eHow, HubPages, and Future Plans

Rest in Peace

Needless to say, there have been a lot of changes in the online income game over the past few months.  The rules of the game have changed.  It is survival of the fittest.  It is time to adapt or die.  I refuse to be a buggy whip manufacturer but will stay as nimble as possible and continue to do what I can to continue this hobby of mine and maybe even make enough on the side to pay for my other hobby, golf.

eHow Cancels WCP

Several of you may have heard that eHow will be shutting down its Writer's Compensation Program.  The choices are to accept a buyout offer for the rights to my articles or watch them get deleted.  Now I could claim them for myself and publish on another site, but I really don't have any place to put them.  So, I plan to accept the buyout offer.  It works out to about 6 months of revenue so I can't complain too much.  I have earned my fair share for the amount of effort that I put into those articles.

HubPages and the Ad Program

My HubPages traffic continues to dwindle.  It seems yet to find a base.  I signed up for the HubPages Ad Program figuring that I might be able to some revenue from the limited number of views that I get daily.  I am not sure how well this is working.  It is really hard to say since my AdSense revenue is now nonexistent.  No revenue at all for the month of May is unsettling to say the least.  It is reminding me of the first few weeks of writing on the internet although at this pace, I will have earned more then.

Is the HubPages Ad Program having a negative effect on my AdSense?  It is hard to tell what I might make with the massive traffic decline.  The Ad Program does replace several of the AdSense blocks.  I will say that the eCPM for the Ad Program is similar to what I was able to get with AdSense so maybe the impact is negligible.

Future Plans

Since my 2 main sources of online revenue have been destroyed, it is time to start over again.  I have learned quite a bit these past 2 years and plan on using that newly acquired knowledge to make a real go at earning online income.  I plan on taking this hobby thing to the next level and officially making it a part time venture with the goal of creating online assets that will supplement my golfing fund in retirement. 

I can think of no better way of spending my time than getting up early and heading to the golf course while letting my wife sleep late.  Then I can come home, blog and work on sites for a few hours after lunch, then have the evening free.  Sounds like a great life to me.  Unfortunately, it is probably about 15 years down the road.  But that gives me plenty of time to develop a few sites, right!

I plan on using the eHow buyout to fund a hosting account and domain.  I figure that would give me about a year to get the site supporting its own hosting costs.  If I can't get it making $7 per month in a year, then I will have to re-evaluate my abilities.  I might have to retire as a starter at a golf course instead.

I should also be able to reach the $50 HubPages payout in another couple months.  I am about halfway there now.  Once I get to that point, I will try a little experiment and discontinue the program to see what the AdSense impact truly is.  That $50 can also pay for some of my hosting expenses and maybe even another domain or two should I come up with a couple good ideas.


Well, that is the approach that I plan to take for the rest of this year.

Readers, what are your thoughts about my plan?  How have you altered your online strategies with all of the recent changes?  Are you defeated or adapting?  I would love to hear from you.

Online Income Earnings Report 1st Quarter 2011

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you will realize that I don't publish monthly results since the variation can be unsettling.  Instead I prefer to publish quarterly reports and compare to the previous 3 month time frame as well as the results from a year ago.  I think this gives a better sense of true progress and smooths out variations that may occur with various seasons and holidays.

The first quarter of 2011 saw some interesting changes for the prospect of earning passive income online.  The Google update caused my HubPages traffic to drop.  According to Google Analytics, I am looking at a 25-30% drop in overall traffic.  I think that this will have some impact on AdSense earnings going forward.  I am hoping that some of the other sites will make up the difference.

HubPages also added an Ad Program that did make up the difference during the month of March.  It is based upon impressions and traffic so if you want to read a few of my articles, feel free to check them out through the widget in the sidebar.  I will be including the revenue from this program in the results below.

I did benefit from the Google change through my eHow articles.  In fact, March was my highest month ever at eHow.  I am curious to see if this trend will continue and I will see improved earnings or if this is a new plateau.  Either way, I will take it.

