Best Income Sites.

I have fingers in many pies. I write several blogs, have some online stores at places like Amazon, Zazzle, eBay and Etsy. I am even looking at another online store site Bonanza. Then my online writing sites come into play. Yahoo! Voices, HubPages, Squidoo and List My 5.

The top earners of all my sites are the online stores.

eBay is at the top, Zazzle.com Cafepress.com then Amazon and Etsy. Bear in mind I have had an Etsy store for only two weeks, so its a baby yet.

eBay of course is not really a residual income source as along with Etsy I have to find or make goods to sell and actively ship them.

Among writing sites my ranking is:

Yahoo! Voices is a far away leader its CPM model and purchase of my articles produces more cash than any other.  Follow this with List My 5, it has a CPC model but pays quite well there were only two months last year (2012)  April and July that I earned no money from my short lists. HubPages is a pretty poor third and Squidoo I have given up on that for any income.

Cash from blogs?

No I mainly use my blogs to direct people to my cash paying sites and don't use AdSense on my blogs at all.

Has HubPages Begun to look Tired?

For a few weeks now I have been going to HubPages just that little less often.

There was a time when I would spend several hours on HubPages, writing hubs, answering questions and working hard.

Recently however it seems that HubPages has lost a little of its glitter.

They are scrapping capsules that I have used for years.

They are putting links on my hubs to articles that are poorly written and have no real link to my subject.

It seems that  HubPages has somehow lost its way.

Questions now just revolve around one subject.  I just logged in and found 18 questions on the hot questions page posted by one person. The questions also involved requests for peoples opinions on certain occupations in Seattle.  Of course these may be genuine questions, I am tempted to think that someone is spamming the questions and answers board with hot keywords so as to grab advertising revenue from Google.

Come on people, this is an abuse of the system. It is dragging down the value of HubPages and we all suffer.

Of late I have seen a little recovery of my view rates on HubPages, but the views on my blogs are through the roof.

OK I accept that we are also at the end of football season here in the U.S. and I do expect a drop in views on big game days, but to have view counters move at a snails pace on HubPages on non game days as my view counters click as regularly as my old grandads clock on non game day blog pages. Well something is rotten in the state of HubPages.

We'll See a Fall in views on Sunday January 20 and February 3, 2013

I will now predict a fall in views for most Hubbers on Sunday January 20 and February 3, 2013.

Most of you who live in the U.S. will know and expect the same. These are the dates of the NFL Conference Championships and Superbowl Sunday.

For those of you who live outside the US, you will possibly not know the gravity of these two solemn occassions.

This coming Sunday January 20, sees the two Football Conferences seasons  come to an end.

The AFC Championship will be between San Francisco 49ers at  Atlanta Falcons and the NFC Conference Championship will be Baltimore Ravens at New England Patriots.

Each of the games could last up to four hours on television, each game only lasts 60 minutes itself but fifteen minuts of "game time" may be twenty or thirty minutes of real time, add in all the advertisements and commentary. The games are not played simultaneously, so Americans can see both games in full, basically taking up to eight hours of Sunday out of many peoples computer time.

For this reason the United States can be said to close down for the duration of the games.

The winners of this next Sundays two games will then go on to the Superbowl in New Orleans on February 3, 2013.

The Superbowl is the World Championship of American Football, and Superbowl Sunday is a very big deal which almost every American sees as a right to party.

So for those of you beyond the shores of the US mark these dates well. The fall of views on these two days is not due to Google changing an algorithm, HubPages are not skimming off viewers just to take your count down, the sky is not falling and no end of the world scenario is being played out.

Americans are just partying and enjoying a great game of football.

We'll be back at our computers on Monday as usual.

Creating Posts for HubPages and other online Writing Sites

Do you sit down and just create a post from thin air or do you do in depth research before posting.

Some people are able to sit down and compose a post seemingly from thin air. They go with the flow of their writing and with very little editing things may just turn out right. Others study a subject, find links, resources and compose their hubs and articles to a detailed plan.

Which method do I use?

Both.

For a personal hub or article I often just sit down and write. These articles would be say my life with my dogs or a personal experience from being blind.

Posts such as book reviews do require some planning and  resource gathering. The most important information gathering task of course with a book review is to READ the book. I have seen some reviews where it seems the reviewer has read other reviews and rehashed other peoples work. Not a good experience for a reader. Other areas which I have researched have been articles where I have needed to report on medical matters, signs and symptoms of a problem etc.

My advice is to take account of your articles purpose. To inform on a serious matter? Then research and information is the key.  Report on personal experience or to entertain then you may be able to create a hub or article with very little research, flying by the seat of your pants.

Which ever method you choose find what works best for you and stick to it. If you are enjoying how you write then your readers will enjoy reading your work.