All About HubPages – An Interview With Jason Menayan

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This is an interview with Jason Menayan, the Director of Marketing at HubPages.

Q: For our readers that are unfamiliar with HubPages, why don’t you give them a brief description.

HubPages is a social content community where authors write about what they know and love, with over 900,000 topical articles (what we call “Hubs”) published by over 170,000 authors. The breadth of topics, vibrancy of our content base, and constant weeding out of substandard content ensures that great-quality content enjoys quick provisional ranking by the search engines, and a steady stream of revenue-generating traffic for years after publication. Our authors earn via Google AdSense and other advertising-/commission-based vehicles, with many earning hundreds of dollars a month on what they’ve already published, and more than a handful that are earning thousands every month. We’re the 57th largest site in terms of US traffic (according to Quantcast) and get more than 28 million visitors monthly. [Read more…]

Print Is King, Blogging a Prince

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When I was a Media Studies undergrad in the late 90s, I vividly remember assembling clip packets. These were photocopied bundles of my best written work that were shipped off to print media. The goal was to get paid assignments or a full-time job.

Years later, as I made the transition from print media to digital media, physical clip packets evolved into e-mails and links. Not only was it a time saver, but I saved money on envelopes and postage too.

Through the years I picked up more blogging gigs and the world was grand. Who needed newspapers and magazines anyway. The writing seemed to be on the wall: Print was a dying relic, the future of the Web bright. That still might be the case. But suddenly I have the urge to take a step “backwards” and concentrate on scoring more print gigs. Hmmm. [Read more…]

How to Get a Blogger’s Attention

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Smoke signals. They were effective in ancient China when soldiers needed to communicate over the Great Wall. But send one up today and your message will go up in – well – smoke. Getting the attention of a blogger you would like to work with or for is no easy task. Life feels like one big cluttered inbox. Here are a few ways to cut through the noise.

1) Write about them. Bloggers are not a vain bunch, but they do check their referring traffic on a regular basis. Insult them on your Website and they will defend their honor. Compliment them and they will be thankful.

2) Ask them for help. It’s a generalization but I’m going to go there anyhow; people love to hear themselves talk. [Read more…]

Blogger Rolls Out New Template Designer

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I’ve never understood Blogger. In my humble opinion, it is a cumbersome blogging platform that has always dragged way behind the competition. Even under the Google umbrella, the novice CMS has failed to impress. But perhaps there is hope…

Starting today, Blogger is rolling out the Blogger Template Designer, a tool that will give users much greater control over how their blog looks and operates. [Read more…]

A Blog Mentor Is Hard to Find

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A crusty old journalism professor I once had used to preach the following:

“To get where you want to go, you should talk to someone who has been there.”

Ideally, that’s where a mentor comes in. A wise and trusted counselor who influences our work and supports us along the way. You know, the older guy who has earned our respect by example. Now all he has left to accomplish is helping shape today’s youth. I’ve yet to find my blogging Mr. Miyagi (See Karate Kid), and I have a few ideas why: [Read more…]

Blogging Lesson From the Second Grade

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When I think back to grade school, I still break out into a sweat remembering the horror of being called on unexpectedly by a teacher and asked to read a passage aloud. You always had the feeling that you were one stammer or mispronunciation away from being ostracized.

My wife, who is a teacher but still takes advanced education classes, recently asked me to help her with an assignment. My job? Read the paper she wrote aloud. And you know what? The tactic that she employs with her second grade class could be beneficial to bloggers. [Read more…]

Promote Your Blog Via License Plate

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As you learned from my Myers-Briggs self-assessment, I’m the kind of guy that rather blend in than stand out in a crowd. That means I can produce killer content, but don’t get a gold medal when it comes to self-promotion.

As I was sitting in traffic this morning thinking up ways to promote my blog offline, it occurred to me that a great opportunity could be staring me right in the face…literally. [Read more…]

Respect Your Blogging Accomplishments

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A wise man once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

That genius was Ferris Bueller, the fictional namesake of the ever-popular 1986 movie written and directed by John Hughes.

Time as a blogger flies by. When you’re not busy pounding out quality content, you are researching post ideas, reading about SEO, promoting your work on social networks, etc. At any given point, you are juggling a dozen different balls, and like most of the bloggers I know, you are amazing – because you keep most of them in the air. But there’s one I’ll bet you are dropping. [Read more…]

What’s Your Blogging Personality-Type?

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I recently read an article where 64 graphic designers were asked to record their Myers-Briggs personality type results. For those of you unfamiliar with The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI), it asks the taker a series of questions (there are no incorrect answers) and then generates a four-letter acronym that lumps people into one of 16 personality-type categories.

An argument on the validity of the test is for another day. Plus you have to pay (anywhere between $29 – $100) to take the questionnaire. Since most of us are fiscally-challenged, let’s take an unofficial poll. [Read more…]