Horrible Hubpages Experience with Online Marketing Promotion.

My horrible Hubpages experience in online internet marketing was all my fault, not Hubpages!

When I first discovered Hubpages I approached it with all the wrong motivations. I saw an opportunity to get a free platform to self-publish promo articles that would:

• be a magnet for Google adwords
• make me some money with my Google adsense account
• allow me to promote tons of self-promotion affiliate marketing links
• make money with online Internet marketing of my own affiliate products

Well I wasn't wrong about being able to do all that, and make money online with Google adsense on hubpages, (to a degree), I was just very wrong about the correct way to do it.

There are so many good How-To hubs on hubpages, why not try a How-Not-to hub?

I have become a Hubpages advocate. I think it is an excellent tool for online writers and online Internet marketers. I have discovered that Hubpages is a great publishing platform that has a lot of credibility with Google's search algorithms. Good content articles, (hubs) from hubpages get good Google search exposure.

But like any tool, you get lousy results if you use it wrong.

Another very important part of the hubpages experience is its community of users, called "Hubbers". Once I discovered that my methods for using Hubpages weren't working I went to the Hubpages help forums for answers.

Their response was humbling! Within minutes of posting some of my problems, (in a not-so humble manner), people were responding with honest, encouraging, and helpful critiques and suggestions. I quickly began to "see the error of my ways" and started following their advice. Hopefully it will pay-off. This hub is an effort in that direction anyway.

So let's look at some of my "what-not-to-do's"

My first efforts to promote my affiliate links on hubpages was to stuff as many of my own online Internet Marketing links as I could into each hub I wrote:

• I placed my affiliate text links throughout my hub content multiple times
• I placed affiliate marketing links to product landing pages wherever I could
• I included a self-promoting links module, full of my own links, at the end of each hub

As you know, or can guess, I was; wrong, wrong, wrong!

On my first hub, Hubpages placed a warning at the top of the hub edit page saying that I was in danger of being flagged for being overly promotional or that I was placing too many duplicate links, so I edited the links so that I was just below the "danger" level.

By reducing the duplicate links and changing some of the self-promoting links I was able to publish the hub. (but it caught up to me later, read on)

We will follow this thought thread in the next module, but for now let me stay on this links topic and tell you what I have discovered about using promotional links.

• Do it in moderation that benefits the reader first and you second.

The correct way to look at links in your hubs:

Out-bound links in your hubs should have the primary purpose of benefiting the reader by providing them with more relevant information on your hub topic. Any out-bound links in your content should:

• provide detailed info to expound on a basic point in your module content
• provide back-up data to a point you have made
• provide other sources for further research or information on the topic being discussed
• provide issue comparisons
  

If you have a self-promotional link that is appropriate to the content of your module, use it with discretion. And note that your author's score could be penalized later if you use the same link  repeatedly in multiple hubs.

Otherwise, self-promotional links should be confined to the end of your hub in a sort-of author's Bio.

My next big mistake was to write content intended to promote my interest instead of providing value to the reader. Landing page type promo content for a product you are affiliated with is not valuable to the reader! My self-promotional content was all about getting the reader to do something or follow links that would benefit me.

In the context of the hub topic, my content was all about promoting things that benefited me:

• like illustrating only my products and the source for them
• by making all product references directed to my products only
• by limiting product discussion to what I had available

Again, wrong, wrong, wrong!

If your hub is product or service related, the content should include all aspects of that product or service, not just the ones that benefit you.

For example: When I wrote about Cat's Meow Village Collector's pieces, I should have included search sources for all available Cat's Meow Village pieces, not just the ones I had available. This cheated the reader by restricting their view of the topic.

When I wrote about Affiliate marketing I should have included a range of outside review sources, not just my own blog reviews.

I'm not saying you can't include any self-interest in your content; it's just that the content should be structured to benefit the reader first and you second. If will pay off in the end because the reader will be more satisfied with your hub efforts, which has the potential of increasing your traffic.

You can see proof of this in a current trend among some of the "Big Name" retailers. You can see commercials where not only do they promote their products and prices, but they are willing to offer you on the spot comparison with their competitor's prices and products. They are confident enough to be willing to stand against the competition on their own merits. Your hub page content should be able to do the same thing.

