Updating eHow articles to make more money

Now that I've really gotten my feet good and wet writing for eHow, I like to take a little time now and then to update articles. How so, you may ask? After giving a new article a couple months, I check in on them with page views and earnings. To do this, I go to my list of articles and click the views tab once. This will sort them, starting with the lowest views at the top. 

These are the articles that need attention. Perhaps I chose a keyword with too much competition, or not enough search traffic. I will pull each up, studying the keywords used, and use the Google Keyword Tool to find similar, but better, keywords. 

I try to shoot for 2 or 3 keywords per article, any more than that seems to water them down and give strange ads. By playing around with these, I've seen dud articles suddenly take off and add an increase to my residual income. I haven't added any new articles in a few months now, but I have seen my income rise each month using this process. 

Also, I focus on articles with low views but decent earnings considering. I try not to veer off the keywords too much on these, because something is right. It's just the page rank that is suffering. Promotion of those articles, via social book marks, seem to help with that. Anything to get those articles out there!

eHow is a fantastic tool for my journey to become a stay at home mom. The residual income comes in super handy each month. The sky is the limit, the more you put into eHow, the more you will get out of it. 

Writing more articles is key to making more money, but at times it's best to take a step back, and fix the ones that aren't doing so well. A few minutes work doing this can reap huge rewards in the long run.

eHow Sweeps

eHow has been a godsend for me for extra money. Any US citizen can sign up, write articles, and generate residual income. Simple, right? Well, not necessarily so. I've been a member since July 08, and I've only lost a few eHow articles in sweeps. And honestly, those should have went. They came across as spammy, didn't meet the how-to criteria, or were poorly written. All we can do is learn from our mistakes.

There are several guides available to help somebody become a better eHow writer, to increase income, and to avoid getting articles deleted. This guide, by one of eHow's top earners, WriterGig, can help get the most money from each article. It has proven invaluable to my own time on eHow, what a fantastic investment!

This free guide, written by a well known presence in the eHow forums, shows how to not only write a good eHow article, but to make sure it is in the proper format to avoid deletion in eHow sweeps. I strongly suggest reading both to get the most out of your time on eHow.

So what is proper format, you may ask? It's actually fairly simple. It has to be a straight forward how-to article. The writing doesn't have to be fantabulous, but of course that helps! Each step should be in a logical, chronological order, and show a specific action. Many suggest starting each step with a verb.

Proper spelling and grammar are also of utmost importance. Using spell check should be done on every article. Once published, you should take another look and read aloud, to ensure grammar is used properly. You can go back and edit if necessary.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Using good keywords is also important for the value of your articles. There's several different theories on the best way to go about this, but using Google's Keyword Tool and clicking CPC (cost per click) can show you the best paying keywords. Really, anything above a dollar can be good. Plus the Google Keyword Tool will show the amount of searches per keyword. Going for keywords that are heavily searched, say above 10,000 searches per month, will probably have stiff competition. So a good approach is to go for keywords with less competition, to ensure you get a fair amount of traffic.

eHow can provide a nice little residual income in time, but it takes a while to build up a library to achieve success. Working at it a little bit every day will have big rewards in the end. If you lose some eHow articles in the sweeps, don't let it get you down or turn you off to eHow. It happens to some of the best authors. Learn from the mistakes and keep writing.

On to Infobarrel

Well, I was very excited to apply with Suite 101, but my application was denied. I think I need to strengthen my writing a little more and will probably apply with them at some point in the future. They do only accept 20% of applicants, so I really need to get a little stronger before trying again.

However. For now I am giving Infobarrel a shot. It utilizes Google AdSense as a means of payment, offering a nice share of ad revenue. The writing style seems easy to work with, and the residual income will be much appreciated. Every little bit helps when trying to become a stay at home mom. Plus, having multiple streams of residuals is always a good bet. 

I plan to go through my eHow library to spawn ideas for Infobarrel articles. Not to copy them, just for brainstorming purposes. Their writing also does not have to be in the how-to format, which opens up a lot of possibilities to write about. This is an exciting step for me, definitely a way to broaden the writing horizons! On the bright side, I had to write two sample articles to apply on Suite 101, so my first two submissions are already taken care of. 

I'll keep this updated with progress with Infobarrel. I do think this will be a great opportunity in my journey to become a stay at home mome.

Infobarrel does have a referral program, so if you are interested in writing for Infobarrel please check out this link. 

Expanding writing skills and trying Suite 101

After doing a little research, I'm finding people on WAHM.com are saying Suite 101 has higher residual income than eHow. There is an application process, and active editors involved. Eh, things could be worse. I like the idea of editors being involved, unlike eHow, to provide higher quality writing. I'm still somewhat new to writing online, but have learned a lot about SEO and article marketing along the way. I think the next logical step from eHow must be to Suite 101! 

Some of the WAHMs on the message board were posting their numbers of articles compared with the montly earning between the two sites. It was a huge difference, some of them three to four times as much residual income from Suite 101! Since there is no cost to apply, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. This could very well the the means to becoming a stay at home mom!

Straying from the how-to format is seriously going to stretch and improve my writing. It's ridiculously easy to put a how-to together into actionable steps. I've just ran somewhat dry on ideas I can do that with. I have "the list" but just have been having trouble adapting ideas I have into articles. Remove the how-to and actionable step issue, and voila, I have tons of articles ready to go for Suite 101. Problem solved!

They do have a set amount of articles they want written, but it's fairly small. I believe it's 10 articles per three months. When I was going strong with eHow, I was churning out 15 per week, so I know that won't be an issue. Obviously, it would not be wise to just copy the eHow articles to put over on Suite 101, as this hurts search engine ranking. Plus, I believe they frown on exact copies, as well. However, I plan to use the same byline, so I can modify existing articles for use on their site. 

I'm really excited about this opportunity. If I spend two hours each morning on writing, my odds of becoming a stay at home mom raise substantially. No more scrambling to find a babysitter for me, hopefully! Wish me luck!