Niche Momma: Making money online between poop blow outs.

1st Quarter Earnings and Future Directions

2011-04-15T17:47:00.000-07:00

I have grossed many many multiples of 5 figures so far this year. If I did the math it would probably be 5,000% more than I made last year.

Mostly from leveraging stuff I wrote years ago into income.

And it's not reproducible or sustainable long term, so it's more a windfall.

A very nice one. Which is nice since my adsense tanked with Google's latest update (so much for niche content doing better, I guess mine qualified as spam, which it isn't, not even close, but okay).

Which leads me to write this: I love passive revenue. I love building passive income. I made $500 from eHow in March alone (for a gross of more than $1500 for 3 months).

What I don't love is how Google can jack you up any time they feel like it. Without even really telling you. Or providing a bonafide opportunity for appeal.

The latest algo update destroyed the current passive revenue paradigm. Utterly demolished it and the industry has been very slow to retool and rebuild. So slow, I've given up on waiting for them.

I also dislike how you are vulnerable to poor management or drastic management changes. For instance, Suite101 is in the toilet and they may get flushed. eHow closed their program rather abruptly last year. You just have so little control.

Passive revenue is just not income you can rely on. It's rather high maintenance too, what with Google changing the game every 3 to 6 months and then the platforms themselves changing almost daily it seems.

The people selling niche blogging and passive revenue as easy peasy money, go live your life on the beach? Are lying. You gotta pay attention in this business. Be ready to hit the curve balls out of the park over and over again. The paradigm is not stable. It's ever shifting and sometimes you get swallowed up. More than once.

So I am thinking to go in a new direction.

Actually make that, directions, plural.

One, ebooks are going to be the next hot thing. I'm calling it right now. Niche blogs are so two thousand and late. So I am working on several projects in that vein. This also fulfills my desire to get out of the web content article format and delve into my areas of expertise the way I want, how I want.

I have my first ebook up as a test run and I'm learning all sorts of things I didn't know and always always always finding yet one more typo I missed. I think they breed when I'm not looking! I consider the first project a throwaway, my learning curve ebook. So I don't expect much.

Another ebook is with a professional editor getting a nice polish.

Having worked in revenue share for the last 3 years, I know the trend is always toward better quality. I aim to produce high quality ebooks from the start. Some form of sweeps will occur once there's too much junk content clogging the pipeline. There are so many people online trying to make a buck, there will be a filter of some kind at some point.

Two, a longer term goal is creating an actual product that will create a new paradigm for fashion. That sounds pretentious, but that's the best way I can describe it. It's a whole other learning curve. Once I get the ebooks moving, this will get my attention next.

Wish me luck.

Year In Review

2011-01-06T10:15:00.000-08:00

Hi. I am still niching around the internet, you? Just not blogging here much. I continue to have a lot of health and personal issues that are very time consuming.

However, in terms of year on year growth, the niche blogging thing performed well.

Here's how the earnings stack up.

eHow: I made over three thousand dollars with a percentage increase over last year of 60%. On 100 articles. Not bad, eh? We'll see how long it lasts.

Amazon: around $600. Not great, but not bad considering this is about 150% more than last year.

Adsense: (includes, blogs, Infobarrel, and Hubpages): Roughly $300, an increase of 200% over last year. Month on month earnings seem to be growing. I was making like $20 a month, now it seems to be $30+ so progress.

Main source of income is Infobarrel and Hubpages, not my niche blogs. Interesting!

Suite101: Roughly $200. I don't even have 30 articles up but I will say, even though I haven't achieved significant volume, Suite is much slower than eHow was with earnings growth. Given that I have proven SEO results and a good track record on a site like eHow, I tend to lean toward the conclusion that Suite's SEO to promote the site is not so hot.

They are a good organization but they seem to be flailing a bit. Also, I have a hard time publishing any article with product tie-ins on Suite, I hate not being able to use Amazon affiliate links. So this has meant, I've not been writing as much for Suite. I still really want to get to 50 articles to see what happens to earnings, but between the personal BS and my interest in pushing my Amazon affiliate earnings, it's not easy.

I haven't seen any major innovations in writing online. Although I do see people out earning me for the first time. Just haven't seen any mention of a new and improved strategy to explain their earnings.

Right now my thought is to focus on pushing products.

September Earnings Roughly the Same

2010-10-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

I'm holding steady at $350-$400.

Have not been able to do much to push to the next level--my health is just not cooperating.

But I have registered a new domain. I have written a few articles and hubs. I do keep plugging away, but at the speed of dead snail.

I am niche blogging and web content writing in s-l-o-w motion. Ha.

October is looking dismal. I think I've made all of $2 on Amazon so far this month which is very low.

Quitting

2010-09-23T10:48:00.001-07:00

I submitted a cancellation request for my TKA membership a few weeks ago.

There is no question that The Keyword Academy is a great place to start with niche blogging. I would recommend it to anyone who is just starting out.

But I no longer felt it met my needs once I got past the initial learning curve.

Not enough to justify almost $400 a year in membership dues.

I know they've added a lot of extra features that many people like, but I have some reservations about those extras, which I'm not gong to delve into publicly.

Your mileage my vary.

My thought now is to funnel that $33 a month into outsourcing some content work.

See if that gets me any farther.

In other news, I have had some health challenges this month and my freelance work (in a non-writing field) has picked up enormously which slows me down. Frustrating. I need to somehow make this work. I have too much on my plate, my body is uncooperative arghhh. Overwhelming.

August Earnings

2010-09-01T17:47:00.000-07:00

eHow: Almost $300. So close, but couldn't cross the finish line.

Amazon: Getting closer to $50.

Adsense: Slightly more than $30

Suite: Almost $40 on 22 articles which is amazing.

But I need to somehow break through to the next level. I seem to be stuck at the $300-$400 mark and can't seem to grow much past it.

Need to work on that.

How to Write Your First Article for Suite

2010-08-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

My last post made me think it might be helpful to talk about how to write your first article for Suite101.

Like I mentioned in the last post, the first time I tried to work with Suite, I couldn't get past the editor. I had picked a technical topic that I have a ton of first hand expertise in and even though I added citations, my citations were not good enough.

Since when was the US Government with an in text linked citation, not an acceptable source?

I couldn't figure out how to make it work for the editor and I thought, if this is how the editors are, I don't want to work with Suite.

So I left.

When I came back, I was more strategic in selecting the topic for my first article.

I avoided anything technical or legal or with lots of facts and details.

I avoided sections like Health, Science, Law, and Business that typically require a lot of citations and enforce higher journalistic standards.

I actually wrote about a product category and made a shopping guide based on customer reviews on the internet. Not much for an editor to get hung up on there, fact-wise. My sources were from Amazon and unless they were going to read 300 reviews like I did, there was no real way to make life difficult.

If I had to do it over, I would probably write a craft or recipe article. Those topics probably represent the lowest barrier to entry for a first article on Suite101 because they are personal and not really authoritative. (Although note that those sections have some formatting requirements.)

I would also be sure to visit the forums and get a feel for each of the section editors. Most editors post their own section guidelines in the forum and it is well worth your time to become familiar with their requirements above and beyond those of Suite101.

It's also good to pick a simple topic since you will spend a lot of time learning Suite101's format and article structure in your first post. Don't complicate things with a complicated topic.

Oh and for the love of God, avoid the en dash--don't use two hyphens, like I just did here. You will be burned in effigy if you do that. If you don't know how to make an en dash or have no idea what I'm talking about, just avoid using dashes. Parentheses work really well.

Lastly, be sure to run your first few articles through Copyscape as Suite does check for plagiarism and scrutinizes new writers particularly closely.

A Suite101 Rant: Editor Badassery

2010-08-25T07:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, even though I made like $4-$5 yesterday on Suite I am still fuming a bit.

There are editors and there are editors. Most editors are fine. Others have delusions of working for the New York Times or fantasize about being a Grammar Stealth Ninja. In other words, they have a terminal case of editor badassery.

I wish there was medication for that.

This is actually my second time working with Suite. The first time, I couldn't get past the weirdo editor to publish my first article and I walked away. Who needed Suite when the eHow gravy train was still going full steam ahead? (Ha! Famous last words.)

So the second time around, I picked an 'easier' topic, one less likely to bog an editor down in details, facts or figures. Or their own opinions.

Because some editors confuse their own uninformed opinions with editing.

Anyway, the other day, I was lurking in the forums and ran across some posts by a particular editor who was in full blooming glory of editor badassery. Hmmm, I thought. I am not going to write in this editor's section. They are way too hardcore.

Well, guess what?

Editors at Suite don't stay in their little sections. If other areas have a lot of work, then topic editors who aren't buried, pitch in and help.

Next thing I know, the grammatical equivalent of Attila the Hun is slicing and dicing my articles. Not only flagging them, but completely disabling them, which is quite unusual for Suite.

Notice I said articles plural. It's almost like they are gunning for me. I mean, what are the odds of the same editor hitting my articles across multiple topic sections? Some of them weeks old even?

Now, in some cases, I agree with the (minor) edits, but, the thing is, there are also inappropriate edits mixed in there. Edits based on what they think about the topic, not based on what I'm actually writing. (Maybe they should go write their own article, you know?)

For example, say I write an article about 'How to Choose Between Cats and Dogs for a Pet' and the editor comes in with a 'what about ferrets?' comment. This is the kind of stuff I am dealing with. It's just not appropriate. Or helpful. Or productive.

So I am not happy. I am an experienced enough writer to know when an editor is just yanking me around because of their own agenda vs. me actually sucking enough to need an editor smackdown.

Flags I could maybe handle, but being disabled? Is not nice. And then to go after my other articles? Really not cool.

I hope this blitz fizzles out. In fact, I'm not going to add new content to Suite for a while just so this editor, hopefully, has time to forget I exist.

Stay tuned for some tips on writing your first Suite Article. Maybe I can spare you some pain.

5 Back Links You Can Build Today

2010-08-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

I freely admit I am not the best at back linking, but there are people who know even less than I do, so this post is for them.

Here are 5 back links you can take advantage of today.

1.Propeller. Last year when I used them, the site was too glitchy to use, but that seems to have improved.

2. Blogger. Start a topic blog. Make the topic broad enough to cover future articles. For example, 'Product Reviews' has a lot more flexibility than 'How to Buy a Kitchen Sink' which limits your ability to use the blog for anything else.

3.Tipsbase. is all about links. Post a blurb and a back link.

4.She Told Me is a social bookmarking site. I like it because links can be added quickly. Note, however, that the site will pull your account for inactivity so you're going to need to post something every couple of months.

5. Forums. Google forums for your topic by combining your keyword with forum (i.e. Kitchen Sink forums). Ideally, you want to find forums that cover broad areas in your topic so you can establish a long term presence for back links.

So in our example, search for 'kitchen forums' or 'remodeling forums.' Once you find a forum, add a link to your article in your signature and look for threads on your topic to participate in. In some forums, you may have to pay a small fee to be able to list links in your signature.

Note, none of these links are affiliate links.

P.S. I think I feel a Suite101 rant coming on...

$1 a Day

2010-08-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

I am making $1 a day so far on Suite101 with just 20 articles. So yes, there is money to be made at Suite101.

It will be interesting to see what happens to earnings as my articles age, search engines find them, and my back linking takes effect.

If there are people making more than that with a similar body of work, they aren't posting on the forums. I am seeing a lot of posts from people who feel they aren't making enough money...with less than 5 articles.

Listen, folks, you have to do the work. Once the work is done, the money rolls in for years to come with little additional input. But if you are going to write 1 article and give up because you didn't instantly make $50, you are deluded about how this works.

Write until you hit 50 articles.

