Write on HubPages

I've been writing on Squidoo for over 3 years now, at the time of this writing. I haven't been as prolific as some Lensmasters, nor as successful as some. However, I do earn a reasonable amount of income from the site and it's become probably the single most important component of my online income at this point. It's not something I would willingly give up and it will always be my first online "love".

However, just over a year ago, I decided to devote more time to HubPages. You may wonder why. If you find something that works, don't you just keep building from there? Well, the answer is yes, but building doesn't always mean doing the same thing repetitively. HubPages, like Squidoo, is a great tool for promoting a website or blog, or a tool for just generating income without either of those things.

Here is what I feel HubPages has added to my online endeavors...

HubPages, like Squidoo, gives writers the opportunity to establish backlinks to their site, blog, or other pages. On HubPages, you are limited to two links per Hub to a given domain. Otherwise, your Hub is considered too promotional. Hubbers seem to agree that if your Hub score is 75 or higher, the links in your Hubs will be DoFollow, if your Hub Score falls below that, the links become "nofollow".

Therefore, part of the reason I began writing on HubPages was so that I could easily add backlinks to my Squidoo Lenses from yet another domain. HubPages has a page rank of 6, so my backlinks had the advantage of coming from a high ranking domain which made it even more attractive.

Even if my backlinks were to fall into the "nofollow" category due to a fallen Hub Score, my lenses would still benefit somewhat. Readers could still choose to click through to my lens from that link. "Nofollow" links may not get the same boost on Google as a DoFollow link, but they aren't useless.

In addition, not all search engines seem to view "nofollow" links with such disregard as Google does. So even those "nofollow" links can be powerful when searchers come through other engines.

Both DoFollow links and those with the "nofollow" attribute can drive traffic to my lenses.

The community at Squidoo is great. The people who come to my lenses are very much appreciated. However, if you limit yourself to just the audience that comes to Squidoo, you're limiting yourself. You may become a big fish, but you're in a relatively small pond. A smaller fish, in a bigger pond, may have more power to drive a business. By spreading your writing across more than one domain, you are able to access a larger potential audience, develop a reputation as an expert with more people, and so forth.

Using this approach increases the opportunity for your following to grow, for your traffic to increase, and the chance for your business to really succeed. It just makes sense to target another writing site with a large established community and audience like HubPages.

Maybe you have "arrived" on Squidoo, perhaps you're earning over $1,000 a month, why on earth would you go elsewhere? I'm not suggesting you go anywhere, but I am suggesting that adding a second source of income is just plain smart. Squidoo could disappear one day. I have no reason to believe that will happen anytime in the near future, but it is possible.

If the income you earn on Squidoo is important in your life, you should definitely look at a second stream of income, a bit of diversification. Then, if you were to suddenly lose that Squidoo income, you wouldn't be stuck with nothing.

HubPages allows writers there to earn cash through Google AdSense, Kontera Ads, eBay, and Amazon as affiliates. In fact, Hubpages now has their own add program which pays writers as well. New Hubbers have to join these ad networks or affiliate programs and submit their ID information at Hubpages to earn revenue. Without going into too much detail, Hubbers earn 60% of the revenue generated from ad clicks or product sales through these programs, and Hubpages gets the other 40%. (Actually, with Google AdSense, Hubbers get 100% of Google AdSense clickthrough revenue and 60% of total impressions from hubs.)

Hubbers can also earn revenue from people they refer to HubPages. They get a portion of the revenue from the Google Ad impressions on the Hubs their referrals make, for a lifetime. On Squidoo, it's a one time payment for the referral.

Although I won't reveal my income specifically, I can say that the revenue I earn directly on Squidoo (per lens) is about 40% higher than my HubPages revenue (per Hub). However, it must be noted that I have been writing on Squidoo much longer, so many of my lenses are much older, better linked across the internet, and so forth. If I look at things equally however, by comparing my income on Squidoo after 1 to 1 1/2 years of writing, to my HubPages income of today at 1 to 1 1/2 years of writing, I'm making a bit more on Hubpages.

The only point in saying this, is that HubPages probably offers an equivalent income opportunity and therefore, can be a very viable second stream of money coming in on a regular basis. Thus, if you write on HubPages too, you'll have more financial security.

Personally, I don't mind the lensrank system at Squidoo. When you have a lens in the top tier, that payout is really, really nice. But for those lenses that aren't in that top tier, it doesn't feel so good.

On HubPages there is no lensrank system. When someone visits your page, or clicks, you get a portion of that revenue. (as described above) There's no popularity contest. You don't get higher pay because you have a lot of friends who vote up your Hub.

I'm not saying one system or the other is better. But...if you don't like the "social" influence on lensrank/pay at Squidoo, then choosing to write on HubPages can eliminate that issue.

I don't have an opinion really about whether Squidoo or HubPages offers better tools to allow you to promote your business or sell affiliate products. Squidoo definitely has more types of modules and it seems easier to get creative with things.

On the other hand, it seems that HubPages has fewer restrictions on selling Amazon or eBay products. I believe on Squidoo at this time, lensmasters are limited to 5 e-Bay modules per lenses. As far as I know, there is no limit on Hubpages for either Amazon or eBay modules/products although you must write at least 50 words of content for each product listed within your Hub.

However, there is no module that allows you to display Amazon products in a big glorious, attention grabbing way on HubPages like you can on Squidoo. The images for those products are much more inconspicous.

For those who make extensive use of video however, I can say I've never seen video modules get bogged down on a page when a dozen or so are used on a Hub, whereas on Squidoo I've had problems with this.

As I mentioned before, Squidoo is less stingy with backlinks than HubPages.

Again, the point is not which is superior, it's about the fact that you can sometimes do things on one site, that you aren't able to do on the other. Therefore, it's nice to have the option of writing on HubPages and Squidoo.

Another reason to write on HubPages is the ease of it. If you write on Squidoo, you should be able to learn "the ropes" on HubPages very quickly. There really are more similarities, than there are differences. I made my first Hub with no assistance whatsoever, and didn't even read any instructional material or FAQs. I just dove in and had no problems.

In addition, you will probably bump into many Squidoo friends on HubPages as well. The community there will include a number of friendly and familiar faces. So, if you're shy....don't be.