Upgrade your HubPages Bio Page with a Bio Hub Plug-In

HubPages has become a bit more than just a place to write articles, it's become an information nexus for the info-seekers out there as well as a place to place your "Writer's resume" to attract opportunities to earn money with your word skills. Many businesses are employing the use of HubPages accounts to drive traffic and credibility to their sites and even eBay auctions.

With all this power nestled underneath the HubPages account to benefit you both financially (people use HubPages to find good writers to hire!!!) and personally you will want to put a good face on your work by creating a bio page that helps your readers relate to you and your perspective on life.

The name of the game in HubPages is readership and there is a huge internal readership where people tend to "click" (hehe). In this growing community that is breaking records in the social/professional blogging markets.

The fact is there is A LOT of information out there and most of it is useless, so people in this new web 2.0 era are looking for authors to read. If you publish a lot of different topics and intrests then people will be-fan you so when they need info on something they will first search YOUR hubs, so writing on a variety of topics is a GOOD thing.

People will find good authors by reading profiles, and looking at a lot of the profiles on HP I'm not seeing much to look at, or too much in some cases (guilty)... When they find your hub on Google searches then like your style, they will often visit your author profile page to see if you are personable, if you have skills in many areas or in one specific area (psychology? Social networking? etc..).

I noticed the most hit page on my hubpages account from all sources collectively (mostly google however) is my profile page... so if I don't have a billboard up of who I am, I'm wasting good internet real-estate that's right by the ocean of thirsty readership right? I notice that although I do have tremendous traffic hitting my profile page, I have an 80% bounce rate from that page (means people visit and leave just as quickly).

Your profile is going to be found on Google and other search engines so why not give visitors a reason NOT to bounce out right away without checking out some of your hubs? Maybe check out some of your ads that help them do something. A good profile will intrigue your visitors with your unique essence in life, and will hopefully if they like you bring on new fans to read your hubs present past and future. Write your profile based on your goals for your hubpages account, this way you attract the right patrons, guests, visitors, $$$ traffic.

A few things to think about when creating this bio hub is to figure out FIRST what you want your bio page to do for you. A bio page can become a way to bring your presence across the web as a writer, author, and person.

You can create a private bio that would work for most writer enthusiasts- people who love to write but aren't worried about earning from it, just a hobby for example- and express yourself. You can also create a business bio.

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Make sure your profile page is not written as a hub (I'm talking about the actual profile page) because with HubPages new format this will actually hinder your users ability to easily see your hubs (and utilize the whole reason for this upgrade).

The profile page should be used specifically to take advantage of hubpages collage technology, but at the top where you insert your own words you should keep it to one paragraph (or how ever long it should be to make sure the visitor can immediately and without scrolling too much, see your other hubs listed).

My original profile (still there as I write this) was designed to do what hubpages is now doing only without pictures (I wrote a biography inserting links to all my good hubs in it since my hubs are as much an autobiography of my lifes choices, lessons, experiences, accomplishments, and more this worked out well.

I would put about 2 paragraphs max (6 lines or 100 words per paragraph max) and a link to your BIO-HUB as described in this hub.

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If you’re a writer and want to find people to write for (for pay) then use your bio and hubs to magnetize those people to you. I know I would certainly use HubPages to find my outsource writing team, and have. Your bio should not sell people anything; it should sell them on you, personally and intellectually (as writing is an intellectual venue).

Your bio should be well spoken and contain information a potential outsourcer would want to know. Your hubs will be your resume so write them well, spell check, and give them some flair (I wrote dozens of hubs on this so look around my hubs for them).

Also keep in mind your account can be used as the digital version of your personality, so use your account COLLECTIVELY to portray an image of who you are as a writer and a person, it does no good to have a great profile and a bunch of hubs on topics that are offensive, or to have poorly written hubs, hubs that aren't spell checked, or that are too short or too long or has many run on sentences (like this one). One hub could ruin your reputation, or it could make it if the right person sees it.