So here are my online earnings for the first 3 months of 2011:

January 2011 (Compare to Jan 2010 of $58.40)

• AdSense $54.06
• eHow $20.83
• Total $75.50

February 2011 (Compare to Feb 2010 of $55.97)

• AdSense $42.92
• eHow $21.33
• Total $65.59

March 2011 (Compare to Mar 2010 of $47.49)

• AdSense $44.26
• eHow $26.01
• HP Ad Program $13.25
• Total $84.03

You may notice that the total doesn't add up.  I didn't report very small totals like the amount from ListMyFive or YouData but did include in the totals.  I also do not report Amazon income until I actually receive it.  I did this because it took 18 months to make the first payout.

In the fourth quarter of 2010, I made $231.93.  This quarter I made $225.12 so I have seen a quarter to quarter decrease in income (although counting the roughly $18 I made on Amazon in Feb and March would have helped).  I will, however, remain optimistic that compared to one year ago I improved my earnings by $63.26 or almost 40%.  Last year, the summer was a slow time for me so I plan on busting my butt over the next 3 months.  I will post those goals and plans next time.  I hope everyone will make it through all the interesting changes and continue to build larger and more varied income streams.

My Best Week Ever at eHow

Following the Google Farmer update, I have been absolutely amazed at the impact on my personal repertoire of articles at the various sites.  The main bulk of my activity has been at HubPages.  You may know from my circling the wagons post that my Google traffic was down 50-60%.  It bounced back a little but still is down about 30-40%.  Despite that and the usual slump of weekend traffic that I constantly see, I had a really good weekend.  This goes to show that it is simply impossible to predict what might happen, and the only thing that I can be doing is writing and publishing.

Furthermore since the Google update, it has been stated that eHow was somehow unaffected.  I have several thoughts about why this might be and published those in my latest Hub on 3 reasons I think eHow might prosper.  I would suggest that you read this and offer some input as well either here or at my Hub.  Evidence that this might be true is the fact that this most recent 7 day stretch has been my best ever at eHow.  If the pace continues, I will surpass my best earnings month for that site.  I can't believe that it is coincidence but am pleased that it is picking up the slack.

Speaking of slack, HubPages has added a new revenue model of which I am pleased to be one of the early invitees.  It seems that they have gone out and secured advertisers on their own and are paying on an impression model.  Just another reason you should be reading all of my Hubs and sending them out to your friends (LOL!).  I think that this new model may help take the sting out of the recent changes.  I will post on my early impressions after I have a few more days under my belt. 

I want to save my next post for introducing my new website which was launched as a direct counter-attack to Google's offensive on content farms.  I am seeking to create a fairly large informational site on trading options which is a passion of mine so it should be easy to get motivated.

So, how is everyone else fairing following the Google Update?  It seems like those with their own sites have seen little negative impact which is a good thing.  That makes me hopeful that building my own is the right path to take.

Earnings for Second Quarter of 2010

First, I would like to apologize for not posting for the past week. I was out of town and had very limited internet access (not to mention time) so was unable to post anything. I still haven't gotten to the point where I schedule blog posts in advance. I simply write on the spot and off the cuff. Maybe someday, I will be so organized.

As a result of the time off, I feel like I am way behind in my regular life. I still have a week's worth of mail to go through and bills to pay. I plan on catching up this evening after I am done at work. In the meantime, I have a few minutes to post my earnings numbers for the second quarter of 2010.

I am encouraged by these numbers since the June earnings were slightly better than I earned in May. Hopefully the downtrend will be broken, and I can start to see some gradual improvement. Of course the earnings are much better compared to last June since that was my first full month ever online. I am really hoping that the numbers are looking better in the fall and winter months since last year seemed to be pretty good considering I was still early in this venture.

So here is what I earned for the past 3 months:

April 2010: AdSense = $22.86, eHow = $22.94, Total = $45.80

May 2010: AdSense = $22.49, eHow = $11.34, Total = $35.88

June 2010: AdSense = $24.51, eHow = $13.78, Total = $41.88

It looks like maybe I have found the bottom. Of course, one month does not define a trend, and I will have to see what this month brings. So far, the start of July seems to be promising. I need to get to work building more links and will be doing that for the next several months to be sure.

