Rev-Share Sites Still Viable for Residual Income

While eHow.com's Writers' Compensation Program was the best revenue-share opportunity I've experienced for residual income, it's no longer an option as far as adding new articles directly through the site. Still, there are other places to go for a similar model: you write content and get paid according to the ad revenue your articles generate.

Demand Studios, Bukisa, HubPages, Squidoo, and Infobarrel are all sources of residual income for me -- several more eggs in the proverbial basket, if you will. In addition to their income, articles I've written on these sites provide backlinks, site or blog traffic and/or brand recognition in several niches.

Out of this handful of revenue-sharing content sites, some do better than others for page ranks and traffic and thus earnings.

Here's how they stacked up in March 2011:

Demand Media Studios revenue-share: $114.58 with 21 eHow articles

Bukisa: $29.39 with 17 articles

HubPages: $29.59 with 6 articles

InfoBarrel: $3.81 with 6 articles

Total ...... $177.37 with 50 articles, for an average of $3.55/per article.

With many hundred articles on the right sites, you can still make a viable residual income through revenue-sharing programs. A thousand articles with that average would give you $3,547 per month. You can actually do much better than that; some of these articles were written when I was just starting out and didn't know much about what niches perform well. By specializing in one or two areas which you know well and whose audience you understand, you will see a higher level of success than the random collection of articles here represents.

While I am currently working almost exclusively on my niche websites, I do still recommend some rev-share writing for those new to online writing and marketing. Writing content articles is a great way to experiment with several or dozens of niche topics. You can figure out what you enjoy researching and writing about, what you want to specialize in and what topics are most profitable. For me, eHow was very well-paid market research and has certainly contributed to the successes I'm seeing in creating my own niche sites and blogs.

That being said, don't wait too long to branch out to your own properties. Once you've identified a good niche topic, done keyword research and learned the basics of site creation and promotion, start a site of your own and monetize it with ads and affiliate links. Revenue-sharing sites are great, but having your own online properties is even better. For web hosting, site design and other recommended resources, see my Tools and Training page.

What revenue-sharing content sites have you earned well with? Do you still write for them?

August Earnings from eHow, Adsense & Affiliate Sales (and Bukisa)

I know how much people enjoy seeing earnings reports from writers and internet marketers -- it can be both encouraging and reassuring that making money online is really possible. When I was first starting out it was a real boost to my confidence to read updates from bloggers making $500 and $1,000 or even $10,000 a month. It was very inspirational to me. So ... here are some of my earnings from August 2010:

eHow                $1,825.05

Google Adsense   $332.77

cj.com                 $224.92

Amazon             $168.25

WA                   $110.00

 
Clickbank             $60.06

Bukisa                  $53.27

 Total reported here:             $2,774

(I also have miscellaneous earnings from single-company affiliate programs, my ebook, and a few other sources.)

August was a very good, although not record-breaking, month for eHow earnings. (The number here is just for my earnings under the WriterGig profile; I also have residuals from Demand Studios eHow articles and from another eHow profile not included here.) After checking the month's earnings, I found myself wishing I'd written just a few hundred more eHow articles than I did over the nearly 3 years the eHow Writers' Compensation Program (WCP) existed. Yes, I'm building up my own sites and blogs ... but these articles and pages take much longer than eHow articles did to start earning. You really can't beat eHow's great pagerank and traffic. But I digress.

Google Adsense was also strong, my second-highest month by a few dollars. This is encouraging as my main Adsense earner actually does best in the spring, so a strong August is very promising. My other niche sites are starting to show up with Adsense impressions and I'm looking forward to seeing these numbers grow as I add content and build backlinks.

My cj.com sales were more than $200, and the bulk of that is for a specific product I started marketing three years ago simply by adding a link under one of my eHow articles. I have four eHow articles that link to this product; those few links from 2007 have brought in over $2,000 in sales commissions. That is about as passive as income gets.

Clickbank is on the rise for me, which is a direct result of putting into practice the methods taught at the new affiliate marketing membership site I joined back in June (I'll blog more about this in an update post soon). It's great to see these sales, especially since they amount to $20 per sale. So three sales for the CB product I promote yields $60 ... I had to sell 123 products on Amazon in August to get the $168 listed here. But I'm not complaining about those Amazon earnings ... most of them are from years-old links as well and are a great boost to my monthly earnings total.

Was August a good month for your online earnings? Have you added any new residual income/ passive income streams this summer?

Bukisa Article Earnings Update

I decided to experiment with Bukisa almost a year ago (see eHow vs. Bukisa), when the site was still fairly new and unknown in the writing/ online marketing world. I tried writing several articles from the get-go to see how they would do, and was impressed by the site's structure and potential.

My strategy with Bukisa, after trying the site and doing my homework on its reputation, was to spread the word among my work at home mom friends and various online networks (such as Facebook and Twitter) to build my network. Since Bukisa compensates writers for referring others to the site, it pays to build your network from the start. Network earnings are pure passive income -- you don't have to write or promote anything to see income from your referred members.

