5 Basic Tips for Success on Hubpages

Although it says that I’ve been here for 10 months, don’t mistake me for a veteran or for that matter a successful Hubber. In reality, I’ve only been active on Hubpages for a month and a half and have very little to show for my time here. Nonetheless, I think that after a great deal of introductory learning, I’ve drunk from the Hubpages well of wisdom and discovered the very basic truths to success on this wonderful website. You can find them below. Don't worry, I keep things very simple.

Plain and simple. Good content is the cornerstone of any successful Hubber. Yes, you may be great at SEO and promoting your Hubs, but if you don’t write good quality content then people won’t come back. Always try to write your very best. If you have problems with writing, look around on the website for help. Not only are there hundreds of amazing Hubs to help you with any topic, but there’s forums and the Hubpages learning centre.

I’m not going to pretend to be some internet marketing guru, but I have learned that basic SEO (search engine optimization) knowledge is pretty much required if you wish to make decent income from Hubpages. Other people have said it better than me, so I’m not going to dwell much on the topic, but the basics of SEO lie in researching keywords before you start writing your Hub, and then placing them within your Hub url, title, and actual article.

Much like SEO, this is required if you wish to make decent income from your online work. Backlinking simply refers to the act of making links to your Hubs from another website, and is usually done on social bookmarking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and so many others. The reason for backlinks' importance is that they raise the rank of your Hub in search engines, as well as give you additional traffic from social networking. Once again, other people can explain this better than me, like this guy (or gal!).

Whether or not you actually enjoy commenting on Hubs, helping people with questions, participating on the forums, following Hubbers whose work you enjoy and so much more, the bottom line is that participation is key. The more followers you have, the more people will give your work an initial traffic and ranking boost. Most high-profile Hubbers (who also happen to be good writers) have their Hubs get an instant wave of comments and appraisal, which immediately allows their work to rise to the top, and be that much more visible for everyone else.

Not only can you use the community tools to increase the traffic to your Hubs, but also to learn and get help. Hell, you could probably find a great hub on every single one of these tips I posted by just using the search function on the top right.

Much like fine wine, your Hubs will increase in value as they age, as long as you are writing good-quality content. As time goes on, good Hubs will tend to increase in Hubscore, attain a higher ranking in search engines and above all attract more and more visitors. Great hubs may even get natural backlinks from other people who enjoy your work so much that they will link to it. Hubs typically take a few months to a year to truly "mature".

Don’t panic and try to do everything at once. I feel that I made that mistake when I first got here, and after a mere 2 weeks I was so overwhelmed and confused that I basically quit. I couldn’t understand what SEO meant, I had the wrong definition of keyword research, I didn’t know what to write about and overall just didn’t have a clue of what I was supposed to do. Now, having returned to Hubpages after 9 months, I’m taking things slowly and assessing my priorities.

Instead of trying to instantly make money and forget everything else, maybe a better approach is to take this with moderation and above all with enjoyment – when you like what you are doing, you naturally grow to be better at it as time goes on. If you don’t understand something, don’t bang your head against the wall. Ask for help, or maybe just step away from the computer. Hubpages will be here when you get back.