I hope to get back into the swing of things over this next week. It is always tough for me to come back from time off. It seems like I spend a lot of time trying to get things done before leaving and time catching up when returning compressing 3 weeks of work into 2. Anyway, it will be good to get back into a rhythm again. I will try to do a little each day and keep plugging away at building that passive income.

Creating Links for eHow

I am busy creating links for all of my articles since I believe that improving my traffic will do a lot to improve my passive income.  I decided to start with eHow since on a per article basis, it is my most profitable article site.  HubPages makes more but has 4 times the number of articles and only makes about 2 times the income.  Now not every one of my Hubs are evergreen so I can't expect all of them to be making money.

All of my eHow articles have links on Xomba, and I am getting close to being done with Shetoldme.  From there I plan on moving to Redgage, Snipsly, Folkd, and StumbleUpon.  I am trying not to do too much at one time since I would like it to seem somewhat natural.  The Xomba links were done last year so any new links will be fresh.

It will take some time to get all of them completed but I am hoping that I will be done with all of the eHow links by mid-August.  That would give me 9 months before my second anniversary to see if there is an impact upon earnings.  I believe there will be and that I might be able to see my average earnings up 1.5-2 times.  At least all I can do is try.

Then I plan on moving on to my HubPages articles.  I will probably mainly link the evergreen articles.  It will take quite some time (probably to the end of the year) since I have 143 Hubs.  Again, I think it will be very useful for increasing traffic and building up the income at the same time.  My HubPages traffic has been increasing naturally throughout 2010 so I think the links will give it an added boost.

What do you find helps you with traffic?  Are there other sites than the ones I mentioned that you would recommend for link building?  Thanks for reading and commenting.

Photo credit: Petritap 

Good News from eHow

I went to my eHow account this past weekend to look it over for the purpose of improving my links to my 38 published articles and found out that every single article had at least earned something.  I found it exciting and encouraging to see those results.

If you read about my goals for my second year online, you know that I am going to try and increase my earnings through continued publishing of content but also through improved efforts at linking and "marketing".  I decided that I should start with eHow since I won't be tempted to write more content.  Besides, the payments come via Paypal which I plan to use for funding the development of any niche sites.

My original goal was to start making money online without investing any of my own money.  I could only invest my time and use whatever money I made to reinvest in the online venture.  So far, I have done this.  I used the money in the Paypal account (from eHow) to purchase Michelle Adams' Virtual Real Estate Development Guide for $57.  (I am almost halfway through reading it.  It is long and detailed, and I at times have to re-read a paragraph several times.  But that is good for me as a novice.)

Anyway, I thought that I should begin with linking and marketing eHow so that I could increase my passive earnings there and use those funds to start making niche websites.  Then I could continue to use AdSense checks for paying down debt.  That is why I was looking over my eHow articles. 

So far, I have created a link to each of my eHow articles on Xomba.  This was done last fall.  I also have about half done on SheToldMe which were again done last fall.  But I have none on Redgage, Folkd, or Snipsly which I plan on completing over the next several weeks.  It will be interesting to see if there will be any impact.  Needless to say, I certainly hope so. 

Once I have completed this task, finished reading the VRED guide, and made a little more for the Paypal account, I plan on starting a niche site.  Don't worry, I will keep everyone posted.  It won't be incredibly quick since I am a part-timer.  But I'm OK with that.  I am still having fun. 




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eHow vs HubPages: A Comparison of Passive Income

I just got paid by eHow this week for the month of April; $22.94 was deposited in my Paypal account. For me, eHow has been totally passive since last October. I haven't written anything, nor do I promote in any fashion. 100% passive income.

Contrast that to HubPages. I have been writing Hubs in April as part of a challenge. Granted I didn't get the 30 Hubs completed, but it was still a lot of work and a substantial amount of effort taking up many, many hours of research and writing. Furthermore, this month I will be doing some promoting of the Hubs that I have written trying to stimulate traffic. For the month of April, I earned $22.59 from HubPages.