Take a deep breath and review earnings.

If earnings suck, your SEO probably sucks too. So fix it.

Then write 50 more.

Then move on to another site and do the same thing to diversify your income.

And keep adding articles to Suite.

That's it. The secret money making formula.

Killing Trolls and Backlink Score

2010-08-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

Hey ya Mommas and Poppas. Grooviness, flowers and peace signs to you.

Yes, I am channeling hippies today. No, I don't now why either.

So there was some trolling last night on the wahm forums. Some guy who was doing so well writing for higher tier markets that he had the time to swoop down and lecture us lowly 'wimmin-folk' on how we could be doing so much better if we weren't lazy.

Yep, the troll called us lazy.

Well, here's a nice little tidbit that sums up why web content writing and passive revenue sites are good gigs.

I have a mere 100 articles on eHow. The last one I wrote was in February of this year. As of June, my earnings had already doubled over last year.

I am talking 4 figures here. As in thousands. of. dollars.

This is the beauty of passive revenue.

Unfortunately, the passive revenue market seems to be in flux now and I don't know if the business model will hold, which would be a huge bummer. For now, however, there's money to be made while I'm doing something else.

Dance while the band is still playing and all that.

This rocks. If I'm in the hospital, which I was earlier this year, I can still make money without worrying about deadlines or pleasing editors. If the baby is sick, I can give her my full attention. I can go on vacation and write it into a tax deduction. I can write about whatever topic I want. I can research and format as I wish.

I have no desire to garner a byline in more elite markets. Zero. I've done the 'writing is my passion' thing already. Have a few novels under my belt and have dealt with New York as well as agents (although I didn't end up selling a book, the editor flaked and quit their job which killed my book). I have published short fiction and hob-nobbed with big names in the writing world (who critiqued and mentored my work). I even started a very successful writing group that has yielded several published authors with multi-book deals.

And you know what? I'm over it! I. Don't. Care. At this stage in my life, I'm not about the glory, I'm about the money and there are a lot of pennies on the internet. If you get good at scooping them up, you can make bank.

Hey, more power to you if your dream is to write for the Big Boys and Girls. I'm not going to knock anyone for doing what makes them happy. But, it's not for me. Most magazines bore me to tears and the thought of writing the 50th annual Skin Cancer Warning Signs for Summer article (as if they haven't run a similar title every year since God was born) makes me contemplate suicide.

Not to mention book publishing is dying and is going to change so profoundly a lot of us won't recognize it anymore. So what's the point of chasing a book deal? May as well publish it myself (which I am hoping to do).

I don't want clients. I don't want hard editorial oversight (although some is okay). I just want to do my thing and make money. So far so good.

So there are my thoughts on all the 'elitists' running around so 'concerned' about those of us who don't aspire to be as 'successful' as them.

Here's a tip, go enjoy your success and stop trying to undermine ours. We don't care what you think and we don't need your approval either.

In other words, Suck It Troll.

In other news, squeeeeeeee, I got a good backlink on a niche site. Yay! Yay! Yay!

Am I the Only One Who Hates Social Media Back Links?

2010-08-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

Ugh.

Backlinking today and it is sloooooow going.

Can't register with Mister Wong for some reason.

Propeller is super slow.

Xomba is giving me carpal tunnel with the clicky clicky.

Why did Google have to start counting social media??????? It's just more stuff to do with my limited time.

Okay rant over. Gotta get to work.

What It Takes to Make Passive Income Now that Everything Has Changed

2010-08-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

1. Write, write, write. In my opinion and experience, you need at least 100 articles per website. Try to increase length too, 600 words is the new 400 (but don't kill yourself to get one stinking article that's giving you a hard time up to 600 words. Leave it at 400 and move on.)

2.More of everything; content, more SEO, more back links, more words. 2009 was the last 'easy' year for passive revenue, in my opinion. 2010 is the year that the bad economy hit the internet and companies like eHow shut down their programs. You'll have to hit it harder to do well in today's net economy.

3.Work with several passive revenue websites. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

4.Figure out what you are doing wrong. If you aren't making any money and if your passive income isn't growing, you are doing something wrong. Take a class, read a book, lurk on message boards, ask for help--whatever, but you need to put the effort into tweaking your strategy so that passive revenue works for you.

For me, I often compare myself to complainers in forums. If established people or newbies aren't making money,but I am, I consider myself to be doing okay--in conjunction with my income going up too.

5.Don't count on anything. The net lifecycle is short. Websites come and go. I no longer believe that you can earn on articles or one website forever--even if you run your own site. Sooner or later Google will make a change that will bury you. It happens. I see lots of 'old timers' giving up as their revenue plummets instead of realizing the business landscape has shifted under their feet and that they need to revamp, renew and rework.

You can't count on writing an article once and making money forever. Not anymore.

6.Rework old articles to extend their net life. Improve the SEO. Give them more back links. Make your older stuff work for you somehow. Be creative about it.

7.Don't expect much. Passive revenue is all about hitting critical mass which takes time. Gone are the eHow days of instant earnings, we are in the new era of 'slow and steady wins the race.' Content may take months and months to mature. My Hubpages that earn income have taken a year to show a profit (although I don't promote them so maybe I could've shortened that timeline a bit).

8.Don't buy a bunch of gimmicks and expensive gear. I see a lot of people trying to sell various 'make money online' products when I know they themselves are not successful. They're selling a product of dubious quality, not their personal experience and expertise.

9.Start blogging to create back links. This is a good way to immediately give your content a boost. There are many free platforms. Start several blogs in your topic areas, update as you wish and use them for backlinks. So long as you post unique content every once in a while, the blog will eventually rank as a good do follow back link. Much easier than writing a bunch of ezine articles. Plus, if one of the blogs gets good traffic, you can monetize it.

10. Get into social media. Google now gives weight to social media back links. So get people talking about your work. Start with Twitter and Facebook and branch out from there. However, be careful not to let social media become a time suck.

Earnings for July 2010 & Making eHow Work For Me (For Once!)

2010-08-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Before I forget...

-eHow: $300 and change. Up about $100 from the last month. Nice.

-Amazon: Still less than $50

-Adsense: More than $20 but not by much. Most of this is Infobarrel, particularly one article that seems to be doing well.

-Suite: Roughly $20 for the month, but actual income was more like $40 since they paid me for accrued earnings from previous months as well.

-Online used book sales: This is a new thing I've been experimenting with. Not sure I'll stick with it, but I did make $200 in used book sales.

My laptop is dying--it was a lemon from day one, the power jack has had constant problems. Replaced it once, it's dying again. New laptop comes in next week! Thank goodness!

So, quickly because my battery is dying and I can't get the power cord to work at the moment...

I am pruning my backlinks today. I even went into my eHow stuff and added links to new articles. So long as I hit the save button, the article doesn't run back through the plagiarism filter. eHow is not an 'official' back link, but it does drive traffic and a lot of my eHow articles get great traffic.

Just thought I would mention that in case any one is trying to get some traffic to new articles since the eHow WCP closed.

Cheers!

Catching Up

2010-07-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

Wow, I haven't posted since May! Didn't think it was that long!

Quick earnings update:

May
eHow: $260
Adsense:$20
Suite: $0
Amazon: Less than $50

June
eHow:$200
Adsense:$20
Suite: $0
Amazon: Less than $50 but up $10 over May

So that's that for earnings. I've been pretty bummed about passive income because it seems like eHow killed the entire concept when they changed the WCP program. Niche blogging continues to be the slowest horse in the race for me.

Suite is slowly taking off and is showing the most potential right now, in my opinion. I am also very slowly adding content, so it's partly my fault that I'm not earning more. (My health is better, but I still struggle and have just now regained my strength. Since colds and flu make me super ill, I'm not likely to stay healthy for long. My baby starts preschool this Fall and you know preschool is just code for 'germ factory.' Sigh.)

But I sometimes feel as if the internet changed when eHow changed. The opportunities aren't there like they used to be. Is this the bad economy finally hitting the internet? Will things perk up next year? I don't know.

I was scanning various writing message boards and forums and I don't see anyone crowing about making a ton of money at any one site. There's not a lot of positive chatter about niche blogging either, although maybe people are keeping quiet to cut down on competition--I don't know. From what I see, people seem to be cobbling together income from multiple freelance sources.

I thought it was telling when the Keyword Academy dropped their fees from $66 to $33. People can't or aren't willing to pay $66 in this economy.

I also don't see all the people with e-books on eHow pushing their product. I thought at least someone would rewrite their book for the 'new eHow' because a lot of the info still applies. Just retool a few chapters, cover Demand Studios and you have a saleable product again.

But nope, don't see that happening either.

It's weird. Hopefully this is a lull and sites like Infobarrel will rise to fill the eHow gap.

How's it been for you, since the ehowpocalypse?

Mid-Month Check In

2010-05-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

Chugging along.

eHow earnings are 1/2 of what they were last month so far. Not good. I'm sorry to see it drop so soon--I was hoping for a few more months of love.

I have to say I am kind of curious on the radio silence now that everything goes through Demand Studios. No one is raving. No one is complaining. What gives? I checked the Alexa rank and ehow is holding steady so they aren't tanking. It's just odd to me that all the chatter has gone mute. I would think that people's ebooks could easily be retooled and sold to newbies same as before--the income stream is still there. So what is going on? Anyone know?

Is Demand Studios offing anyone who dares to talk? I may write a revenue share article for them just to see what's going on for myself.

Adsense took off like a rocket and then petered out before it completed the mission. So I am not sure where I will end up for the month there, but I had hoped to go up another $10 in income at least. Things could still turn around.

Amazon has been dead dead dead. I wonder if their sales are down or something? It is just beyond dead!

Other than that, I'm writing writing writing. Trying to heal still. Getting ready to renew my domains and reflecting on the fact that out of 10 sites, only 3 are showing signs of life. I will probably sell the other domains sometime next year.

Oh! And one of my sites finally hit page rank of 2. Woot!

April Earnings

2010-05-02T13:20:00.001-07:00

I am still alive and kicking, although barely it seems. My health continues to be a challenge. Hopefully this is the last of the bad ju-ju for a while.

Earnings chugged along nicely and boy am I grateful for the power of passive income.

eHow--Almost $400 for 100 articles. It won't last, I know but it was nice to see. I hope to see a few more good months from eHow before they screw us over completely--you know more sweeps are coming once they hit critical mass on content submitted from the DS platform.

Also, it was interesting to see the earnings be so high considering that I have copied some of my content on other sites. So perhaps the penalty of duplicate content is not immediate or a myth? Time will tell.

I do need to get the rest of my content established elsewhere and aging so when eHow pulls the plug on us 'old timers' I still have earning potential.

Suite101--Is going slowly for me because of my health--less than $5. I will make the 10 articles in 3 months deadline by the skin of my teeth. Some of the editors are really picky and the style guidelines feel like a minefield. Every content editor has their own take on the rules so it can be annoying.

However, the editors have been unfailingly professional. Which is a huge and welcome change compared to Demand Studios.

Infobarrel--Is going to be a moneymaker in my humble opinion. I make more there than on Suite101 so far (and I've been targeting good keywords on Suite too). Today I had a $2 click.

Niche Websites: Are chugging along. More on them when I talk about adsense.

Hubpages: Not producing much for me. I still love the format. I suspect they are going to suffer a google smack because there's a lot of crappy spam and international scam types on there churning out low grade content. If they don't clean that up, I think their days are numbered.

Amazon: Could have been better but not horrid either. Less than $50.

Adsense: Hey, whaddaya know? I'm making almost $1 a day. Now to grow that by a factor of 100. My adsense income breaks down roughly like so 40% Niche blogs, 40% Infobarrel, 20% Hubpages. In terms of age, the Hubpages are the oldest in terms of age, followed by the niches, with Infobarrel being my 'youngest' content.

