Over the last month or so, I’ve been conducting a make money online experiment to determine if HubPages is a viable tool that can be used to make money. The official start date of the experiment was May 11, 2009. This experiment didn’t come out of nowhere, in fact the main reason that I wanted to do this with HubPages was because I had created a few hubs here and there and they had done surprisingly well for me. I decided that I would create 100 hubs in 30 days and track the results to see how well those hubs could produce.
Before I got started the Marketing Manager (Ryan Hupfer) at HubPages contacted me and got involved with the experiment. We turned it into a contest and a lot of people that already use HubPages joined in.
Week 1 Recap
I worked really hard the first week because I knew that in order to make anything within 30 days I would have to get a lot of work done in the first week. I was able to create 40 hubs during the first week. I knew that the hubs would produce some money during the first week but honestly they exceeded my expectations. By the time I published the week 1 update I had already made $56.20. I didn’t start tracking with Google Analytics until after week 1, so the best I can do for the first week is a screen-shot of the Adsense channel I used:
Week 2 Recap
The second week went amazingly well – read the week 2 update here. Between May 18 and May 24 my hubs produced $112.56 with Adsense. I had a day during that week when the hubs produced $23.21. The performance during week 2 was definitely more than I expected when I started the experiment. During week 2 I didn’t create as many hubs as I did during the first week, but I had over half of them done by the end of the week. Here’s a screen shot of the results, taken from Google Analytics:
Week 3 Recap
Since I didn’t create as many new hubs during week 2, week 3 didn’t go as well. I had a pullback in the income from the hubs I made during the first week and didn’t have many new ones to take their place. The pullback didn’t really surprise me because I have had this kind of thing happen on almost every experiment I’ve ever done. The income for week 3 was still solid and the hubs made $88.88:
A ton of work was done during week 3 and I completed all of the 100 hubs. Originally I thought that I might be able to create them all in the first two weeks but that didn’t happen. Fortunately I got them done in the third week and that led to a solid fourth week.
Week 4 Recap
During week 4 I was able to focus on making the hubs more useful. I did this by creating a lot of links from my hubs to other hubs that had related content. This makes it more likely that a reader finds information that they’re looking for and also allows them to see multiple sets of Adsense ads. It also provides an SEO benefit.
During week 4 the hubs made $164.11. Google Analytics wasn’t working when I created the week 4 update so I had to use an Adsense screen shot for the results:
I have now run a report with Google Analytics and that’s returning slightly different results because Adsense resets at 1:00 in the morning where I live and my Google Analytics resets at midnight. According to Analytics, the hubs produced $160.04 during that week:
Overall Recap
The total amount made during the 30 day experiment was $475.26. This includes the income from the first four weeks plus the income from days 29 and 30.
By my standards this experiment went amazingly well. A lot of other people have also created a lot of hubs in fact I know of more than one person who took this experiment bigger than I did. This makes me really happy because those people learned during this month that you can do really great things if you’re willing to work harder than other people.
Things That Contributed To The Success Of The Experiment
- Keyword Research. I never could have done as well as I did without choosing keywords that I know I can rank for. My basic philospohy is that you need to know whether you can rank for a keyword or not before you decide to use it. You should also know how much you can make with a keyword before you go after it. Some of this information is available in The Keyword Crash Course ebook, which you can download by entering your email at the top of our right sidebar. Guys choosing keywords is huge and honestly if it isn’t clear as a bell for you, you need to become a member of The Keyword Academy. It costs a total of $1 for your first month and you can cancel at any time. We get email after email after email gushing about how clear keyword research became for people after watching our first video.
- Keyword Targeting. Targeting a keyword with a page really isn’t rocket science but it’s definitely something that I used. Look for the four steps in that post and follow them. Along with this I tried to create value with my hubs. Most of them are around 800 words. Some of them are longer and some of them are shorter. Part of my goal for this next month is to make them more useful and longer.
- Links. The Keyword Academy members know exactly what I did to get links for my hubs and I’ll say this: If you can get a clean link or two for your hubs you’ll be able to make more money. Hubs are strong on their own but a solid link or two will only increase that strength.
