I've had a good week at eHow, though last month wasn't as good as I would have liked. I think that part of the problem may have been that I wasn't adding articles regularly. CPC rates vary throughout the year and with demand for specific keywords, and I don't know that mine are diverse enough to keep my earnings numbers steady. I didn't add much of anything for about two months, but I've started up again with the intention of writing at least four articles a week for them. That represents only about an hour and 20 minutes of work each week, and it will add at least 16 articles to my account each month.
I noticed today that eHow has started up a U.K. version. It looks like U.K. residents will now be able to sign up for the Writer's Compensation Program and get paid just as U.S. residents have been doing on the U.S. site. I'm so glad to see this! There are a lot of people outside the U.S. who have been searching for residual sites and paying content sites and have been unable to write for the many sites that only pay U.S. residents. This is a welcome change for a lot of freelancers, and I hope that a lot of other sites will follow suit. Perhaps Demand Studios will start hiring British writers to write for the U.K. eHow site now?
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
New Time Limit for Draft Articles
Today I saw that my draft articles are marked in the article list with an expiration date. It appears that the site is now giving draft articles about one month to be completed before they are deleted. That's kind of sad news, since I have an enormous number of draft articles, some of which are a year old. Of course, it can also be a strong motivator to write those articles before they are snatched away. I doubt that I will get all of my current draft articles completed in time, but any new drafts that I create will likely be finished a lot faster than they were before.
Why have draft articles at all? There are several reasons. The biggest draft article creation time for me was when I spent several hours doing keyword research for this site and another site. Rather than do each article at a time, I created a couple of dozen draft articles that were based on popular keywords searches. That made it easy to write an article anytime I had the time for eHow. I could simply scan through the drafts and choose one.
Another reason to keep draft articles is to write them a few minutes at a time. If you are very busy or just hate writing eHow articles, you can write one step at a time whenever the mood strikes you, and eventually you will have a completed article. You may not be able to stretch that tactic over several months now, but even with the new expiration dates you still have time to stretch your article writing time over an entire month.
Why have draft articles at all? There are several reasons. The biggest draft article creation time for me was when I spent several hours doing keyword research for this site and another site. Rather than do each article at a time, I created a couple of dozen draft articles that were based on popular keywords searches. That made it easy to write an article anytime I had the time for eHow. I could simply scan through the drafts and choose one.
Another reason to keep draft articles is to write them a few minutes at a time. If you are very busy or just hate writing eHow articles, you can write one step at a time whenever the mood strikes you, and eventually you will have a completed article. You may not be able to stretch that tactic over several months now, but even with the new expiration dates you still have time to stretch your article writing time over an entire month.
Monday, October 26, 2009
New eHow Submission Process
I've had a few ideas for eHow articles over the past week and put together a few quick articles recently. Today, however, the process for getting them published had changed. While eHow articles have always been published right away, that has apaprently changed as of today. The one that I put through today was met by a message saying that the article would be held for 10 minutes while somoene reviewed it to make sure it adheres to the eHow guidelines and until it passed through it would show as "pending."
So, is this a good thing or just an annoyance? Anything that keeps the quality level high, it's probably a good thing. On the other hand, how could it, really? How is it that the articles can be "reviewed" within 10 minutes? My article was published at right around the 10 minute mark, making me think that this is probably an automated system and not an editor actually reviewing them as the site suggests. It's likely a program that takes the length and keyword density into account to give it a preliminary screening.
So, is this a good thing or just an annoyance? Anything that keeps the quality level high, it's probably a good thing. On the other hand, how could it, really? How is it that the articles can be "reviewed" within 10 minutes? My article was published at right around the 10 minute mark, making me think that this is probably an automated system and not an editor actually reviewing them as the site suggests. It's likely a program that takes the length and keyword density into account to give it a preliminary screening.
Friday, October 9, 2009
$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.
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.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Another Way to Make Money With eHow Articles
Besides making money by writing articles for eHow, there is also another way to make some extra money on the site. Affiliate links are allowed on eHow as long as the article doesn't appear to be written just to sell whatever is in the link. Of course, the article may certainly be written for that reason, but it shouldn't appear so. In other words- focus on more than just the item that is being sold or have an affiliate link that is generically linked to the article topic.
