A few months ago I wrote a few WCA (Writer Created Assignments) articles for Demand Media Studios.  In total I have 5 WCA articles.  I wrote the first article in June of 2010.  In comparison, I have 18 articles on Bukisa (first one written in November of 2008) and 23 Hubs over at HubPages.  I wrote my first hub in July of 2009.

On Bukisa I have a network of close to 200 people (of which 10% of my folks actually placed articles on Bukisa). I earn a small daily amount from my Bukisa network. I have a little over 50 referrals on HubPages and of course, no referrals on DMS since they don’t have a referral program.

The Numbers…

For both Bukisa and DMS, I have to earn at least $10 during the month to reach payout.  Therefore, if I earn $9.99 I won’t get paid until the following month. HubPages pays directly through AdSense and I won’t receive an AdSense check until I earn $100.

With my DMS articles, I reached payout in July of 2010 and have done so every month since.  With Bukisa, I reach payout every other month. On rare occasions I earn over $10 in any one month. With HubPages…well, let’s just say that for the 10 months of this year, I would not have received an AdSense check if it were solely based on my HubPages income. As a matter of fact, my HubPages income is less than my Bukisa income.

Reading Between the Excel Spreadsheet Cells

If you read between the lines, my numbers tell me that I’ll get a better bang for my buck if I write a few Demand Media Studio WCA articles rather than post anything else on Bukisa or HubPages.

Although the DMS WCA articles seem to be performing the best, I’ll continue to add the occasional article on Bukisa and HubPages.  I guess I don’t want to admit defeat and would like to reach the minimum payout each month on a consistent basis. Since the Bukisa earnings are so small, they can go directly into a separate savings account. I could always use the money on my birthday for something special such as a spa treat (or half a spa treat).

Work on the Work

Just a note to say, I don’t work on my work once it’s done.  In other words, it’s very rare that I spend time socially networking my articles (I write too many in any given month to socially network them all and I’m lazy). I’m sure my Bukisa and HubPages numbers would increase if I spent time Digging, Xombing, Facebooking and Tweeting them, but I don’t.  I don’t socially network my DMS articles either.

Your DMS WCA, Bukisa, HubPages Experience

I’m interested to hear how well other folks are doing with Bukisa, DMS WCA and HubPages. Which one is working out best for you?

Earlier I wrote a few posts on HubPages. One was when I first started writing for them and was happy with the experience , and another was when I was wondering what was going on over there (an income nosedive can make a gal wonder).

HubPages on the Rise?

Over the past few weeks I have noticed that HubPages has been adding a few sheckels to my AdSense account. Not much money, but just enough to catch my attention. The first time it happened, I thought it was a fluke so I didn’t investigate, but when I earned a little over $6 in one day I decided to look at my HubPages earnings.

My first full month at HubPages (August, 2009) I earned over $16. Then it went downhill from there. It fluctuated between $2 and $7 per month. Granted, I only have 19 hubs but when I started out with $16 the first month, I thought the income would go up from there.

Last month my earnings increased to $11. From what I can glean, my traffic has remained pretty consistent (or should I say non existent), but I guess the occasional ad placement was lucrative which resulted in a couple of high paying clicks.

HubPages Going Forward

I’m going to give HubPages another whirl. After reviewing my first quarter earnings for 2010 and evaluated my income distribution, I realized that I’ve got to spread my efforts around a little more. Too much of my residual income is coming from one source. That’s not a good thing.

Personally, I like it when my income sources are pretty much on an even keel. My eHow earnings seem to have taken off and are now 48% of my residual income. It’s time for me to spend a little more time building up my other revenue sources.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that my eHow income (a truly passive income source) is growing, but if eHow decides to pull the plug, I don’t want to be caught with my knickers down. In the insurance industry we teach our clients to spread the risk. The same holds true when it comes to freelance writing. So,  in addition to finding other qualified writing venues for risk spreading, I guess I’ll be adding a few new Hubs here and there.

I was pretty excited about my HubPages earnings when I first signed up. I wrote about 20 Hubs (well actually 19) to test the waters.

Initially, I started out with a bang. I earned about $17 and was real excited. I left those 19 articles to sit and marinade for a while. I occasionally linked to one or two when appropriate, but didn’t do any real article promotion. I used the same promotional tactics at HubPages as I do with Suite 101, eHow or any other site I write for. I place an occasional link here or there, but no real promotion.