The Future Of The Experiment
I’m not done with this experiment, in fact I’m just getting started. I have a new goal to turn these hubs into a full time income ($3000 per month) and think that I can do it within the next three months. I’m going to be adding content to the hubs and as they get older they will definitely do better with Google and other search engines.
To be clear I won’t be creating any new hubs for a while. I am going to increase the income by improving the hubs that I already have. I’ll provide updates as I go and am also looking at a few other experiments.
Tags: hubpages, make money online
Congratulations! Just curious, how many backlinks did you create for each hub? Thanks
Most of them have at least 1!
awesome experiment, Court. This is my new goal as well. To make 3000 a month on hubpages. Thanks for showing hubpages potential.
Do it!
Court congratulations on your findings and rewards…Just curious if you implemented the eBay or Amazon affiliate products on your hubs and if you saw any particular success with those in addition to Adsense? Thanks for providing all this great info, hope you’ll keep us updated on further results with this!
I haven’t tried those at all yet. Many of my keywords are informational and won’t fit well with those. I will definitely look at additional options at some point though!
Awsome, very inspiring, it all boils down to this:
GET THINGS DONE!!! Consistent, Consistent Action!! that is one thing, that i have learned from you in all your video tutorials.
I wouldn’t say it any differently myself. You have to act every single day if you want to get anywhere with this stuff!
Nice experiment Court! I just posted about it and linked here from the 5 Star Affiliate forum.
Great that you are so willing to share your step by step process and earnings with everyone.
Linda Buquet
Wow thanks Linda! That means a lot!
Hi Court
Thank you so much for enlightening us with this experiment.
Now is it fair to say that making money with hubpages is better than niche blogging, in terms of the cost incurred, the efficiency and the time taken to get your first ‘reasonable’ income. Coz I think you’re basically doing the same thing (writing keyword targeted articles, getting links etc) as you would be doing for your niche sites without the needs to buy domains, getting out of sandbox etc.
Thanks again
I think that question is still up for debate Affzan! We’ll have to see how it works out over the next few months.
After a false start with going after affiliate marketing and backlinks to my own sites, I started a new focusing only on keywords which pay enough and I can rank for. To date in 18 days and with 29 hubs I have made $28 – I am very pleased and focussing on getting the rest of the hubs finished!
Nice Lissie!! I bet you’ll really move forward now!
This has been a great instructional series. This is what me need more of. Forget all the hot shot gurus and their magic buttons. This is real world nuts and bolts stuff that a person can make money with. Thanks a lot for doing it.
Do you plan to further monetize the hub pages by possibly placing links to corresponding affiliate offers (ClickBank or otherwise)?
Thanks again,
Mitch
Hey Mitch! I’ll keep doing whatever I can to get more out of them. That will probably include different methods of monetization at some point.
Court,there are more than 3 adsense ad units displayed in a single hubpage.isnt this against TOS of adsense??iam not sure what to do.
Ricky HubPages is a premium Adsense publisher. They don’t live by the same rules that we do. There are lots of sites that run more than 3 ad units – they have special permission.
If you’re not a premium publisher you can’t use more than 3 ad units, even if you try. They won’t show up!
They seemed to have changed the adsense ads config. court.Not 3 ad units and 2 link units are displayed.did you see it ?
Hi Court,
This is great! I’ve been following this project from the start and have a few questions:
1. Are these all targeting the same/similar keywords or are they all in different niches?
2. Are they all under one username at Hubpages?
3. You wrote that most hubs have at least 1 backlink, but what’s the most you’ve made for any one hub- 5, 10, more?
4. When you chose keywords for these hubs, how high was the search volume and CPC? (I’ve read and am a big fan of your “The Keyword Crash Course” eBook, but I wasn’t able to find the actual search volume you look for in there)
Thanks for sharing this experiment with us. Like everything else on your blogs (I got here from courtneytuttle.com), this is top quality content that will help a ton of people. Very inspiring!
Miri
Awesome experiment Court! I’m glad it went well. I followed it very closely and although I didn’t do my own since I am too busy right now, I did get some great tips and inspiration to do my own soon. Good luck with making it a $3000 a month income. I am certain that you will be able to do it.
Court I had a question but am not part of the program. I’d like to send you an email but cannot find it.
My email is court[at]courtneytuttle[dot]com!