Now to get healthy and find more time in the day to write more content!

Not Dead, But Sick Yet Still Working Hard

2010-04-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

I am still struggling with my health and therefore am running behind on everything.

Earnings last month... were better by about $50. I'm not going to go back and look it all up to do a break down here at the moment. So we'll leave it at that.

Of course when eHow closed the WCP program, that was a setback. Current earnings are good on eHow, but not what they were last month. I expect it to decline.

My niche blogs seem to be in a steady state. I earn something almost daily BUT I am not making the big bucks yet. I'm trying to really focus on this as I have a few sites that are really taking off. Note that it took me almost a year to get this far, which is not very far. Still it's progress. I am happy to see it's not been a total waste of time.

Also, niche blogging is a SLOW income stream. If I was a better backlinker I probably could've done this faster, but not by much more than a few months. Niches have to age like wine. For the love of blogging...Build that time into your business model!!!!

I have an ebook that I had hoped to publish next month and ummm, yeah, that's probably not going to happen. I haven't been able to work on it for the last month due to illness and medication that gives me the attention span of a hummingbird on speed.

So that's that. What's new with you?

The Deal with Demand Studios

2010-04-07T05:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, folks, here it is in a nutshell, the down and dirty on Demand Studios.

Their editorial process (and frequently the editors themselves) suck.

This will be the single biggest problem with the change in how eHow operates. Hobbyists who flourished at eHow will not be able to cope with the mercurial nature of Demand Studios editorial review.

If Demand Studios had made a concurrent commitment to improve their editorial process (which has been a big complaint among their writers for years) I would be more optimistic about the big changes at eHow.

But they aren't.

Which means when/if I (or you) write an article about the color Blue and get an editor who tells me I must also mention the Moon Landing or else I'll get a rejection, I will be sh*t out of luck. As will you. This is a common editor issue and Demand Studios has consistently done nothing to address it.

For the time being, until the dust settles, I would do nothing for Demand Studios except upfront pay assignments. With upfront pay, they can't suddenly come back and pull the rug out from under your feet. You know you will never have the rights to the work vs. one day you have them, the next day you don't. I would take the income hit and just focus on other websites to diversify my earnings while waiting to see exactly what rises from the rubble.

And FYI the writing was on the wall for this change according to this interview:

"Large authority site content mills are all the rage in early 2010. Will they still be an effective business model in 2013?

It's tough to see how this could be quickly and effectively reined in, at least not by algorithm. I assume that this kind of empty filler content is not very useful for visitors — it certainly isn't for me. So I also assume it must be on Google's radar.

I'd say there's a certain parallel to the paid links war, and Google's first skirmishes in that arena gave then a few black eyes. So I expect any address to the cheap content mills to be taken slowly, and mostly by human editorial review.

The problem here is that every provider of freelance content is NOT providing junk - though some are. As far as I know, there is no current semantic processing that can sort out the two."

Surviving the Ehowpocalypse

2010-04-06T07:09:00.000-07:00

I have been sick and in the hospital so I haven't been online as much. It figures the day I start trying to catch up, ehow shuts down the writer's compensation program. I did kind of call it, didn't I? In the sense that I said the Terms of Service would be changing.

Here's what I think you need to do... and I'm not wasting words because I'm still pretty sick.

1.Get your articles up someplace else that doesn't care if it's duplicate content. I would not do a wholesale delete of ehow content because we might still be able to get some money in the short term. However, I would not expect that to last and, on the forums, the mods had said that, going forward, all terms could change and they specifically mentioned payment. Do not expect to continue to make money from ehow.

Expect at some point that your content will disappear or that you will remove it. So lining up another home is preparing for that moment. It will probably hurt your earnings short term, but should be a good move long term.

2.Rewrite your top earners for sites like Infobarrel, Hubpages, or Suite101 and other sites. (You need an Adsense account stat by the way.) You are going to need twice the amount of content on other sites to approximate eHow earnings, so get ready to work like a dog.

3.Build good back links to your new content.

4.Eventually, kill back links to ehow content.

5.Do the $1 trial at The Keyword Academy and learn everything you can about niche blogging. You need a new business model, this is a good one to explore and the skills will translate to almost anything you do online.

Do you have anything to add to this list?

Ehow Stealing Again??????

2010-03-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

Wow. I have pretty much been staying away from eHow of late and focusing on other revenue streams, but today I pop into the forums and what do I find?

A thread where writers are discovering that eHow is taking their article images and using them on other content elsewhere. Also, the hyperlinks associated with writers' images are being redirected to Demand Studios content NOT the original contributor and owner of the image.

Here's a link to the eHow forum thread on this issue. I have a terrible head cold so I haven't been able to fully process the effect of this deceit, but here are some quotes from the conversation on it that I think are edifying... (Note: The wonky formatting is not my doing, it's just how it pasted into the Blogger template.)

"Here is another example of unfair eHow global photo banks.....Here you will find my image of Bailey and her Hot spots....now you would think that My image would link to my article...nope it goes to another eHow members article. My image is shared with all, not one person asked me if they could use it. I get no traffic from my image....now how is this fair?????"

"Personally I think we should convey a message to eHow that using our images on other writers articles is unacceptable. My kitten image took me 7 hours to shoot, I laid in a bush and waited for those kittens to strike a pose...It is not a stock image and it is not up for grabs ....It is protected with a creative commons Lic...and it is indicated on my intro photo...do not copy, all rights reserved but eHow took it without my permission, and I am not happy. "

"I had this same problem. LiveStrong...a Demand Media site, was using one of my images with MY TITLE and linking it to a Contributing DS writer of a different article. I was VERY PISSED! I wrote to DM and boisterously complained. It took a few weeks, but they finally have the image linking to MY article. I'm okay with that. That's a good backlink. I'll take traffic from LiveStrong any day.

Susan, you need to do the same thing. Write to DM and demand that they either provide a proper backlink to your article, if they are going to use that photo, or else take it down. Request that your demand go to the Content Editor.

I had to complain twice, before it got changed, btw."

"Wow. Wow. Wow. Is this ever WRONG! I just did some checking and so far, ALL THE IMAGES I checked--pictures I took of projects I did myself ALL LEAD TO DS contributing writers' articles instead of mine. That is, the first of the two choices one is given in a Google search. The first choice always being the larger of the two images. For example, my biggest traffic draw EVER is the Wild THing Muppet, and the article it links to is not mine! THat is ME IN THE PHOTO and you don't have my permission to use me for your own purposes!
Excuse me, but up until now I thought some of the complainers were going over the top in wanting to shut eHow down, and I still would rather just see eHow start practicing GOOD FAITH and LEGALITY, but if this continues, you bet I will be pushing for a shut down of this scam site. I want my pictures pointing to MY articles and only MY articles."

Don't know why the below is in bold (I hate it when Blogger goes wonky), but here are some final thoughts...

What do you think? Is this okay for them to do this? Unfortunately, one legal issue I can think of is that licenses from sites such as istockphoto probably do not permit this kind of wholesale use of their artists' work. In my cold medicine haze, I can't lay my eyes on the WCP terms of use but I think use of photos is probably covered in their TOU (although as I've always said, just because it's in the TOU doesn't make it right nor mean it can't be changed). However, eHow needs to disclose exactly how they will use those photos so people don't end up in trouble with third party photo licenses.

It's not helping that they do all this crap in secret.

On top of that, there still may be the legal issue of unfair competition. It's unfair and unethical for eHow to take people's work and use it against them to undermine their earnings.

Here is some great information on unfair competition.

Niche Blogging Back Link Strategy

2010-03-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

I have recently discovered the concept of do follow blogs and do follow forums. So I am making a list and plan to target these sites as a means to acquire back links.

If you are interested in doing the same, just google do follow blogs and do follow forums.

Earnings Addendum

2010-03-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

I realized I forgot to mention a few things in regards to earnings...

1. My eHow UK 'compensation' was a joke at $29. This came in January though not February.

2.Adsense earnings came primarily from: My own sites, Infobarrel, and a tiny bit from Hubpages. Even though my own sites are now outearning Infobarrel, it has taken since July 09 to get there. Infobarrel earned much, much faster. Working on a site with pre-established page rank really helps.

Only... I still don't know what Hubpages' problem is. WHY am I not seeing more money there???? I don't get it at all. And I continue to write hubs, which seems like a waste of time.

Oh, and the Suite 101 editor loved my article and said it was "fantastic" so phew.

March Earnings

2010-03-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

March earnings are in and...

I'm still treading water at $300 a month.

If February had been a bit longer, I would've earned an extra $20 which would put me back where I was on eHow earnings-wise before everything nose dived. I am slowly weaning myself off ehow because I can't trust that it will always be a source of income. So I spend less time on the forums. Less time on articles and more time elsewhere.

Adsense grew quite a bit for me. From $14 in Jan to $20. Wow! Finally some progress! I can almost afford a pizza! I am living the niche blogging dream!

Amazon is always a crap shoot, but it performs well for me. Over $50 in February. No way to know what it will do in March.

I heard from Life123 that my one article I submitted (before they shut down) hit the $5 mark. I haven't been paid for it though and don't know if I ever will.

Same with Seed. They owe me $30. As far as I know, I've done what I was supposed to do in order to trigger payment. A month later, nothing.

I am back on Suite 101 and just sent in my first article. Which I hated my article, but I have some weird mental block about Suite since I had a bad editor experience the first time I tried to write there. I have literally agonized over this one stupid 400 word article for almost 2 weeks! Insane! And I still think it sucks. I just closed my eyes and hit submit anyways. I need to get past the hump and move forward. Hopefully, I get a nicer editor this time.

I saw that Maria a.k.a. Writergig left a comment in response to my censure of the lack of honesty/disclosure from those writers/bloggers/ebook authors making money off the ehow craze. While she may feel she is above board well... I don't know, I still think there's an ethical and moral obligation to be sure people understand what happened on ehow so newbies go in with their eyes open. There's still a lot of 'ehow is great' rah-rahing going on and I feel for new writers who have no idea what the history is with ehow and how fast the industry can spin on a dime.

Besides, there's a lot of confusion about what happened on ehow which has led to lots of misinformation and conspiracy theories--people need to be able to sort the wheat from the chafe.

So, is there money to be made on ehow?

Yes.

Is ehow great?

I would say no. I don't think anyone should be encouraging others to think they can make a huge income just by writing at ehow alone. I think the game has changed, the internet has shifted under our keyboards. We are writing in a brave new world now. It would be nice if those who have gone before, showed the rest of us the way.

Hilarious Video about Writing for Demand Studios

2010-02-06T06:43:00.000-08:00

Oh. My. Gawd. This is hysterical. I laughed until I cried. If you write for Demand Studios or are thinking about it, this is a must see.

Ehow January Earnings and UK Update and a note on Life123 and Seed.com

2010-02-02T06:40:00.000-08:00

January has come to a close on the heels of an announcement from Demand Media promising to "generously" compensate eHow writers whose content was used on the UK site to the detriment of writer earnings.

I see lots of people saying they don't understand the UK issue and telling the complainers to be quiet. Respectfully, I say if you admit you don't understand the UK issue, then it is you who needs to be quiet. This was a big deal--it is the writers that shape the industry just as much as the clients/content mills/magazines/editors etc.... What the writers do matters and if you haven't taken the time to figure out what does matter then you have no business having any opinion at all. In this case, the writers won an amazing victory that will benefit writers for years to come because it will shape the web content business model in a material way.

