$100 an Article for Web Articles?

$100 or more for an article is pretty expected in the print world. Magazines and newspapers often pay that much for an article. Of course, it may take you several hours to complete the article. It may take several days, in fact. But, it's more money than you can expect from writing Web articles. Or is it?

In the Web writing world, you can get a flat, up-front fee for an article, you can write it for a site that pays residuals or you can write for a site that does a hybrid of both. Ehow sits firmly in the residual category, though there are occassional bonuses or other payments that turns some articles into hybrids. In general, you can expect a slow trickle of money for each article that you write for eHow. And because the money keeps coming in year after year, there is no limit on how much you can make from one article. making $100 from an article is certainly possible with residual sites- even with eHow.

Two weeks ago my highest-paying eHow article hit the $100 mark, and it's already up to almost $110. That is one article, representing about 20 minutes of my time. Not all articles will perform that well. In fact, the next-highest article that I have is a little under $70, and most sit in the $20-$30 range. That may not be $100, but it's still higher than one can expect for an up-front payment most of the time.

With a decent bank of eHow articles, you can expect a few standouts, a few duds and many that fall somewhere in the middle. In the past three months, only one of mine has failed to make anything at all. The one that hasn't performed is a disappointment, but one written around the same time took a little under 10 minuted to write has made more than $30. that's what eHow is- a numbers game. Some will take off, some will tank, but your average over time is well worth the time it takes to write the articles as long as they don't take you too long.

While you need to do your keyword research, writing an eHow article shouldn't take you more than 20 to 30 minutes. Any more time than that means you may not come out ahead in the earnings vs. time game. There are too many content companies out there who pay well to spend an hour on an article that may not perform. If you can keep your time to about 20 minutes, you produce three articles an hour. OUtut of those three, one will likely do quite well if you have keyword researched them all. And, there's no reason why the other two won't earn a respectable amount for you as well.