Hello, readers! I've sorely neglected this blog for the past six months because I was just burned out on the whole writing online "scene," so to speak. I needed time to focus on writing, experimenting and learning before I had anything more of value to contribute. Now that I've been several months away, I have much more to report. Here's a look at how I've been doing with various residual income-based writing sites.
Ehow Has Proven It's WorthI'm most excited to share my eHow earnings over the past six months. Because I haven't been able to increase my earnings there by submitting more articles, I have a very clear picture of just how much money my previous articles have generated. I've earned more money per article on eHow than I'm paid per article anywhere else - including Demand Studios.
Ehow Earnings to Date:
2008 - $5.73
2009 - $2,064.82
2010 - $3,817.81
Total - $5888.36
I have 216 articles. This means (on average) I've earned $27.26 per article. This amount will only increase over time. So, take that naysayers! I only wish I could add to my income on the site, but those days are over. I'll just have to be content with my monthly payments, which feel like free money to me. :)
Bukisa: A Surprising Source of Income
I've been very busy at home lately, so I decided to contribute more articles to
Bukisa because I can write them quickly in between projects. I know the site gets a bad reputation, but I've found it to be very lucrative for the time I've invested. The tiered referral program is especially nice (feel free to
join as my referral if you want). Plus, I can write on topics that I enjoy but don't make much money on the pay-per-ad-click sites, such as cooking, gardening and beauty. My
green bean casserole from scratch recipe, for instance, received several hundred views the first day. That may not seem like much, but it adds up across several articles.
I have 49 articles on the site. Some of them were written when I had only the vaguest notion of SEO, and others were written within the last 30 days. Here's a breakdown of my meager Bukisa income so far:
$500.08 - Earned from my content
$216.56 - Earned from my network connections
$716.64 - Total
This breaks down to about $14.63 per article, a little less than I'd earn from a standard Demand Studios article. I plan to increase this even more by submitting more articles. The trick with Bukisa is to choose keywords that have almost NO competition. Because you're being paid by page view and not ad click, these keywords are much easier to find. The most frequently targeted keywords are those that have a high cost per click. When you don't have to worry about the CPC, however, a whole new world of keywords opens up.
HubPages Revenue Update
I must admit, I had very low expectations of
HubPages when I first began creating Hubs. I still have very few published Hubs, and they've earned some money - just not as much as I would have expected. It took a while for some of them to rank well in the search engines, but I've tried harder to get backlinks to my hubs than I've tried with articles published on other sites. I'm not convinced it's paid off, however. Here's a breakdown of my
HubPages earnings so far:
$59.88 - Earnings in 2009
$229.72 - Earnings in 2010
$289.60 - Total Earnings
I have 36 Hubs, so this breaks down to about $8.04 per Hub. This may sound a little low, but keep in mind that this is only the Adsense portion of the income my Hubs generate. I also make money through Amazon sales. My hub "
The Best Small Coffee Maker" seems to generate the most Amazon sales, as do others that focus on commercial topics. I don't make much, but it's enough to boost my total to around $10.00 per Hub. This isn't the best, but the amount increases with time. Right now, however, I earn far more money on Bukisa and eHow than on HubPages.
Infobarrel Revenue to Date
My
Infobarrel earnings have been much lower than I would have expected - lower even than HubPages. To be fair, however, some of the articles were written long ago when I didn't know as much about SEO and other were written to gain backlinks to other articles without SEO in mind. Also, I make some money from Amazon sales and Chitika ads through these articles, plus a few cents from the not-so-generous referral program. Still, I'd say my earnings here are too low to justify focusing on Infobarrel above all others. I will continue to add articles there periodically, though. There was a time when my eHow earnings looked similar, and look how much I've earned from them so far.
$47.44 - Earnings in 2009
$141.72 - Earnings in 2010
$189.16 - Total Earnings
I have 36 published articles on
Infobarrel, which works out to about $5.25 per article. Again, this isn't great, but I don't feel I've put enough work into Infobarrel to make a fair judgment of the possibilities. For the time being, the site is only a backup source of income (and backlinks) and not something I'll rely upon heavily. Strangely, my best article on Infobarrel is "
Large Houseplants and Indoor Trees," which also generates monthly Amazon sales.
Other Residual Income
I'm still earning a bit of Adsense revenue from this blog and a few other niche blogs I haven't worked on in ages. Also, my
Suite 101 income has remained constant. I've currently earned $881.74 in total from the site. I've published 66 articles, so this breaks down to around $13.40 per article. It's not bad, especially considering I usually write on topics that don't make much in ad clicks, such as gardening and herbs.
In conclusion, I think I'm going to try and bolster my
Bukisa income over the coming months. It's easy, fast and I quite enjoy writing without worrying about high paying keywords. Plus, I've been more successful there than at other sites. I know many people have had huge success with HubPages and Infobarrel, too. The point is, I think, to find what works best for you and stick with it until you've built up an income you're happy with. Good luck and happy writing!