The content of your hubs should be focused on providing information to the reader.

It can be:

• How-to's
• What-is's (LOL, I like that one)
• Descriptive information, like an essay on geology maybe
• ton's of other good content categories

• But affiliate product promo pages are not one of them! Your Hubpage readers can find affiliate links, promos, and landing pages all over the net, and filling their inboxes, they are not here for more of the same on Hubpages.

And it's a losing battle for you. Hubpages as a publishing site is designed to discount these types of efforts, even ban authors that are really bad at it. Google's search algorithms can also sniff out this type of content and will put you way down the index list. If you get on it at all.

Even if you do get a few of these types of hubs up, your Hub success will be short-lived. The cumulative effect will be; low value hubs, little traffic, and a trashed author's score that will "no-follow" all your links, and devalue your Adsense opportunities.

I will fulfill the module title here with some quick bullet points because this isn't intended to be an Adsense primer, but here are the mistakes I made:

• Don't do any CPC (cost per click) research to determine the approximate value of your hub keywords,
• Don't write rich-content hubs that provide value to your readers - write to provide value for yourself. (guess that should read perceived value)
• Don't participate in the Hubpage's community

Here s one thing you can do to guarantee no Adsense revenue: Follow the steps in the first two modules of this hub and get your author's score trashed.

A brief explanation of why the above items trash your Adsense revenue:

• The value of your Adsense clicks depends on the advertiser cost for the click. Remember you Adsense revenue is a share of what Google gets from the advertiser.
• Adsense ads are placed on you hub relative to the content and keywords of your hub - lousy hub or low value keywords = lousy Adsense placement
• Content relative Adsense ads are more likely to be clicked because they are a closer match to readers interest

I searched for Google Adsense hubs and found there were not as many as I would have expected, but for the basic information of how it works check out this hub: Making Money with Google Adsense

This is an easy one to illustrate. This is what I did to not be a part of the Hubpages community:

I didn't:

• Leave comments on any Hubs I visited
• become any Hubbers fan
• link to any hubs
• participate in any forums (I asked questions, but didn't reciprocate with answers)

The results:

• I didn't get the valuable Hub comments I needed
• I didn't get any internal traffic
• I didn't get any fans
• and worst of all, I thought my Hubs were good! I didn't know what I didn't know!

Bottom line; my Hub scores dropped and my author's score tanked because of the mistakes I was making.

So just follow in my footsteps and you too can be a failing non-member of Hubpages.

Now let me tell you what I have learned about the value of participating in the Hubpages community.

You can't just be a "taker"; you have to also be a "giver"

Remember when I told you I received forum help response within minutes of posting my questions? Well I was impressed! The critiques were "spot-on" and very helpful. And the members answering my questions were nice about it to boot.

So here's what happened to my Hubs and my scores on the same day I started implementing their suggestions, the same day, and began participating in the forums:

• I followed their advice and even I had to admit my Hubs were better than before
• I got my first fan the same day I began participating in the forums
• I even got some fan mail the first day
• I started getting comments on my Hubs (that was a great leap forward)
• My Hub scores went up, not a bunch, but a couple points (in 1 day)
• My author's score has started rising, a little, but it's a start, imagine what a whole week will bring
• I feel a lot better about myself on Hubpages!

So make your own choice; become part of the Hubpage Community, (to whatever degree suits you), or don't.

As for me... I'm, here to make money, and write content, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the road to success. Especially if you are now on the road to failure that I was.

G.A.Anderson, aka Appletreedeals is a long-time ebay seller who reached Power Seller status, and also became an ebay certified Trading Assistant. I scavenged the house for things to sell and pretty soon a common question around the house was... "Dad, did you sell my,,,?"

As my experience grew, I turned it into a legitimate business and Appletreedeals was born. I expanded into other Internet enterprises and gradually entered the affiliate marketing segment of online money-making opportunities. It wasn't long before I started appending my content articles with my byline; G.A. Anderson

Now I'm hooked on content article publishing and Hubpages is my newest home. I hope my efforts are of some value to my readers because I have found that I really enjoy this stuff.

Appletreedeals on Hubpages