In other news, Life 123, the content site that paid based on views, abruptly closed up shop this past week. They say they'll pay their writers, but we'll see. I smell a scam here. All those people who wrote content that hadn't yet had time to mature to the $20 pay out level are probably going to lose out.

Life123 illustrates that nothing is forever in this industry and if all your eggs are in one basket, you're asking for trouble.

As for Seed.com. It seems very professional. The assignments are more journalistic, looking for expert interviews and the like, than other content mills. But there is a distinct lack of a good style guide and comprehensive writer guidelines. You're left to try and figure out a lot of things on your own, which probably plays into the rejection rate on Seed. So, write at your own risk. The pay is good, but it's competitive and editor response times are slow. Recently, prices went down with the disappearance of the $100-$200 assignments. I wonder if Seed will eventually realize that, if their competitors are only paying $15 per 500 words, then why should they pay $20 or $30?

Okay, so earnings.

1. eHow is still down from November's high, but the earnings are still there. I'm off about 20% and haven't seen any positive growth for 2 months. I'm averaging $2 an article. I had one $20 day and one $15 day and the rest were below average. I've even added articles in an attempt to boost earnings and it doesn't seem to be helping. The UK's negative effect on earnings is much more pervasive, I think, than people realize.

2.Adsense is picking up. This is due, in large part, to Infobarrel. I am seeing clicks most days of the week. The totals are still low. $12 last month. $14 this month. Not getting rich, but seeing any up tick in activity is a positive change for me.

3. Amazon is down from the Xmas shopping high, but still respectable at more than $50. I have had some affiliate sales from Infobarrel articles.

4.Niche sites. Of the crappy niches I am working, a few are starting to show some potential. Even had some ad clicks. I really need to devote myself to this--which I think I've said this umpteen times here. The truth is, for me (because it's different for others), life with a small toddler is much more conducive to one-off articles than strategic web site campaigns. But we'll see.

Commentary on the eHow UK Debacle

2010-01-17T10:02:00.001-08:00

As most of you are aware by now, eHow 'cloned' 'mirrored' or 'copied' (no one can agree on a term and eHow doesn't like the term 'cloned') the US site and launched it in the UK. Along the way, they turned the 'laws' of SEO on their head and made it so that UK content outranked the US site. All of sudden earnings, mine included, were in the toilet.

If you are not familiar with SEO, the way Google is supposed to work is by recognizing the original publisher of content and ranking them higher than scraped duplicate content. Somehow eHow scraped writers' articles and then outranked the original writers on the US site. They basically subverted traffic and revenue to the cloned site.

To make things worse, eHow denied and denied and denied that there was a problem. Only through the persistence of a few vocal writers did eHow finally investigate and admit the UK site was the root cause of the earnings drop. eHow then agreed to remove US scraped content but that has yet to happen.

Now it's members against members--arguing amongst ourselves like a dog chasing a tail. One faction of members are afraid if writers make too big of a stink that eHow will shut down the Writers Compensation Program (WCP).

The other faction is, rightfully so, pointing out that if they hadn't spoken up, eHow wouldn't have done anything and one of the premiere passive revenue sites on the internet would've ceased to be profitable for writers. So kudos to the people who stood up and pushed and jumped up and down until eHow finally paid attention.

None of the writers making money off of selling ebooks spoke up against eHow, which is interesting to me and it is one reason why I have not signed up for any affiliate programs. I don't want my income sources to erode my ethics. I'll use a referral code here and there, but that's about it (and I never make money from those anyway, although I keep hoping!).

Ultimately, pushing eHow to deal with this issue is to their benefit in the long run (as well as that of the writers). If the company undermined the WCP to the point where no one made any money, I have to wonder what would happen to the site. Or the initial public offering they keep talking about. Probably not good things.

The reality is, if the WCP had been completely subverted by eHow's content scraping and mirror tricks, all the writers would've moved on to greener pastures, quickly making some other site the best new thing in revenue income. The influx of so many experienced content providers, would have further eroded the eHow brand while, at the same, time strengthening competitors.

Again, I say, it's really to eHow's benefit to remove the cloned content. The writers would've suffered in the short run, but would land on their feet in the end. There are waaaaay too many competitors looking to eat up eHow's market share for their not to be an influx of new opportunities. Competition is already happening without eHow helping it along.

But what about the Terms of Use (TOU) everyone asks. Well what about it? Yes, eHow can use our content as they see fit. Yes the TOU does say this, but I would argue there are some holes in the TOU. eHow is not completely free of liability here. Also, my personal expectation, would be some disclosure of how they plan/planned to screw over writers.

I would have never written for eHow in the first place if they had told me they were going to ever do what they did and I think a lot of other writers would've avoided them as well. It's one thing to use our content to build a distinct non-eHow brand elsewhere, another thing to use our content as a mirrored funnel that bypasses our accounts.

I would expect a new TOU to be issued as eHow works to rectify what went so horribly wrong with their UK business plan.

And make no mistake, this is a failure on eHow's part. They made some serious mistakes. I hope they take the time resolve them in a way that is equitable for all parties.

Lastly, eHow is still the best paying revenue sharing site on the internet. However, that could all change this year depending on the choices they make and what the competition does. 2010 is going to be a crucible for eHow. Will they burn or rise like a phoenix?

Hubpages: Answering Questions

2010-01-08T10:04:00.000-08:00

So Maria read my last post and asked:

"I am a UK resident and wanting to start on hubpages and then on to suite101 when I build experience.Unfortunately I don't have such a large choice of good residual or upfront income writing sites. I can't seem to get to the bottom of whether hubpages is worth writing for I have looked at their page rank and its pretty decent but you have a very negative view of it. Could you please elaborate a bit on why you don't think it is a good earner? Also, what do you do when you find a good keyword based on the amount and quality of the competition and you check hubpages and somebody has already used that keyword. Can you place modifiers before or after the keyword? Can you still compete effectively with the other hubpages contributors for that keyword? Excuse all the questions, but after reading around a lot I haven't found a lot of objective information about hubpages except for your site. With thanks for all your kind help."

Truthfully, Maria, I have no idea if HP is a good idea or not. I don't think my experience makes for a full data set. However, I know from my earnings on eHow that I am not an SEO idiot ergo I would expect to be more successful on HP. The fact that I am not, is suspicious.

I love the Hubpages format. It's elegant, easy and there's multimedia. I would love to make my residual income 'home' on Hubpages, but after 12 hubs and some backlinking and time to allow the search engines to find me, I have not seen enough earnings to justify spending any more time on HP. And yes, I know 12 hubs is nothing, you need a lot of hubs just like you need a lot of eHow articles. However, I still would expect to see some earnings. Even on eHow, I earned with just 2 articles when I first started out.

I do hear many people talking about a google 'smack down' that pushed HP off the first page. I would hazard a guess that this is true. HP is not getting the traffic that eHow is and is nowhere near as competitive as eHow or even Infobarrel for that matter. I know for a fact that traffic is better on eHow and Infobarrel, because I can compare that data point for my content one-to-one against Hubpages.

As for keyword modifiers, yes you can use them. How well you can compete against other people targeting the same keyword is going to be a factor of the long tail keywords you use in the article and the back linking you do.

Using HP as a training ground for Suite 101 is probably a good idea. I would not go into Suite 101 completely green on web writing. You can even join eHow and post some content there for additional experience ( you just can't earn any money). I would write on topics you want to address at Suite so you can use your HP work as a back link. eHow's links are 'no follow' but they can still drive traffic so you can also market your Suite work there.

Hope that helps!

November & December Earnings and What to Do for 2010?

2010-01-01T17:14:00.000-08:00

I've been pretty busy with lots of family holiday type stuff and haven't been able to update.

In November and December, I made roughly $300 from all sources each month, so $600 for both months together. However, eHow took a nose dive in December and I feel lucky to only end up $40 short of the November's total and that other earning sources came in high enough to cover the eHow shortfall.

Because eHow is incredibly secretive, I can't say for sure, but my gut says I am missing a day or two of earnings updates. I know they swear up and down that there is never a problem, but eHow's parent company, Demand Studios, did manage to accidentally overpay their writers in December. Call me skeptical, but I don't really think eHow has a good handle on their IT platforms. Anyway, my dates on views, articles, and earnings went wonky mid-December and just never came back right that I saw.

Now, of course, you can't even see your eHow earnings due to some year end glitch that takes everything off line. So I can't even tell you my final total for December or for the year! Grrrrr.

Do I sound jaded? Well, I admit I'm a little less than enthralled with eHow at the moment.

However, income from other sources is not exactly blowing me away, so eHow is still the best paying gig online when it comes to residual income.

Hubpages brought in zero earnings in December and under $5 in November. Infobarrel netted less than $4 the last two months and I was even on the front page at one point! Adsense is down too, but I was never making much to begin with, except that one time when I had a time sensitive topic that made it to #1 on Google.

Amazon is my saving grace right now. Earnings there have steadily grown and I need to find ways to leverage that into even more income.

As for 2010... I am reserving judgment on my strategy as I'm waiting to see how some things play out with eHow--there are some serious ethical issues with their business practices that I need to get a feel for. However, when people mention their earnings on message boards and blogs, I can see that I am outperforming them. Maybe I just need to deal with the shadiness and just go for it on eHow, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't like being lied too, even by omission which seems to be eHow's preferred method. I also don't like being exploited.

Other than that, I probably need to abandon my niches (either selling the sites later this year or using them for links) and start new ones that are better researched.

And that's it.

eHow's Plagiarism Flag Stealing Earnings from Writers without Due Process

2009-11-20T07:25:00.000-08:00

I've been watching the plagiarism flag sagas of several eHow members and been following the situation closely--even corresponding with members who are dealing with this. The post below was posted by one member on the eHow message board this morning and I asked if I could reproduce it here as I think it covers everything that is wrong with eHow's plagiarism policy. Especially note the sections in italics as they are particularly salient.

This is an important issue and I think eHow writers need to push eHow to review their plagiarism policy and make it more equitable.

Mrasey writes (having dealt with the plagiarism flag all week):

I would imagine now that new content goes through a plagiarism check that the number of plagiarism flags on eHow should diminish. Because they will have an internal time/date stamp that the content was unique upon initial publication. I would hope that future plagiarism flags would not result in temporary suspension or removal precisely because of the time/date stamp. This should allow eHow to feel pretty confident that their flag is catching someone offsite who has stolen content and they should be able to implement a system where authors are notified of the problem and given 2-3 days to prove their innocence, if that is necessary.

I hope that eHow does modify their plagiarism policy to incorporate the credibility given by the initial plagiarism scan upon publication.

Old content will continue to be a problem, however. This is what happened to me. I edited an old article and hit publish and got a flag because of all the sites that had scraped my work from eHow. Because eHow removed the article, I didn't have a direct link and that made it difficult to prove my case to some sites (although I ultimately prevailed in all cases at having sites remove my content). Further, when my article comes back, I will have lost quite a bit of money and based on what others have said, lost rank in the search engines which will hurt my income for months to come.

So while it is demoralizing and depressing, it is also a financial issue. All my hard work is wiped out because I am presumed guilty without sufficient evidence of guilt. That is my core issue with the way eHow handles plagiarism. They have no idea who is guilty, but pass judgement all the same. Judgement that hinders the author's ability to defend themselves and has lasting negative effects on their income.

It would be one thing if content was removed for a day and if these investigations were executed quickly, but that's not what happens. These plagiarism flags drag out. Content is removed for weeks at a time and the length of time it takes to resolve these issues is what creates the biggest chunk of financial loss.

Also consider the money eHow makes on the redirect to other pages when someone tries to visit your suspended content. Is the author compensated appropriately for this income once they are proven innocent and reinstated? Does that factor into the secret algorithm?

