Should I Blog or Use Hubpages?
By Mark Knowles
I recently ran an experiment, to compare my personal blog with hubpages. And for those of you new to working or writing online and wondering why I would run an experiment, the answer is simple. The internet is a constantly changing environment, and it is all too easy to see something that worked yesterday, stop working today. Plus, I see a lot of people asking the difference between using hubpages or their own blog.
Anyway, I occasionally look to the google hot trends to see if I can find something interesting to write about that might attract a lot of traffic. I rarely find anything here that is interesting enough to bother with, or likely to provide ongoing traffic, but I came across a subject that I felt might fit the bill in October last year.
The subject was "Marge Simpson Playboy photos," which tickled my fancy for some reason, and I figured might be good for some traffic for a while. Not that it is likely to make me any money of course. I also figured Playboy could care less what happened to the photos as long as they got some good publicity, which I provided for them.
Either way - I wrote two pages on Marge Simpson's Playboy shoot and published them at the same time. I wrote about as many words around the subject, gave them both the same title and used the same photos on each page. I did not bother creating any incoming links to either page and just left them to do their thing and get popular with the search engines or not. These are the two pages:
Hub - Marge Simpson Playboy pictures
Blog - Marge Simpson Playboy pictures
This is the traffic and results I got:
As you can see, the one on my personal blog has so far gotten more traffic than the hubpage. But - these stats are only my share of the impressions, which hubpages splits 60/40 in my favor. This means the hubpage actually got around 14,000 page views so far. And for those of you wondering how much money gets made with photo shoots of this type. Less than $1 so far.
So, if you are interested in comparing a personal blog to hubpages, you can see clearly that hubpages has more instant authority than a small personal blog. Whether that is worth giving over 40% of the page impressions is something you must decide for yourself.
My best advice, if you are considering using a personal blog or hubpages is - to do both. You can see the cost to you is about offset by the extra authority of hubpages, and you can take it from me that when I first started out, I obsessed to the point of silly with getting the layout and look "right," for my personal blog and that time spend is not in this equation. I no longer worry about that - I use the ultimate wordpress software instead. Semiologic blogging software. Totally one of the indispensable tools in my blogging toolkit.
Comments
Self hosted wordpress blogs are the way to go. And if you have a few hundred bucks to spare - that semiologic software is fantastic.
A worthwhile comparison.
Cheers Mark, will deff wordpress it !
Hey Mark--actually I was wondering the same thing as Tatto Guy. I have a small bog on Blogger and I am presently hit and miss on eHub. But what I really want to do is become more consistent and scatter my vast array of knowledge and keen writing skills(and dry humor). Thus far, it seems you are the guru go-to guy.
Good post. Well documented. Thank you for posting.
Well done for conducting an experiment instead of just pontificating.
I suppose the real issue is not how many view - which we tend to use as shorthand for paying customers - but how much income was generated under each method.
Sorry Mark, we now need you to write a really lucrative humdinger that generates lots of money - and then do the experiment again.
By the way, advice on how to write a really lucrative humdinger would be gratefully received.
Good point Charles,
That is something I am working on actually - which subjects do well here at hubpages and which do not. Because some do not do well.
I just started my own blog through Wordpress and I spent days (literally!) just looking for the right look. But the question on whether to concentrate on Hubpages or to concentrate on building my blog is uppermost on my mind. Thanks for this hub Mark. You definitely gave me a solid basis to decide. :)
LOl _I wasted weeks myself. At least you do not have that temptation at hubpages :)
You are certainly right about how frequently things change on the Internet - but them sometimes they switch back to how they were in the first place. Possibly one tip for success (which you already know) is 'don't put all your eggs in one basket'.
Good information to know. Thank you! I hope to get a wordpress blog started in the next month.
I too have a wordpress account that I've since neglecting for literally months. This is the first time I'm hearing about Semiologic software. You never cease to share useful information, Mark. Thanks.
