Marg McAlister

Freelance writers can build an entire career around writing articles for internet sites, or just do it to supplement their income.

Many writers know about sites like Guru.com or Elance.com, where they can bid for jobs posted by clients. You'll find more information about how this works in an article by Bev Boorer about working for Guru.com. But there are other ways to earn money from writing articles. In this article we look at the two main ways it can be done.

Working on a Paid-by-the-Article Basis

This is the obvious way of earning money from writing articles: bid for the job, write the article (or articles) and get paid. The rate you can earn varies enormously: many clients expect to get articles written for a few dollars, which is not going to go far towards paying the bills. Writers who bid for extremely low-paying jobs are often part of a so-called 'article farm' in third world countries. A few dollars there means a lot more than a few dollars in developed countries. However, clients will find that it is mostly a case of 'you get what you pay for': often, English is a second language for these writers, and the quality of the articles can be quite poor.

Writers who are keen to make a living from sites like Guru.com should not let the number of low-paying jobs put them off. Initially, it might be practical to bid for a few jobs at a low rate of pay (but not RIDICULOUSLY low!) to get some runs on the board. Once you have some positive feedback from clients and start building writing credits, it becomes easier to get better-paying jobs. In addition, writers can develop good relationships with satisfied clients who keep coming back with more work.

Usually, writers become adept at writing articles quickly, and can often recycle research done for another project. Three 500-word articles in an hour, paid at $8 an article, is $24 an hour or $192 for an eight-hour day. Increase the rate by $2 per article, and that's $30 an hour - or $20 an hour if you get just two articles done. The higher your bid, and the faster you work, the more you earn.

Working on a Revenue-Sharing Basis

Let's move to the second model: working for a share of revenue. You may not even have realised that this way of working existed. There are several different sites that do this, but we'll focus on Suite101. If you visit this site, you will see that there are thousands and thousands of articles about every subject imaginable. In fact, it's more than likely that you have already found yourself on a Suite101 page at some stage when searching for information.

Where do these articles come from? They are contributed by writers just like you - and me. You can write on any subject you like: just submit it to the appropriate area of the site.

Your first article for Suite101 has to be approved by an editor, but after that you can post a new one whenever you like. There are some rules: for example, every article has to be written in the third person. (The article you are reading now would not be suitable, because I am using "you" and "I".) There is plenty of help and advice in the Learning Hub (accessed from the My Suite link for authors) and in the forums. Experienced authors are more than willing to share their experiences and offer some useful tips to shorten your learning curve.

Where Does the Revenue Come From?

Every article on Suite101 is posted on a page containing Google ads. Advertisers pay Google to position these ads on relevant pages, and Google pays the site owner a percentage of the revenue of these ads. Suite101 passes on some of this to their authors. All your income for writing that article comes from Google ads.

How Much Can You Expect to Earn?

At first, the money trickles in slowly. Let's say you write an article a day for a week. You might click on your revenue/payment records and find that you've earned, maybe, the grand total of 56 cents.

FIFTY-SIX CENTS???? I can hear you gasping now. Fifty-six cents for seven articles? "Let me see, Marg... doesn't that come to the grand total of around EIGHT CENTS per article? What is my family supposed to live on - grass????"

Hmmm, I thought that would get your attention. :-) And yes, initial earnings look ridiculous. But now let's investigate the magic of Google ads, keyword optimisation, and residual income, and see how it all works over time.

Keyword Optimisation

How do you find what you're looking for on the Internet? You type it into Google (or a similar search engine). Let's say you want to find out how to train your poodle to sit. What do you type in? You might type "train dog to sit" or "training dogs" or "training dog to sit". If these seem like logical search terms to you, then it's likely that other people would type in much the same. Therefore, if you include a popular search term in your title, it's more likely that Google will find your article quickly when people look for information on the topic.

A quick look at the Google Adwords Keyword Tool shows that popular search terms on the topic of training a dog to sit are:

• how to train a dog to sit
• train your dog to sit
• dog obedience
• how to train a dog
• train a dog to sit
• dog training tips

Suite101 has a tested format for its articles. Each article has a title, a subtitle, an opening paragraph and also several subtitles in bold in the body of the article. If you used "How to Train a Dog to Sit" as your title, you'd use related search terms in your subtitle - for example: "A Simple Dog Obedience Tip That Really Works".