From a corporate due diligence perspective, I have to wonder how it is that it's okay to essentially cost people money based on suspicion alone. How is that protecting anybody? As much as eHow wants to avoid legal liability for plagiarized content, they actually create an additional legal liability, in my opinion, by robbing users of income without due process. eHow has closed one legal liability door and opened another which I don't think was the goal.

I think there are serious issues with their current policy. All it takes is the right mix of circumstances for someone to put together a legal claim.

Mrasey

Sick With a Side of Troll

2009-11-12T06:51:00.000-08:00

You know what's worse than a cold?

Having a cold and discovering a troll all over your ehow articles.

There's a reason I don't link to my sites or articles on this blog, it's to avoid the trolls. I don't want someone to get steamed about what I say here and take it out on my articles.

So that's why I don't link to anything. In case you were wondering. Which you probably weren't.

Aside from the cold, I've been spending a lot of time this week trying to figure out my niche strategy. I need to give it a good effort and see if I can turn any of the work I've done so far into profit.

Some Important Thoughts on Adsense and Back Links

2009-11-10T06:50:00.000-08:00

I am going to try to bang this out before my toddler takes command of the keyboard--I made the mistake of showing her Starfall.com and all I hear now is 'Letter? Letters? LETTERS?' followed by desperate scrabbling for the keyboard.

Anyway. Willow is talking about back links that use adsense on her blog today and I wanted to share, what I think is, an important view point on the topic.

Adsense. If you build back links that contain your Adsense ID to sites that also contain your Adsense ID, guess what? Google knows it's you and they know you're trying to pump up your site's credibility. Artificially so in their eyes.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: This doesn't pertain so much to back links for ehow content. So if you've only ever written for ehow, you can read this and file it away in the 'Good to know' drawer. Eventually you will get involved with Adsense because that is the next logical step forward after establishing yourself at ehow. You will need to know this adsense stuff someday.

This information is important if you have niche websites because Google is not thrilled with internet marketers. They don't like people trying to 'game' the system. So linking to your niche sites in a way they can spot (like using your Adsense ID on back link sites) may actually hurt your page rank and authority.

Some people work around this by setting up a second adsense account, which is technically against Google's terms of service and can get internet marketers in BIG trouble. Which is why I don't suggest a second adsense account until you are well versed in the dark arts of internet marketing. Google does not give second chances. One mistake and you are OUT of the game...for LIFE.

I do not have a second Google account precisely for this reason. What you don't know can hurt you when it comes to internet marketing. Always proceed with caution and as much information as you can amass lest you wake the dragon Google.

Other niche bloggers work around this by just not filling in their ad sense id on back link sites with revenue sharing. They forgo the profits and just go for the back links.

What I do is, open multiple accounts. I put my adsense on accounts linking back to ehow or other content online that does not also have my adsense id attached to it. Then I open a second account for my niche sites and I don't fill in my adsense id. That allows me to both earn revenue when possible and to build rank and authority for my niche sites.

Edited to Add: Willow has shared that her approach has been successful for her. However, I am still leery. I've read so many sob stories of internet marketers who lost their Adsense account--going from $3000 a month to $0--that I am very protective of my Adsense account. I don't want Google to think my niches are any less sincere than any other website out there.

eHow Back Link Strategy (Part 2)

2009-11-05T10:44:00.000-08:00

Go read the first post on this topic here. It gives the whys and hows of the strategy I'm going to outline below. Plus it covers the results, a.k.a. the money, of back linking.

Here are my rules on back links for eHow.

1. Back link everything you can. I find that the critic in me comes out during back linking as in 'oh, I think that article sucks' or 'Who cares about this topic?' or 'I don't care if I make money on that' or 'This article is waaaay out of season. No one wants to learn about summer in winter.' Ignore the voice and back link every single article you've posted on eHow. Don't think about it, just do it.

2. Don't build links too fast. I could be wrong on this, but a big part of niche blogging is letting content age and not linking too fast. I am extending that practice to my eHow content. Back link articles that are at least 1 month old. However, also feel free to play around with this rule and see what works for you. So I guess this is more of a suggestion.

3.Don't bother with back linking until you've got at least 50 articles. The money on eHow is in quantity. If you don't have enough content to reach critical mass, you are better off writing more articles. Back links are the final step, not the first. The first step is to write the content!

Until you write the content, just bookmark this post or print it out. Don't read further until you have 50 articles. 100 is even better!

4.Learn about SEO, search engine optimization. Quality for ehow lies in good SEO. The money is found in Quantity of good SEO. If you don't know what the Google Adword Keyword Tool is and have never used it, you are not ready for back linking. Back links are the cherry on the sundae, not the ice cream or the fudge. Get the ice cream and fudge going first--to carry a bad comparison to the bitter end.

START YOUR OWN BLOGS - Recommended

Create blogs in all the categories you write in and post links to your articles. Blogs that you own are part of your long term content marketing strategy.

Also write unique posts for those blogs every once in a great while so the blog doesn't look like a 'blog farm' which is a no-no for Google. You can use a free service like Blogger. I would avoid using adsense on these blogs, but you can eventually use a Blogger blog to get an adsense account (which is important for making money on other sites you may wish to write on).

HUB PAGES - Not Recommended

I love the format of Hub Pages, but as far as earnings? They SUCK. Views are slow. Earnings are slower. HP is not the best back link option. You have to create new content and maintain your 'hubber score' so the links you put in remain 'do follow'. (Do follow links are back links. If your hubber score drops below 74, your back links become 'no follow' meaning they give your content zero link juice. So you end up babysitting your score which is a pain.)

Between having to create content and maintain your Hubber Score, Hub Pages is high maintenance. Best avoided unless and until they actually prove to be a viable source of earnings on par with eHow. I only mention them because HP is where I first started experimenting with back links.

If you do work with Hub Pages, you'll want a Google Adsense account so you can make money off of any ad clicks your content may receive. You should also slant your content toward selling Amazon products as HP earnings seem to do better when hubbers market Amazon affiliate items.

EZINE -Not Recommended

Ezine is an online article directory. People use ezine content for websites, blogs and newsletters. It provides back links via the requirement that all content users post the author's bio which includes a back link to whichever site the author is promoting. It is a valid, but time consuming way to build back links. Avoid it unless you have no other choice or unless you need a really high ranking back link. Google loves Ezine and they have tons of rank and authority which juices up your back link.

The important difference between Ezine and sites like Hub Pages is Ezine doesn't share ad revenue. You basically give your article away for free in exchange for the back link.

There are other article directories out there that operate similar to ezine. This information should apply equally to them as well.

Infobarrel - Sort of Recommended - Like Ezine but with Adsense

The title says it all. I like Infobarrel as an alternate source of passive income. Not so much as a source of back links, but you can kill two birds with one stone. Write for Infobarrel to diversify your income and build back links as you go. I like IB over Hub Pages because you don't have to babysit your score to get do follow back links.

However, note that you need an adsense account. Those Blogger blogs I suggested you start are going to come in handy in terms of getting you started with an Adsense account.

XOMBA -Recommended

Xomba allows users to post links and blurbs to web content. It is simple. Fast and easy to use. You can upload your Google Adsense id as well, so if anyone clicks on an ad, you might make some money. It also has decent Google authority and rank.

This is a good place for creating back links. Community participation is optional, but I would suggest spending a minute or two rating other people's posts and friending people at random.

Oh, and note that Xomba has identified Hub Pages links as spam. So no linking to HP content.

SHE TOLD ME-Recommended

She Told Me is similar to Xomba. It allows you to post a blurb and a link. So an excellent and easy way to make a back link. Fast to use too.

Community participation is optional, but I would suggest spending a minute or two rating other people's posts and friending people at random.

Propeller - Recommended with Reservations

Propeller is similar to She Told Me and Xomba, but the site is glitchy (right now I can't even log in and I can't tell if they've accepted what I uploaded or not) and mass uploads of content are frowned upon.

Maybe save Propeller for those times when you really want to push an article. I don't see it being efficient for mass article promotion. Which is probably how they like it!

Community participation is optional, but I would suggest spending a minute or two rating other people's posts and friending people at random.

REDDIT - Recommended

Reddit is another great place to build back links. It's fast and easy to use. However, this is an active community that will not respond well to a flood of article links. So parcel links out slowly, maybe 3 or 5 at a time to avoid getting in trouble with users.

Community participation is probably a good idea and I would suggest spending a minute or two rating other people's posts and friending people at random.

Do Follow Digg - Recommended

Do Follow Digg is a hole-in-the-wall website (at least that's how it strikes me) with high authority and google page rank. It appears you can post up to 3 links a day. That's all I know. There's no 'about' page or FAQ. You're kind of on your own, but because of its rank, it's a good place for back links.

The hard part is keeping track of which 3 you've uploaded because Do Follow Digg lacks user features found on other sites, such as a 'my posts' list. You'll need a spreadsheet or some kind of system to keep track of what has been submitted.

There are other sites beyond the ones listed above. These are just the sites I have worked with so far. As time permits, I may blog about other sites that I've found.

I hope you've found this helpful. Note that one or two links are affiliate links that don't hurt you at all, but might help me.

Thoughts on Back Linking & My eHow Back Link Strategy (Part 1)

2009-11-05T09:09:00.001-08:00

I first started learning about SEO on Willow's blog (see links in sidebar for Freelance Home Writer and go visit her, she's awesome!) and continued my SEO education at The Keyword Academy*.

The Keyword Academy is where I learned about the value of back links. Basically Google rates all web content based on a variety of factors. SEO is one. Google wants to give web searchers exact results whenever possible so having the exact key word in your content only helps you rank with Google.

Another thing that Google looks at is who has linked to your content. One way links have more weight than link exchanges because (I assume) it looks like someone independently liked your content enough to pass it on, which carries a huge amount of positive karma with Google. Link exchanges are reciprocal and tend to be 'deals' between bloggers that are intentional marketing efforts which Google does not love as much. I mean, you do get some 'link juice' with exchanges, just not as much as you would with a one way.

In addition, the page rank or google authority of the sites linking to your content carry weight as well. There's a difference between a Chinese Viagra spammer linking to you and MSNBC, you know? Google takes this into account when evaluating the rank of your page/content.

If you can get your content to outrank the competition you can make good money with a website or online article. The trick is to build back links in a way that gives you the most 'Google juice' or 'link juice.'

So we know that Google doesn't think too much of reciprocal link exchanges (which is why internet marketers are always looking for a 'three way' exchange--not as kinky as it sounds, just chasing the elusive one way link). Google is also suspicious of sites or content where a lot of back links pop up in a very short period of time. You might as well get Internet Marketer stamped on your computer screen. Google doesn't want people to scam their rating system. They want good, honest, sincere content. Google is trying to 'keep it real' so to speak.

Meaning internet marketers go to great lengths to look legit with google. There are formulas and time lines as to when exactly and how often a back link should be set up. It can get intricate. So intricate, I've just ignored all the advice and winged it, just waiting a while between back links.

As for eHow...

I didn't build back links for eHow content initially because I started my web career at ehow and a lot of big money eHowers told me not to waste my time with back links or article promotion.

So I didn't. And I made money. More money than most people, I think, due to my SEO. Most eHow writers don't get into SEO right away, they learn it after they've written a bunch of articles and then ask people why they aren't making money. Whereas, from the beginning, I was aware of SEO and trying to get it right. 90% of my articles have made money. I've only had 1 stubborn article that required super human effort to get money on it despite good CPC and SEO. I only put the effort into making money on it because the lack of earnings got under my skin like a bad itch. I think I've made twenty cents on it--so still not hot. I guess the competition must be tough for that keyword. (The other non-earners I can accept because they are low cpc topics or they are recipes.)

