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?

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.