by Sandra Piddock

Created on: September 10, 2010   Last Updated: October 08, 2011

When you first join Helium, you may find it a bit bewildering, and wonder how you're ever going to make any money. Don't worry - everyone feels like that at first.This writer consistently earns well on Helium, after spending almost two years hardly ever making payout, so these tips are tried and tested. Want to earn more at Helium? Read on!

Learn how Helium works

Helium is a great site to write for, with lots of opportunities for both creativity and earning, but you need to understand exactly how the site works. Spend a little time looking through the 'Help' pages, check out the community boards, or contact one of the Channel Stewards if you have a specific query or problem. They're very approachable, and always happy to help fellow writers.

Starred writers enjoy improved earning opportunities, so ensure you become a starred writer as soon as possible, if you're not one already. Write to 'heavy' titles with a large number of articles in your areas of speciality - that way, you can be almost certain to rise through the rating ranks to build up your writing score and earn stars.

You need to get your writing score over 70%, depending on how many articles are in your portfolio, and once you have one writing star, others will soon follow if your writing is of a consistent quality.

Write for incentive payments

Starred writers can earn incentive payments by writing to titles in the Assignment System. Your Helium Home Page has lists of writing assignments which change periodically. Just click the check box next to a title that takes your fancy,  then click the blue 'Accept' button at the top of the page. When you're ready to write, click on the title in your 'Accepted Assignments' list

If nothing gets the creative juices flowing on your Home Page, each channel page and sub channel page has a list of open titles, and if that fails, you can suggest your own titles. A word of caution, though - if you write exclusively to non-competitive titles with less than 3 articles, your writing score will decrease, and you could lose those hard-won writing stars. Ensure that at least one article in 5 is written to more competitive titles, and you should be able to hang on to your stars.

Write with page views and ad revenue in mind

Don't forget about the residual earnings from page views and ad revenue share. If you choose your writing channels carefully, each article could potentially earn $1 each month, or even more.

That may not sound like a lot of money, but

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