Flashbacks of writing research papers and learning to make money online

Posted By Hup | June 26, 2009

As you probably know, I work for an awesome web startup called HubPages here in San Francisco. What you probably didn’t know is what we actually do. Well, in short, we allow anyone to write articles about the things that they know about or have expertise in and then after they publish the article we manage various ways for them to make money from what they wrote. So basically, our authors (or ‘Hubbers’ as we call them) write stuff and we help them get search traffic from Google and other search engines, which then results in them getting paid when people click on their ads, etc. It’s a pretty simple and straight forward system that results in a lot of people having fun writing and making money while they’re doing it. We’ve grown like crazy lately and thanks to a rockin’ engineering team, hard-working moderators and a recent 100 Hubs in 30 Days HubChallenge that I put together last month, we’ve shot right into the top 150 websites in the US. Not too shabby, eh?

Anyways, as I’ve worked for HubPages I’ve started to learn more and more about how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) works and how people can make real money in a legit way online. Coming from more of a community and social-driven side of the web, it has taken me a while to catch on to the detail-oriented SEO world, but here lately I’ve really started to get the hang of it all (I think?). This past month alone I’ve made about $50 from writing articles that range from things that I know a lot about such as:

These Hubs have done well for me and have been written from personal experiences with each of the topics. However, I also have written some other Hubs that are about more lucrative topics that I knew nothing about before I went out and researched all about them. These types of topics are harder to write about (much like a research paper in high school), but if I can get them to rank in Google, they are potentially worth much, much more money. A couple of these types of research are about these super exciting topics:

As you can see, these topics aren’t quite as fun as the ones I listed above, but the have much more earning potential if I can somehow get them to rank well in Google or other search engines (which they currently don’t). Anyways, I just wanted to give you all a little update on my job and what we actually do here. I hope this makes sense, but if it doesn’t check out the video below or over here on YouTube — it’ll explain everything. :)

Filed Under san francisco, video, workin' for the man

We think that you might also like these, too:
  • Figuring out that ‘finding myself’ isn’t the point

    • Talkies (we love hearing from you!)

    5 Talkies! to “Flashbacks of writing research papers and learning to make money online”

    1. Maddie on June 26th, 2009 12:06 pm

      Who you calling hard-working?!?!?!?! Me, or the MaddieBot?

    2. Austin on June 26th, 2009 12:43 pm

      Very helpful and useful information. I just am getting started and learning a lot in recent times through work as well! I’ve been blogging for about six years now, but haven’t turned it into money yet due to being too busy I guess. Maybe I’ll sign on for an account on your website!

      Good luck!

    3. currency on June 27th, 2009 7:08 am

      WOW!! Being back on the East Side is giving me all the flashbacks from back in the day!! On my way to Louie’s on Harper to eat breakfast……

    4. swell on June 30th, 2009 2:40 pm

      the blackberry page was really helpful! i totally discovered it on stumbleupon!

      keep up the good work.

    5. Making money online with hubpages on July 2nd, 2009 5:21 pm

      Did you see Courtney Tuttle’s Hubpage Challenge results? I think he made about $478 from his 100 hubs in four weeks. Which is awesome.

      I had somehow thought that Hubpages would have publicised his effort a bit more - it certainly proves that you can coin it with Hubpages if you know what you are doing.

    What do you want to tell us, hmmm?