Can you see how we've already used two of the popular search terms? The there's the opening paragraph... how can we use the search terms again here? How about "If you've already tried to train your dog to sit without any luck, here's an easy and effective method that will get results quickly." 

Then away you go, simply using related terms in the subtitles in the body of the article.

The Magic of Google Ads

Once your article is up on the site, the Googlebot will find it when it next indexes Suite101. Before too long, dog owners will be clicking on it to find out how to train their dog to sit. BUT - while they're reading your article, they happen to notice a Google ad right next to it that says "5 Day Puppy Housebreaking". Aha! Just what they needed to know! They click on the ad... and as soon as they do that, the advertiser pays a fee to Google, who pays a percentage of it to Suite101, who then passes on some of it to YOU.

It's that simple. You might earn just a few cents or you might earn 20 cents, depending on how much the advertiser originally paid for the ad. BUT - suppose you had a really popular topic, and thousands of people clicked on your article during the next day or week? That means more ads are clicked on, and your income goes up.

Now, multiply that by 20 articles, and you can see how it adds up. Multiply it by 200 articles and think about what that means. But there's more...

Residual Income

Once your article is online, it stays there - for years. Can you see the potential in that? If you pick an evergreen topic (such as puppy training - there will always be puppies that need training!) then your 500-word article can bring you in a steady trickle of income for years. Even if you write 100 articles and then never write another word, your 100 articles will keep earning you money. So even though an article might bring in only 8 cents in the first week, it might bring in $80 or even $800 over time. Which is a lot better than $8 an article as a one-off deal!

A Successful Suite101 Writer

The income level for Suite101 writers varies widely. There are many reasons for this. It's not just a matter of how many articles you have on the site; it's also about the topics you choose and the way you pick your keyword phrases. Someone with 300 articles may not do as well as someone with fifty articles.

As a writer, you can choose to write about whatever you like. If you enjoy research, then the field is wide open - why not choose topics that are searched for more than others? If you become really interested in keyword research, you can find out not only which topics have the greatest number of searches, but which keyword phrases attract ads that cost more for advertisers (and therefore pay out more).

It's interesting to note that the Suite101 writer who recently broke the record for the highest monthly earnings has been writing for them for only around two years, and in that time has written 228 articles - a little more than two per week on average. She admits that she doesn't have the time to do it full-time - which is good news for any writer who would like to duplicate Lena's success! Here's a quote from the official Suite101 news release:

"Lena Gott, 29 year-old accountant and stay-at-home mom in North Carolina, surprised herself by earning $4,940 in July and setting a monthly earnings record for online writing site Suite101.com. “I can attribute much of my July earnings to my article on the Cash for Clunkers program,” said Gott, who normally earns around $2,000 a month for her articles on Suite101.com. “I strongly believe that writing in article clouds, or webs, and interlinking the related articles results in higher revenue.  For the same amount of work, you get more page views because every article has the ability to drive page views to several related pieces, fulfilling the reader's search for more information.”

This 29 year-old professional accountant has been writing for Suite101 since 2007. She has published a total of 228 articles on Suite101 as a Feature Writer, most in the Business & Finance section. ”Suite101 is definitely a real part-time job for me. I try to devote at least 15 hours per week to researching and writing articles. I would do more, but I'm a stay-at-home mom and have others jobs as well.  I'm a CPA and teach for Axia College of the University of Phoenix, I also own a jewelry business, Milan Jewelry Design.“

Finally, in the forum on the Suite101 website, Lena shares with others how much she made in her early months with Suite101. As this is confidential information for Suite101 members only, I can't pass it on here... but I can reveal that the 56c I quoted earlier might beat it. :-)

Remember: even if you start off with just a few cents a day in income... that will grow over time. The more you put into i, the more you'll get out of it.

If you want to know more, or get started right away on your career as a Suite101 writer, then go here:

http://www.suite101.com/freelance_writing_jobs/

Copyright Marg McAlister 2009