If you aren't familiar with affiliate links, here's an article that describes how affiliate marketing works. An easy way to start in affiliate marketing is to sign up with Amazon and choose books that pertain to the article topic and to put an affiliate link in the Resources section of the eHow article. For affiliates who want to earn a larger commission percentage, there are ebooks and other digital products that usually pay more on each sale. However, with Amazon links, customers click on the link to see the product, but anything they buy on Amazon will earn you a commission.
I have links to books on several of my eHow articles, links to CDs on articles elsewhere and a product "carousel" on another one of my blogs that has links to books. Last month, someone went through one of my links somewhere and ended up shopping in other sections of the site. This has happened many times before, and I've earned commissions for people's snack foods, toys, household items, etc. But last month, someone bought a $1,000 TV and a Blu-Ray disc player, earning me commission on all of it. That's the power of Amazon affiliate links.
Unless you really push affiliate links, the income you can make from them is usually far from steady. For me, it's been hit or miss each month. I try to link only to things that I think are genuinely helpful to those who are interested in the topic. At the top right of this blog is a link to an ebook that I think is very helpful for making more money on eHow, and it has a great reputation from eHow writers.
Some months a few bucks in affiliate sales commissions come in. Some months, it's $25-50. So, for me, it isn't much, but it's also not much trouble to put the links there. Like eHow articles, once they're in place, they will keep earning for you for as long as they're there, and you don't have to do anything else to keep earning from them.
If you aren't familiar with affiliate links, here's an article that describes how affiliate marketing works. An easy way to start in affiliate marketing is to sign up with Amazon and choose books that pertain to the article topic and to put an affiliate link in the Resources section of the eHow article. For affiliates who want to earn a larger commission percentage, there are ebooks and other digital products that usually pay more on each sale. However, with Amazon links, customers click on the link to see the product, but anything they buy on Amazon will earn you a commission.
I have links to books on several of my eHow articles, links to CDs on articles elsewhere and a product "carousel" on another one of my blogs that has links to books. Last month, someone went through one of my links somewhere and ended up shopping in other sections of the site. This has happened many times before, and I've earned commissions for people's snack foods, toys, household items, etc. But last month, someone bought a $1,000 TV and a Blu-Ray disc player, earning me commission on all of it. That's the power of Amazon affiliate links.
Unless you really push affiliate links, the income you can make from them is usually far from steady. For me, it's been hit or miss each month. I try to link only to things that I think are genuinely helpful to those who are interested in the topic. At the top right of this blog is a link to an ebook that I think is very helpful for making more money on eHow, and it has a great reputation from eHow writers.
Some months a few bucks in affiliate sales commissions come in. Some months, it's $25-50. So, for me, it isn't much, but it's also not much trouble to put the links there. Like eHow articles, once they're in place, they will keep earning for you for as long as they're there, and you don't have to do anything else to keep earning from them.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Will Your eHow Articles Be Deleted?
If you've spent any time working with eHow articles or reading about writing for the site, you might have heard about the mass deletions that occur from time to time. Every once in a while, and it's not announced beforehand, eHow will check articles for quality and for adherence to the rules. Then, thousands of articles are deleted for various reasons. It used to be that the site didn't tell eHow writers why the articles were deleted- they didn't even tell you which articles were deleted. I have two that were deleted during that time, and to this day I don't know which ones they were.
Because of the mass protest by eHow writers for this practice, that has now changed. If an article is deleted, you will be told the title or titles that are being removed and a fairly generic reason is now given for each deletion. From my experience, I believe that most eHow writers have had some articles deleted. In some cases, I don't know what the reason was. I believe that at least one of them was deleted because it detailed how to write for a competing site. A few others that have been deleted since then may not have precisely fit into the "actionable steps" idea behind eHow articles, though I think that's subjective.
To stand the best chance of getting though the purges unscathed, it's important to follow the writer's guidelines as closely as possible. In some cases, that still won't protect an article from being purged, but it gives you a better chance of avoiding deletion.