I am actually surprised that the totals are as close as they are. Considering the amount of effort devoted to HubPages and the number of articles (141 vs 38), I would have thought that I could have earned more than eHow.

And look at what has happened so far this month. eHow is at $4.50 so far and HubPages is at $1.97. I am incredibly disappointed and surprised that I am not earning more considering the effort. Traffic seems reasonable. It is certainly not decreasing. It is actually slowly improving. The amount of search engine traffic seems to be reasonable as well. HubPages is showing over 75% search engine traffic according to Google Analytics.

I have tried to keep a decent attitude and haven't had near the number of emotional ups and downs as when I first started. But, I must admit that 3 months of declining revenue after a decent February is starting to take its toll. I suppose this could all be related to my lack of effort during the early months of this year. Maybe all of the effort now will be paying off this fall.

But I am really getting down and having some difficulty getting motivated to keep plugging away considering we are almost halfway through the month and I don't even have $2 of earnings at HubPages. That is quite depressing to think about considering how much I earned last month. I would think that increasing traffic with a decent proportion of search engine traffic should at least allow my earnings to hold steady.

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. I will start promoting several of the Hubs that were written as part of the challenge and report the results. So far, I think writing and publishing has helped generate a little more traffic but, as you just read, no improvement in earnings.

Didn't Quite Make It--But I Will

Well, I didn't quite make my goal of getting another AdSense check within 3 months. February started out so strong that I thought it would not be a problem at all. But then March and April just fell apart. The CTR in April was simply pitiful.

Actually, it turned out to be closer than I thought it would considering the poor start in April. I was actually under $3 away. That just means that I will get a bigger check in June which is OK by me.

eHow Surprise--Good

Surprisingly, my eHow income was better by a few cents than my AdSense income. And the best part is that eHow has been totally passive. eHow earnings have been increasing steadily since January when I didn't even make payout. Needless to say, I hope that this trends continues. It may just mean that I am climbing in the search engines and getting more revenue as a result. I really don't spend my time tracking views so it is hard to know if I am getting more traffic. For me, eHow has been truly passive. I simply log on every 2 or 3 days to see if the earnings have gone up and that's it.

Xomba Surprise--Bad

Xomba, on the other hand, was absolutely terrible. I actually had slightly more traffic than last month but only earned 6 cents. SIX CENTS!! I found more than that on the ground last week (I found a quarter). Fortunately, I did not spend a lot of time at the site since I have been working on the 60 Day Challenge at HubPages so at least I don't feel that bad. But it sure makes me wonder about residual income at Xomba.

Speaking of HubPages, I am still plugging away trying to get articles done. I have published 11 articles (out of 30), have another one written but not published, and have several more ideas. I am hoping to write 3 tonight before going to sleep but have some household duties first. It is already 7:15 pm. Maybe I can sit and write from 10-midnight. I will have to see how it goes. Tomorrow will be busy, but I might be able to get one done.

Well, I would love to write more here, but I really should get going and work on the household chores so I can get writing some more. All in all, this Challenge has been good for me since it has forced me to actually get some work done. Otherwise, I would have wasted time. Plus the impact on HubPages traffic has been positive although earnings have yet to see an impact that I can tell. I am sure that in time the benefits will be positive.

Until next time. As always, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to read. I certainly appreciate it and hope that I have been helpful or motivational to some of you.

March Revenues Disappointing (sort of)

I was fairly excited in February considering the amount of AdSense revenue that I had received from the two blogs, HubPages, and Xomba primarily. I thought that March (with an extra 3 days) would actually do fairly well.

Unfortunately, AdSense revenues have been somewhat disappointing this month. Granted there are still over 2 days left in the month, but there is no way that I will earn as much as I did in February. There are 2 primary reasons that I see for this discrepancy. First, the amount that I am earning per each click is lower. Second, the amount that I am earning from Xomba is way off the pace.

