Many years ago, around 2005 or so, I participated in a popular writing meme following a template that gave a wonderful result. It combines something of the many “about me” formats, but with a decidedly more aesthetic outcome.
So many bloggers were creating posts using it that there was a whole new meme of linking to their published efforts in something of an index.
Enough years passed that it is “new again”, and while trying to locate the original template, it gave me enough rabbit trails that I thought it would be a good idea to post it here.
I had found it on “Praties Place” …. who had got it from “Fragments From Floyd” …. who seems to have either been inspired by or who had gotten it from the poem, Where I’m From by George Ella Lyons.
This last source was found on a page no longer actively on the internet (found deep in the webarchives). I will cite it from that page:
““Where I’m From” appears in George Ella Lyon’s Where I’m From, Where Poems Come From, a poetry workshop-book for teachers and students, illustrated with photographs by Robert Hoskins and published by Absey & Co, Spring, Texas, 1999.”
For the WHERE I’M FROM Format:
I am from _______ (specific ordinary item), from _______ (product name) and _______.I am from the _______ (home description… adjective, adjective, sensory detail).
I am from the _______ (plant, flower, natural item), the _______ (plant, flower, natural detail)
I am from _______ (family tradition) and _______ (family trait), from _______ (name of family member) and _______ (another family name) and _______ (family name).
I am from the _______ (description of family tendency) and _______ (another one).
From _______ (something you were told as a child) and _______ (another).
I am from (representation of religion, or lack of it). Further description.
I’m from _______ (place of birth and family ancestry), _______ (two food items representing your family).
From the _______ (specific family story about a specific person and detail), the _______ (another detail, and the _______ (another detail about another family member).
I am from _______ (location of family pictures, mementos, archives and several more lines indicating their worth).
I hope you enjoy using this to create your own memorable autobiography in poetry and prose.
=It is all old news now: blogging is /and has been/ changing.
If you are new to creating a blog and writing online, maybe these terms are new to you. Or maybe you are like me, and never really “got it”, needing to bone up on these pillars of blog success and learn some new “tricks” at the same time.
With the tsunami of internet blogs comes a necessity to keep your head above water just to get an average number of readers. But fear not, there is still opportunity and with good old grit and determination online writers can still craft a following while pursuing their dream of creating a body of work.
First Some Definition
What is a niche?
It is a specialized subject area. Preferably your niche is narrowed down to the point where you have appeal to a loyal tribe of people who share your interest.
The alternative is to have a broader area of interest, but create a prolific amount of articles which have good authority.
My own example is that my sites mainly revolved around the topic of gardening. Since that was such a broad topic, I further reduced the scope to Central Ohio Gardening , with an emphasis on home landscaping design. Even there, I am finding that I must greatly increase the output of articles to improve my online standing.
The point of having a niche topic is to build authority and gain readership by reducing your competition for keywords and interest. It is a combination of catering to Google for search engine results and catering to those who wish to find authoritative information on their favorite subject.
What are some other popular niches?
DIY Home Decor
Do It Yourself Crafts
DIY Interior decorating
Selling Homemade Items
Self-sustaining lifestyle
Grow your own food
Use alternative energy
Preserving Foods
Simpler Living
Green living
Organizational Skills
Lifehacks
Actually, these are all highly saturated topics now, but by studying “long tail keywordsA long-tail keyword is a keyword phrase that contains two to three words” you can successfully choose a good niche topic for your blogging.
I have seen advice consisting of writing on a certain long tail keyword for a few key posts, and then branch out to adding posts on other related keywords for your chosen subject matter. I tend to write as the muse hits me, but this tip strikes me as a more organized and targeted approach. Even though my blogs are established, I think that is good advice to round out my own content.
What Is An Evergreen Post?
Evergreen through the seasons
As may be surmised, no matter what the season year, in and year out, something that attracts reader’s interest is called “evergreen content”.
Posts that have no expiration because they hold long term interest.
What type of topics might qualify for this type of article?
Instructional “How To” Tutorials
Product Reviews
Top Tips
Lists
What do people love to read about? Food, romance, money, weight loss, their pets …you know, the usual. It’s the usual because we are perennially interested in these topics as humans. And that… is Evergreen.
Seasonal Writing
The seasons give rise to traditions in food, holidays, activities, and many other types of subjects that perennially pop up and create interest in our writing. Here is a list of common topic examples by month:
January:
dieting
depression
taxes
money, budgeting, earning extra income
New Year’s resolutions
weather
baking, recipes
February:
Valentine’s Day
football
income tax, spring,
Chinese New Year
love, romance, dating.