Thanks for a great series. I am up to 25 hubs, and one problem I have is the analysis of Adsense revenue.
In Adsense reporting Hubpages doesn’t show up as a page, but i can see that I have more income than that attributed to my other web sites. Is that the same for everyone?
To solve this I linked Hubpages to Analytics, and I then look at the Content section to see Adsense revenue. That is fine, but it doesnt tell me which of the 25 Hubs generated the Ad impressions/revenue? Is this the same for everyone?
Phil,
To solve your problem you’ll need to log into your Google Adsense and go to the top menu tabs: Adsense Setup > Channels
From there click on the “URL channels” link you’ll see slightly down the page, and you can add each of your hubpage URL’s there. Then you can track the Hubs adsense revenue on a daily basis.
I had this problem when I first started out and it drove me crazy not knowing which hubs were getting clicks or $!
Thanks Monetizer, I made a Hub sharing this great tip!
http://hubpages.com/hub/Adsense-Revenue-from-Hubpages
But don’t you have a limited amount of channels? That could be a problem with so many hubpages.
Ricardo, that’s true, I read someone suggesting that you remove the URL channels that are not performing well in terms of Adsense income. I think you get 100 channels total or something, but Court may know differently.
I think you actually get 500 channels now – new feature though. Used to be 100 I think!
I don’t have to worry for some time then
Is the plan to actually substitute these pages for a wordpress blog and compare theem, or is this something that would be done with a cousin keyword of one you’re trying to rank for and you just use it as another place to get a quality link while earning some nice cash.
Great results Court – very inspiring! I hope you’ll keep us updated on your progress towards the $3000/month goal.
I checked the amount of channels, and it seems the limit is 200.
This was a very interesting post that you wrote I really did enjoy reading this. It gave me a lot info they could help me down the road. I can’t wait to read more of your post.
you know…for the past few days ive been reading all manner of sites about making money online. and beyond the keywords search tools, and the big guys telling sometimes rather conflicting info. it seems to me that the people doing well are the ones who are selling info on how to make money- not the people who get said info. you always wonder gee if the programs in those 3am infomercials are so great why does this guys need to sell me his “product” or “program”.why not just follow what he himself is selling and be happy? im immensely skeptical at this point.
ive read grizzly,this yaro starak guy too… dunno if anyone has heard of him as well. it all seems like snake oil to me,or at best pyramid thinking on the grand scale of the internet. google is much more sophisticated these days compared to when most of these guys struck it rich in one of the few niches that actually make money which is infact “how to make money online”! what a shocker.
i dont have a blog yet,ive simply been to overwhelmed with conflicting info and opinions.
Ed,
Sounds like you better stay away from all this. You might not be cut out for it.
Hi Ed,
It’s not just the “make money online” bloggers who are making money. But they are the ones who are writing about their successes because it fits into the theme of their websites.
I earn money with celebrity and news trend sites, I know others who earn with coupon sites, vegan sites, parenting sites, etc.
When a blogger is making money writing about celebrities or coupons they aren’t going to be pumping out articles regarding how much money they’re earning online because that’s not the information that their readers are looking for. Trust me, many other niches are earning money online.
here you describe the topic is really interesting
but i know the site too that is
Earn online money
Want to learn how to trade foreign currencies, do stock trading, or great work at home ideas?
Court or Mark,
I have a bunch of articles from a large niche site I just took down that wasn’t performing where I thought it should. However, I think those articles would do well on HubPages.
However, I’m still seeing some of my pages listed in the SERPS under my old domain name. How long do I have to wait before I take that old content and repost on HubPages without getting dinged for duplicate content? It’s been about 3 or 4 days since I took the site down.
Best
You have probably heard that Squidoo put the clamps down on a bunch of sites recently. What happens when HubPages does the same thing? I think this may just be too much work to put into a project where you have very little actual control of the longevity of it.
Can it really be an asset if it is built on a web property that you don’t own? I am inclined to say no.
Hi Court,
Could you please answer one of my newbie questions if you don’t mind?
How do you drive traffic to your hubpages in order to generate adsense earnings?
Your answer to this question will be much appreciated.
Thanks.
Great experiment… I hope it works out
Hi court, it’s great to read about your experience. You definitely know how to take the bull by horns!