2p - Oh yes. Never all eggs in one basket.
Semiologic is awesome. :)
Thanks Mark for the info; I have been debating for a while about switching from Blogger and Hubpages to Wordpress…Sometimes you can spread yourself to thin and lose your enthusiasm.
There is something to be said for having your content on your own sites, Hosted an downed by you.
Thanks, Mark. Good information, as usual.
Now this is very interesting hub. Thank you, Mark.
I think doing both in tandem can be a good strategy in terms of using hubpages to build your authority in a topic area and drive traffic to your related blog. Any revenue from Hubpages is then really a bonus rather than your primary objective. Obviously Hubpages writing shouldn't just duplicate your blog, but prompt readers to go to your own blog for further content.
I have to second Mark's comments on self-hosted Wordpress. I have a blogger blog that has been running for about 4 years, which is way long enough for me to have built enough links and authority on the site not to want to move it. When I started it I debated going with Wordpress and was too intimidated. Now I'm really sorry, especially as I have recently started some other self-hosted ones and discovered how easy it is.
That said, Blogger has a role and I think I'll still keep using blogger blogs for some purposes. And you can't beat free, even if the system has its limitations.
I would agree and I have been advised by two gurus recently to switch to wordpress. There seeems to be some consensus on this?
Great hub Mark, it's too bad the keyword didn't have a good conversion to clicks. I totally agree about WP, and the traffic getting software helps to gain authority almost as well as the established HubPages. For me, the big difference is that a self hosted blog can actually be sold in the future if one wishes, where as a Hubpage belongs to HP. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for the info. I have been considering starting a blog and wasn't sure where to go. Also, I checked out your blog site. Good stuff with lots of suggestions under blogging tools to look into. Well done.
Great hub. Interesting topic, presented very well.
I think that google does like Hubpages very much and therefore you get much quicker authority. But I also think that if one focused a lot of attention on a personal blog with very frequently posted, well-written content, one could compete well with hubpages and end up more profitable -- since you don't have to share the revenue.
great hub. i will be working on my blog and hubs constantly . thanks for sharing
First: good hub. I like your style.
Second: I want to stand up for Blogger. Everyone assumes blogger is inferior to WordPress and other things. I disagree.
I think most people assume that all there is to Blogger are the templates they offer on their website. Not so. There are many, many free templates offered by independent sources. To find them, google 'free blogger templates'
There are many more reasons I support Blogger. In fact, there are so many good reasons that I'll write a Hubpage about it. Give me a day or two, with my schedule. The bottom line is that there is a place for many things, like Hubpages, WordPress, Blogger, Squidoo etc. If you know Blogger it has many strengths and, in my opinion, should not be abandoned or denigrated.
I have loads of blogger blogs - and wordpress.com blogs. But - I still prefer my self hosted wordpress blogs for my own main sites.
As always you are a mine of really useful information.
Good write Mark.
Everybody recommends wordpress. So wordpress it shall be, plus hubpages. Thanks for the article, Mark.
Fun article! Gotta love that Marge Simpson.
Not wholly clear on the page impressions point though. As I understand it, impressions are counted on a page by page basis not on an ad by ad basis. When we share ads on a page with HP we both each get an impression.
That would make your blog a lot more successful than HP :)
After writing hubs for three months now, I had decided to do a similar thing on my business site. Only there they would be considered blogs. So I started a blog section. I enjoyed reading this hub Mark, you reinforced my decision. I'll be doing both. My business blogs pertain to my business and my HP hubs pertain to everything else. Oh, and the most important part is that I use my AdSense account to place ads in my blogs as well. We'll see how well that pays off over time. Thanks for the excellent hub.
Thanks mate, you helped me decide as well.
I get a lot more traffic from Hubpages than I do from Blogger too!
Nice hub, very informative...I got what i was looking for..
Keep up the good work...