My Bukisa Stats

Articles published: 13
Content earnings: $45
Network earnings: $364

My Bukisa earnings to date: $409

Of my own content, the top earner to date is "Free Budget Worksheets." While per-article earnings are lower than my eHow average, I have so few articles on Bukisa it's hard to make an accurate comparison. It's certainly true that eHow has site traffic and page rank that beat Bukisa hands down, but with time I think Bukisa will move up in the ranks and earnings will also increase, perhaps impressively.

Also, Bukisa is a good alternative place to post deleted eHow articles, as long as they are quality content and worth republishing.

Have you published content on Bukisa? What's your experience been so far?

Bukisa Earnings: Report from Month One

My Bukisa earnings are impressive to me considering the number of articles I have on the site, Bukisa's young age and the amount of traffic on the site (it's not terribly high yet). I joined Bukisa on November 8, 2008, and wrote five pieces of content, which have simply been sitting there for the past few weeks.

I also promoted my sign-up link in order to build my network, which is now 50-members strong, although only about half have contributed content and earned money. I think that building a strong network is key to Bukisa success, as it is a secondary income stream that could easily rival or beat the earnings from your own content.

Following is a screen shot of my Bukisa after one month:


For five pieces of content on a new site, $17.20 is excellent. That is a better outcome than my HubPages and Associated Content experiments. The network potential is one of Bukisa's main attractions to me. That, coupled with the ability to create in-text links in my articles, is why I've diverted some of my online writing time to this new start-up site.

The only negative aspect of Bukisa, as I see it, is the "Index" that can change and which determines pays per view. Since some writers socially promote the heck out of their articles, bringing the less-quality traffic that rarely clicks ads or follows through, the overall profitability of the traffic goes down and the Index -- which went from 4.2 down to 3. 95 over the last month -- changes to reflect that. Personally, I did not use social promotion on any of my Bukisa articles -- social promotion has its place, but not for your average content articles. Save the Stumbles and Diggs for your stellar pieces.

Are you on Bukisa? What do you like -- or dislike -- about the site?

eHow vs. Bukisa

Bukisa, a new online content website with its own revenue-sharing compensation program, has captured my interest in the past few days. I signed up ten days ago, following covewriter's lead. I have to say, I am impressed with the site's structure, layout and possibilities.

I really like their three-tier earnings structure, where users make money for their own content as well as a smaller portion of the page view revenue from writers they refer to the sight. This means two ways to earn income and eventually, two residual income streams: your articles and your network's articles. 

In my quest to build up a variety of residual and passive income streams through online writing, I've added Bukisa to the mix. I began writing for eHow's new Writers Compensation Program (WCP) as an experiment, and I'm happy to jump in with Bukisa in its early stages too. 

Several readers have asked me if it's okay to copy their eHow articles onto Bukisa. While it's allowed by both eHow and Bukisa as long as the material is owned by the author, I wouldn't reccomend doing it that way. Here's why.

Duplicate content, in general, is not well ranked by Google. It appears as having been copied, and Google likes original content. Secondly, since you can choose to allow syndication of your content on Bukisa, there is the possibility, at least, that the same article will be published multiple times online.

Some argue that eHow has sucha  high page rank that it's better just to write there, but I disagree. I am doing well with eHow, but diversifying and having a variety of sites -- both for income and increasing traffic and backlinks --  is important. 

So, for the successful eHow writer who is, what is Bukisa good for?

• Original content that doesn't fit on eHow (i.e. not how-to format) or has already been written about by another eHow author.
• Re-written articles from your other sites or content database profiles.
• Articles written specifically to drive traffic to your blog, websites or other content.
• Diversification.

After ten days, with five articles to my name, I've earned $4.85 on Bukisa. Half of that is from page views on my content and half is from my network's earnings. This is the first article promotion I've done as I've been focusing on eHow and a few other projects.

Ways that eHow is better than Bukisa:

• High page rank, established site, credible company (Demand Media).
• Strong user community.
• Amazing monthly traffic stats.
• History of prompt payments.
• Good to excellent earning potential.
• Revenue sharing is based on actual earnings.

Ways that Bukisa is better than eHow:

• Allows far more flexibility as far as article structure, layout and title format.
• Can link to resources and other sites or articles in body of article.
• Allows do-follow links, building back links to whatever you like.
• Earnings are based on page views, so popular topics pay well regardless of ad revenue generated.
• Tiered earnings structure allows more residual income streams.

I'll blog more about Bukisa vs. eHow in regards payment and other aspects as time goes on.  Long term, I have no idea yet which will win out, eHow or Bukisa. I suspect a combination will be ideal. In the mean time, check out ... 

eHow articles I've written about Bukisa:

• Use Bukisa to Earn Residual Income Online
• Use Bukisa

Bukisa articles I've written:

• Optimizing Revenue on Bukisa
• Make eHow Money
• About Marketing eBooks
• Free Budget Worksheets
• Affiliate Marketing Tips

Do you write for Bukisa? Let me know your thoughts! Want to sign up for Bukisa? Use this link to join my fun and growing network!