I Am a Writing Maniac Thanks to 60 Day Challenge

About 2 weeks ago, I happened to be on HubPages and noticed that one of the members there had developed a 60 day challenge. The challenge involved writing 30 Hubs in 30 days which has become a somewhat normal type challenge coupled with 30 days of marketing and promotion. Needless to say I was very interested especially since I had started to notice that my HubPages earnings were picking up.

It turns out that I was able to participate. The opportunity was available to a limited number, and I just happened to be on the forums at the right time. Well, now I am in the process of writing my 30 Hubs in 30 days. I will have until the first few days of May. The problem is that I got behind since I didn't have my laptop back yet and went a week without being able to get on the internet on a consistent basis. I had it back for this past week, but life has been incredibly busy with work and April 15 and a ton of other stuff.

Now here it is the 17th, and I only had 2 Hubs done. That is better than I thought since I only thought I had one done! LOL! Anyway, I am using some of my own advice today and using some of that extra time for writing. I dropped the kids at gymnastics practice and rather than drive 40 minutes home and 40 minutes back, I went to a nearby Panera, paid $1.73 for my drink and use of their internet connection for 2.5 hours. So far, I have written 2 articles and published them. I am taking a break now and writing this post. After this, I will start a third article and publish it later tonight.

My plan is to be able to get at least 8 articles done this weekend, bringing my total to 10. It would be nice to get more done, but I would like to be realistic. I have a softball game tomorrow night.

Despite all the hard work, I am excited to be participating. First, it forces me to be accountable to a group of others and get the writing done. Second, I am especially eager to follow what we will be doing when it comes to the promotion phase of the challenge. I am sure that I will learn a lot during those 30 days. I expect that I will see big dividends down the road. I have already seen a bump in traffic to my Hubs. Granted, it is likely mostly fellow challenge members, but that is OK. It will be hard to measure the longer term impact but I doubt that it hurt at all.

You can follow my progress on the 60 Day Challenge log that is part of the project. I will also periodically update this blog as well especially next month as I learn more about promotion. I am trying to use what I have learned about keyword research with some of the Hubs and target phrases that have a decent amount of search traffic (about 2,000-3,000 monthly searches), a reasonable CPC (over $1) and beatable competition. For some of the Hubs, this has been applied. Others I have written for fun. Anyway, I need to quick taking a break and get back to being a writing fool.

Maddie (and Ladybird) Lay Down the Gauntlet

Little did I know when I wrote my last blog post about motivating myself to write more Hubs for HubPages that they were actually planning a contest for the month of March. How convenient! It was brought to my attention by Maddie Ruud, one of the team members at HubPages. Furthermore, Ladybird (a fellow Hubber) has egged me along as well.

The contest involves writing Hubs related to health topics. Each day another topic is presented and the requirement is to write a related article within a 24 hour time frame. It is possible to write up to 3 articles each day, but there is no way I would even begin to have the time for that.

So, what I plan on doing is looking over the available topics for the month and doing my keyword research within that topic. If I can find a decent keyword that would meet my criteria, I will make that keyword a high priority and really focus to get that article done.

Hopefully, I will be able to find some good keywords in some of the topics in which I am interested. I have always had some difficulty just writing on any topic and usually have to have some personal interest or motivation for writing.

All in all, I would like to get about 14 or 15 articles completed for the month. There were some topics that didn't seem all that interesting to me. Plus, I will be busy with another deadline until March 1st so I won't be able to get a headstart like I might if I weren't so busy.

We will just have to see how it goes. I will be sure to comment here and keep you updated. Is anyone here joining in on the March challenge? I would love to hear from you.

Considering Another HubPages "Challenge"

I have been incredibly impressed with the results from HubPages this month. So much so that I am considering the possibility of putting together another challenge for myself and trying to write several Hubs during the month of March.

As soon as I get past this work deadline on February 28th, I should have a little more time to write some articles. I have been doing some research and figuring out what topics I might be able to cover. I have a few good ideas for about 4 or 5 articles in my head already.

Improving CTR

I have noticed that the click through rate for HubPages has improved significantly over the past five or six months. My guess is that it has to do with the increasing percentage of search traffic that I am getting. During the fall of last year, my main source of traffic was HubPages itself. Now, my main source is Google. It won't be long and Google will represent my single largest source of traffic for that site.

Now that I have an idea what I am doing with keyword research, SEO, SERPs, et cetera, it might be worth it to target a few keywords and see what I can accomplish on the site. The nice thing is that I have done essentially nothing on HubPages this year and am seeing my traffic and earnings slowly increase. Now is the time to put in another slug of hard work to plant the seeds for the fall. It would be smart to do now before the weather gets nice anyway.

So do you have any plans for March? Any major projects or focus? Need to get motivated? Join me in really focusing on developing the seeds for passive income in March.

HubPages 30 Hubs in 30 Day Challenge

I am excited about participating in an upcoming 30 hub in 30 day challenge. When I first heard about HubPages, there was a challenge underway already. It was a 100 hub in 30 day challenge that was started by an internet marketing type who wanted to create some buzz and links. I am presuming that he succeeded.

Increased Traffic Leads to Increased Earnings

One of the easiest concepts to grasp when it comes to earning money online is that without any traffic, it is impossible to earn anything. I think it goes without saying that once your content is up and available to the world, driving traffic should become job number one. The best traffic is search engine traffic which means that someone is actually looking for something with a specific reason in mind. That reason could be that the person is looking for information for a report or project, is looking for a review on a product they are considering purchasing, or looking to be entertained. If you are able to meet that need, then you might have a chance of earning some money.

Many of the people on HubPages reported an increase in traffic as well as an increase in earnings associated with the challenge. That is why I am looking forward to it. I have already published 40 hubs. Another 30 hubs will almost double my number, so I am possibly looking at a 50-100% increase in traffic. Assuming the same relative amount of search engine traffic and other variables, I could expect that my online earnings should increase by roughly the same amount. Not that they are huge, but that would still be cool. Furthermore, should this blog serve its purpose, I might even be able to get even more traffic. I plan on keeping this blog updated on my progress for the challenge which begins in 2 days on July 24, 2009. I have already been working on some ideas and doing a little bit of research. It will take some effort to keep up with the challenge as well as work, but I think I can get close to the final goal. In the meantime, feel free to stop by HubPages and checkout my current work.