Which places do I use to make money writing online and how much money do I make?
Not taking into account my main current sources of income from services related to web design and writing that I offer clients in East London and South Africa, or the work I do for International clients via the freelance job site oDesk, I’m reporting here on the money I make from other sources.
This report is about the money I make on online writing sites, and on my own sites and blogs. These earnings are earnings I generate in my spare time. I am not yet able to devote all my time to the project of making money writing online.
Some of the earnings are a source of passive income (I can sleep and still keep earning,) and some of the earnings are related to getting referrals, my activity on the online writing sites, or selling articles on some of the writing sites.
I joined some of the online writing sites and bookmarking sites less than three months ago. It is now October 2010.
Beneath each writing site below, I could explain and repeat how to increase my earnings for each site (I seriously do not yet spend enough time on my project of making money writing online), but, generally, it’s mainly:
Being more active on the site,
Writing and submitting more good quality search engine optimised articles or bookmarks,
Fully understanding how the site works, and knowing my way around the site,
Linking to my articles more,
Getting people to join writing sites using my referral links,
Or, read this article that goes into more detail about how to increase earnings:
Even if some of your online articles are earning less than $0.14 per month from the one place they are published, they may be earning more than $0.14 per month because they are published elsewhere online too. This $0.14 is not paid to you only once. Your earnings increase over time. If you write and publish 10 articles one month, and then 10 more the next month, at the end of about the third month you are earning $0.14 per month per article for 20 articles instead of for just 10. At the end of the sixth month you are earning $0.14 per month per article for 50 articles. Bearing in mind that y... From: Increasing $0.14 Per Month Earnings for Each Article You Write
THE DIFFERENT PLACES I EARN MONEY WRITING ONLINE:
Remember, these earnings are only generated in my spare time. They are slowly growing, and I hope to one day do less of my other work and spend more time making money writing online. Why? Part of the earnings is a source of passive income.
XOMBA
How long have I been a member at Xomba?
I have been a member at Xomba for 2 years and 3 months.
My Xomba activity and content:
I have not spent much time on Xomba at all and have just 9 articles and 59 bookmarks on Xomba.
My Xomba earnings since I joined:
R19. from Adsense
TRIOND
How long have I been a member at Triond?
I have been a member at Triond for 3 months and 3 weeks.
My Triond activity and content:
I have not spent much time on Triond at all and have just 10 articles and 20 photos on Triond. The articles were not previously published when I added them to Triond, but I have since republished some of them elsewhere.
My Triond earnings since I joined:
The photos have earned nothing yet.
R4.66 from Adsense, plus
R4.38 from page views and ad revenue share (passive income that usually keeps growing)
HUBPAGES
How long have I been a member at HubPages?
I have been a member at HubPages for 3 months and 2 weeks.
My HubPages activity and content:
I have spent a reasonable amount of time on HubPages, but nothing near as much as I could if I had more time to spare. I have 32 (articles) hubs on HubPages. The articles were not previously published when I added them to HubPages, and I do not republish my HubPages articles elsewhere. I still need to find out if I am allowed to republish my HubPages articles (hubs) elsewhere.
My HubPages earnings since I joined:
From Amazon, nothing
R167.12 from Adsense
FACTOIDZ
How long have I been a member at Factoidz?
I have been a member at Factoidz for almost 3 months.
My Factoidz activity and content:
I have spent a reasonable amount of time on Factoidz. I have 25 articles on Factoidz. The articles are not previously published. I have republished some of the articles elsewhere after they have been on Factoidz for thirty days.
My Factoidz earnings since I joined:
R93 from activity bonuses and page views and ad revenue share
A bit less than half of this is from the page views and ad revenue share (passive income that usually keeps growing) , and a bit more than half of this is from activity bonuses (earned just for being active on the site doing things like uploading articles, answering questions in the forum, commenting on other people’s articles, and rating other people’s articles up.
CONSTANT CONTENT
How long have I been a member at Constant Content?
I have been a member at Constant Content for just over 2 months.
My Constant Content activity and content:
My activity has pretty much been merely submitting 7 articles.
