Making Money Online - Article Writing Sites
81HubPages is an example of a site where writers can join and post their own articles, on subjects of their choice, in exchange for a share of the site's revenue. There are several around, including Infobarrel, Bukisa, eHow and Squidoo to name a few. Sites like this have several advantages over a blog.
• You don't have to keep posting new material regularly (unlike a blog, where search engines will drop you if you don’t add something new every week).
• You don’t have to worry about designing a layout or writing HTML – it’s all done for you.
• You're a member of a community (writing a blog can be a lonely activity, especially if you don’t get many visitors)
• The site works to maintain a profile on search engines, so you don’t have to – although you will do better if you do some promotion yourself too.
Of course, there's one obvious disadvantage – you get only a share of the revenue - sometimes only a tiny share! How much you get varies from site to site, and some sites (like Helium) won't even tell you how that share is calculated. If you'd like to see some pretty accurate estimations, check out Hal Licino's Hub about what writing sites pay.
However, even a low-paying site is likely to get more traffic than your blog, unless you know how to promote it effectively - so a small share of their traffic may be worth more than 100% of your own!
What am I earning?
HubPages doesn't claim to be a place to make a living, although there's a handful of top-class Hubbers cashing in $1,000 a month.
I'm certainly not in that league! For the first few months, I made next to nothing on HubPages. These days I'm making about $300 a month with 160 Hubs - but I know I could be earning much more if I was willing to write on more commercial subjects. For instance, my best performing Hub (which isn't about dance) has earned over $450 during its lifetime so far.
If you stop and work out how long it took me to write my articles, it may not sound like a great return for my effort. But the nice thing is that my Hubs continue earning even if I ignore them – and every time I earn $100, Adsense automatically sends me a cheque.
Compare that to Helium.com, where I have over 190 articles, but it took me 15 months to break $75 even though I promoted them. I can't just ignore the site, either - I have to maintain a rating star to earn anything at all. And they don’t send you any money unless you request it.
For more information, see my detailed analysis of Helium.
I've also tried Thisisbyus.com and MyLot.com, but found that both earned even less than Helium! I've heard similar feedback on Triond and the pay-per-view part of Associated Content.
Other Writing Website Options
It is possible to make better money by selling your articles on freelance sites (instead of just posting them online to make ongoing income), but competition is still fierce, with some places offering as low as one or two cents a word.
The problem is, there are lots of people writing articles free of charge on the net - not out of the goodness of their heart, but because writing articles is an effective way to promote other goods, services and websites. These articles may often be written by people without any particular writing skill - but hey, they are cheap content, and some sites are not that fussy!
Helium has a growing Marketplace section where you can compete to be selected by publishers, and there are sites such as Associated Content, Constant Content and Triond where you can advertise your articles for sale (note AC is for American residents only). On these sites, you know what your sale price is, which makes it easier to work out whether the reward is worth the effort. However, even here the prices are dropping as the market becomes saturated with more and more writers chasing online riches.
You'll also find freelance writing sites like Elance where you can bid for projects - but once again, when there are writers out there willing to write an article for $2, the market can be hard to break into. It helps to have a portfolio to show off (which is where sites like HubPages can be useful).
If you're still interested in trying article writing sites, I agree with Hal that HubPages appears to offer the best potential. Be warned - don't expect to earn more than a few cents for the first three or four months, no matter how many Hubs you write! It seems to take that long for your Hubs to start attracting clicks - and cash. You can sign up for HubPages here.
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All text copyright Marisa Wright. Photo courtesy of desi.italy on Flickr.
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Thanks Marisa! Great articles both this one and the one on Helium.
Great HUB
regards Zsuzsy
Thanks marissa for the info, im encourage to share my thoughts here. Im new to hubs, your information is great
Very Informative article, thanks.
HubPages is enjoyable because you have contact with your readers--and the community is great.
I'm here only a few months, but I like HubPages too: it's easy, it has a nice layout and some tools that are very good... But I've written now more than 20 Hubs and there still is not any real revenue. AdSense is dropping indeed... I have some Dutch blogs that last year were making $ 30 or 40 per month with AdSense, now they make maybe $ 10 or 20 per month. But okay, I like it here and I sure want to give it a chance! Posts like yours and some things Athlyn wrote are not only very informative, but are really a big help. So... thank you, Marisa!
Dutchman, if it's any comfort, I earned nothing on my Hubs for the first three months, then suddenly earned ten dollars the following month. Since then, the income has been steadily increasing month by month ($25 this month) so I'm hoping that will continue
Thanx Marisa Nice Hub. I have found that if you write to promote your own affiliate programs you will make more money than hubpages.
thanks Coolbreeze. For those starting out online, I think HubPages offers a better return than any of the article writing sites, plus it's a good place to develop your knowledge due to the sharing community (and the useful Hubs, of course). However I agree that eventually, there's more potential in your own website than on these sites - but you do have to go your apprenticeship first!
Thanks for the useful information about hubpages....Helpful for the newbies like me.
Great Hub,I was glad to hear that it is possible to earn some money on hubpages, as I was starting to lose my faith....Thanks.
@Ann Reys I have tried both squidoo and hubpages, and hubpages is by far the best
Making money from Hubpages is like vending machines, where you make pennies. You can add more machines your pennies grow bigger. Same is the case with hubpages you need lots good hubs plus traffic to add up adsense & Kontera pennies. Ebay and Amazon are not easy because you need an actual sale not click throughs.
Mr Nice, what you say is true to some extent - but I've found most of my earnings come from my best Hubs. Writing a few excellent Hubs will earn you far more income than writing a lot of average ones.