March:
Daylight savings time
St. Patrick’s Day
Spring
Easter, Palm Sunday, Passover
diet, exercise
April:
April Fools Day
fashion, shoes
Crocus, Tulips
spring birds
relationships
May:
Spring break
Mother’s Day
spring flowers
babies, children
gardening
travel
graduation, prom,
summer employment
weddings
June:
Weddings, graduation
summer, summer break
children, games
travel
outdoor activities
Father’s Day
summer employment
July:
Fourth of July
cameras
Independence Day
Warm weather foods (barbecue, ice cream, salads).
August:
summer activities
back to school
computers
college, dorm
students
September:
Labor day
Clothing
Canning
Fruit
Health
Harvest
October:
Crafts
Autumn
Halloween costumes
Baking
Fashions for fall and winter
November:
Remembrance Day
Thanksgiving
Turkey, holiday recipes
Gifts
Baking
Black Friday
December:
Christmas, holidays
 Ornaments, Christmas trees
Winter, cold, ice, snow, snowflakes
Winter sports
Writing Schedule
To take advantage of seasonal searches, write your articles 3 months in advance of the expected interest dates.
Generally Speaking
Building a solid base of evergreen content within a niche is a good way to start out with your blogging. It is also a great way to view where an established blog might flesh out their appeal.
If you are interested at all in making income from your writing, I’d say these concerns should rise to the top of your writing “to-do” list. You are much more likely to hit your target when focused, then using hit or miss style of building your blog.
Myself? When free to experiment with writing topics, as in my time on Squidoo, I found that evergreen content and creating a niche were best combined for success in drawing readers and earning money.
Today, one of the fastest ways to get these articles seen and grow in traffic has been through the use of Pinterest. Utilizing social media is the next step, after writing a foundation of solid content. Nt Amazon Storefront
I have seen only dwindling income levels for my articles on this site. What happened?
Rewriting necessary for the changeover from Hubpage categories to new subset websites. Example: garden topics became ‘Dengarden‘. The sub-sites were the only way to have reliable traffic and ad income.
Amazon links were removed or else articles were penalized.
Ad income on articles dropped exceedingly in the last year.
Articles once accepted on sub-sites booted back into Hubpages.
(My suspicions: Google increasingly penalized these sites as “content farms”)
I personally became disillusioned with this place for writing when the editing became very aggressive. Over time, the editors improved from being quite so heavy handed and some of the graphics inserted did create improvement.
But overall, even if you had decent writing skills, the Editors changed your voice and creation into their own. This interfered with writer’s morale on the site, I believe. I know it did for me. The drop in income only added injury to insult in the situation.
So, the short answer to the question posed in the title of this post?
I cannot now “make money” on Hubpages which involves any promise for input of time, work and energy.
My Hubpages Review 2015
The answer to that question is increasingly “no”, but until very recently it had been a “yes”, and I think it might resume the affirmative. Right now it depends on how the transition is made as Hubpages continues to try to please Google.
For those unaware of what Hubpages is, here is a short summary:
It is a community of online writers using a module based writing platform.
The income of ads and Amazon products are shared between the writer and Hubpages.
A Bit Of Background On Squidoo Turning Into Hubpages
If you have read some of my reports in the past you know that I started out on Squidoo, which was a writing platform with some similarities. While writing there I did quite well, getting some rewards and earning enough income to help support some of my other web writing – selfhosting and domains for my blogs (including this one).
Squidoo was bought out by Hubpages and merged, after which all the articles (christened “lenses”) became “hubs”.
Squidoo struggled with the same issues that are a trouble to Hubpages, now: penalties from Google for poor content, spamminess, and just because they consider them to be “content farms”.
Hubs Get Hit
The fact that Hubpages pay compensation means they have tended to draw some very questionable authors along with the worthwhile, talented, and honest ones. After Google Panda slapdowns (where the traffic was severely impacted), the struggle was on to try to eradicate the source of the problem. This included little to no links to one’s own blogs, or affiliates, and much fewer Amazon modules.
This has resulted in dropping income for many writers on the site (which explains my initial “no”, it is very difficult now to make any money on the site).
Compensation is still paid, but it is much more difficult and greatly reduced at this time (in my own experience).
What Has Changed In Earning Income?
For the things that created income, the ad income is less, the Amazon modules are restricted and discouraged. Also, an arbitrary system of relegating articles to “unfeatured status”, wherein HP tells search engines not to index the hubs, results in less visitors for that “hub”. Ebay has not figured into my own earnings, or much for most others from what I have read.