My Constant Content earnings since I joined:
R158 from selling articles. This is selling articles with usage rights only, because I submit articles to Constant Content that are already published elsewhere. One can charge more if the articles are not previously published (and if the articles will not be published by you again anywhere else.) The R158 was for the sale of two articles; actually one article that sold twice, at R79 each time. The first one sold the day after I joined. My articles just stay there, and if anybody wants to buy them, they do, and I earn money.
FORTITUDE
(The only writing site in this list that is not free to join.)
How long have I been a member at Fortitude?
I have been a member at Fortitude for 2 months and 2 weeks.
My Fortitude activity and content:
I have no articles on Fortitude and have been very inactive on Fortitude.
My Fortitude earnings since I joined:
R98.93
This was only R1.50 in September and of the remaining R97.43 earned in August, R86.43 was for referring somebody to the site. R11.50 of the R98.93 was for merely reading other people’s articles and clicking a rating button at the end of the article.
HELIUM
How long have I been a member at Helium?
I have been a member at Helium for one month and 11 days.
My Helium activity and content:
I have been fairly active at Helium, and have 34 articles on Helium. Most of my Helium articles are previously published articles.
My Helium earnings since I joined:
R87.92
This is about R59 from bonuses, and about R29 from page views and ad revenue share (passive income that usually keeps growing.) If I can hang on to my two Helium writing stars at the end of this month, and even if I add no new articles to Helium, I should be getting another bonus of about R34 at the end of this month. This is for having added articles, this month, to titles that have less than 5 articles already added to them.
If wanting to join Helium, pop on over to the site and join, but please let me rather be your referrer by emailing me and I will send a Helium invite to your email address. Thanks!
BUKISA
How long have I been a member at Bukisa?
I have been a member at Bukisa for just over 2 weeks.
My Bukisa activity and content:
I have not been very active on Bukisa at all, and I have 12 articles on Bukisa. Most of my Bukisa articles are previously published.
My Bukisa earnings since I joined:
R0.84
Only 84 South African cents? Yes.
So what’s so great about that?
The writing work was already done. I just submitted articles I had already written and had already added to another site or two. It was quick to add the articles to Bukisa.
If the earnings continue to stay steady, that should be about R1.70 for those 12 articles in a time period of one month. That is, R1.70 every month after that too.
If the earnings stay steady, that translates to R17 per month, every month, if I had 120 articles on Bukisa.
If the earnings stay steady, that translates to R170 per month , every month, if I had 1200 articles on Bukisa.
If I have already taken the trouble to write an article, and if it doesn’t take long to submit my previously published article (that is already earning money on one or more other sites) to Bukisa, I have no gripes about slowly continuing to add to my Bukisa collection of articles, to enable me to earn more money from each article I write.
I (and anyone who joins Bukisa) can also earn more through referring people to join Bukisa (when people join Bukisa after visiting the site from a referral link you display somewhere.)
Most of the writing and bookmarking sites have referral programs. Refer others and you can earn from more than just your own articles (if the new members are active and also submit articles.)
BOOKMARKING SITES:
I have been very inactive on bookmarking sites that I can earn from, and have therefore earned next to nothing on my bookmarks.
Xomba is also a writing site.
Redgage is also a writing site. (earnings so far R7.50)
Snipsly is also a writing site.
She Told Me is mostly a bookmarking site. (earnings so far R0.74)
Tip Drop can sort of be a bookmarking site.
Best-Reviewer is the most recent bookmarking site that I’ve joined and is a pretty unique kind of bookmarking site. I believe Best-Reviewer has great earning potential for me (and for anyone who joins and uses Best-Reviewer, and who refers more people to it that also join and use it) so I really wish I had more time to use it and promote it. Read more about Best-Reviewer and how you can earn money there.
Why do I remain a member at some of the sites that are so far earning me very little in return for my effort of adding articles or bookmarks to them?
Remember that I do not use bookmarking sites only for earning money on them, but for getting people to click through to articles I have elsewhere, that earn me money.