Lissie wrote a good Hub on the ingredients of a money-earning Hub:
Hi Marisa thanx for your feedback. Actually you will be surprised that I already made half of you are making now. Not bad, this is my first month, although I joined hubpages 17 months ago. However, I never had revenue sharing accounts, Adsense, Kontera etc because I had not time for hubpages until last month. I opened all these accounts at the end of January/2009.
Well done, Mr Nice! If you have had Hubs published for several months, they already have good readership so I'm not surprised that the income kicked in straight away.
Hi Marisa,
You are right because I started making money from the first day I joined. Thanks for your feedback.
Thanks for sharing your personal experience with writing on line. I get tired of only seeing the "get rich quick" messages about writing articles. Even though the internet is an instant medium, there are still no shortcuts to get rich. Promoting your service, product or site still requires lots of consistent work. I'm glad to hear you've had good luck though.
it is pitty become an helium writer. you have some experience with me
This is a good read. At filetonic we just did a whole series of reports on which article writing sites make you money. Although we're yet to find a quit-your-day-job site Constant-content seems to be a contender. We've bought numerous articles from there at 10 cents per word "(rather than the 1 or 2 cents referred to in this article Marisa). Im thinking twice now that we overpaid but the most important thing to us is "100% unique" content and constant content has that covered with 3rd party authenticating service.
Anyway Im new here just wanted to comment a bit before I figure out how to set up a hub page :)
Don
Tech Jock, welcome to HubPages! Constant Content is a reputable site - you can pay 1 or 2 cents a word elsewhere. Of course, you're going to get utter rubbish, but some people seem prepared to settle for that!
I have been both a writer and buyer of articles.Most writers dont understand that writing is about speed.The faster you write,the more money you make.It certainly doesnt help to spend 48 hours on a 600 word article.A good and fast writer will take 30 - 60 minutes to finish an article.A good writer is fast and accurate.Correcy grammar and spelling are important.You dont need to spend much time on research because research has already been done by others.Google and Yahoo already has the information that you are looking for.
good article...
interesting hub, I may try helium.
Interesting hub, helium certainly sounds like a waste of time.
Thanks Marisa, I learnt so much reading your article - In fact a whole new world I never new about.
Another informative article of you for new comers like me.
Marisa:---Thank you for sharing your wisdom with the rest of us. I, for one, need all of the instruction that I can find! I will be reading more articles by you.
Marisa is doing a great work!! A++
Thanks for the info, enjoyed your hub.
I am very glad I read this hub cause I found it very useful now when I am trying to figure out the best way to make money with online article writing. I have already had doubts about Helium so thanks for clearing out some issues here concerning this and some other sites.
Marisa, I'm joining the group that says thank you for posting your personal experience. i've been always in search for some comparision to see how am I doing on my hubs. After reading your article I'm feeling more confident. Also...I have a question: what it takes to make a good hub? (I'll check the link you provided too).
@cameciob, I wrote another Hub with some basic tips on "what makes a good Hub". It was written for someone who already had a lot of Hubs and needed to take a "quick fix" approach - if you're starting from scratch, you might take a different angle.
this is really interesting, Marisa. Thanks
Great article! I've only used Helium and Associated Content but I appreciate the passive income on work already done. As you mention, I know I would earn more if I put out more.
iv been reading hubs like this.
Thanks for sharing that, I always wondered how Helium calculated the earnings. Very informative, I also didn't realize that you could potentially make so much money on here.
Thank you so much for this hub, I joined about 5 months ago, but only just started writing, and now I am hooked.
thanks man for the article.....one question though Google adsense asks for your primary website for creating an account on it....can we give our hubpage url for that...??? thanks
@animecrazy, yes you can - just use "hubpages.com", not your profile or any other Hub URL.
i want to write aricles on islam for ehow
Hubpages is great for starting your writing career and also bringing some great content to the net. It is totally for free, and so you can only win.
Thanks for sharing!
If you can make $1000 just of hubpages alone, using article marketing, you are doing good. It really depends on the daily hours you put into it, but if you can create a four figure income, you are doing great.
There are many differences b etween article directories such as hubpages and running your own blog. The great thing with running your own blog is that nobody can ever take your posts away, unlike to web 2.0 properties. You have full right over your blog and can post whatever you like and fully optimize for it.
Thank you for sharing your experience here. I am curious to know how much it is possible to make when doing something like elance...you mention this towards the end so I am just curious how your results have differed doing jobs for pay rather than just putting content out there and hoping it gets attention. Thanks!
Great information on makeing money writing sites. I was really searching for more such sites and I got good data here. Thanks for sharing and your hub deserves awesome...:)
Very Nice This is the motivated article for newbies like us to hope that we also earn money from HubPages.
Thanks for having increasing my blood and energy for more writing
Thank you for a great article. I just joined HubPages. I will work to build my writing speed and concentrate on quality content. I know the 80/20 rule applies here, as anywhere else. I want to be the part of the 20 percent Hubbers making 80 percent of the earnings from adsense. You just informed my way forward.
Thanks for the info. I am still learning how this works so your advice is useful. If I could get to your level of income per month I would be quite happy that would help me support my ministry work
Thanks again!
"Pay to Write" sites
- HubPages
HubPages is your online space to share your advice, reviews, useful tips, opinions and insights with hundreds of other authors. HubPages is completely free, and you can even earn online ad revenue! - Squidoo
- Bukisa
- Xomba
- eHow | How To Do Just About Everything!
- Suite101.com
- Triond - Publish Writing, Poetry, Music, Video & Content Online
- Helium
- Associated Content
Alan 4 years ago
Hubpages are definately good. people can read and leave messages and layout is great as well.....