Over the past few months, I have noticed a nice increase in the amount of traffic and revenue via HubPages. I suspect that some of my efforts of last fall are starting to take effect. I can only hope that this positive trend continues. On the other hand, I have not been very active. I have always wondered whether or not Xomba might work well as a source of passive income. The jury is officially still out, but March's results do not bode well overall.

Nevertheless, I do expect some fluctuation. I have to keep in mind that I have never been through a complete annual cycle online. It is possible that I am just seeing normal and seasonal variation. I know the weather is starting to get nicer in the Northern Hemisphere. I also know that I will be wanting to spend more time outside.

On a positive note, earnings at eHow have made a nice improvement compared to February. I look forward to being able to finalize the first quarter's earnings and report them in a few days. My hope is that each year will see a gradual increase in traffic, AdSense impressions, and earnings. So far, so good.

My Online Income Goals for 2010

I have spent the past several days coming up with a list of things that I would like to accomplish during the upcoming year as well as a list of tasks to accomplish them. To start, I would like to list the tasks that I plan on completing throughout the year and then list what I would hope to see come out of that effort.

During 2010, I plan on making Life123 and Xomba my primary sites for writing online content. I also plan on working with HubPages and eHow (again, maybe) to add to the articles I have on those sites as well. Of course, I will continue to write my blog posts. By the end of 2010 I hope to have:

• 250 total articles on Life123. I plan on writing about 20 per month on average and maintaining a steady pace throughout the year.


• 150 Xombytes (articles) on Xomba. That would require about 10 per month. I also want to post links on Xomba almost every day of the year. I plan on posting links to all of my articles that I have written so far plus adding all of the new ones. I currently have a spreadsheet that tracks what links I have added to my writings on Xomba, Shetoldme, and Snipsly. I need to do a better job of linking when I don't feel like writing.


• 150 articles on HubPages. I have 115 so that means I will just sprinkle some here and there during the year. I would like to see my HubPages results improve.


• 50 articles on eHow. I have 38 right now. I would like to add some to see if that helps the earnings there. Despite not writing anything for a few months, eHow continues to earn some money. The site has great potential, and I hope that maybe the break will have allowed me to get back into it.


• I plan on continuing to write every 2 or 3 days for this blog. That would mean 10-20 posts per month. I will be linking to these posts as well and trying to bring traffic to this blog.


• I hope to get up the nerve to create a niche website. I have a few ideas but would like to make a little more writing content first. But now that I am putting it out there, I will be forced to attempt to deliver.

I also want to organize my time better and begin carrying a notebook with me to jot down ideas that I have.

Now, what do I hope to accomplish with all of this effort. I will again look at each site and how the efforts at each will add to my ultimate online income goal for 2010:

• With 250 articles on Life123, the potential for earning is $5000. I know that is not going to happen. I would hope that by the end of 2010, half of the articles I have written have achieved the $5 payout. I would expect that by the end of the year, I could expect almost 20 articles per month reaching that level for an income of $100 monthly.


• At Xomba, I would like to think that the efforts expended will add up. I would hope that by the end of the year, I could count on $50 monthly if I add articles plus a great number of links.


• I would expect HubPages to continue to maintain steady at least. I have lost traffic over the past several months but that has been internal traffic. The search engine traffic seems to be somewhat steady. Better linking may enhance this somewhat. I would hope to earn $25 monthly through HubPages.


• eHow has been a steady performer last month and this month despite my lack of effort. I think by the end of 2010, I could continue to see about $20 per month.


• My Online Income blog will not be a big money maker. I don't ever think that it will be so I will not even place any expectations on it. However, I want to be able to help people and teach them what I am learning and share my experiences. I would like to increase traffic to the blog and reach 50 total followers with a steady readership averaging about 50 per day. I think that would get me in the top 500,000 Traffic Rank by the end of the year.

I want to thank everyone who has stopped by to read this blog. I sincerely appreciate it. Please let me know if you have any ideas to make this blog better. I am always eager to learn and would appreciate your input. Also, what are your goals for 2010? How do you plan on achieving them? I would love to hear your comments.

On an unrelated note, I am pretty miffed about the pathetic display that was the Colts game yesterday. Maybe we should just forfeit and stay home.