I leave links on some of the places. These links take visitors to other articles of mine, perhaps to my own sites and blogs, where I am also earning. If the link is on a site that has a high page rank and that allows "do follow" links, the page rank of the page that the link goes to, also increases. A higher page rank sometimes gets my articles a better spot in search results on Google. Also, I don't earn anything if nobody visits my pages. More traffic (visitors) to my online articles means there is a greater chance that I can earn from those articles (via page views, or clicks on Adsense ads.)
You need to have a PayPal account and, if in South Africa, also an FNB bank cheque account, to get paid by some of the writing sites. Learn how to link your PayPal account to your FNB bank cheque account.
You do not need to have a PayPal account to earn from Adsense as Google posts you a cheque whenever you have earned R1000.
EARNINGS FROM MY OWN SITES AND BLOGS
How do I earn money from my own sites and blogs?
On my own sites and blogs I earn money from Adsense, just like I do on some of the writing sites. When people click an Adsense ad to go visit that website, I earn a small commission. Sometimes it's as little as ten cents or so per click; sometimes it's as much as R17 per click.
My own sites and blogs also advertise the services I offer, like web design and writing.
I do sometimes also earn a few cents from affiliate programs like Amazon, Offer Forge, or Click Bank, but it's nothing worth mentioning yet. I do not spend a lot of time on trying to promote Amazon, Offer Forge and Click Bank products.
My main website 1pic4twenty was started in about August 2008. Down the line I added 4 WordPress blogs to it, on the same host server:
TnT 1pic4twenty blog
Work at Home Jobs
School and Stuff
East London in SA
The main site earned me R1 000 in the first year.
I added the TnT WordPress blog in July 2009
I added the Work at Home Jobs WordPress blog in January 2010
I added the School and Stuff WordPress blog in May 2010
I added the East London in SA WordPress blog in June 2010
Although small amounts of Adsense earnings have also come from another fairly recent blog of ours, Online Flea Market, as well as from our Work At Home Ideas website, and a bit from our three totally free Blogger blogs, generally the Adsense earnings have been from 1pic4twenty and its 4 blogs. The Work at Home Jobs blog has earned the most Adsense income of the 4 blogs.
Work at Home Jobs blog has earned R583 from Adsense in the last ten months.
One page on 1pic4twenty has done particularly well. The work from home ideas page giving a long list of work from home ideas, has, in just over two years, earned R1 182 from Adsense. Yes, one page just sitting there is earning me about R500 a year.
I received my fourth Google Adsense cheque about two weeks ago. Although it was a year before I got the first Adsense cheque, it was just three months between each of the following three. Adsense earnings have been increasing lately, as I have added more pages to our sites. It seems that soon, the R1 000 cheques will be two months apart instead of three months apart.
I could stop doing anything with my sites, but still continue earning R6000 a year from them.
Yes, I do have to pay for hosting of the sites (monthly or yearly payments) and yearly domain renewal of the sites, but this costs me less than R1500 per year. I’m almost quadrupling that just in Adsense earnings. Then I still offer my web design or writing services on the pages too, so that’s more money I make from my sites. Plus I use many of the pages to link to where I have other articles online, to get more traffic to those articles, and earn more from them.
I want to continue working hard at adding new pages to my sites whenever I get the chance to, to increase my passive income earnings from Adsense.
I do also plan to sometime find the time (somewhere!) to explore creating more Blogger blogs around a specific niche or two, and work a little harder at marketing those Blogger blogs than I am currently working at promoting our three current Blogger blogs. Blogger blogs are totally free; there are no hosting or domain registration fees for them, and I am keen to see if I could do as well with them as I’m doing with my self-hosted sites, because that would be saving on hosting and domain registration renewal costs.
I think Adsense is a good investment. The first year or two I put in a lot of work, but for a cost of less than R1 500 per year for a return of R6 000 per year (after the second year), I think that's an excellent investment.
I could stop working on this project right now (adding new pages to my own sites), pay less than R1 500 per year, and earn R6000 per year. I choose to continue working on this project. Yes, it's a lot of time, but I can increase those R6 000 per year earnings and still pay only less than R1 500 per year.
Disclaimer: These are my own earnings I've reported. The speculations of what I could earn in the future are my own speculations. I cannot say that you will earn less or more than I do.
© copyright Teresa Schultz 2010
