Guest piece-Hubpages for TEFLers
On editing a piece by regular TEFL.net reviewer Glenda Inverarity, I was interested to see a link to Hubpages in her mini-biog, rather than the usual publicizing of blogs like the rest of us. Thought I’d be cheeky and ask her for a guest piece on the matter rather than just a two line email that I probably should’ve expected it, and I seem to have got away with it because here it is
“Hubpages is a supportive online community of writers. The drawcard of the site is that you can make money from writing hubpages. Now that I have your attention, I’ll explain a little about how it works. It is free to sign up. Once you have done that you will need to edit your profile, including uploading an avatar (optional but highly recommended). Next, start writing some “hubs”. Hubs are organised in capsules. There are capsules for adding text, photos, videos and links etc. The site is very user-friendly and helps you step by step.I became interested in writing about ESL through Alex, who had advertised for people to write book reviews for TEFL Reviews(http://edition.tefl.net/category/reviews/ ) and after that, it just seemed natural to share my 20 years of ESL teaching experience with a wider audience. Therefore I have been writing some tips to help students who may not have access to teachers, recommending good ESL books and materials for students, teachers and applied linguists. Occasionally I indulge in some creative writing just for fun.
Once you have written a hub or two and are feeling a bit comfortable, use your account area to go to “affiliate settings”because this is where you make money. Sign up for Google Adsense and Amazon if you wish, as these are the two affiliates that help you make money on hubpages. You can also sign up for e-bay, but you will need your own website to do this. Now introduce yourself around by joining in the forums and reading other people’s hubs. If you like their writing, vote it up and leave a comment. If you want to read more of their work, click the button to follow them- that way you will be notified by email when they publish a new hub. As you develop new hubs, make friends and start to see revenue dribble in (it takes a while to gather momentum – not a get rich quick scheme) you will need to go into learning mode with lots of new vocabulary such as: drive traffic; backlink, URL trackers,OES, monetize (I really like that one), hubnugget and hubber, to name just a few. I never expected that I would ever aspire to making money from writing on the internet, but I’ve now been a hubber for 4 months. I’ve written over 75 hubs, have made two Amazon sales (from which I got commission), and my Google Adsense is building by about a dollar a day at the moment, which is good for only 4 months. I aspire to be like others there who earn in excess of $100 a month. Have a look at my hub profile. http://hubpages.com/_teacher/profile/gramarye From there, you can read some of my hubs and sign up to become a hubber youself. If you like writing, this is a great place to be on the internet.”
Thanks Glenda. Any experience with this site or competitors? Any other ideas on how TEFLers can use? Volunteers to write guest pieces (you don’t need to mention my name in it necessarily!)? Comments below please, or there’s the Contact Me button top right.
June 2nd, 2010 at 8:48 am
I wonder if advertising is the only way money is being made on Gramarye’s hubpages? I’ve never read such a positive review of New Headway, not a single criticism, in fact it reads more like advertising copy…
June 2nd, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Hi JJ
I am flattered that you rate my writing as “advertising copy” that is a genre that I do aspire to writing well.
However, I have been writing reviews for about 12 years, and do report negatives when I find them. Furthermore, I do try out everything on students first, and use their response in my reviews.
What I love about hubpages is that it is not commissioned work, so I can say what I truly think. Therefore, I only write about the books that I like and don’t need to focus on the “academic” negatives.
However, when I write reviews that I am asked to write, such as at http://edition.tefl.net/category/reviews/ I report it warts and all.
Truth is, I have never made any commission from selling any Headway books on hubpages, and I don’t care…
When it comes to hubpages, it is the google ads that counts.
Basically, I want students to be able to help themselves to learn English, and Headway (and many other “series”) can and does assist students to learn English
Hope this clarifies your concerns.
Gramarye
June 3rd, 2010 at 5:57 am
This looks dodgy if you ask me.
I’ve only had time to look at hubpages briefly over breakfast, but what strikes me most is that hubbers, if that’s what these bloggers call themselves, receive a percentage of the revenue from the other hubs they link to.
In the grown-up blogosphere, this is known as “link selling”, and is very frowned upon – it’s a blatant attempt to manipulate search engine ranking. The only honest reason to link to a site is because you recommend it, not because you are getting paid.
June 3rd, 2010 at 5:58 am
More info on this here: http://hubpages.com/faq/#affiliate
July 14th, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Hi there! I’m the Community Manager over at HubPages, and I thought I’d clear up the whole affiliate program issue raised by Mark Bain above.
Our affiliate program has nothing to do with selling links, as Mark implies. It simply gives users an extra incentive to bring new visitors and possible Hubbers into the site. This is not uncommon for Web 2.0 sites; it’s usually called a referral or affiliate program, and most article submission sites have one.
On another note, we’d be very interested to hear about how TEFLers use or would like to use HubPages, and how we could support you. Feel free to use the “contact” link on my HubPages profile to submit comments, questions, or concerns.
Maddie Ruud
Community Manager
HubPages.com
July 15th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Hi Maddie
I didn’t imply anything. Rather, I stated explicitly that this is link selling, as are affiliate and referral programs.
There’s no problem with this as long as it’s clear to the visitor that the link is “sponsored”, so to speak. Of course, there are grey areas, and one blogger’s idea of clarity doesn’t always gel with that of the rest of the community. I think it’s pretty clear that any link to a product page on a e-commerce site, for instance, is probably part of a referral program. Plain text links to other sites, especially those which appear within the main post, are less easy to interpret.
The answer is disclosure. Hubbers should be encouraged to state which links are income generating, perhaps by adding “(Paid Link)” to the text. Problem solved?
The other issue is that of internal linking. Why are Hubbers being encouraged to link to other Hubs? Because the more links the hubpages.com domain has, the higher it will rank in search engine results. This will result in more visitors, and more ad impressions.
What’s wrong with this? Well, it’s manipulation of search engines. Pages are not getting linked to because they are useful sources of information; they are getting links because they pay for them. The result is bad for all of us. Search results will ultimately become so full of trashy content from sites like this that it’ll become impossible to find any quality information via search engines.
Whether or not it is a common practice for this type of sites isn’t relevant. The question is whether it’s something good or bad for the Internet and for teachers who use the Internet. I’d say bad. Maddie says good. What about the rest of you?