eHow Anniversary: 2 Years, 2.3 Million Views

Today marks the second anniversary of the date I first created an eHow profile, WriterGig, and clicked publish on my first eHow article. What an adventure it's been! What started out as a casual experiment introduced me to the very real concept of residual income and led to a complete shift in my business model and life as a work at home mom.

My post Work from Home Writing eHow Articles was the first time I blogged about writing for eHow, about a month and a half after I started on the site. I had already seen the earnings potential and encouraged my fellow writers and work at home moms to give eHow a try. Needless to say, I'm glad I gave it a go.

Eight of the articles I wrote in late 2007 have earned over $100 each; several of those have more than $500 apiece accumulated thus far ... and continue to earn. Compare that to most of the writing freelancers do on a daily basis for one-time pay that's not always very good -- this is why I do virtually no conventional freelancing at this point: I've transitioned to writing primarily for "myself" and retaining rights, and the resulting revenue, to my work.

I have tried several revenue-sharing content sites and while each has its own merits, eHow remains my top site for residual earnings on a per-article basis. Its age, page rank, site layout and article/ ad format create a combination that is favorable to writers and allows me to spend more time writing and less time on promotion. The fact that I have received 2,369,954 page views to date is a testimony to eHow's ranking as a site (and of course, keyword research and basic search engine optimization on my part).

Last year, I attended weHow, the 2008 eHow User Event held in Santa Monica, CA and had a wonderful time, as well as received the Top Earner community award -- it was a thrill! This year, I won a place on the trip through the Passionate Project People contest for my "I Did This Project" on making window cornice boards. I was really excited about the trip this year, which was held in San Francisco this past week, but was unfortunately unable to attend due to the timing.

As part of my eHow adventure, in 2008 I wrote my eHow eBook, How to Earn Passive Income on eHow.com, in response to the many inquires I received from other writers and work at home moms who wanted to know how to succeed on eHow. It remains a strong seller to this day, further increasing my eHow-related income while giving others valuable information.

How has your experience been with eHow so far? If you're not on the site, why not? Would love to hear your thoughts!

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?

The eHow Article Sweeps

The eHow article sweeps, thus named by eHow staff, refer to eHow's periodic "cleansing" of its article library -- at least, the section of its library written by eHow member-writers. Articles composed by Demand Studios freelance writers or previously bought from Writers Research Group are not included in these "sweeps."

As part of its article moderation program, article reviewers view members' articles at random, choosing "Accept" or "Reject" for each one. If the reviewer rejects an article, he selects a reason for rejection from a list of possibilities, which include "Advertising/Spam," "Clone," "Common Sense," "Blog/Opinion" and similar other reasons.

Articles that have been rejected by two separate article reviewers are slated for culling, or removal, from the site. If an article is approved by one and denied by another, it goes to another reviewer for a tiebreaker.

Once an article is removed, its original URL, or web address, is redirected by eHow to a related article or topic page.

Objectively, article moderation seems like an excellent idea. A website filled with spam, cloned articles, useless fluff or mediocre content will do nobody any good, and will ultimately fail. I am a big supporter of improving eHow's content, in all sections of its library (ie including articles from Demand Studios and Writers Research group and its older material).

The main problem I have is the way in which these sweeps have occurred, where decent articles are removed based on two people's subjective, often hasty, opinions and writers are not given a chance to improve or edit their work before it is deleted.

One of my friends, both on eHow and in real life, had an article removed in the last sweep that had already earned her over $1,400 in under a year. Her article URL (#1 in Google search results for her keywords) was redirected to a similar article by a Demand Studios writer. The demoralizing effect of losing this article has turned her off completely from writing for eHow.

In my mind, eHow remains an excellent place to publish content and earn money for your efforts. As the community grows, all kinds of content is added daily, and there has to be some way to ensure that quality standards are upheld. If eHow will listen to its writers and improve the system, everyone will be better off.

For writers who have experienced article loss on eHow, especially those who feel they lost quality articles and don't understand why, you have my my sympathy. Definitely take the time to review eHow's new Writers Guidelines and try to discern why your articles were removed.

I also suggest that writers take their rejected articles elsewhere, but first clean them up, correct mistakes, and make sure the content is truly worthwhile.

There are several very good revenue-sharing content-based sites that I use and recommend, namely:

• InfoBarrel
• Bukisa
• HubPages

While eHow is still my top moneymaker, I believe that, in time, these sites may rival eHow for earnings on a per-article basis as their Google pagerank improves and submitted articles appear higher in search engine results.

I have a handful of articles on each site and will add more each month. I am working on my own niche sites as well, and InfoBarrel, HubPages and Bukisa are great for building backlinks to your blogs and other content in a way that eHow is not. On all three sites, you can include links within the text of an article.

With online writing and marketing, diversity is key to success. Write for several sites, not just one. Think of the eHow article sweeps -- if your content was affected -- as a reminder that it's good business sense to earn money from as many sources as possible.