A Hubpages Experiment 2012 - How to Set Traffic, Income and Earnings Goals to Make Money on Hubpages

How to Achieve Your Traffic and Income Goals on Hubpages 2012

I started my Hubpages journey on the 24th of April 2011. I have called it a journey because it really has been a voyage to get to where I am now.

I am not claiming to have all the answers. In fact, I am well aware that I don't. But I do know that I have more of an idea of where I am trying to get to now, than I did when I first started writing Hubs.

Now I have a plan and an idea of how to achieve my Hub target, to increase my traffic and income from Hubpages. I have just achieved 10,000 views and the majority of those views came from Hubs written in Januray 2012.

The Hub philosophy is that you need lots of Hubs to earn a living and you need time. Time for those Hubs to mature and age, so Google sees them as having Authority. Time for you to backlink your Hubs and see them moving up the search engine rankings. I can't backup these theories, as I haven't been writting Hubs long enough to prove these points valid. However, I can prove it's not the only path to success.

In the month of January alone I wrote 10 Hubs and with those 10 Hubs I managed to garner 4,900 views, to take me to the 10,000 level. Bear with me as I descibe the journey I took to achieve my first goal, and some of the other goals I have achieved along the way to making income from Hubpages.

I joined Hubpages initially because I was told if you write articles you will earn money. Of course I was skeptical and didn't believe a word of it. I couldn't get my head around the fact that someone would pay me to write about something I wanted to write about. It was irrelevant what the topic was, as long as I wrote it well and it was original content. I could understand someone paying me to write something they wanted an article written about!

Of course, in the beginning I didn't understand that Hubpages makes money through advertising and that I would be able to get a share of that advertising revenue (60%), depending on how much traffic my Hubs received, or how many of the Ads showing on my Hubs were clicked, Amazon sales and even Ebay sales.

I plodded along, lost in the wilderness not really sure what to write about, how to write or if it was even worth my time.

Everything changed at the end of 2011 and I set myself a New Years Resolution. Instead of wasting my time making the mundane resolutions that I never stick to, such as losing weight or learning a new language, I decided to dedicate myself to learning as much as possible about Hubpages.

At this point, my account was roughly 9 months old and I had approximately 3,900 total views. It was demoralizing and I just hadn't done enough to get a full picture of what works for me on Hubpages. I thought to myself, that if my new efforts don't work then I will have given it a fair chance. If it fails to work then I could throw the towel in and look to try something else.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Turning on Hubpages Ad Program

At the beginning of 2012, I decided to turn on the Hubpages Ad Program. I had tried to activate it before with no success but saw the signup process had been streamlined and I could actually join.

I already had the Adsense Program activated along with my Amazon Affiliate ID and had earned less than a dollar, in the whole 9 months I'd been a member of Hubpages. I didn't think turning the Ad Program on could do much damage, and I was right. In fact, it made more money than I have ever made writing online before!

I was stuck as to what to write about and slowly came to the realization that it was a New Year, so I could write about things people would be looking for in 2012. I realize I watch a lot of TV and films, so decided to turn my Hobby into earning potential.

I began writing Hubs about upcoming movies and TV shows. New people to Hubpages are discouraged to write in the entertainment category, as the revenue potential is less per click. However, I didn't know what else to write about and needed to start somewhere. I'm not saying everyone should start there, but I think it is easier and best to start with something you know about.

I wrote some articles and shared them on some Social Bookmarking sites. That's all the backlinking I did.

I chose topics and keywords where the competition and click value were low but the number of people searching for the information was relatively high. I used the Google Keyword tool to check the search volume for my chosen Hubs.

My goal was to get more visitors to my Hubs and see how that effected my revenue. I decided to pursue traffic as I felt it would give me more data to work with.

Choosing topics with higher click values but less traffic or more competition meant I would have less visitors, it would be harder to rank and I didn't know how long I would have to wait to be able to assess my performance.

I didn't want to be demoralized further so I went in search of good traffic topics with little or no competition.

The Results of My Hubpages Experiment 2012 - January

The results of my Hubpages experiment 2012 is that I have now achieved my 10, 000 views Accolade. I really didn't think I would achieve it so quickly when I set out on this experiment but I managed it. Before fully committing to writing Hubs, I was getting about 20 views acrosss all my Hubs a day, if I was lucky. Now I am getting around 600 total views a day.

As an added bonus, although a small bonus so far, I have earned more money from Hubpages in the month of January than I ever did in the 9 months preceding January!