One thing that has changed is the clarity by which a person may judge whether their writing is meeting standards on the site. Unfeatured for quality can mean almost anything for having outgoing links, to too many, to unrelated Amazon products, etc. It could also have to do with the writing… it is a mixed bag and changes often.
A portion of my dashboard
Are We Having Fun Yet?
Yes, sometimes. However it is a lot of work keeping up with many changes, and the compensation is steadily dropping. What tends to work?
Having a large number of articles still seems to matter. Part of the reason my income dropped is that I took a number of my articles down when they seemed unresponsive to improvements (I couldn’t get them out of unfeatured no matter what I tried).
Writing long articles of 700+ words.
Writing along a very tight topic focus (unlike Squidoo which seemed to reward ranging widely across the topic and covering everything).
Having few or no outgoing links, restricting them to one per text module.
Having very few Amazon products and keeping them to those mentioned in the article.
A number of strong pictures/photos, but not too many.
Another change is the scoring of articles based more on visitor interaction, and less on raw traffic.
A robot editor now corrects grammar and spelling.
Start Doing This
If earning some revenue from your writing online is a goal, try some of these suggestions.
Build up your own sites if you wish to try your hand at making an income writing.
Diversify among different streams of income: sites like Hubpages, your own blogs, social media, Amazon, Zazzle.
Find your niche
Work hard
Network
For now, that is my report on the everchanging landscape of creating a business and income online.
So many writers are complaining in the Hubpages forums and many are leaving or threatening to do so. I take that to mean that there is a sitewide drop in income. Mine is about a third of what it was last year, but I don’t know if that is the common experience or not.
The benefits remain for those who simply wish to have experience writing and possibly getting feedback on their efforts. The community there is also a way to keep a touch on the pulse of the web as it impacts this type of writing (mostly informational articles).
This is simply information given to the reader to help you decide for yourself if you think joining and writing for Hubpages is a promising endeavor for your efforts.
Clear Photo (at least one, preferably Pinterest-worthy)
Strong introduction
Easy to scan information: headings and bullet lists help
Good word flow in well written content
These 5 points are the basics of a good blogpost.
No matter how much you write, one of these areas of the blogpost can always improve. I believe we should always strive to better our product, no matter what form it takes. I’m an information junkie and love to read great posts, and I’m always trying to improve by learning how to put together great advice from experts and make it my own.
That first one, the catchy headline, is always a challenge. Try reading Copyblogger’s advice
Appropriate photos can be a challenge, but with an iPhone and Camera+ app, and Instagram, the process starts to improve. Photos with a Sony digital camera and photo editing were a very time and effort consuming process. Now it is easier with a recent version of your phone. (see updated advice below)
Remember basic rules of writing a good essay? Those apply to the first paragraph, the introduction. Make it controversial, or make it something generally agreed upon, then introduce your topic and what the reader can hope to find in your post.
This has to do with the format of the page. Break it up into easy to digest pieces, divide with heading, hand out bulleted lists. I am still working on this.
Try reading the post out-loud. Does it seem choppy? Hard to understand? Abrupt transitions? If it is hard to tell, try printing out the entire post to work on, this extra work would be important for cornerstone content that you wish to have as “evergreen” posts that will draw readers time and time again.
Evergreen Posts
these are topics that people perpetually desire to read (hence the “evergreen” label). Instead of season holiday or subject lines like “Back to School”, Health, finance, and beauty continually draw interest.
Heading Reminders
Headings ought to be in order: H1 is the title, H2 is the next main topic, and H3 will line up under the H2, etcetera.
Run-on-sentence mindsets like to forget the formatting.
Don’t make that mistake!
Created a catchy illustration in Canva. Could be used as the feature photo, at the beginning or end of post, as well.
How to Edit a Good Blogpost
Read through your content before posting. Make sure you have enough of the written word to give the necessary information and that your thought process is easy to follow.
Rearrange paragraphs and sentences if necessary. Keep learning to write better. Lots of advice is available.
Continue editing by following these next steps:
The Next Most Important Points For Good Blogposts
Check Your Spelling
Check the Grammar and Punctuation
Edit Your Writing
Use White Space, Reduce Clutter
After you have written a post, it is time to edit, revise, spellcheck, and improve sentence structure making sure the punctuation is properly used to best advantage.
Another helpful online app is called “Hemingway”. Try that out.
This and most programs now utilize AI. For some editors, within WordPress, or in browsers, AI is quite simple to use. It may take some getting use to in other applications, but it is time to get some practice with prompts that will give the desired outcome.
