How to Write a Hub on HubPages

If you have never written a hub on HubPages, then here are detailed instructions on how to get started with your first hub.

Join HubPages

First you need a HubPages account. I’m assuming you have one, but if you don’t you can sign up with one here go to the top right and click on the word join which is written in green. You will be asked for a username, email, password, and to check that you’ve read the terms of use.

Choose your username carefully as once you have joined you can’t change it, ever. The maximum number of characters is 17 and it can include spaces. As soon as you sign up you will be sent a link to the email you provided which will verify it’s the correct email address.

Your password should be between 6 and 12 characters and can include numbers or letters. Here are the HubPages terms of use. You have to check that you agree to abide by the HubPages Terms of Use.

Start a New Hub

Top right in green are the words start a new hub, click there to start your hub. First you need a title and a unique web address. HubPages suggests a web address for you, you can choose to use that or create your own. You need to choose a category that describes what your hub is about. You can browse categories or search for HubPages to suggest a category. Choose a starting layout and add two tags. Don’t worry too much about the tags as you can add more later.

Capsules

Your article is called a hub and hubs are made up of capsules. There’s a text capsule, photo capsule and many others. You can have as many capsules as you like, in whatever order you wish. To open a new capsule click on an icon that is on the top right of the page. If you scroll down so the menu on the top right disappears, then there is a bar on the left with add written on it. Click the bar and choose which capsule you will add.

Photographs

Edit a photograph capsule and upload a photograph from your computer. There are many sites where you can use photographs for free. Personally, if I don’t use one of my own photographs then I find one on Wikimedia Commons. You can use one capsule per photograph, or put many photographs in one capsule. You can also put your photographs into a slideshow.

Text

I suggest you write your text somewhere else and upload it into a text capsule. Then if for any reason you lose it, you will still have a copy. You can quickly upload your whole text into one capsule or split it across many text capsules. The main body of the hub will be made up of mainly text and photograph hubs.

Video Capsule

You can upload a video from youtube or Google in the video capsule. Like the photographs, you can display the video full width or half width.

Links Capsule

This is where you can add links that are relevant to the topic, I usually add links to my hubs that are similar to the hub I’m writing, but if your links are non-HubPages then there should be a maximum of 2.

RSS Feed

You can add an RSS feed to your hub, but the maximum is 2 in total (that’s links plus RSS items) unless they are links to HubPages articles. If you want to put your own hubs into the RSS feed then go to your profile, go to where it says, Subscribe to RSS Feed, copy the link, and put it into the RSS Feed Capsule. This is quicker than adding many different links, but if you use the link capsule you can be more specific with your choice of hubs.

News Capsule

This lets you add recent news to your hub. It’s very easy to do and adds content to your article. Just add a phrase or a few words to the capsule, decide the number of news articles you wish to display and they will be added. These change over time, making the news capsule always have recent news. If there is a topic that you don’t want included you can type a dash followed by that word and the news capsule will not include news about the topic you don’t want.

Comments Capsule

The comments capsule is automatically on your hub. If you don’t want it you can remove it, but I don’t see why you would want to remove it. Once or twice I have published a hub with an error and someone has told me in the comments capsule. Also it’s very nice to receive appreciative comments. You get the choice for every comment you receive to let it appear on your hub or not. Before you approve a comment, you just need to make sure the link attached to the person’s name is a link to their HubPages account and not an outside site. You can do this by hovering over their link and checking in the bottom left of your browser what the actual link is.

Quiz and Poll

You can add a quiz or a poll to your hub if you wish. I like to add a poll because then I think people may answer the poll and come back a while later to see how everyone else has voted.

How do I earn Revenue?

To start with, there are three ways you can earn revenue, through Google Ads, Amazon Affiliates and EBay Affiliates. HubPages will automatically add Google ads, but you need to add Amazon and EBay capsules. I suggest you wait until you’ve written 5 hubs before applying for the affiliate programs. When you sign up for the programs, go to my account, click on affiliate settings, click on the edit button next to Google, Amazon or eBay and follow the instructions. If you already have an affiliate code, you can just enter it where it says affiliate code.

Amazon and eBay Capsules

If you are an Amazon or eBay affiliate then you can add capsules with relevant merchandise to your hubs. Then if someone clicks on your suggested items and buys something, you get a percentage. This is different from Google ads where all they need to do is click on the advert.

Tags

On the right hand side a little way down you will see a section called tags. HubPages suggests tags that you can use, or you can search for relevant keywords on Google. You can add tags whether or not you are in edit mode.

Reordering Capsules

Underneath the edit tags section is the place where you can rearrange the capsules. When you are in edit mode click and drag the capsules to the position you want and then click reorder now. Alternatively you can use the green arrow buttons within each capsule to move an individual capsule up or down. Within the edit tags section if you double click the capsule the width of that capsule will be halved, then if you double click again it will be put back to full size.

Deleting a Capsule

If you no longer want a capsule there is a red cross on the upper right of the capsule. Clicking it will delete that capsule.

Rules

Everything has to be relevant to your topic. Your photographs, video, affiliate links etc all have to be on the same topic or your hub may get flagged for being irrelevant.

Publish

When you are happy with your hub, click on the Publish button near the top of the page. Prior to doing that you can preview what you have written. But if you publish and you are not happy with something, you can always edit it.

Check links frequently

Sometimes you link to something that then disappears from the Internet. So be sure to check your links frequently.

Profile

Write yourself a good profile that tells something about you and is interesting to read. This is where you can put links to your blog or other places where you write. There is no limit to links in the profile like there is inside a hub.

Kontera

When you are earning over $50 a month with Google you will want to think about signing up for Kontera and adding Kontera ads to your hubs.

My friend Susan

I’ve written this hub for my friend Susan. She writes a lot on Squidoo, but has yet to write her first hub. Please check her account to see if she’s written anything yet.