I have a different approach to this Mark and would like to stand clear if I am wrong. When you have a old blog like yours, I think you already have a set of followers and readers there regularly. So when you start off with a new thing like hubpages, it definitely takes time to get traffic on to the pages... but as you age here too you will have the same high volume of traffic. On second thoughts another reason is that when you blog, you already have a confined set of topics/themes/categories which you know people are searching for. But that list just become too vast and traffic just splits up.
T`at is why I picked this topic. I had not done anything similar at hubpages or my own blog. Although - I have probably spent more time at hubpages than my own personal blog which may be reflected in the traffic. Most of the traffic is search engine though - to both sites.
Afternoon Mark :) Another article that does what it says on the tin. I agree with others, I like the fact that you've backed up your opinion with a very sound approach.
Currently, I'm experimenting with a free blog. I've bought a domain or few, even got some hosting (still haven't got round to lacing it with anything) and I'm using what I've learned thus far to see if I can get it indexed and in a high enough position that it will gain readership.
Tis hard work but I've dug in now, so I'll see :)
Afternoon frogdropping :) Yes - it is hard work. This I found interesting because it solely relied on being a google hot topic. I did not promotion whatsoever and still managed similar traffic - albeit hubpages got more because I only get 60% of the impressions.
Great information. Maybe next time you should use the Rosanne Barr issue, you might be able to triple your views. HAHAHA
I dread to think............. :)
Great information. The only thing I have been doing regularly on hubpages is reading yours! Haven't written on my personal blog or on hub pages. Hope to get inspired to write more! Would love a hub from you on what topics actually get more traffic.
That is easy - photos of half naked fat Indian chicks get lots of traffic - they will not earn you any money though lol
Mark can you help me to make most out of the hubpages...Using my article i had written....
Thanks a ton...
I was using blogs before and was going to taper off the use until I read another hub here a few days ago that mentioned speed blogging and using the blogs to generate backlinks.
This is rather helpful too, and at least affirms for me that the blogging is still something worthwhile to do.
Thanks a lot Mark for sharing this. I agree that my hubs fetch more traffic than my personal blogs because of a lot of reasons which have been discussed several times in the past at hubpages. Hubpages is better than any personal blog because there are a lot of things which are managed directly by hubpages itself which would have been very difficult for us to manage on our own and takes a considerable amount of time and by the time, we are able to complete those things, the trend changes and the niche we are working on our blog loses its popularity. Hubpages gives us a chance to create hubs on any topics which is not possible at our blogs because at our blogs we need to write in only one or two topics to gain authority in that but at hubpages we can write on any topic and get immediate traffic which is the main moral booster for any writer. Best of luck Mark for writing out more great hubs like these and helping people who are stuck between blogging or hubbing. Thumbs up to this hub.
Enjoyed the hub,.. I had been wondering myself, which is better to post on. I had stated a blog some time back but didn't get very far with it because I found hubpages. I think I will start focusing on it a little more now though. Great experiment !!!
I like the comparison between your blog and your hub but there was something I was wondering about.
Now I could be wrong (and often am), but I was under the impression is wasn't the PAGE impressions that we share with hubpages, but just the ADSENSE impressions.
Therefore the 8,460 page views on your hub would be correct and not the adjusted 14,000 figure you've estimated. Only the adsense would have been swapped out 40% of the time but you still would have be credited in analytics for the amount of times the page was actually visited.
Which means your actual blog won out in terms of traffic.
No. We split PAGE impressions. Which includes amazon kontera and ebay. So - theoretically - you could still earn all the money - or none of it. lol
Hey Mark, snappy little hub you got here. Still watching you, nice work.
Thanks BC. Still banned from the forums?
TattoGuy 2 years ago
Just the hub I was looking for as I have started a Tattoo Blog which I am actually thinking of switching to Wordpress from Blogger. Is that switch from Blogger to Wordpress worth doing?, deff liked this short but concise hub as it has made my mind up to run with both but if you can let me know if the Wordpress crossover is better I would appreciate it, cheers !