My success came from writing about popular topics, with little competition and turning on the Hubpages Ad Program. I made over $8 with the Ad Program and although this does not sound like much, this is 8 times as much as I made from March to December 2011.

An even better bonus has been the ability to connect with other successful writers on HubPages and see what they are doing. Checking out people's writing style, the type of Hubs they are writing about and seeing their passion has really helped steer me in another direction. This has really helped in the layout and planning of my Hubs and has allowed me to learn better ways to use videos and pictures in my articles.

I am planning to updating this Hub monthly with new information as my experiment continues.

Future Plans for Hubpages Domination

I realize I still have a lot to learn and although I have increased my traffic it may not last long. The topics I have written about are not Evergreen and the traffic will die in time. How long or short will remain to be seen. However, the 10 Hubs I have published have given me a taste for what I can achieve with Hubpages and has given me the motivation required to continue to test and experiment further.

By earning $8 in January, this means I averaged 26 cents a day. My goal is to increase my daily income to at least $1 a day. On the basis that I average around $3 per 1000 views, I know I have to achieve at least 555 views a day to achieve my $1 a day target. (1000 views/$3 = 333 daily views. 333 daily views/0.60 = 555 daily views).

For the sake of this experiment I have assumed the average CPM is $3. I am not saying what my CPM is as I believe that can be construed as a breach of terms and conditions. But for the figures to make sense, I have to provide an arbitrary value. When calculating these figures for your own account it will be most helpful to use your own CPM value, which you can find in your own earnings report.

Although this sounds difficult, I know this is achievable and have already had my first dollar day in February. If I am able to continue at that level of views I should achieve my 100,000 Views Accolade in 6 months. I am aiming to achieve that number of views in less time by writing more Hubs. However, it will also depend on the staying power of my existing and future Hubs and also if they do move up the rankings as they age, and thus gain more traffic.

I am aiming to write at least 2 Hubs a week and perhaps more if I find the time, and the topics to write about. I can clearly see the benefit of writing Hubs regulary now and the difference it can make to the income generated. Now I understand the benefit and rewards of the writing 30 Hubs in 30 days challenge. Although I really don't know if it's something I could manage to do at this point in my writing career.

This is my first Hub about Hubpages, so most of my traffic comes from search engines such as Google. Therefore, rankings and SEO are very important to this experiment.

Longer term, I am hoping to continue with my experiments on Hubpages to see what gets good levels of traffic versus income potential and also what Evergreen topics I can come across that haven't been done to death. I already know that if I stand any chance of succeeding in an Evergreen market I am going to have to find something new, unsaturated and something I can bring something unique to.

In the meantime, my next goal is to continue to increase my traffic levels to the point where I make at least $1 a day.

The next goal after that is to make $3 a day (1000/0.60 = 1666 daily views required). I will continue to write on different topics and niches to see if I can find a niche that works well in terms of traffic and income.

This month I was able to write 11 articles in total. I know this still isn't a lot but it is still meeting my target of 10 a month and allows me time to find out more information on how to make my Hubs more successful.

In February, I continued to mostly do what I did for January. I wrote about more TV shows and the characters. I am happy to see my traffic has continued to climb. Most of this traffic came from search engines and was mainly for the Hubs written in January. I have also noticed that the visitors come in waves. There tends to be more visitors the day that particular TV show airs and at weekends.

February 2012 has been a great month on Hubpages for me. I have made my first payout through the Hubpages Adprogram!! (I am telling you, if you haven't activated it yet then you are missing out on earning with your Hubs. As long as people are actually reading your Hubs from start to finish, as they are doing with mine, then you'll make money using the Adprogram. I'm not going to promise any kind of amount, as it will depend on too many factors such as number of Hubs, topic of Hubs, traffic to said Hub etc. What I will say is that if I can make money with the Hubpages Adprogram you can too.)

So apart from earning my first $50 on Hubspages I have made many more friends and have received more Accolades. I did not go looking to achieve these accolades and they are a great plus along the traffic and earnings journey.

Accolades received in February

1. Lauryallan has answered at least 10 questions

2. Lauryallan is a level IV commenter (this was an upgrade from level III)

3. Lauryallan is popular among readers

4. Lauryallan's Hubs start great discussions

I know you are interested in finding out my actual figures and I can now share them with you.

This month I had over 30, 000 visitors to my Hubs and I made over $50. When you compare that to January's figures I am pleased. That's over 6x's as much traffic and earnings. I am doing something right as the stats are moving in the right direction.