Passive Income Goals for December 2009

If you have been following this blog, you will realize that I feel it is important to write down goals. It gives you a sense of accountability and forces you to identify those actions which need to be accomplished. Even if you don't get it all done, you still get more done than if you didn't have any goals written down.

So, these are my online passive income goals for December 2009 divided according to the various content sites for which I write:

Hubpages: I really don't have any goals for December. Traffic there has been decreasing for me, and I want to see if I can generate better traffic on other sites as I improve my article count elsewhere. I would like to see the current traffic hold steady and will continue to link where appropriate.

eHow: I won't do anything at eHow either since I want to focus my efforts elsewhere. I have a hard time writing an article only to have it deleted in the future. I suppose I should publish and earn as much as possible and then republish elsewhere after it is deleted. That could be a viable strategy.

InfoBarrel: It is unlikely that I will do anything on this site except check to see if my deleted eHow articles are no longer indexed and then publish on IB. That would give me a little extra content there.

Life123: I will spend some time on this site in December for sure. I hope to be able to earn $15 in December as opposed to the $10 I earned in November. I also plan on being able to move up to the next level and be able to contribute up to 40 articles per month. I hope to be able to contribute 10 rather quickly and an additional 5 articles when I have moved up. That would bring my grand total articles to 25 by the end of the year. Currently I have 268 out of 500 views needed to move to the next level.

Xomba: I plan on spending some more time here as well. I want to start to fully assess the earning power of Xomba. I plan on posting something each and every day during the month. I plan on being able to post 10 articles during the month. Currently I have 26 so that means I need to have 36 by the end of the year.

Triond: I have just recently started writing for Triond. I am mildly encouraged and hope to write five more articles during the month to add to this site.

My Online Income: I plan on posting as I have been. It is nice to be able to write and post on a regular basis. It is unfortunate that this blog doesn't make any more money than it does. But, every little bit helps. Over time it will add up.

My November AdSense impressions will be close to the amount for October. That is pretty good in my opinion considering there was 1 less day and that the last four days saw no traffic due to Thanksgiving and no publishing on my part for the same reason. I hope to see December have similar if not slightly better results such that a foundation for 2010 has been formed.

Earnings are down in November as well primarily to the decreased number of clicks. That's OK. I am hoping that a baseline exists that can be built upon going into the new year. I would suspect I will see similar results for December.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out those Life123 articles so I can move up to the next level.

Productive Start to September

I don't know what started it, but the writing flow was turned on. So I decided to just "go with the flow" and published 6 Hubs, 6 articles on eHow, 2 decent blog posts (this one will make 3), my first InfoBarrel article which was over 1000 words, plus a few short posts on Xomba and all the links I posted with the summaries. Whew! I'm tired just writing about it.

Clearly the additional content will serve me well in the months and years to come so it was great to be able to post all of this material. I'm sure that writer's block and burnout will show up someday, and I will long for a week like the one I just had.

HubPages and eHow Update

The traffic at HubPages has been amazing. It has mostly been internal traffic, however so the earning potential is relatively small. I am definitely behind on the earnings pace for Adsense. I take comfort in the fact that August started out relatively slowly and picked up toward the end quite substantially. I need to try and earn $1 per day via Adsense to make my earnings goal by the end of the month unless eHow really comes through.

Speaking of eHow, traffic has also been solid. I am getting between 40 and 50 views per day. I can't tell if the traffic is internal or external. The earnings at eHow have simply amazed me. They are on pace for meeting the end of September goal. I don't know if things can keep up this way or even if they might be able to compensate for any lack of Adsense earnings.

My goal for the month of September was to get $2 per day or $60 for the month. It was admittedly a bit of a stretch and not anything I really have any direct control over anyway. That is why the past week was so wonderful. I do control how much content I publish so that was great!

New Follower

This blog has a new follower, and I am so excited. I have placed her blog on the blogroll. She is a professional writer so I am honored to have her follow little ol' me. Be sure to check out her blog because it is so useful and informative. Maybe someday I can do some interviews or something.