The AI Caveat
You might be tempted to just let the machine write everything for you. But this will not give your blog the identity you desire. In case you think this won’t matter: the future for writers will not be in spitting out info, it will be in the imprint of their own personal creativity.
So far, the AI content can seem meaningless and generic. Where it will go? That is yet to be seen. For now, use the tools to check your work, to act as an editor, to do jobs for which you need other’s expertise.
My Weak Spots
For writing a good blogpost, yours may be different. But watch out for these writing faults:
I do play fast and loose with this at times, but I used to go over my work repeatedly correcting mistakes, and still do when I have the time. It is far better to look twice before pushing the publish button.
People have given me helpful info on times that I have overlooked proper spelling or written in an obscure manner. I wish I had more input! If you have a friend or colleague who will help you edit, treasure that person.
As the original post was written in 2014, more than ten years down the pike I will update this advice.
Updating Blogpost Good Writing Advice in 2025
The above information has proven to be classic. I would still follow each point to create a good blogpost.
Adding some catchy or illustrative graphics are an all-important edition to a topnotch blogpost. One of the most useful apps has been Canva. It now requires a premium membership fee, but is worth it. You can make sizes for social media easily inside the app. Need free? Use something like Unsplash for that.
Canva has turned out to be a tremendously powerful creator app, with AI within, and abilities far outside the original simple graphics.
To improve SEO I depend on the Yoast SEO plugin for my WordPress sites. It is free. Writers are still dependent on Google for getting an audience, and SEO helps.
Writing good content, while important, is only one part of the work. Look into how to use social media to broadcast it and build an audience.
…Resuming the original post…
Perhaps you would improve with the use of an editor app or program. I have used Scrivener and Evernote, although I’m slow to learn how to coordinate everything. A successful blogger I know used Scrivener and other helps, and I am trying to follow his lead in becoming more effective.
The important points to remember when creating a blogpost are that it (1) be memorable, (2) social media worthy, and (3) useful to your readers.
In sum, although there may be an infinite number of tweaks and improvements we may make, these are the core components of good blogposts.
Make your blogpost interesting, entertaining, and/or useful
One Last Thing
I have been seeking to improve my blogs and one thing that keeps coming up:
Include a Call to Action
This is a “marketing term”, but it has become a widespread inclusion in the summary of a post. The idea is that the reader gets involved with either being asked to comment, “like”, or sign up for the newsletter (don’t have one? More on that in the future.)
I have started to do this. So, please sign up for my garden newsletter… it is more than gardening.
I know nothing about them, but Copyblogger knows plenty, so I spent some time on Brian’s famous site reviewing some of his helpful information. You can go straight there or listen to me chat a bit.
I went there through a twitter link ( I follow Brian and some others from the days I was in ‘Third Tribe’). I seem to struggle with the actual how-to for some reason, but I have learned so much about copywriting, marketing, and other foreign subjects from reading people who taught in his grand experiment.
I wasn’t ready. Maybe I will never truly be ready, but I’m taking the plunge in many of the things I learned. After all, I don’t wish to only write for myself. Like on this site!
That is a lesson found in some of the information ( I tend to follow a rabbit trail of posts on some of these sites). I think I format my posts better, but I have been experimenting like crazy with themes that give me styling and possibilities that I want.
But writing headlines? I used to be so wordy and esoteric ( See? I use words like that). Then I switched to prosaic and dull, ” just the Key words, Ma’am, please.” Now I am supposed to captivate you. At sixty+ I don’t feel captivating. But I will try. Sometimes daily writing drums you down, but I like the idea of further refining your focus. That is what I am trying to do in life, so why not my writing?
My latest post on Ilona’s Garden was in a post format called “projects” that was built into my Theme. I still struggle with making my own post formats. And now that sentence is an example of what not to do: digress.
Anyway I wrote a resource page on Composting, which I hope to grow into a major source over the coming year. Composting is important to me, and I personally want to do it better. I figure there might be others like me.
Example
Look at the page and then tell me what you think of the headline, etc.
Offhand, I’d say that while it has a nice pun, it is too broad in scope. Also composting articles have been done to death, but usually they are scarce on good, complete information. The best ones are specified to particular categories of the composting process.
I wanted something where you can read it and go out and make your compost that very day ( you know, set it up, to actually make the compost takes time).
So. Did I accomplish the goal? What would draw a reader deeper into the page?
My family also uses Amazon Prime often, which saves us money on shipping and more.
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