I have achieved the goal I set last month to earn over $1 a day and there were a number of days where I made over $2. Some people might be saying that I achieved this goal too easily but I have read on here that many people struggle to make even $1 a day, and I had never made that consistently before either.

I also believe small achievable steps are better than just having a huge goal and no goal posts inbetween. Afterall, my overall goal is to get my 100, 000 views Accolade, increase the number of Hubs I write and also increase my earnings along the way. I am on target to achieve this so lets hope it stays that way.

I am now striving to make $3 a day and this will be a challenge as I will need over 50, 000 visitors a month to have any hope of achieving this goal. Also, I haven't had a single $3 day yet so I don't expect to achieve this goal in March but if I do that would mean $93 earned and I would be ecstatic. If someone told me when I left the Bank that I would be happy earning $90 a month I would have thought they were crazy!!

I realize this is still pocket change, but I am glad to be going in the right direction and to see that earning an income through Hubpages is achievable.

I am really pleased as well because one of my Hubs has had over 10, 000 views a month. Crazy that a third of my traffic comes from 1 Hub article.

At the time of writing this article, Hubpages stats tells us that only 730 Hubs managed to have over 10, 000 views in the last month, and one of my Hubs has joined this group. It will be interesting to see how long it can continue to receive those levels of traffic and if I can find other Hubs to write that could join it.

If you would like to become a writer and make some cash in your free time then please sign up to become a Hubpages Author.

March has been a strange month for me on HubPages. Although I should rightly be thrilled with my results this week I find that I am far from that.

I have achieved my goal of 100,000 views on HubPages and received my accolade. I have even managed, by sheer luck, to have over 100,000 total views in March alone.

Yes I wrote more Hubs but not as many as you might think. I was lucky and chose popular topics and was able to rank for them. I expect the traffic to decrease to many of these Hubs over the next few months.

I have still failed to find Evergreen content.

I managed to reach payout again and then some. According to my earnings report, I have made more on HubPages than ever before at over $200.

However, it's not all rosy this month (I did promise to report the good, the bad and the ugly truth). I have lost some of my accolades and can only guess this is due to my account being on probation, for making a simple error. I have since made efforts to rectify the mistake but am still in probation. Basically, every Hub I write has to be moderated before it can be published. This can take a few days. If I edit any Hub that was already published it is automatically unpublished, because it has to be re-moderated. Again, this takes time as most of my Hubs need updating a little each week as new TV show episodes come out.

I am not blaming the Hub team for this. I understand the rules have to be followed. It was an easy error to make and I explained myself to the HubPages team. However, I have no idea how long probation lasts. However, repeated rule violations can lead to a permanent ban. I really hope that doesn't happen as I do my best to stay within the rules.

Although the goal was to earn $3 a day, clearly from the table below I managed to surpass that. No-one is more astounded than me and I hope this can continue to be the case. My goal for April is to get out of probation (no idea if that's even possible) and aim for $5 per day earnings from HubPages.

I realize this is below what I earned this month, but I really don't know if this months earnings are a fluke. This experiment is about sustained earnings and not a flash in the pan.

Also, since I have achieved my overall goal of 100,000 views in March, I now have to find a new goal to keep me focused. I have noticed from the HubPages success stories that most of them get at least 6,000 visitors a day, on average. My new goal will be traffic related but I will have to think on it.

I expect any improvements from here onwards will be smaller. It was relatively easy in the beginning as my figures were so small. Now with bigger figures it will be harder to continue to improve in such multiples. Also, TV viewership numbers tend to reduce in the summer as people spend more time outside in the sun. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on my Hub traffic and the number of Hubs I am able to produce.

I have managed to reach payout again this month. Although my earnings this month on HP were lower I did actually meet my goal of $5 a day. It was a bit of a struggle while on probation.

Luckily, I am now out of probation and hope it stays that way. People have been asking why I was put into probation and I haven't answered this yet as I am still trying to figure it out. I was initially told it was because I was linking to unrelated products/topics. An example of what I was doing was linking from a new TV show review hub, such as Alcatraz, to other new TV show review hubs I'd also written on HP, such as Touch and Awake etc. I was instantly put on probation, no warning, no discussion nada. As you can imagine, it came as a surprise as a number of experienced and influential hubbers discuss writing in the same niche, so you can link to lots of your content.

