valuable content to your reader, then here is the number that I’ve heard. If you do, say, 10 reasonable quality hubs each month for 10 months, then by month 11, you should be making roughly $50/month. Many authors make more than this and the web traffic is the limit for professional writers. Still, for the hard worker with average talent, $50/month should be achievable.
Here’s the reasoning behind this number. It takes time to build up web traffic. There’s a learning curve that happens as you become familiar with the hub tools available. And even following this, it takes time to build up your hubscore and attract web traffic. Keep in mind: hubs tend to be hit-or-miss. Your best hub may bring in more money than the other hubs combined but it is not always clear ahead of time which one of your hubs will be the most popular. That’s why you need to create 10 a month.
I’ve heard that hubs that are overly photo rich or have lots of videos do not do as well as hubs that are text rich. Additionally, it’s good to be active in hubpages. When you are first getting started, participate in the hub makeover forum. Get involved in the topic discussions and feel free to post requests and also to ask for help when it’s needed. Also, use tags. We have a tool to suggest tags if you have trouble coming up with terms.
Since it’s in HubPages’ interest to drive traffic to high quality hubs, we have a set of policies that are really designed to encourage best practices in hub creation. For example, while hubs can be used to promote web sites, we do not allow more than 2 links to any one external domain.
How long does it take to write a hub?
I’ve heard that it takes many people 20-30 minutes to write a hub of reasonably good quality on a topic that they are already familiar with: an evaluation of a movie, product, description of a hobby, or details on a good cause that you believe in, poetry, or anecdotes from your life. For me, it takes much longer than 30 minutes to write a hub, but I tend to write on ambitious topics like: How Long Did Ancient Civilizations Last? I’ve been most successful when I write about what I’m most interested in. I think that’s more important than writing to make money. By the way, the hub that I just listed above is my fastest growing hub in traffic. Who would have thought?
So, want to make some extra money. Feel free to take the HubPages challenge: write 10 hubs a month for 10 months and see if you are not making $50/month. Feel free to post your experience as a comment to this blog entry.
HubPages Blog 
Wow this post help me learn more about finances, and changed my mind towards making money, investing, etc. Thank you man.
I enjoyed this article, thanks. 🙂 I actually heard that making money on hubpages is a bit easier if you know a bit of good seo, and some keyword research skills too. Write about what people are already looking for if you know what I mean.
Chris
Just join hubpages about 1 month back from about 20 hub got about 3 usd. That was quite good for starting.
Most of my traffic comes from solution to solve iframe injection, almost 50 percent of the traffic and peole could easily find my articles from search engine
But what I like writing here is that you have all the tools like amazon, ebay, adsense and kontera which we could integrate easily.
I write for fun. Frankly speaking, you have one of the best platfrom in the market. Good Job
Thanks for the tips.I like Hubpages as well, I do have 5 all ready.It is true when you say that it pays to write hubs about what you like, not for the money.People can see through you if you are just there to promote an affiliate program.
You will do well if you write helpful and useful information.
Making revenue off a computer is often dissicult at the start but Its the people that stick to it that achieve results.
To do such a hard work to earn $50 per month after 10 months, I would rather do it on my own blog.
Whatever works best for you! On HubPages, many writers have a better chance of seeing traffic, plus the earnings tools are all built in, though of course on blogs, authors have full control over ad configuration and layout, so it’s just a matter of trading certain things off.
1 month = 10 Hubs, Therefore, 10 months= 100 Hubs, 100 Hubs = 50$ , 1 Hub = 50 Cents. It is not that much good and not that much bad also.
Now, see- you earned 50$ + 40% ( which Hubpages takes away) = 70$. If you were writing articles for your own blog, then you could make $30 dollars more…That’s true.
But the reality is that if it were your own blog, then you couldn’t even earn 50$, so where is the other 40% going to be added??? Hope you understand the equation 🙂
The system, platform, instant popularity, forum, SEO which you are receiving from HubPages are worth of $30. They owe it.
Hey our family just loves your gorgeous site thanks and pls don’t stop!
the idea is good . But is it like after 1 year of hardwork, will you be able to get 50 dollars every month from there. Or is it only 50 dollars one time benefit?
Deepak, Hubbers earn money based on the number of people who visit their Hubs, so if you write a lot of Hubs and get a lot of readers, you’ll earn more money, and earn money more consistently.
I have a question!!! I just signed up with hub pages, when I signed up they did not ask me for an address or any personal information- just username and password…I guess my question is-How do you receive money from Hub Pages? When will you know,Will they contact you via email regarding money or getting paid? Im curious Thanks
Hi Jim – You’ll earn via Google AdSense (once you sign up, you’ll receive payments from them directly) and optionally the HubPages Ad Program (where you’d be paid by us via PayPal). You can get more information here: http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/monetization-partners
I wrote 4 hubs so far and earn 0.05 usd.. It doesn’t look promising. I think with my own blog and some activity behind it I could do better than that. From hubs I got 0.01 usd per click, wether on my own blog I get 0.22 eur per click.. Looking at this two figures I don’t understand how hub adsense income makes 60% of total hub income.. It doesn’ feel right..
I have recently joined hub pages, and am looking for some advice on how to get popular. would i be more popular and would i have more traffic if i enlisted in all of the ad programs? so would i have more traffic if i made an account for eBay,amazon and ad sense then if i just made an account for ad sense? thanks! 🙂
Zach, your best shot at building a following on HubPages involves:
1. Regularly publishing
2. Writing long-form, media-rich, high-quality hubs
3. Commenting on others work
4. Getting involved in special programs and community-centric events
Good luck!
I’ve heard a lot about hubpages and its revenue sharing, this article was very helpful to understand how we can earn via hub pages and above all, what should we expect in return. What i understand is you need to keep investing your writing and you will understand what’s worth after some experience..
That’s right, Abid!
I have truly enjoyed this commet about hub pages and the truth about the money that could be made. It depends on the person, if they are going to spend time on the computer all day as to whether they are going to make their desired amount…