The Most Popular Antiques on eBay

I just finished a new articles on Hubpages, The Most Popular Antiques on eBay. This is my first attempt to incorporate more eBay listings on new Hubpages articles. After I looked at the commission I earned from one eBay sale on another page, I decided I need to diversify some of my online income and write more Hubpages. And it seems that eBay items might be worth highlighting, especially in the antiques and collectibles category, which I love to write about.

And I actually found some good Hubpages already written that I could link to with my referral link embedded into the url. This not only will add valuable resources for my readers, but I also get a share of the impressions for a short time period when someone clicks my link. But if you do this on your own Hubpages, make sure you actually read through the Hub you are linking to make sure if has good information and in about your same topic. There's nothing worse than linking to an article that provides no value to the reader. Join Hubpages HERE

eBay Commissions on Hubpages

I just checked my stats on Hubpages and saw that a few weeks ago I earned a commission from an eBay sale from one of my Hubs.  I had only signed up for the eBay program within Hubpages a few weeks before that.  I haven't really been keeping up with what's going on over there, but at some point they switched from having to be your own eBay affiliate to now being able to join the eBay associates program underneath Hubpages somehow.  Before I never earned any commissions from eBay, but I signed up on Hubpages to get eBay commissions and now I've made my first sale.

What's interesting is how they report the earnings.  The product sold cost $34.99.  And it says the revenue earned was $3.70, but there is a disclaimer that the revenue portion listed is before it's split up between Hubpages, you the writer, and any referrals on the page.  So I get 60% of that commission, which works out to $2.22.  So my portion ends up being about 6.3% of the sales price of the item, which is pretty good.  I usually earn closer to 4-5% on eBay sales over on Squidoo, so 1-2% more is nice.

And that gets me thinking.  Maybe I need to be focusing more effort on writing pages over on Hubpages featuring eBay products.  I do quite well with eBay products on Squidoo and I'm wondering if I can write about similar things over on Hubpages.  I also wonder about those referrals.  Maybe I could do some promotion of hubs already written that have good eBay links on them.  But I'm not really sure if the referral gets impressions or a percentage of the sale or how it works.  But it's worth more research to find out. Join Hubpages HERE

Create More Income Online by Writing More Content

I have been reminded in the past few weeks about how important it is to keep writing new content to increase my online income.  About 18 months ago, I wrote a short post on Snipsly, which hadn't really received much traffic at all, and certainly not any adsense revenue until now.  (Snipsly is a free adsense revenue sharing website that shares a whopping 80% of the adsense impressions with you, the writer.)  Now, all of a sudden, within the last few week, it's getting traffic almost every day and earning Google Adsense earnings almost every day.  This is after a year and a half of nothing.

Which is both encouraging and frustrating at the same time.  It's encouraging because you just never know when one of your articles will all of a sudden start getting traffic and earning you money.  But that is also very frustrating because you write every article with the best intentions, yet sometimes it feels like earning money from your writing can be very "hit" or "miss".

I must say that when I wrote this article back then, I was just starting out and didn't know what to write about, nor did I know anything about keyword research, or SEO.  I just wrote mainly to get my links out there on the web.  Since then, my articles are much more productive, especially my Squidoo lenses, which are now earning me more than $1000 per month, and climbing.

But it just goes to show you that the more you write, the more opportunity you have to earn income online, whether it is via Google Adsense, affiliate links, or sales of your own products.  But just as I mentioned in my previous post, there are certain things you need to think about and do before you start a new website, or create any content online for that matter.  And as always, be original, unique, and write good quality content.

I have focused my efforts in the last 6 months on writing on Squidoo, which is now produced a decent income for me (about $1000 per month), and now I feel I should start developing more articles in some other places, like Hubpages and Wizzley, both of which offer the possibly of earning from your writing from Google Adsense, Amazon products commissions, and eBay product commissions.  Hubpages also has it's own ad program which you can earn money based on impressions.