Finally, here is the link to my newest (and so far only) InfoBarrel article:

6 Reasons You Should Be Investing in Gold Now

I am anxious to see how this third income site works out. But, like I said, I am worn out after this past week so I will probably take it easy for a few days. Til next time and thanks for reading.

Photo credit: Wing-Chi Poon

Staying Motivated

I just finished two articles on things I do to stay motivated while trying to make income online. Generating online income can be a very daunting task and take quite a bit of effort. I have been spending quite a bit of time over the past 2 1/2 months and can see where people would start to give up after this time. But, if you can get through the first 6 months or so, I suspect it will be well worth it and that the earnings will eventually follow. I would like to summarize my points in the articles (one is at HubPages and one at eHow). If you would like to read them, I have included the links:

How to Stay Motivated When Making Money Online

Making Money Online: How to Stay Motivated

To summarize my points:
1. Set goals that I can control like number of articles. I can't click on ads or generate revenue but I can put out content on a regular basis.
2. Don't set unreasonable goals. Setting yourself up for failure is not a good idea.
3. Use some of your time for less mentally taxing tasks like forum posts. This keeps you in public view but is not as demanding as researching and writing articles.
4. Take a vacation from the computer entirely just like you would offline.
5. Look at others making money online and look at how they started out. Many of the people making thousands per month started out small like me making only a few dollars. It just takes time.

I hope this post has been helpful. Please feel free to comment or check out the full articles.

AUGUST GOALS UPDATE:

I just wanted to also take some time to provide a quick update on my activities at the various article sites.

I have completed my 56th hub at HubPages and seem to be on target for getting done with 70 by the end of the month. Traffic is good although earnings are somewhat anemic. I am still pleased with the progress here.

I have completed 19 articles at eHow. Traffic is doing very well vs HubPages and the earnings there are picking up the slack that is happening at HubPages. I am inspired to keep going at eHow since things are starting off so well there. My goal was to get 30 articles by the end of the month, and I feel like I am on target. eHow seems to be the best use of my time giving me the most "bang for my buck".

Squidoo seems like a waste of time to me. Having to compete to get into the top tiers is just too difficult for me at this point. I have not made any more lenses and Squidoo is very low on my priority list due to its business model. I will be focusing my attention on HubPages and eHow for now. If I do have extra time, I would probably look at other sites before returning to Squidoo.

Until next time.

Cruising Right Along

In my last post, I mentioned that I was starting to feel a little burned out, and I was. I can't really explain it, but I felt as if maybe this might all be too much. I was a little down about not being able to get ahead on the Hubs for the Hub Challenge. But, looking back, I was able to accomplish quite a bit. Since Sunday, I have continued to work and publish. In just over 48 hours, I have published 2 more hubs and 2 more eHow articles.

I have also been able to get some traffic in that time frame. I am over 1800 views on all my Hubs which is where I had hoped to be by the end of July. I think I may end up over 2000 views. I am starting to see some traffic at Squidoo getting 38 views in the last 7 days. Now 3 of my 5 lenses are in the top 85,000. Finally, I am also seeing some views over at eHow. Obviously, it just takes patience and persistence.

Waiting on Earnings

I am, however, a little bit disappointed since the huge increase in traffic hasn't led to much in the way of earnings. It is totally understandable since much of the HubPages traffic has been internal traffic and they don't tend to click on ads. I am sure that over time the pages will start to see increasing search engine traffic. Several hubs that I wrote well over a month ago just pick up a view or two here and there but it adds up. I will keep on writing and working. I hope to have another 2 hubs, 2-3 eHow articles, and 1 or 2 lenses done by the start of the weekend. Then I can get another couple hubs done on the weekend. I think it is just a matter of keeping it going. I really don't have much to complain about since I did meet my earnings goal for July already. I will just have to see what August brings. My goal for August is $10. I am not quite sure if that is a stretch or not. I suspect that as I keep publishing, I will find that it is easier to attain than I realize.

I plan on updating this weekend and posting a list of all my eHow articles since I can't get the eHow widget to work. That's frustrating. Until the weekend.