The other problem I had with back links is that The Keyword Academy method taught me to get back links by writing even more articles for sites like ezine. Which is great. It's a bona fide, high quality back link. But it takes work and requires more writing.

I could not see writing almost 100 ezine articles just to promote ehow content. Who has the time? Not me! We're potty training over here, which is like the third circle of parenting hell and very time consuming.

However, when I joined Hubpages 2 months ago, I started linking back to eHow articles whenever it made sense.

And my earnings took a jump to $5+ days on a consistent basis. Most importantly, the articles I linked to saw immediate earnings increases. I now had direct evidence of the power of back links.

Then I ran across an article talking about places where I could back link articles without writing another one. I'm not linking to the article because some of the info was bad, but I did find a few gems in that article.

And my earnings took another jump to $7-$10 earnings per day on a consistent basis.

So far, for November, I've made more than $10 a day each day this month. From $11 to $15 a day.

I do believe it is the back linking.

My next post, because this one is long enough and my toddler is ready for lunch, I'll tell you where I put my back links and which sites are worth your time and which were duds.

*The Keyword Academy is a good place to get some basic SEO. However, it's not as comprehensive as I would like. Unfortunately, I don't have time to go into detail at the moment. Perhaps in another post.

Status Update and My First Ceast & Desist Letter Plus Lots of Opinions

2009-10-27T10:55:00.001-07:00

Things are hopping over here. My daughter has hit the 'been there, done that, why do I have to do it again' phase of potty learning. Which is to say, she screams a lot while I really wish I drank. Three bottles of Jack Daniels a day would probably do it. Unfortunately, I was born with a palate that makes alcohol taste like moldy dog-doo. So no relief for mom.

Anyway, I digress. This is an internet marketing and writing blog.

Some things are going really well. Others not so much.

-eHow is going gangbusters for me and I barely spent any time working this month and my earnings will break all previous records. I finally wrote 3 articles this week, the first in over a month. I also spent an hour doing some back linking. Which has paid off in a major way, my earnings have really shot up.

I see lots of forum posts over on eHow where veterans say they don't do any article promotion. I have to think, based on the results I've seen, that they are lying and perhaps hoping to sabotage the competition.

Or maybe I got lucky? Who knows, but I do know building back links means more money for me. Plus, it's mindless work, great for those times when I just can't face a blank page.

-Amazon affiliate earnings have had a boost this month. Not huge money, but a huge increase over what I have made in the past. I'm really impressed. I also emailed my friends and family asking them to use my affiliate link, although that was recent enough I doubt it reflects in my earnings.

-Hub Pages is just a black hole of nothing. Very few views. Even fewer ad clicks. Almost no revenue. I continue to be puzzled. I have read rumors that Hub Pages got the ol' Google smack down and I have to believe it's true. How can I be so successful on eHow and then to go Hub Pages with the same SEO skills and...nothing. Very strange.

The thing is, I like Hub Pages. I love the format and the ability to do all sorts of different things. So I keep posting there and hoping something good comes out of it.

-Niche Websites are not doing so well, but I can't say I've given them a lot of attention either. I really need to work on adding content and back links so that I can say I gave niche blogging a fair shot. Right now, I couldn't tell you if I was successful or failing because I don't think I've put in the work. Time is in short supply and eHow is so much easier and more profitable.

I did manage to get myself into a bit of trouble with niche blogging. One of my niches happens to have the same name as another website. Completely accidental, but even so I received a 'Cease and Desist' letter all the same. So I need to come up with a new name. Which kind of sucks. Although, it could be worse, I could have lots of traffic and revenue on the line, which I don't. So I guess low earnings aren't always bad. *weak smile*

-I am going to work on an internet marketing plan for a blog someone wants to start. I'm looking forward to creating a business plan and showing someone how this all works. If it goes well, I may put together an ebook on the topic, but we'll see.

In other news, I continue to follow the noise over the whole I'm a writer and wouldn't touch Demand Studios with a ten foot pole because they have content mill cooties vs. No, I'm a writer and I love Demand Studios so much I take Viagra to keep them happy controversy.

Right now, I'm of the mind everyone would be better off just doing their own thing. You do you and let me be me kind of thing. It's just a waste of time to argue. The fancy pants writers could probably make $5,000 with the time they are wasting complaining about everyone making 3 cents a word at DS or people like me who are making $200+ this month doing nothing more than resting on their laurels. I'm beginning to wonder if the real writers doth protest too much.

I will say, I think web content writing is different from being a traditional writer. I wouldn't call what I do writing, I call it internet marketing. Of course, at parties, I tell people I'm a writer because no one knows what the hell internet marketing is. (Also, as I've mentioned, I do have some bona fide publishing credits).

I will also say that the paradigm is changing. The real writers think the problem is all of us willing to work for Demand Studios, when in actuality, it is the internet. New technology has changed the game and the angst that causes is being displaced on the not real writers who are moving with the times.

I read an article recently that said 80% of ad revenue is being diverted from print to online media. It's cheaper (usually), has a wider reach, and is more effective than print advertising. The future for freelance writing is on the internet. In addition, I happen to believe low prices won't hold sway forever. Things will evolve quickly once print media stops hyperventilating about how the internet is eroding their market and gets with the program. The internet isn't the enemy, it's the future.

Grow or die.

CONTENT MILLS:GOOD OR EVIL?

2009-10-19T19:24:00.000-07:00

So there is a lot of brouhaha over Writers Weekly expose on Demand Studios and once again we have lots of controversy and conflict.

In this corner, the freelance writers who, apparently, make $1000 a word and feel sorry for us slobs who can't figure out how to get up on their pedestal.

In the other corner, the slobs. The ignorant masses who aspire to write and who, poor souls, are suckered into writing at pay-per-click sites or for content mills. Demand studios pays *gasp* 3 cents a word, if you're lucky. A far cry from the freelancers' income.

Okay, I'm being a bit sarcastic, but before you smack me, consider this:

In the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre, a professional pay rate for fiction starts at 3 cents a word. For Sci Fi, three cents a word is 'art' that can be nominated for a Hugo or Nebula--kind of like an Emmy or Oscar for writers. (By the way, I got my start in fiction, in the fantasy genre.)

For Demand Studios, it's a crime against humanity.

The same three pennies have completely different meaning depending on where the words are published. For me, it's semantics.

Would I like Demand Studios to pay more? Hell yeah. But you know what? They are the highest paying so-called content mill out there and they will drive prices up for everyone else, which is a Good Thing in my book.

Do I dislike the editors at DS and think there are areas that need major improvements? Yes.

But I'm not going to feel sorry for or dissuade anyone who wants to write for Demand Studios. It's a good gig that develops some solid skills for new writers.

Now, here's my comment left on another blog in response to all the hoopla.

I think I will be the lone voice of dissent here. I am having a good experience on ehow. I haven’t written an article since 9/20 and I am on track to make more money this month than any other.

Am I getting rich? No. But how many freelancers doing it the ‘right way’ would still have revenue coming in if they weren’t writing and actively developing clients?

Could I build this into a $500 a month revenue stream? Yes.

I think there are a few salient points being missed in this debate:

1. Not all pay-per-click-content mills are equal. Some are better than others. Suite101 and ehow are probably the best pay-per-click markets. As for content mills, believe it or not, Demand Studios is the highest paying content mill I’ve seen. I am not thrilled with Demand Studios–their editors sometimes appear to be maliciously capricious and they don’t allow for any back-and-forth with editors to clear up minor issues–but they are still the highest paying content mill and they are actually raising the bar, in my opinion, for other mills. The ability to just work and not worry about pitching, queries, acceptance etc… is refreshing.

2.Not all writers are created equal. I’m sorry, people who have written 100 articles and earned less than $100 are doing something seriously wrong. They are working with the wrong sites, don’t understand SEO or are otherwise failing to hit the mark.

I’m around the $5 mark and don’t yet have 100 articles yet. Nor have I even hit the one year mark as a pay-per-click writer. Heck, I haven’t even hit the six month mark. At a year, I will have earned $60 per article. Considering I spent _maybe_ an hour on each of my articles, this is a good return on investment.

A lot of the financial analysis being done to show how awful content mills are presupposes that the writers could actually get freelance work that pays top rates. I hate to say it, but some of these writers are at content mills because they aren’t marketable anyplace else. In addition, all the financial analysis is done with a steep negative bias. I calculate $60 per article, the naysayers only look at the earnings I have, not the one year projection. It’s a very selective view and I believe it is inaccurate.

3.Not everyone can take the time to nurture a client. I love the freedom of pay-per-click content. I have a small child at home and am limited in how much work I can do. I do not have time for a needy client. I’ve tried. They make my two year old look mature.

Are there downsides and valid issues? Yes. I am not claiming perfection, simply that the downsides are not quite as steep as others believe and there are some nice upsides too.

September Earnings

2009-10-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

This is a quickie...

Ehow: $144 and change -- with less than 100 articles.

Amazon Affiliate: $4

Adsense: around $4.

Apparently Suite101 has lifted the ban on discussing earnings and people are making about 7 times what I am making on ehow (i.e. $800) with the same number of articles. Hmmmm. Sounds like I need to give Suite another shot.

PROSELYTZING

2009-09-29T10:26:00.000-07:00

I am biting my cheek this very second so as to keep myself from shouting about how I am averaging a $100 a month on eHow as of my first full month on the site.

I see sooooo many new people who are completely lost and instead of being proactive, they whine, whine, whine.

I know people who could use a $100 a month but show zero interest when I talk about my online money making ventures.

I also see many people complaining about making zero money from Hubpages and looking for a solution. I always point out that ehow money is much faster than Hubpages and I'm summarily ignored.

Sure, writing web content may not be for everyone but, here's the thing, the big secret about making money on ehow...

It is FREAKING EASY so long as you invest the time to learn and the time to write.

Here are the three keys to making money on ehow:

1. Understand SEO.
2. Know how to find good keywords.
3. Build good backlinks.

That's it. If all the above is Greek to you, then please check out Willow's excellent and FREE ehow tutorial. If you must, go ahead and buy an ebook but there's no reason to spend money on the ehow learning curve, particularly because I think the game has changed a bit since most of those ebooks were written. Web content writing is more competitive, there are a lot more people now and everyone wants to write about the same moneymakers (i.e. acai berry weight loss) so newcomers need to really be ready to bust their butts.

And here's the one action that brings in guaranteed ehow income:

1. Write 100 how-to articles. (Although I have fewer than 100 and am now pulling in over $100 a month regularly. See, if you nail 1-3 above, then you don't necessarily have to write as many articles.)

Yes ehow is glitchy, mercurial, and sometimes bites the very hands that feed them, but it is also the fastest and easiest way to get into making money online with absolutely no experience. eHow is a valuable training ground and it pays you to learn.

In other news, Hub Pages has been a surreal experience for me--Like holding a party that no one comes to. For all eHow's faults, the site really does generate income quickly, which is nice positive feedback. Hub Pages is slow to pay off from what I can tell. I think I've made like $3 in the last 3 weeks with them. So kind of lame. However, I have been using my hubs as backlinks for ehow which has pumped up my earnings there quite nicely.

So not a total loss.

My niche sites are slowly inching along. I am starting to think they were right when they said it takes a year to get off the ground. I am making pennies. Getting some traffic. But nowhere near outpacing ehow.

Amazon.com affiliate sales are also slow for me. At one point this month, I had posted a bajillion links and was getting a ton of clicks and zero buyers. So my conversion rate went from 4% to 1.2%. Nuts!

