Why Hubpages? Why Squidoo? | A Freelance Author's Experience Writing and Earning Money on Squidoo and Hubpages

With so many people looking for alternative income streams due to the sluggish economy, and the decline of print media, many would-be authors are turning to the internet to make money online through writing on various websites. And there is income to be made online through writing, but it is still hard work, not something that can happen overnight.

While I originally was introduced to the idea of writing articles online as a source of free online marketing, I soon learned that writing online was much, much more, and could be a way to finally turn my English degree into a stream of income. This article is an outline of what I found out, and my experience on two of the internet's largest free platforms for publishing articles online, Squidoo and Hubpages.

In the two years since I found free internet article publishing, I have written for several websites. There are always more of them cropping up, and some that I have not written for yet. I am solely going to outline my own experience in the hope that what I learned will help guide other would-be authors to the site that will benefit them the most.

I am the owner of a local art gallery, Lake Erie Artists Gallery, in Cleveland, Ohio. I originally came across Squidoo through an interview that Seth Godin had done on Etsy, an indie artist website. I was familiar with Seth Godin, and his marketing books from a previous job, and thought that his Squidoo website might be an opportunity for me to market my own website.

I came to Squidoo with no special internet knowledge, only retail selling and marketing experience. With that background, Squidoo was a confusing place for me at first, and I started off writing articles about my gallery, myself, and other artists in my gallery. However, it didn't take long for me to see that some people had hundreds of articles on Squidoo, and that they were earning an income online from them.

If you are in a commission based job, then you are aware that you only make money from what you sell, however, people in salaried jobs also earn their money from what the company they work for sells, whether they realize it or not. It is important for anyone looking to make money online to understand that sales drive all businesses, even if you are paid hourly.

Therefore, even though there are free platforms where you can write online, the reason they are free is because the platform takes part of the sales revenue from the articles. You, as an author, can earn money online through your writing, but in the end, it will be because you are driving sales to a company who is selling a product or service that you earn income from your writing.

However, as an author, you can create a passive alternative income source over a period of time, that can help you supplement or supplant your part time or full time income. The harder you work to build the income by learning how to write online, the faster you will earn, however there is a learning curve before you will be able to build your income at a faster pace.

Squidoo was originally developed as a way to earn money for charity by Seth Godin and his team. Earning money for charity is still a very high priority for Squidoo, and although Squidoo is a platform that writers can earn money from, the website encourages its writers to donate part or all of their earnings to charity. If you are writing to earn money for a charity, and the charity is signed up through Squidoo to earn money, this is the best place to write.

Squidoo's system works best for donations to charity.

Individuals can also earn money through Squidoo's system, primarily through ad revenue, and commissions on sales through Amazon and Ebay. Squidoo has a good standing with search engines, and if you know how to write search engine optimized articles, you will gain a lot of traffic to your pages. Writing for Squidoo works best when your pages are tightly focused articles on a single topic as opposed to broad based articles.

Like all authors, the more you develop a following of readers, the better a reputation you will build, and the more sales you will develop due to authority and trust.

Squidoo's website can be confusing for new online marketers, and the best current learning program for Squidoo has been developed by the Professional Squids website and team 10-finity. Along with a Squidoo Step by Step guidebook, there is a website that is manned by expert lensmasters (authors) who can answer the questions that you might not even know you should be asking.

Squidoo's templates offer a variety of modules to work with that you can add to your web pages, and if you know HTML, you can add even more variety to each page.

Drawbacks for writing for Squidoo is that they control the ad revenue program, and distribute it based on lensrank, and that all payments through their affiliates go through Squidoo, then to you.

I became a member of Hubpages not long after I joined Squidoo, but really didn't get busy on Hubpages until a year later. However, once I got used to the slightly different culture on Hubpages, I actually found it to be an easier website to use. This was mainly due to the pared down template on Hubpages compared to Squidoo.

Hubpages does not allow as many liberties to their writers when it comes to widgets, links, and fancy colorful pages, however, this forces the writer to focus on what is most important, the actual writing. Hubpages authors seem to fit into two main categories, those who write for fun, and those who write to earn money.

Hubpages is not set up like Squidoo in the sense that Hubpages does not pay authors directly. Authors are required to sign up with the affiliate vendors themselves, and just use the Hubpages platform for writing. Hubpages does take a percentage of page views as payment for using the platform, and any clicks made on those page views convert into Hubpages income. Otherwise, you are the master of your domain, and you can watch your earnings grow through affiliate programs like Amazon or Adsense.

In my mind, Hubpages has developed a culture that is much more serious about earning money from online writing than Squidoo. While it is true that there are lensmasters who are serious about earning, and many lensmasters who earn a respectable income on Squidoo, on Hubpages, earning income is talked about much more.

In reality, both Hubpages and Squidoo take the same type of writing and internet knowledge to succeed if you want to earn money. However, with Hubpages, you have cut out the middleman when it comes to earnings, and I think that it is easier to track what you earn.

The main drawback to writing on Hubpages is the limited amount of links you are allowed.

I have to say that in my opinion, I like the more cut and dried template that authors work with on Hubpages. Although Hubpages is a smaller website in terms of membership, I believe that the Hubpages staff has a clearer focus on what I would like to focus on, earning money as a real income.

To me, a real income is more than earning a couple of hundred dollars per month. A real income is one that I can actually live on, pay my expenses, and have some left over to use or save. Because Squidoo was originally set up for charity earning, I do not think that their focus will ever be completely on the lensmaster's earning potential, where on the other hand, I find that the Hubpages staff is not only encouraging but extremely supportive of individual author's efforts to earn money, and unofficial group efforts to help authors earn more.

At least for myself, I find Hubpages a simpler and more straightforward website to use, with less obstacles impeding me from earning. I still have to work hard, learn new techniques, and continue to write articles in order to earn more each month. I also need to promote my articles through various strategies. Additionally, in order to improve as an online author, I have to be creative and continually learn new techniques in order to stay on top of the search engines' algorithms. However, in the end, I have found Hubpages to be a better vehicle for me to write and earn.

In the end, earning money to make a living is a necessity for everyone, unless we get our money the old fashioned way, through inheritance. For most of us, that will never happen. So that means we need to work for it.

In the interest of being completely clear about earning money online, I would like to offer a few observations that I have made over the last two years.

The first one is that no matter what website or websites you end up writing on, even if you have your own domain, you need to build a reputation in order to earn money. Some of your reputation is built on your experience in your field, and some if it is built on your staying power as an author. So many people come and go in today's world, especially online, that if you can stay around, that will give people more trust and belief in you.

Secondly, no matter how good you are, even if you really know everything there is to know about writing online and making money online through your writing, there is a time factor that you need to take into consideration. It takes time to build a repertoire of articles. It takes time to build up a reputation. It takes time for search engines to find your articles. There is a growth factor in the business of writing online. While you can earn an income online, you will need to pay your dues and put in your time first, and your income will start as a trickle. Do not give up your day job until you are sure that you can make enough income to replace it.

Both Squidoo and Hubpages are good websites with reputable staff. Both have communities that surround their websites with active forum activity and many helpful experienced authors. Either site is a great place to start off writing online, and once you try them both, you can decide which community is a better fit for you.