In addition, ALWAYS keep a backup of every article in a Word or OpenOffice file. I have one long eHow Word file that I copy and paste all of my eHow articles into. When you write directly for eHow, you keep the rights to your work. That means that you are free to publish your articles elsewhere if you choose. If an article is still on eHow, it's not a good idea from an SEO standpoint to publish it elsewhere at the smae time. But, if eHow removes the article, you can publish it elsewhere so that you still profit from the article. Here are the best places to republish your deleted eHow articles:
Bukisa: This site offers between $3 and $4 per 1,000 page views, and they accept eHow articles even if they are still on eHow. Some people publish their articles on both sites at the same time.
HubPages: This site allows you to create as many "hubs" as you like, and each can be a different article. The site brings you revenue through a share of the Google AdSense revenue as well as with Amazon affiliate links and other ad revenue.
Xomba: This site can be used either as a social bookmarking site or as a content site. To submit an article, choose the Xombyte option and copy and paste your purged article into the space. I provide more details about writing for Xomba here. The site offers a share of the AdSense revenue.
Because of the mass protest by eHow writers for this practice, that has now changed. If an article is deleted, you will be told the title or titles that are being removed and a fairly generic reason is now given for each deletion. From my experience, I believe that most eHow writers have had some articles deleted. In some cases, I don't know what the reason was. I believe that at least one of them was deleted because it detailed how to write for a competing site. A few others that have been deleted since then may not have precisely fit into the "actionable steps" idea behind eHow articles, though I think that's subjective.
To stand the best chance of getting though the purges unscathed, it's important to follow the writer's guidelines as closely as possible. In some cases, that still won't protect an article from being purged, but it gives you a better chance of avoiding deletion.
In addition, ALWAYS keep a backup of every article in a Word or OpenOffice file. I have one long eHow Word file that I copy and paste all of my eHow articles into. When you write directly for eHow, you keep the rights to your work. That means that you are free to publish your articles elsewhere if you choose. If an article is still on eHow, it's not a good idea from an SEO standpoint to publish it elsewhere at the smae time. But, if eHow removes the article, you can publish it elsewhere so that you still profit from the article. Here are the best places to republish your deleted eHow articles:
Bukisa: This site offers between $3 and $4 per 1,000 page views, and they accept eHow articles even if they are still on eHow. Some people publish their articles on both sites at the same time.
HubPages: This site allows you to create as many "hubs" as you like, and each can be a different article. The site brings you revenue through a share of the Google AdSense revenue as well as with Amazon affiliate links and other ad revenue.
Xomba: This site can be used either as a social bookmarking site or as a content site. To submit an article, choose the Xombyte option and copy and paste your purged article into the space. I provide more details about writing for Xomba here. The site offers a share of the AdSense revenue.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Seasonal Variations in eHow Earnings
It looks like the very final numbers for the last day of Augut aren't quite in yet, but my earnings from eHow are down from July's numbers. I estimate that I probably made about $15 less in August than in July. Did I do something wrong? Not at all. I wrote three articles for the site in August, I bookmarked all of them with Xomba and Digg and I search engine optimized each with the AdWords tool. August is just a notoriously slow month online.
After running online businesses of one type or another for eight years, I can say that it is the very slowest month of the year for any type of online earnings. It's hot, everyone wants to soak up the last of the summer sun before schools starts again and many people are away on vacation. Even if you aren't impressed with your August numbers, you can expect your eHow income, as well as any other online residual income, to go up in September. That's true even if you don't add anything to eHow in September.
With Web traffic, you can generally expect the coldest months to be the best. People are inside all day and they would rather go online to shop and get information than to brave the cold weather. Like clockwork, every year I find that traffic is best from December through February.
So, if you looked at August's numbers and wonder what in the world you've gotten yourself into with eHow, don't worry. September is here, kids are back in school and people are starting to settle indoors once again.
After running online businesses of one type or another for eight years, I can say that it is the very slowest month of the year for any type of online earnings. It's hot, everyone wants to soak up the last of the summer sun before schools starts again and many people are away on vacation. Even if you aren't impressed with your August numbers, you can expect your eHow income, as well as any other online residual income, to go up in September. That's true even if you don't add anything to eHow in September.
With Web traffic, you can generally expect the coldest months to be the best. People are inside all day and they would rather go online to shop and get information than to brave the cold weather. Like clockwork, every year I find that traffic is best from December through February.
So, if you looked at August's numbers and wonder what in the world you've gotten yourself into with eHow, don't worry. September is here, kids are back in school and people are starting to settle indoors once again.
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