1000 Ways to Make Money Online

Probably one of the easiest ways to make money online is by writing for content article sites. It requires no monetary investment, no interview or acceptance process and the work you put in can pay dividends for years to come. This last point is huge. You do the work once and, as more and more people read the article, you make money until the site ditches the article or no one is searching for your topic anymore. This is the whole idea behind passive income (a.k.a. residual income). For this reason most content article sites are loaded with tons of articles. So while it’s easy to make money from these sites, it’s also not easy.

Probably the top content article site is eHow.com. The premise of eHow is that it has a collection of “How to” articles that individuals, such as you and me, as well as paid staff contribute to. The articles are then loaded with healthy amounts of advertising which, when clicked, will pay both eHow and the writer.

The idea is really simple. So is writing an article on eHow. The step-by-step format allows for brief instructions and doesn’t require a lot of in-depth analysis. So, if you’re an “expert” on a topic, you can bang out an article in about 10-15 minutes. Interested? The first thing you’ll have to do is sign up for their Writer’s Compensation Program where you’ll need a valid PayPal account and your Tax ID (sorry, this will be taxable income.)

Next thing you’ll need to do is find a topic to write about. The site is pretty saturated with articles for all topics so you’re going to have to get creative. How do you choose what write? I take two approaches. The first approach is to write what you know and see what sticks. This is much easier because you know everything you need to know to write the article. Unfortunately, this often leads to very little revenue because it’s not created with generating revenue in mind. The second, and much more lucrative approach, is a three step process that (Maria details excellently in her ebook): Do some Keyword Research, Research a Topic, and Write what You’ve Learned with some Search Engine Optimization sprinkled on top.

Keyword Research: Google Adwords has a free keyword search tool that can give you statistics on whatever keyword or keyword phrase you type in plus additional, closely related keyword phrases. There’s a host of data available but there’s only three that you really need to focus on. The first one is the search volumes (both local and global). These statistics provide the number of searches that have been done on that keyword for the last month. You’ll definitely want to write about something that gets searched for. The next statistic is advertiser competition; the green bar indicates how heavy the competition is for bidding for that keyword. If there are multiple companies/people bidding for the keyword then there will be plenty of advertising available for that keyword; advertising that will show up on your site. The last statistic to look at is the “Estimated Average CPC”. This is what Google estimates the average Cost Per Click will be. This dollar amount is what the advertiser pays with each click that a websurfer makes. Unfortunately, this isn’t what you make. Both Google and eHow take their (fairly large) slice and you’re left with some percentage. But the bigger the pie (higher the average CPC) the more there will be left for you, so choose something that has decently expensive advertising.

Research the topic: Once you pick something you think will pay well, do a quick search on eHow to see how the competition is; there’s no sense writing something that has a hundred other identical articles (or even just article titles). If you’re happy with the article environment, hit the books. In fact, if you literally hit the hardcopy books you’re more likely to find original material than if you only do online research. I try to do a bit of both, but it usually ends up being a lot of internet searches. Whatever mix you choose try to do enough research to truly know what you’re talking about but not spend all day researching it.

Write what You’ve Learned…: When I do a lot of research on a topic I find that I can just write out the article in a few minutes. I tend to organize an outline in my head while I’m still researching it. It can’t hurt to write out an outline in a notebook or a separate word document. In fact, I would highly recommend writing your article in a word document and pasting the content in later; that way you have a backup if you have trouble uploading or need to take your article elsewhere. Don’t forget that you’re trying to write the article to entice the reader to click on the advertising. If you’re showing them how to use baking soda to get out tough stains, they’re not going to click on the Oxi Clean ad.

…with some Search Engine Optimization sprinkled on top: The topic of Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is HUGE. It’s very extensive and somewhat cryptic in that everyone is trying to crack Google’s algorithm. The well-known basics include taking your keyword and scattering it into the article frequently but not so much that it makes it hard to read. There’s nothing worse than wanting to make money online and trying to read about what it takes to make money online when the make money online blog won’t stop saying that they can show you how to make money online but they don’t deliver on their promise to make money online. See what I mean? Another tip is to have you’re keyword in the title – this will show up in the web search and give you better exposure. Also, you’ll want to include at least one picture and put the title in the caption…that’s a freebie.

We’re almost done, stick with me

Now that you’ve got your article written, millions of viewers are going to be psyched to read it, right? Not quite (I had that mindset and I was a little disappointed at first). What you’ll want to do is promote your article. There are several ways to do this. If you have an article (How to select a coffee of the month club) that offers valuable information on a product you can shop this around at various forums. So for my coffee of the month club article I could go to Yahoo Answers or Stylehive forum and suggest giving your coffee-loving significant other a coffee of the month gift and if you need help picking one out to check out this article: How to select a coffee of the month club. Another way to get traffic is to post links to your article on your blog or in the signature of your e-mail. Kind of like this:

• How to make shaving easier and almost fun
• How to get out of debt by paying yourself first
• How to triple your blogging productivity

Hopefully I did a good job of showing you how easy it is to make money online writing for eHow. And we’re not just talking pocket change. Maria, a.k.a. Writergig, makes over $1000 a month writing articles on eHow. She has built up a catalog over the course of two years, but despite that fact the formula she uses to write her articles (as described in the ebook) really makes the difference. I’ve noticed a big difference in my articles after learning some of the tricks and tips that she talks about. So check out the ebook when you’re ready, set some goals, start some research, write your articles, and get paid. Let me know how it works out for you.

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