Pleasantly Surprised with Average Earnings on eHow So Far

2009-09-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd pop in and note that my daily averages so far this month range from $2 a day to almost $6 a day. I've tapped into another moneymaker somehow, although I doubt it will be anywhere near as prolific as the first one.

Also, dead articles that were earning squat previously, have seen a nice bump in earnings from the backlinking/interlinking I did. Which was minimal as I don't have a ton of time so I'm doubly pleased to see those results.

I've also started at hubpages as well, but won't be able to go into detail as my toddler has just demonstrated that you don't need a bubble wand at all if you can just get enough bubble solution in your mouth. I must go investigate to see how much of the bubble solution was eaten vs. spilled on the carpet.

August Earnings Update, Some eHow Tips & eHow is Not Forever

2009-09-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

Hi! I'm here. We were busy in August, out of town ALOT. There was a wedding, a vacation on the pristine beaches of Lake Michigan, and a writer's conference. There wasn't a lot of internet access.

Fortunately, I worked my butt off in early August and had 15 new articles on ehow as well as wrote niche content. While I was out watching my toddler go swimming for the first time and bust a move on the dance floor at the wedding reception, I earned $40.

My total ehow earnings this month were $110, down $30 from last month because my time sensitive moneymaker died.

Adsense was close to $30 for the same reason, time ran out on the money train. *sob*

It will be interesting to see how earnings go this month now that I'm not raking it in anymore.

***
Some eHow Tips

Here are some simple eHow tips for newbies:

1. Make sure your link to your other articles in the resources section. For example, all parenting related articles, should be interlinked.

2. You can also choose your articles as 'related articles' when you first publish content on eHow. It's a bit awkward to do, but well worth the effort. Note that, from what I understand, this has to be done the first time you publish as you can't go back and edit the related articles later. (Note: You can still edit your content, just not the related articles.)

3.Link from blogs and websites back to your eHow articles. I've been using my niche blogs for back links and I think this has helped. Out of the last 10 articles I wrote, I have three at or over $1--one is almost at $5. 9 out of the 10 articles have earning something, at least $0.40. This is much faster than it was when I started, I think in part due to the backlinking I now do as well as, I think/hope/pray, concurrent improvement in my SEO skills.

If you don't have a blog, start one for each of the main topics you write about on ehow (i.e. a Parenting blog, a cooking blog, etc..). Segregating topics, in my opinion, helps create targeted traffic and ad clicks as opposed to just one blog where you dump everything all together--SEO is not a pot luck! I think topic matters.

Anyway...Use a free blogging platform like Blogger. Put one or two original articles on it that have been SEO-ified so that google will rank your blog for that topic. Then post links back to your ehow content.

Do NOT put adsense on these blogs as you could risk losing your account for TOS violations.

This will give you a bump in the rankings for a minimum amount of work, but realize it will take some time to see results. The blogs I'm using have some good google ranked content on them, so I get a boost, I think, fairly quickly from my backlinks, but that took some time and sweat.

***
eHow is Not Forever.

The latest article sweeps at eHow continue to highlight the company's flawed business model and poor customer relations. I think it is unwise to go into a business that depends on public goodwill and then piss all over that goodwill and tell people to shove it. However, someone at eHow thinks this is a sublime business paradigm.

I understand eHow thinks they are doing everything ethically and responsibly, but the complaints are mounting as are the examples that show eHow management to be capricious and untrustworthy,which means something is not working.

Is it just me or do you ever picture the eHow staff as a group of twenty somethings with no kids, a surfing habit, and growing marijuana on the balcony of their apartment so they can toke up during smoke breaks at work? Okay, maybe that was off base, but I've been to the West Coast several times and have seen that dynamic in companies there. I'm just trying to understand how they make the decisions they do.

eHow is the glitchiest site I've ever seen. They routinely take days to answer questions. They are now deleting articles that shouldn't have been deleted and they don't seem to care. Or, if they do, that is not the impression eHow contributors are getting.

Having also worked on the Demand Studios side of eHow, I can attest to the fact that DS is just as quirky. It's a pervasive problem that has permeated the company culture.

eHow needs to revamp their business model with an eye to treating contributors, who have many many many options to take their work elsewhere, with respect. Just because there are a lot of spammers doesn't justify treating every single writer as one. I'd like to remind eHow (and DS) that Quality Control isn't only important for their writers, it's important for them too.

And just so no one thinks I have sour grapes, I have not lost any articles in the sweeps, although I'm sure my time is coming.

JULY EARNINGS ARE HERE

2009-08-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

This will be quick as I'm short on time...

1. Ehow $140. Roughly $100 from my moneymaker.

2.Amazon.com Almost $10.

3. Adsense Almost $40.

So just shy of $200 this month in ad revenue income.

BOOYA! WOOT!

2009-07-30T11:41:00.001-07:00

#1 baby! Several times over. In less than a month. Yup. One of my niches is now ranked, highly, by Google and I will probably have somewhere around a $10 adsense day today. Maybe. We'll see. Because adsense is nothing if not unpredictable.

But, yeah, baby. #1!

I also had a $7 update from ehow. I'm getting there.

Happy dance.

Happy dance.

Joy. Joy. Joy.

I'm a little excited.

As for Demand Studios, I see their writer scorecard is live and I'm now completely demotivated. Even though my rating is above average, I still don't feel it reflects the quality I give them (and note the writing quality here on this blog is NOT stellar and I don't claim it is so please don't think it's representative of my professional writing--this is my brainstorm and blow off steam blog. It's not meant to be pretty.).

For me, until they make it so we can rate the CE's back or at least dialogue with them when they are unreasonable instead of having to walk away or risk outright rejection (which counts against you and can cause you to be terminated so lots of people just walk away), I'm going to be peeved.

Still, I need to put on my big girl panties and just write for them. I need the income because niche blogging isn't going to meet my income needs for a while.

THIS AND THAT

2009-07-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

First, Julie has a nice article about writing related posts on ehow that ehow writers will find helpful.

Things are chugging along with my niche blogging effort. I have made a little money from Infobarrel this week, which is amazing since I don't think I have even 10 articles up. But I'm working on it.

This week, I plan to start some hubs on hubpages as well.

The only thing is, I've been sort of pooped lately and feeling low on energy. I need a good kick in the pants.

I also dipped my toe into outsourcing content and was NOT impressed. Terrible writing and no research and I was paying $10 for 400-500 words, which is less than writers deserve, but more than most of them get. (I know because I've been there, done that!) It doesn't help that I outsourced content for areas where I have expertise so I can really spot the lack of research. I don't know if I'll try to outsource content again. At least not until I can pay enough to get a good writer.

FROTHING

2009-07-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

1. I am so beyond ticked that I wrote such a better article on a topic and the editors of the website (that shall remain nameless, but I'm sure you can guess) picked a crappy article on the same topic for the homepage. It doesn't even conform to the site's format standards!!!! I am SO annoyed. It further confirms my suspicions that there is a serious flaw in the business model on that website and affirms my decision to control my own content as much as possible.

I can see a crappy article being on the homepage, that can happen to any site, but to highlight content in violation of the site's guidelines? After they've pissed off their contributors by deleting content with the same format violations with no warning? Nuh-uh. Something is wrong, wrong, wrong with their business model and I think it hurts their credibility. I question how long that kind of stupidity is sustainable for both site owners and users.

2. I have made some money on my Amazon affiliate links. Less than $5, but I'm amazed because I would've never predicted the traffic source for that income. People are buying (small) appliances based on something I wrote, which just makes me smile. I was trying to be helpful and it appears I was successful.

3. Adsense is rocking! I have a 5% click through rate already and the site is only a month old and has only had adsense for 1 1/2 weeks. I did monetize it right away (which is a huge no-no) but only because the topic is so time sensitive with an expiration date in just a few months. I don't rank really well yet on Google, however, I have an ad revenue article that is in the top 10 results, which has been driving traffic to the niche site. This topic is HOT and all over the news so tons of people are looking for information.

4. My ad revenue earnings are chugging along. I will definitely, overall, make $100 this month. Or more. There's still a week left.

Okay, now I've got to get cracking!

SOMEONE HELP ME

2009-07-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

I am a woman obsessed. I have never been known to have OCD tendencies...until now.

Now I refresh and refresh all my earnings pages. Ehow. Infobarrel. Adsense. Statcounter. It's like a tic and I can't stop. I'm afraid google is going to ban me from Adsense for refreshing the earnings screen too much.

Other than the need for some good psychotherapy and medication, I am chugging along. I've picked topics that I have some expertise in and have been building content. I guess it pays to be insatiably curious and to have good retention of obscure minutia. Believe it or not, I was a Fortune 500 manager and a massage therapist and a writer and a baker. All at the same time. I was made to be a nice blogger, I guess.

We have even had some ad clicks. So exciting.

And that is all. Just learning, learning, learning and writing, writing, writing.

NICHE BLOGGING LINKS

2009-07-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

I am psyched to report I've made a little bit of money on my 2 niche blogs. It's less than $5 but it's still something. I am going gangbusters on ehow as well and am holding my breath as I wait to see if I'll make it to $100 this month--and I haven't written anything since the beginning of the month.

Partly because we've been traveling, the baby has stopped sleeping (ugh!), and I think I'm catching a cold.

Here are some interesting links on niche blogging and making money with blogs:

Blogging tough way to make money - but here's how-- I actually disagree with this article. The monetary rule-of-thumb seems to be outdated. Fifty cents per 1000 hits? I don't think so--I'm doing better than that and I don't even have 1000 hits yet. Still it was an interesting, if outdated, read.

How to Make Money from your Blog -- A nice overview of what it takes to be a niche blogger.

How to Build a High Traffic Blog -- Another nice overview from someone who is an expert.

Happy niche blog reading!

RAINMAKER

2009-07-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have my first rainmaker, one article that is raking in the dough over at ehow. I've had $10 earning jumps in one day and have around $40 in earnings so far for July. Which is a huge jump.

On the one hand, it's exciting to have a money maker finally.

On the other hand, it's depressing because I have 40 some odd articles that are earning ~~pennies~~ dimes. And that's on a good day!

Plus, my rainmaker has an expiration date. The topic will go belly up in the Fall because that's when the program I wrote about ends. So another bummer, this is just a temporary blip.

I need to write a lot of articles to make up the income gap, which does not sound like fun at all. Blech.

On the niche front, I wrote some articles to build backlinks to my niches and am still waiting for them to go live. The approval process is taking forever. In fact, I just got back from a 2000 mile road trip and the articles (just 500 words each) are still in the editorial queue. Hard to imagine that I can drive faster than someone can review a 500 word article!?!?!

HOW TO WRITE QUALITY WEB CONTENT FOR NICHE BLOGS

2009-07-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

Someone recently said to me that niche bloggers fall into 2 different camps; those who can write but don’t know much about internet marketing (that would be me!) and those who know internet marketing, but can’t write.

Because of the amount of content required to be a successful niche blogger, many niche bloggers outsource content. Or, if they are strapped for cash (or have been burned a few times by bad writing), they try to write everything themselves.

Which is hard to do, especially if you don’t have any writing experience. So I thought I would share some thoughts on how to approach the craft of writing online content based on my background as an experienced fiction writer and writing web content for Demand Studios, private clients, and eHow.

1.    Use subtitles to break text into sections. Subtitles also are a great opportunity to use alternate keywords for SEO purposes. They also help readers skim the article and find the information they are looking for.

2.    Keep paragraphs short. Big chunks of text turn readers off. Aim for 75 word paragraphs.

3.    Avoid word repetition as it reads flat and loses the reader’s interest.

4.    Use actionable verbs as much as possible. Notice how all my advice starts with a verb, do the same whenever it makes sense.

