eHow

Step Two -- October, 2008

I had looked up some stuff on eHow in its early days, but had never considered writing for them. However, in October, 2008, I saw a horrible eHow article, and thought, I could do a lot better. Then, I discovered I could get paid to write there, and so I signed up for their Writers Compensation Program (now closed), and started publishing articles there. At first, I published some articles related to my blog to get a backlink there (I didn't understand about backlinking then, but I knew I had to get people to the blog somehow). As time went on, I started reading the forums, where I found a few helpful people (and a lot of unhelpful ones) and ended up with 100 articles there (eventually two were deleted) before the WCP closed and no more articles were accepted under the WCP. At the end of 2009, I added Amazon affiliate links to each of my eHow articles--and just as I finished, eHow announced that affiliate links would no longer be allowed on articles, but that existing affiliate links could remain, so I lucked out. Even before then, it was clear that eHow was having some problems, so one of the things that was next on my list was to diversify . . . and a good thing, too. First off, I was running out of steam on "How-To" articles, and secondly, I was unhappy with dropping earnings from the eHow.uk website copying the writers' articles without compensation (I had read their TOS carefully, and knew that I retained the copyright to my articles). Second, eHow was paying upfront for articles from Demand Studios and then featuring poor content above good content written by writers in the WCP, and even publishing and featuring articles from Demand Studios that were essentially plagiarized works of articles already on eHow by writers in the WCP. They were also using keywords unethically, to send readers to articles that had nothing to do with what they were searching for, but had keywords there. Here's the Kindle edition of the eHow blog of one of the most helpful members: eHow.com/Alrady

Posting Schedule

If you're thinking about subscribing to this blog, I will probably post most Tuesdays. With my other blog requiring posts Wednesdays and Saturdays, this fits into my work schedule. It is my hope that soon I will have enough stuff to be useful to people who are thinking about getting paid to write, getting paid to blog, or managing online stores (either their own products, or someone else's). In any case, I hope to start 2011 with useful information every week to help you get started on your way. In the meantime, happy holidays, and here's a nifty resource: Fifty Ways to Make a Dollar a Day Online. Read the article, find your strengths, begin thinking about the process, and get ready to end 2011 more financially secure than when you started!

Finance Major F. Frusius M.d. 9x12 Gicle... Buy From Art.com

My own blog

Step One - June, 2008 

When I first started, I had no idea that I would have a blog. But some friends of mine were visiting, and they convinced me that not only did I have useful information to share, but that people would pay for that information in various ways. I didn't have a mentor, but I did set up a blog and decided on a posting schedule, and then work from there. It took a few months to find my exact niche, and then my friends convinced me to add Amazon affiliate links (sign up to be an Amazon affilate here). I was a bit skeptical at first. However, my friends pointed out that they were always calling me to ask for advice on certain products, and convinced me that they really wanted to just click a link rather than telephone me every single time they wanted to know something.

So I rather fearfully added an Amazon astore to my blog, and put a discreet link to it, and two years later got my first $10 payout from Amazon (I now average $3 - $5 per month). I went a step further and added a page for art related to classical music on art.com (sign up for art.com here), under an affiliate link. That page has gotten a lot of traffic, so it's something people must be searching for, and since I have gone to the trouble of searching art.com and finding all the pictures and putting them all in one place, I feel okay about the affiliate commission, too. I haven't gotten any sales from art.com yet, but I can always hope, and it does bring a lot of blog traffic.

To be continued . . . .