Crazy High eHow Earnings

Residual income from my eHow articles hit an all-time high in November 2010, with a combined total of over ,000 from my WriterGig account, Demand Studios residuals, and another very small eHow.com profile. My WriterGig profile alone brought in an eye-popping ,870.42 USD in November and is already over ,600 so far in December. These earnings come from just 390 articles, written between Oct. 2007 and April 2010.

This fairly impressive increase in revenue (some 7 months after eHow stopped allowing writers to contribute new articles) resulted, in my estimation, from a few particularly popular seasonal articles in conjunction with a back-linking campaign I started in September. [I wrote articles for Ezine Articles and several other article directory sites, and linked to particular eHow how-tos in my author bio at the end of these article submissions.]

These two high months bring my 2010 eHow earnings  to over ,000 -- not bad for what amounts to almost entirely passive income from articles that have long since paid me for my time invested. Isn't that incredible? I sincerely wish I had written hundreds more eHow articles when I still had the chance, before the Writers Compensation program was closed to new articles.

While eHow is not the opportunity for making money online that it once was, since nobody new can join and no new articles can be submitted (except through a Demand Studios account), it is still possible to increase your eHow earnings as I have done and as David Sarokin has in the past few months as well (his recent k+ eHow month inspired me to shoot for one myself).

Have you seen an increase in eHow earnings recently? Will you give backlinking a try to improve your earnings at eHow and elsewhere?

Strong Google Adsense Earnings

There's been a good deal of chatter in the online writing world regarding Google's recent algorithm change, which basically penalized sites with low-quality content and gave more search engine favor to sites with original, high-quality material. Places like ezinearticles.com, HubPages.com and numerous "content farms" with duplicate content, PLR articles, spun articles and other cheap content saw their traffic suffer and even nosedive.

Conversely, websites with good and excellent quality control and all original material received a boost from the changes. My own niche site on pets was one of these -- its Adsense earnings for March are stronger than ever. My total Adsense for March is projected to be my highest month to date and should close at 0 or more. I'm still working on my goal to get that up to ,000 a month by the end of the year.

How can online writers, especially those working to build up their residual income through niche sites and blogs, stay on Google's good side? What do you need to know to "write for Google"?

Don't write for Google. 

That's the simplest way to put it. Your website, whether monetized with adsense units, affiliate links, paid ads or a combination of these and other models, should have its audience (real live humans) as the primary focus when creating content, not Google (the robots).

Is your site helpful? Funny? Informative? Will the people who find your blog based on the keywords you're targeting find what they need -- whether its information, resources, product reviews -- if they land on your site?

Do you publish only original, creative, quality material, whether it's written by yourself or a paid freelancer? You should be -- for the sake of your readers and for your own success. I have never paid for PLR articles (the ones sold in packs to multiple buyers who then tweak them to make them "different"). I have never "spun" articles myself or with a program to turn copied content into something "unique." About 95% of my content, including the articles I post on article directory sites, was written by me. I've paid for a few articles but only from US-based freelance writers.

Ensuring the best of quality control on your site, in addition to a pleasing template and tasteful ads and links, is the best thing you can do for your online business and to increase your residual income. Position your sites so that these quality control checks by Google and other search engines improve your ranking and boost your earnings, not the opposite.


Did Google's changes affect you, for good or bad? What's your strategy to improving your online residual income?