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If you're a Helium writer wanting to earn a little money while indulging your passion for writing, you need to make good use of the Empty Title Bonus. It's a great way to generate an extra dollar per article, boosting the maximum possible earnings to $3.50 in upfront payments - the exact amount you get paid depends on how many writing stars you have at the end of the month.

There are two ways to take advantage of the Empty Title Bonus. The first is to find empty titles that need articles, and the second is to suggest titles yourself.

Finding empty titles is relatively easy. Assuming you already have a Helium account, click on the 'Write' menu item at the top of the main page, and then click on the 'Title Finder' button. This useful tool allows you to search for titles by keywords, and you can filter by such things as channels. You can also ask it just to show you empty titles. One word of warning here - there seems to be a time-delay in the system and titles will display as having zero articles, but if you click on the title it will show you how many articles already exist. Often what's listed as an empty title is not so empty after all.

You might be daunted at the prospect of choosing what sort of title to look for. Always look for titles that you know something about - there's no point considering titles in the Computers & Technology channel if you don't know anything about digital technology.

Actually, that's not entirely true - you might be ideally qualified to write a niche title about the experience of total novices using, let's say, satellite navigation tools. But it's a long shot. If you're a keen gardener, go for something in the Home & Garden section, or Hobbies & Games.

Don't be too specific with your keywords. If you're happy to see all the articles about, let's say, growing vegetables, then just put 'vegetables' into the keyword field and see what it brings up.

The other way to find empty titles is to suggest a new title to Helium. This allows you to pick titles that you know you can write for. The problem, however, is that it can be several hours before your title is reviewed and approved. They'll send you an email to let you know your title is approved, but it's quite possible for your title to be published when you're nowhere near your PC. There's a risk that someone else will beat you to the Empty Title Bonus. A tip for reducing this risk here is for you to write the article in advance, and have it ready to go as soon as the title appears.

The Empty Title Bonus is a great way to top up your Helium earnings, and to help broaden the range of Helium articles on the web. And that, of course, can help all of us to earn more through additional traffic.

Learn more about this author, Andrew Michaels.
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