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I agree with you regarding doing market research and following instincts. In time, your hunch becomes as good as professional keyword research.

Still, I have to say that my best performing article at Wizzley is a result of keyword research. Once I discovered key-phrase that had 8000 searches per month and only 6 results at Google, I knew that any article using that phrase for its main topic will perform well and I was right.

I'm not an expert at making money by writing (heck, my English is not too great too), but so far, two things always show up:
1. When writing on competitive topic, it is almost impossible to rank high.
2. Strangely, even on a really competitive topic, you can get some traffic.

To illustrate that, one of my blog posts on Angelina Jolie (written without any keyword research and copy/pasting entire lyrics for Anybody Seen My Baby by Rolling Stones) gets more Google traffic than any other original post on the same blog.

I guess that interesting article will beat keyword research anytime.

I do throw out mascara out after a year, but it was only a couple of years ago that I threw out some of the stuff I inherited from mum - and she's been gone nearly 10 years (!).

I don't use makeup very often, but I do find most stuff is just fine. Lipsticks and powder eyeshadow particularly. I'm pretty sure i've had one of my eyeliners for about 6 years

I do throw out mascara out after a year, but it was only a couple of years ago that I threw out some of the stuff I inherited from mum - and she's been gone nearly 10 years (!).

I don't use makeup very often, but I do find most stuff is just fine. Lipsticks and powder eyeshadow particularly. I'm pretty sure i've had one of my eyeliners for about 6 years

And basically that why I've been happily living in sin for nearly 15 years - I refuse to buy into all the assumptions about marriage! To me we are a partnership. I cook, he cleans up afterwards, I wash, he folds and puts away clothes, I dust and polish (rarely!), he vacuums. We sat down when we first got together wrote down the stuff that needed doing, chose what we preferred to do, and compromised on the others. No one was volunteering for the lawns, so we hired a lawn-mower man!

@Lizzie - your mouse did it again. Get it fixed!
Totally in agreement on the HPads front. I think I've got about $20 in the account which is likely how it will stay, as I switched it off after about a week when I found the combined income came out at about a third of the income I received from having Adsense alone. I may switch it back on again if the traffic heights I once had there, reappear (pigs flying overhead), just to get to pay-out. I don't want them to have it - cuts off head to cure a sore throat.
I will not remove my hubs, as they have good backlinks and generate good authority flow to my websites, unless of course I get .... off when they are unpublished for me.
Does Hubpages actually realize, or care, how much damage that does to reputation on the internet? Having serps pointing to a hub, that is then missing when the result is pressed, does not just do harm to my reputation, it does harm to theirs also. And if they are doing this en masse, the effect is likely catastrophic. Broken links are a reputation factor in search algorithms. One link down for a day is no big shakes, but hundreds, and in a cycle, that is nasty.

I wouldn't waste too much time on hubpages - particularly with Amazon capsules. Last December they were threatening to only allow Amazon earnings through their own program not with your own affiliate ID. So far they haven't done it - but I am sure they will

LOL there is no way I could fold my laundry at the line - you obviously live in an area with less wind! In fact I never fold or put away laundry - when I was single it used to go from the laundry basket to the floor and back again. When I got together with my partner he seemed to like his clothes in the wardrobe - so I wash and dry and he folds and puts away. Neither of use iron except in an emergency!

I started with Hubpages in 2007 - Wizzley is a like hubpages was then, new exciting, and good money for those who knew what they were doing. Those same people are now leaving in droves, driven away by the same asinine emails as you got.

Personally I've been fairly lucky - I got a few hubs unpublished for linking to Clickbank (which was perfectly legal when I wrote them years ago) - guess where they are now - exactly!

And yeah I totally agree - they appear to have no idea what they are doing - in fact as far as I can tell they have pretty much given up on SEO and now seem to be focussed on maximising monetization (by the HPAds program) - that's monetization for them of course. No way are they going to get all my hard-won sales data by my participation there!

Ah but you can do keyword research for long-tails! But in general I agree, most people spend way too much time worrying about traffic, which is not what will make you money, particularly with affiliates!

I just published a page on it - talk about coincidence! I don't have kids, or in fact do much shopping, so I need to look elsewhere for good ideas! The best keyword research you'll ever do is in your own statistics for your websites - but I guess you already know that!

@Kinworm - exactly - I make most of money off phrases that have no traffic - well none the GKT wanted to tell me about. If I was still dependent on GKT I'd agree with Terri and just go with my niche knowledge.

Ah but you can do keyword research for long-tails! But in general I agree, most people spend way too much time worrying about traffic, which is not what will make you money, particularly with affiliates!

I just published a page on it - talk about coincidence! I don't have kids, or in fact do much shopping, so I need to look elsewhere for good ideas! The best keyword research you'll ever do is in your own statistics for your websites - but I guess you already know that!

@Kinworm - exactly - I make most of money off phrases that have no traffic - well none the GKT wanted to tell me about. If I was still dependent on GKT I'd agree with Terri and just go with my niche knowledge.

Thank you, I'd love to read an article on efficiency and some tips :) I work every hour I can but it's hard juggling being a good mum, wife, daughter, friend and then fitting online work in! I work every evening and every day when my little girl is at school but still I struggle to do more than 1 article per day!

@Sean to paraphrase your comment "Many of their ...... best and successful.........writers have left for pastures new.". Although it is said that 'the grass is always greener.............' many have found it to be so. Whether transferring themselves and their articles to alternative free writing sites, or into their own websites, they have found a more green and pleasant land on which to settle. And if they have arrived at Wizzley I can confirm that the neighborhood is better, as well. The council keeps the environment tidy, whilst the neighborhood watch ensures no riff-raff spoils the ambience.
Wizzley is a good town in which to settle. I think I shall retire to here. I can proudly state to the outside world that I live in Wizzley, and that I would recommend it to everyone.
I sincerely hope that you will be able to do, and say, the same. Thank you for your validation of the article. It is appreciated.

I don't believe the Hubpages hype. I tried to write there but did not like it at all and soon abandoned it. Many of their writers have left for pastures new. You present a good, balanced article with many valid points. I liked the Wizzley Effect section most of all. Thank you for the information.

@Angel my pleasure - oops I've said that before - so, let's change it to - you're welcome!

................continuation of last comment (see below, it had more than the 2,500 character limit) - I do tend to get carried away a bit with my replies, as your comments (the Royal your, that is, each and every one of you) teach me what new to say................
Wizzley is built on firm foundations, it has no baggage to drag it down. It is for us to construct each new floor in the nest (or skyscraper, but that did not fit the analogy).
I want to help as much as I can to achieve a living, writing organism that is free from mites and fungi and capable of gathering the sustenance needed for each of us to survive. It will benefit me too, so it is not all altruistic.
I am glad that you are glad. Keep reading....................