I had to write to the HP team for clarification and it's been explained to me that I should only provide links to hubs that are about the same TV show. So for example, Alcatraz TV show review could link to the cast and characters, but not to other TV shows. I find it hard to understand why the links I was doing before are unrelated when in the Related Hubs widget in the sidebar comes up with links to other new TV shows. Ironinc??

On top of that, I have since discovered many experienced hubbers doing exactly what I was doing. After all, that's why I was doing it. I was following the example they set. I have flagged them, but they don't get put into probation and more often than not nothing happens with their accounts. There are many examples out there and it doesn't take long to find them.

Back to the main point - This month my traffic decreased. This could be for a number of reasons. A lot of shows have come to an end, Google had 101 updates this month and now I am unable to interlink my hubs together, which has had a massive impact on my traffic figures. According to my Google Analytics, my bounce rate has soared. It makes no sense to me why HP would want to do this, but they have chosen to. If you want to keep writing on the site, you gotta do what HP tells you or you'll get banned. It's their site and you are just a guest. A guest that pays them with a share of your views... but still only a guest.

Just goes to show the importance of not keeping all your eggs in the HP basket. I've found the weave to be inconsistent, full of holes and frustrating.

On the plus side, I have my accolades back and managed to keep cool with the HP team, even though it was a struggle at times, especially when you see other HP members clearly flouting the same rules you have been slapped down for. However, you gotta keep your head up, concentrate on your own account and write your articles that are going to get you organic traffic from the search engines. These are all just more obstacles you may be faced with in the future.

Next month, I have to write more hubs and will have to find more topics to write about. Summer TV shows tend to be less popular as more people spend time out in the sun. I'd expect sports and other summer type activities to be popular. Maybe in May I will try a few recipes. I am aiming to reach 1 million views before the end of 2012 so will need to increase my monthly viewing figures to over 100,000 per month.

Happy hubbing.

1. All of the data in the above table is taken from the Earnings Report.

2. Hub views in the table above is the number of views received monthly on HubPages. It is derived from taking the number of impressions and dividing by 0.6 to calculate the total number of views.

How Would I Achieve $1000 a Month from Hubpages?

Many people aspire to make $1000 a month from Hubpages and I am finally understanding how it can be achieved. I sat down and did some maths to calculate how to make $1000 in a month following my current strategy. Please bear with me while I do the maths calculations.

$3 per 1,000 views so 1,000/$3 = 333 views to make $1.

333 views x 1,000 = 330,000 monthly views required to make $1,000 a month on Hubpages but since only 60% of the impressions count as personal income 550,000 monthly views are actually required (330,000/0.6 = 555,000 views). This would mean an average of 18,330 daily views (555,000/30 = 18,333 daily views). This is based on the assumption that the CPM stays constant and that no revenue is earned through the Google Adsense, Amazon or the Ebay programs.

Is 18,300+ daily views achievable? I guess I'll have to continue on my journey and see how it goes. It really puts into perspective how far a new Hubber has to go and how little I have really achieved, thus far. However, a long journey is made up of lots of little steps.

If we make the assumption that each individual Hub can earn at least $1 a month, then 1,000 Hubs would be required to achieve the $1,000 a month Hub challenge.

I highly doubt that I will hit that target during this experiment, as I am aiming to only write 2 Hubs a week. Of course, if I am able to write more, I will do so but I can not guarantee that I will achieve that goal so have not taken that into consideration. Unless I am lucky and come across a niche that is highly lucrative and has decent traffic, but I will be realitic and say $1,000 a month is out of my range.

I am planning to update this Hub as I continue on my Hubpages voyage and report back on what is working, what has failed and my plans for moving forward.

Even if I fail to achieve my goals, at least now I have a plan to follow and a goal to achieve.

Along the way, I am sure I will continue to learn more and improve.

I am using this Hub as a type of Journal to record my HubPages experiment, experiences and things I have learnt on the long road that is Hubpages. Hopefully, it will become a point of reference for other Hubbers who are looking to grow and improve their experience on HubPages.

How to Continue My Hubpages Experiment?

I can see at some point in the future I may run out of ideas of what new thngs I could try or do to improve my Hub performance. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

If you have some constructive criticism please share your thoughts in the comments below. I hope once you read this Hub you can see I am aiming to learn as much as possible and put it into action. So if you see an obvious error, in what I have said or done or even my in my math skills, then please let me know and I will endeavour to correct my errors as I continue with my Hubpages 2012 experiment, to achieve more traffic and increase earnings.