After two months I decided to analyze my progress. Once I took a look, I realized something wasn’t right.

Here are my numbers:

My page views and revenue seem to be working backwards here. I realize that I haven’t spent any time on HubPages since posting my first 19 Hubs, but for my numbers to drop by about 70% is a little weird.

19 Hubs is not enough to make a huge difference when it comes to residual earnings, but I tend to monitor my progress when I write for a new site to see if I should continue spending my time and effort populating the site with more content.

Is it Just Me?

Not wanting to take my own numbers as the be all and end all, I did a little research to see if anyone else was undergoing the same traffic/revenue drop as I experienced. I came across this thread. It seems that I’m not alone.

From the looks of things, I don’t think I’ll be spending anymore of my time writing Hubs. I have a few more lucrative sites that have a better page view/revenue reward.

Always Something to Learn

Oh well, the only way to know if something works is to try it, monitor it and re-evaluate. If I continue to earn a few dollars a month off of my 19 articles, that’s great, but I don’t think I’ll add anything else there.

A month ago I performed a little experiment.  I wrote three articles using the same keywords on three different sites (Suite 101, eHow and HubPages) to see how much ‘Google Favor’ affects the success of each article. The purpose of the experiment was to ensure that I was spending my time wisely.

Maria (aka WriterGig)  was interested in a followup to my experiment in about a month to see if my results would remain as they started or change as Google does its Google thing.

Here are the results:

The article I wrote for Suite 101 remained on the first page of the Google search results garnering 4,200 views. The article I wrote for eHow fluctuated, between the first and third page for a total of 3,087 page views. The article I wrote for HubPages disappeared. I didn’t spend time looking through Google to find out where it went. All I know is that it earned 105 page views.

If earning money on the internet is a function of driving traffic to the articles, then clearly Suite 101 and eHow are the winners in this unscientific experiment.

I’m not totally giving up on HubPages as yet. I’ll keep them on the back burner and place an occasional article there. After seeing the results of my experiment, I can’t justify spending too much time building lots of hubs at this point. Over time with an occasional hub here and there, I’m sure the income will eventually build. After all I did earn money on those 105 page views, but I’m not willing to devote nearly as much time there as I will at Suite, eHow or populating my own sites/blogs.

Try Your Own Experiment

My results may vary from yours depending on the keywords, time of year, direction of wind and who knows what else. I think that it’s wise to test the waters every once in a while to make sure you’re spending your time in a way to bring in the most reward for your hard work.

As you know, I recently started writing for HubPages. Although I signed up quite some time ago, I only wrote my first article a month ago on July 20, 2009.

Understanding the nature of residual writing, I know for a fact that the first month of any online residual writing site is usually an exercise in faith. You keep writing because you know things will work out in the long run. Well, my exercise in faith has created stronger HubPage faith muscles.

My 30 Day HubPage Update

Thirty days after placing my first hub, I now have 17 hubs. I should really have more hubs than that because I signed up for the 30 day challenge, but was unable to finish it. My website hacker diverted my attention from writing and things got a bit backed up.

Anyway, back to HubPages… I have 17 hubs and have earned a little over $12 so far. I earned a .68 with Kontera and the rest with Google AdSense. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of eBay (sad to admit) and I didn’t earn anything with Amazon as yet.

A HubPage Revelation

It wasn’t until I wrote one particular hub for HubPages that I realized HubPages’ value. After writing the article I realized that it made sense to keep them in my arsenal. I won’t re-write the entire article here, but if I have at least 5 reputable online content sites where I post my work regularly (at least one time per week); I believe within 5 years, if not much sooner, I should be set for life (this doesn’t include my blogs and niche sites).

A Little Comparison

Some folks earn more and some less with HubPages. I couldn’t help but compare my first month with HubPages against my first month with eHow and with Suite 101. Since I’m contractually prohibited from sharing my Suite 101 numbers, see if you can read between the lines:

Now that the numbers have spoken for themselves, I think you should check out my post on working smarter and enjoying Google’s favor . It’s tempting to put all of my efforts into Suite 101, but that would not be a wise move.