I have only written about 18 hubs on Hubpages, and all of them were before I really knew anything about keyword research or SEO.  But I've been earning around $8 per month from the Hubpages Ad program, which is pretty good considering I didn't write for topics that get a lot of traffic.  Right now, my Hubpage only get about 1350 page views per month.  As I typing this, I'm actually encouraged at how much I could possibly earn from the Hubpages Ad program alone if I were to get 80,000 page views per month like I do from my Squidoo pages.  On Squidoo I've made about 175 pages, but most of my income comes from commissions from Amazon and eBay sales.  My ad revenue split portion is only around $275 per month.  If you calculate that out per pageview, the ad revenue portion is about $0.0034 of ad revenue per pageview on Squidoo.  On Hubpages it's quite a bit higher at $0.0059 per pageview.

But of course, the question then becomes...Can I get the same kind of traffic to my Hubpages with the same amount of work as I put into Squidoo.  Will a similar quality article on the same topic rank higher and get more traffic from Squidoo or Hubpages?  I don't know.  I guess I'll need to write 150+ more hubs to find out.  Then I'll have the same number of Squidoo lenses and Hubpages.  The same questions can be asked about Wizzley.

On Wizzley, I joined and made my initial page, then have only been back to make one other page.  However, my 2nd page I researched keywords and I've already had some good traffic to it.  Which is very encouraging.  Wizzley takes the best of both Hubpages and Squidoo and incorporates similar things on their website.  The editing of the template is very similar to Hubpages, which I need to get a little more used to since I've been spending all my time over at Squidoo.

I hate to stop making new Squidoo pages, as I feel like I've finally cracked the code and learned what works for me and what doesn't.  A part of me wants to just keep churning out lenses over there, which would be the most profitable thing to do in the short term.  But my point of writing articles elsewhere is to diversify my risk of my online income.  I don't want all my eggs in one basket.  Since Squidoo is now bringing in at least 50% of my online income I think I need to bump up some of my other income sources.



Join Me and Earn Money Writing on Wizzley

Join Hubpages HERE


Join Squidoo HERE

How to Align an Image to the Left

Have you ever needed to align an image to the left or right and have your text continue on the lines like normal?  You need to "float" the image.  And whenever I need to find the html or css code to do this, I always have to sift through the Google search results to find what I'm looking for, because my bookmarks on my browser bar are just as disorganized as my office.  I can't find anything when I need it.  Of course, if you are writing on a website that gives you nice picture templates and asks you if you want to image to the left, right, or center, then you don't need to use any type of code.  However, I need to align images a lot inside of Squidoo text module, which I need the html code to float the image.

I "stumbled upon" an article on Stumble about things to think about BEFORE you make a website, which was a fantastic article and a must read for anyone writing online.  The topic is actually how to create small websites that rank well, but the majority of the article was everything you need to do prior to even buying your domain name.  And so many people do this backwards.  They jump in head first and fail because they go make a website that doesn't fill a need.  So no one visits the website.

The example she used for a website she created was about how to align images.  Which I find myself quite commonly using the almightly Google to point me in the right direction.  So here's the link to that - Simple Website to Align Images.  And here's a picture of my dog, Zoey, aligned to the left using html code.

I also then stumbled and read something else that I found interesting:  Feed the Bot, which you can put your url into and it will show you what the search engines really see on your webpage.

I Need to Blog to keep track of my Notes

I love to learn.  I think that's why I am so drawn to writing online.  Because it's not just about the writing.  It's about figuring out how to write someone great, and then help others find my content among all the other things written on the web.

And this is where the learning begins.

• How do I get people to my website?  
• Where does Squidoo place my H2 header tags on my page automatically, in which modules?  
• What's an H2 header tag?  I didn't know 6 months ago!  But I've learned.  

And today, as I studying the text on pages talking about SEO tips I realized that every time I learn something new I need to be writing it down.  So I thought, I need to blog about it.  I'll keep my own little notes, just for myself.  Of course, my blog will actually be public, but I will write more for myself.  My notes.  Online.  So I can come back and remind myself what it was that I found so fascinating the day before.  And since I tend to work late at night, when the kids are in bed, if my sentence structure and grammar or spelling are not up to par, well, it's just past midnight, and I'm tired.  Please forgive me.

So, I am going to try to write more on this blog, which I created, then forgot about 6 months ago!  I guess I needed to remind myself!  In another blog!