Killing Trolls and Backlink Score

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?

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

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!)

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

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

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

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!