I wrote a hub on my desire to write for money and started getting emails from people who saw it, checked out all of my hubs, then contacted me about possibly writing articles for them for money. Your account extends to the forum too so be very aware of what you say and how you come across, your reputation as a writer is at stake. Same goes for comments left anywhere (even off of hubpages).

Don't think these people scouring hubpages for writers aren't doing a little forum digging to see if your hubs/profile page is consistent with who you are in a social circle such as the hubpages community :)

Many people start out as a hobby writer then convert to the paid writer (professional). If you just want to be noticed as a writer/author, artist, and so on, use your bio to display who you are, what you write, people tend to trust you more if you reveal some personal details like what you like to read/write, how long you've written, and so on, just some lines to help them build rapport with your personality and professional side.

You can have fun with your Bio too, with a hub you have the full functionality of HubPages at your disposal, your bio page (actual bio page in HubPages that links to this bio hub) should talk them into visiting your hub plug-in but we'll get to that in my own example. Even if your just a hobby writer realize what goes on the web (even things you can take down because they often get copied and reposted etc..) stays on the web so plan ahead (once you get a whiff of online income you will be hooked).

I think the HubPages bio page is a bit limited multimedia-wise so I decided to convert a hub into the Bio page and to just link to it on the bio page (and this looks cleaner anyway). This is a great way to express yourself as an author and to welcome new fans who are, (no pun intended) on the same page with your interests thus will enjoy reading your future hubs (and past).

About a year ago I asked HubPages to add more functionality to the profile page i.e. ability to use a video capsule for a live introduction of myself or anything else, they told me to produce a hub and link to it from the bio page so here we are exploring the concept. (I meant to do this a year ago... when I posted this in the forum).

I wrote another hub called "Pimp your hub" that shows you some tricks; well your profile bio hub is a GREAT place to exploit these fun page tricks to pimp your profile page. (i.e. using pictures to functionally spruce up your font, and more)

If you are a money seeking hubber slash neophyte of online income concepts like AdSense and article writing (for pay directly) then your profile needs to reflect more than just your personality but also needs to include functional links to your website, needs to include your skill sets, interests, and if your looking for freelance work you should note this in your bio (I've gotten plenty of work from people looking for an article/site ghostwriter and read my hubs (resume?) then contacted me about working for them.

My whole point here is that hubpages is a phenomenal resource due to it's high PR (page ranking) value, it's traffic enter-course (smiles) and it's quality control features (which makes more professionals looking for talent (talent scouts?) want to come here to find YOU.

Synergize your hubs and hub profile page (and profile bio-hub) to magnetize work to you. I would highly suggest you build a separate account to expedite this and use your real name as the avatar name. Most people don't use their real name when creating a hub pages account so this should be great for seasoned hubbers who want a separate nexus where they can write on anything, and create a hub account that acts separately as a resume where your hubs will be both professional and safe towards your reputation as a writer.

I used my name right off the bat (and have too much vested in my account to migrate it over to a sudo account name, although I'm already where I'd want to land with this concept so you won't find all of this advice spent on me (I'm not trying to be a hypocrite or someone who doesn't practice what he preaches, I'm simply writing this so YOU can take advantage of this.

I did things the hard way, this hub hopes to give you the benefit of my insights after the fact... Keep in mind... anything you put on the web... if you can't say it to your most ambitious client or potential outsourcer (employer?) then don't put it anywhere including the forum. Your "web Presence" is permanent.

Good Luck!

If your looking for a writing gig a great site to try (they hire when they need writers so check back often if you don't get in (they also harvest applications and do a mass hiring at times) is WordGigs/com. This was the site after hubpages that gave me my "big break" so to speak. Part of the pay is real world experience writing for those who are where you may want to be!-

Jerrico, Support Team Wordgigs/com (and currently also a lead/elite writer there as well)...

p.s. they may not be hiring at this very moment but they hire all the time, it works like a real job only online, still freelance but you grab work from a queue... very cool.