by Greg Schwartz

Created on: June 09, 2009

Helium offers a variety of ways for writers to earn money. Take advantage of the different earning opportunities, and get paid multiple times for the same work. This article outlines ways to increase your earnings on Helium.

- Upfront payments

Once you have a minimum of one writing star and one rating star, you can qualify for upfront payments. For every article you write in an eligible channel, you can be paid from $0.50 to $2.50 per article. This is a one-time payment made at the end of the month.

- Stars

You need to have at least one rating star to earn money on Helium. This isn't hard to do... just set aside some time every week (or every day, if you can) to rate. Do enough ratings to qualify for at least two rating stars, so you have one as a buffer. (If you can keep five rating stars, you'll earn an extra $3 at the end of the month.)

You also need at least one writing star in order to earn upfront payments, and the more you have, the more you'll earn. Like with rating stars, try to keep at least two writing stars at all times.

- Empty title bonus

For every eligible topic that you're the first person to write an article about, you can earn an extra $1 per article. (This also goes for article titles you suggest.) Since only 25% of your articles have to be in competitive titles (titles with three or more articles), that's quite an opportunity to earn empty title bonuses.

- Page views/ranking

In general, the better your article is ranked, the more times it will be viewed. And the more times each of your articles is viewed, the more money you make.

If you have a low-ranked article, use the Leapfrog feature to revise your article. Make the article flow better, fix typos, and add relevant links.

You can also directly influence your article's page views by linking to your article from outside sources. Possible sources can be your blog, message boards or forums, or user-submitted news sites such as Reddit or Digg. (See "Things you can do to get more traffic to your articles" for more ideas.)

- Contests

Helium always has several writing contests running simultaneously. Enter as many as you can for a chance to win prizes. Even if you don't win, your articles can still earn you money as people read them.

- Marketplace

If you have enough stars to write articles for the Helium Marketplace, do it. The titles listed here are specifically requested by publishers, and payment is typically much higher than you would get just writing the same article for Helium. (Even

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