Being with Hubpages for over a year by now, I know how many newbies come to forum to leave posts how depressed they feel and how Hubpages is scam and the like. I wasn’t active during the whole year though – but when started to digg into the matter it appeared that success is all about planned work. Although my goal wasn’t $3k/month initially, now I belive $1k is pretty much achievable. Hubpages income is pretty stable, I have good CTR and it’s consistent. Keyword research is the first thing to learn very well, othrewise it comes to waste of time.
Court,
Thanks to this experiment, me and a friend are now doing it as well.
I wrote 5 solid 800 word hubs today. One keyword is worth more than 600 per month.
It’s hard to believe you can set up a fulltime income by doing hubs for a few months.
To think that at one time I have worked 160 hours of wage slavery to get a mere few thousand bucks per month.
Pretty soon, I’ll be getting a few thousand without having to give up half my life.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Jay
Who knew Hubpages could be so profitable? Terrific and detailed post on the work needed to make the money happen.
I am curious. Has any one that actually set out to do this that was making adsense money BEFORE the exercise see their adsense account SMARTPRICED?
This is a very good site to get paid by online surveys.
go to http://www.AWSurveys.com/HomeMain.cfm?RefID=chanakya33
and create your free account.
you can get 27$ by 7 surveys which will take hardly 5 minutes.
i hav got 75$ with in one day.its genuine.
I just signed up for HubPages and I must say I am inspired by your experiment. I think using the knowledge I have on creating niche websites for profit, if I put that into hubs, I could make quite a bit.
did you use the 1 ezine article for every 2 hubs method for backlinks ?
either way HubPages is great and I hope I can earn from it as well as you did mate.
Just want to thank you for starting this experiment – I’ve now started building 100 (& maybe more) hubs of my own (a bit later than planned, but better late than never!) I’ve already found a nice bunch of keywords, and posted my first hub earlier today. Two hours later I searched for my keyword, and my hub is already on page 2! I’m kind of excited to see how this unfolds.
I have 779 words on my hub its ranking 2# on yahoo on keyword : make a lure , but it is nowhere to be found in google..Can you give me some advice.I but my hub on the website box.
Hi Court, I just fanned you at HP. I see you dont have that many hubs there so I guess that may not be your priority in the long term, perhaps just passive presence? I have been there for 5 weeks and have got less than $10!
This post is brutally honest advice especially on starting new sites and hedging the bets as you say. Thanks for the advice and I should refer back here soon.
Nice information and study court. Can I get a link to one of your exemplarily hubpages? Thank You. You can email it to me if you want just so I get it for sure.
i Make money online using the very popular Google Adsense program. i also tried Amazon affiliate program but i dont earn that much from amazon.
i Make Money Online by using Adsense and Adbrite on my blogs and websites. i am earning a decent amount of money online but it also requires a lot of work to build traffic..
Making Money Online is easy if you have a website that have lots of traffic . You can just sign-up with Adsense, Adbrite or Clickbank and start earning cash.
i also want to make money online that is why i immediately joined the google adsense program and also read a lot about making money on websites and blogs. i am also trying to learn affiliate marketing.
Congrats on your success with hubs! I have a question — do you feel your success was due it part to the fact that you were using a platform that already had a high PR as opposed to setting up a niche website that has no PR but is well optimized for those same keyword that you used?
What has the result been with this project? have you mey your goal of $3k a month?
pretty inspiring, i think we should forget about all the ebooks and focus on this strategy.
I just joined hubpages and I was truly convinced that earning money with hubpages is easy:)
Hi Court,
In case you can’t tell we are all dying to know how these 100 hubs are doing….any updates?
…very interesting approach. Thanks for sharing.
I guess Court isn’t talkin’. I personally thought $3k a month from 100 hubs was a bit optimistic.
Those kinds of earnings seem very optimistic. It took me 4 months to get my first check. Visit my page to see more realist earning on hubpage and how to improve them.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Adsense-Tips-and-True-Earnings
I have pumped out 2 hubs in the last two days and watching the results. Hubpages has a very easy to use interface (as compared to squidoo.com). It fits my style and I am going to stick with it, blogging and ezinarticles.