5.    Write as if you are explaining something to a friend. This helps keep your ‘voice’ natural and engaging.

6.    Use lists and bullet points to make important information stand out.

7.    Stay on message and don’t meander. I always suspect meandering when I have a piece full of big, long paragraphs. Anytime you write content that involves a story or anecdote, be on the look out for meandering as well.

8.    Don’t panic if the words aren’t flowing. That’s what editing is for. At first, just write and then edit your writing into quality content.

9.    Be interesting. Juxtapose divergent concepts. Make a short joke (emphasis on short). Use a play on words here and there. This keeps things lively and entices a reader to keep reading.

10.    Be useful. Good content says something helpful or interesting.

11.    Cite your sources to build authority and credibility. Readers are more likely to trust you if they feel you’ve researched your topic.

12.    Check for logical flow. I think peacocks are beautiful...would be an example of poor logical flow. Be sure each paragraph introduces an idea, supports an idea, and offers a conclusion on the idea without diverging into peacocks. (Although I really do like peacocks, especially the feathers, but I digress!)

13. Sometimes, writers create these beautiful orphans, sentences that just don’t fit anywhere, or they have essential information that really needs its own paragraph, but doesn’t have enough data to support expansion. These orphans must die. I usually cut them and paste them at the end of the document so that if I find a way to work them in, I can do so.

14. Write with ad clicks in mind. Meaning, the goal isn't just to be informative, it's to get the reader thinking they need to learn more, which, in my experience, makes them more likely to click an ad.

And that's it. Everything I think I know about writing web content for niche blogs. How do you do it?

IS EHOW STEALING FROM THEIR CONTRIBUTORS?

2009-07-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

There's been an uproar over the second round of article deletions at eHow. In case you weren't around for the first wave, eHow has been deleting content that doesn't meet either their standards or terms of service. Fair enough, however, writers have been complaining that high earners are being deleted and pointing out that eHow benefits financially from removing competition for their wholly owned content (i.e. articles they paid for from the Demand Studios side of their business).

Willow Sidhe has written a thoughtful post on the topic and I responded with a lengthy comment which I'm reproducing here:

I think this is well put BUT Ehow does have a financial incentive to discriminate in favor of their wholly owned content.

Remember, they can see the comparative stats and we can't. It has to occur to them if they eliminate the competition they can increase their earnings. What they do with that information, I don't know. Ethically they should ignore it, but greed does strange things to corporations.

I agree with you that many of the articles people are sharing have problems that justify their deletion. But we haven't seen all the articles and it is a strange business model that deletes moneymakers. You would think they would at least give writers a shot at editing because that benefits everyone.

Personally, in my opinion something doesn't smell right here. Ehow needs to be more transparent because this is affecting their credibility. Right now, I'm assuming they are acting in good faith and have just royally botched the writer relations side of things.

Then again, having worked in Corporate America, that kind of massive customer relations fail is often indicative of management quality and thought process. When I go down that thought path, I am disturbed to realize they could care less about their contributors. That's not good.

If Ehow continues to do arbitrary things that piss off writers, that would be a strong signal of a deeper problem.

MONTH 2 EARNINGS TALLY

2009-07-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

So my eHow earnings so far:

1st 2 weeks: $3.69

1st full month: $13 @ 4 times previous earnings

2nd full month $25 roughly double the previous month and @ 8 times earnings my first 2 weeks so the growth has been exponential.

1 contest win: $100

Total eHow earnings for 2.5 months: @$140 or 1.5 months worth of diapers.

The goal is to reliably pull in $100 a month from eHow and I think I'm on track to meet that goal. I'd like to get to where I don't have to work quite so frantically to get content up.

As for Demand Studios, they show I made $337.

So in all, very close to my goal of $100 a week.

HOW TO GET STARTED IN NICHE BLOGGING: A PRIMER FOR THE VERY BEGINNER

2009-06-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, you have the interest and desire to niche blog, but maybe lack the technical know-how to really take a stab at it. Yet you keep hearing about all these people making money, thousands of dollars in fact, with niche websites. And who doesn't want to make thousands of dollars?

Niche blogging is the perfect business. Set your own hours. Work at your own pace. Take days off and still make money. Like taking candy from a baby, easy peasy.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? That's because what people think they know about niche blogging is mostly a romanticized myth.

Niche blogging requires a good knowledge base of internet marketing and web development. Plus, you have to be able to write, in quantity, on any given subject. And spend hours fine-tuning your site promotion strategy so your niche ends up in the top spot on Google.

I expect it will take me a year to amass the skills I need and begin earning any amount of money. Niche blogging is definitely not a get rick quick scheme. It's a long term strategic campaign that requires a lot of discipline because about the only fun part of niche blogging is collecting the pay check. The actual work is tedious, repetitive, and dull.

If you have the time and don't mind the work, niche blogging might work out for you.

There are some things I've done in the last 2 months that I think will help me as I learn to niche blog. I'm listing them below, so you can follow in my footsteps. Remember, this is basic stuff for the very beginner. If you sometimes refer to yourself as a luddite, this tutorial is for you! If you're the one making fun of the luddites, this is probably too simplistic for you.

1. I wrote for ehow and practiced my budding SEO writing skills in their sandbox. With SEO, it's much better to make all your mistakes at the expense of someone else's adsense account than it is to trash your adsense rating with Google (meaning they devalue the ads they place on your site and basically think you suck and treat you accordingly).

2. Read all the free information I could find about ehow. I also bought several ehow ebooks, which are helpful, but the same information is available for free if you google hard enough.

3. I learned how to use the Google keyword tool.

4. I lurked on the ehow forums and other message boards across the internet pertaining to SEO and internet writing. I even copy pasted important tidbits of info into a word document.

5. I wrote for Demand Studios which helped expand my repertoire as a web content writer and gave me a good grasp as to what is acceptable quality for web content writing.

Two months of 1 through 5 and I signed up for an online seminar on niche blogging, bought 7 domains and am actively building niche content. Stay tuned to see what happens next.

Later this week I'll have a post on the craft of writing good web content for all the non-writers out there.

EVOLUTION

2009-06-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

Things are chugging along. I'm evolving as I learn more about writing web content. I don't want to write for ehow, I want to be ehow.

To do that, I need to get into niche blogging. Which I have started to formally pursue this past week. I'm working on 7 sites with a potential income of $1000. The first site should go live this week.

It is ALOT of work and I am wary as to whether or not I can be one of the lucky ones making thousands of dollars a month. Partly, because I'm not raking it in at ehow.

However, I am making money with ehow and grossing more each month, just not enough to write home about or keep the toddler in diapers. There are ehow beginners doing better than me. I'm not sure what the problem is. I think my SEO technique has been a little heavy-handed and spammy, which probably hurt me. I also wonder if I'm just not gifted when it comes to topic selection. I think I'm doing well, picking hot topics, but then the article turns out to be a dud.

My strengths as I see them though are 1) I learn fast 2) I know how to work hard 3) I can write my own content (pity the niche bloggers who can't write!) and 4)I have very little to lose. I think I'm embarking on the niche blogging adventure with less than $100 investment. So it's mostly my time and a little bit of money at stake.

I'll keep you informed!

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION TO REGULATE PROBLOGGING

2009-06-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

A quickie to give you breaking news on major changes in the way we make money online...

This is going to be getting a lot of buzz in the blog-o-sphere. Especially for mommy bloggers who make a living off their blogs.

On the one hand, if all the FTC is going to require is disclosure, that's fine, but if they start policing things beyond that, it will be a problem.

The proposed regulations and comments on it are found here.

I do have ads on this site, but to date, have not utilized any affliates nor have I received financial compensation for any products or websites mentioned in my posts.

BETTER THAN ANTICIPATED

2009-06-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

A status update...

I seem to be doing better than anticipated with my goals. I am averaging around $100 a week somehow.

Ehow ended up paying me $100 in contest winnings which was cool (or maybe I was on the homepage more than once and didn't know). However, residuals from ehow have been slow to build although I think it's still early yet. I added 10 articles so far this month (my second full month) and should make the $10 pay out minimum. Whether I make more than that, I can't predict.

But I'll keep adding articles and hope I start to get the right mix of topics, information and keywords.

Demand Studios is going well. They now allow writers to snag new assignments as fast as they can submit them. So writers are no longer constrained by a 10 article limit and editorial review times. However, the current scuttlebutt is that rejection rates of 3% or higher and high rewrite rates can result in termination. Of course this is all secondhand from terminated writers. Demand Studios doesn't actually spell out what their standards are although that is supposed to change.

As for my private clients, I let them go. I do not have a lot of free time and I need long lead times. Demand Studios gives me a week, ehow is whenever I have time, but private clients want everything now, now, now and they pay less than Demand Studios. Maybe when the baby is older I can dip my toe in again, but right now I need a better work-life balance and that means sticking to DS.

I'm also debating if I want to get into niche blogging. I'm just not sure I'm sold on the services out there that promise they can teach me how to get rich on the internet.

ONLINE WRITING INCOME UPDATE AND MY WRITING SCHEDULE

2009-06-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, first things first, I think I am probably the slowest web content writer on the planet. Actually, it's likely the active toddler that needs wrangling that is capping my income. The reason I say this is I've seen some income reporting threads on forums with people posting income in the thousands of dollars. By comparison, I'm making pennies.

So, income so far... drumroll please...

Demand Studios: $415 total to date (started late April).

Ehow: $18.08 to date with 35 articles. Plus I won the Home & Garden contest which should garner $50 in prize money. So official ehow total is $68.08 and growing.

Private Clients: $100

Infobarrel: I wrote 1 article and haven't checked back to see if I've made any money. Nor have I posted any other articles, which I should do something about that soon.

Suite 101: Nothing, I'm having some editor troubles there, which is disappointing.

Started 2 niche blogs with zero earnings (although I haven't actually checked my adsense accounts to see if I've made any money).

Currently I am not making the $100 a week target I had set for myself. Partly because there was almost no work on Demand Studios for several weeks in May and the editors forgot to take their Xanax or smoke their weed (something!) and went off the deep end. (If you google you'll find some entertaining message board threads where writers vent some steam re: DS editors.) So I stayed away for a while and focused on creating ad revenue content.

I looked at other upfront pay opportunities, but didn't find anything that was a good fit with my very limited schedule. Many upfront pay companies have high production quotas and/or tight article deadlines, which is difficult for me as I'm at the mercy of the toddler--I never know how much time I'll have to write or how much sleep I will get.

Just to disavow anyone of the idea that this online writing stuff is easy peasy, please note that, for the last 6 weeks or so, I have literally been writing every spare minute and staying up way too late trying to get things done. I'm exhausted, but I do feel like I'm seeing some results for my hard work. Now the question is can I take it to the next level?

The Media Is Talking About Making Money Online

2009-05-14T08:26:00.001-07:00

Ehow is in the news with a Wall Street Journal article (not linked because you have to be a paid subscriber to read it) and a local CA news affiliate interviewed an ehow writer. Apparently the economic downturn has made people interested in and more willing to try home repairs on their own and ehow fills that niche nicely.

I found the ehow stats interesting: 600,000 articles and 150,000 videos.

The Wall Street Journal also published an article about freelance work from home jobs and this one is free to read without a subscription. It's a pretty good overview of where to find jobs and common pitfalls of freelance work.

First Post

2009-05-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

I'm a stay-at-home mom in need of diaper money and I also happen to be a writer (a.k.a. starving artist). Serendipity sent me down the rabbit hole of web content writing. From week one, I was making $100 a week and I hope, with hard work and knowledge, to grow those earnings to $1000 or more.

I'll be sharing what I learn and what I know as I go. If you've ever wanted to start a freelance writing career or wondered how you could make money online, this is the blog for you.