by Sam E. Jones

Created on: August 20, 2010

One of the best ways to make money online is by writing articles for sites that pay for such content. There are several well-known such sites; Helium is of course one, but so are Associated Content, Suite 101 and Demand studios and doubtless others. Some pay upfront for articles while others pay a small amount based on how many times your article is read, while others yet, pay both.

And while it’s true that money can be made this way, it is not as simple as that, as most of the sites have rules that must be followed and techniques used in order to make any money.

In addition, while not all of these sites require high quality writing, most of them dole out very little money to those who don’t have at least a certain degree of skill. Thus, that is the first key to success in making money writing articles for online publication; working on your writing skills. Also, work on your spelling and grammar.

The next key to making money online is working hard at it. Because the pay for individual articles is generally pretty low, you need to write a lot of them to make enough money. As an example, if you write for Helium and get all five stars and your ratings are doing pretty well, and you write only to bare titles, you can make $17.50 a week writing just one article a business day and posting it. Contrast that with writing 10 articles a day, five days a week. That comes to $150, or $600 a month. And this is not counting the money you make from people clicking on your articles.

And that leads to the next key to making money writing articles online; learn the ropes. Every site has its own way of doing things; which means each has its own unique path to making the most money possible. If you decide to try making some money online writing articles, find those unique paths and exploit them for the greatest payoff. As an example, if you write for Helium, you need to learn how the rating system works and how to get your stars. That’s a given. Then, you need to learn about getting paid up front, which means writing to titles that have fewer than five existing articles. If you don’t do that, you won’t get paid. Also, you need to note that some channels don’t qualify for up front payments at all, and that you get an extra dollar when you write to empty titles, thus, that’s what you should spend your time doing; anything else is a waste of your time. Of course, you’ll also need to get your stars up or you won’t get paid either, and that’s why you need to work on your writing skills, because you won’t be able to get decent reviews if you don’t.

In short, if you want to make money writing articles for online sites, you have to take it very seriously and treat it as you would any other job. Figure out how everything works, and then work hard and you should be able to earn some decent money.

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