Freelance Writing

Jan

This post is part of the 12 Steps to Blogging Success Series for Step One.

One of the things I do to help develop and grow a business mindset is to invest in quality reading and educational material. Here’s a list of 12 must-read books for business and blogging that you should add to your bookshelf this year.

(Note – if one of your favorites didn’t make the list, let me know in the comments. And realize – some books will be reviewed and mentioned in the step where they are best suited. This list is specifically about business skills and general blogging information.)

1. The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success by Jeff Olson

This is one of the top books on my list for everyone – it’s such a simple concept but so profound when you begin to apply it to your life. And not just in business, but in every area. Jeff Olson just released a new edition of the book available in paperback or Kindle. This book is a true life-changer, no doubt about it.

2. The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Large, Loyal, Profitable Network Using the Social Web by Mari Smith

I just picked up a signed copy of The New Relationship Marketing at BlogWorld Expo in November and love it. I think this book will benefit bloggers because we inherently are seeking to build up a network. Whether huge or small-but-passionate, Mari covers a lot of really useful information. She also provides tons of additional resources that will hep you prioritize your efforts and maximize your time. The book was almost worth the cost for the spreadsheets and worksheets alone. Priceless!

3. 31 Days to Build a Better Blog by Problogger

While this is an ebook, it is one that I consider a must for all bloggers. If you don’t have this book yet, you need to pick it up. Bottom line. I worked through this series on angengland.com and you can see the full 31 Days to Build a Better Blog series and work through that when you pick up a copy of the book or need a refresher course. This is a book I turn to when I’m feeling stuck or in need of motivation in my blogging.

4. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

This book is a good one for you to read, in my opinion, because bloggers really do build up an equity of trust with their readers, colleagues and clients. And it’s not just in terms of trying to sell them, but in all aspects of the relationship. My readers expect a high level of information, because I work hard to provide quality posts or a unique, personal perspective. That is a trust I take seriously – it makes me a Trust Agent. And you are too – or should be. Trust Agents explains what that entails and how to not screw it up.

5. The Flinch – By Julien Smith

A free download on Kindle it is everything you would expect from a book by Julien Smith – insightful and thought-provoking. When I asked a group of speakers from BlogWorld Expo about their goals in the coming year, one of them mentioned she wanted to reach out and explore more opportunities without letting fear hold her back. That’s precisely what The Flinch is about – embracing the flinch and moving beyond fear and self-doubt.

6. Mom, Incorporated: A Guide to Business and Baby by Danielle Smith and Aliza Sherman

Mom Incorporated is spot-on in exploring the unique challenges of creating a new business, any business, as a mother. I think much of the advice and conversations in this book would be relevant to any parent pursuing a new business. Not just applicable to bloggers, the business advice in this book will help you understand the must-know basics of business that you should be addressing. Watch for an interview with Danielle and Aliza coming soon!

7. The Radical Leap Re-Energized: Doing What You Love in the Service of People Who Love What You Do by Steve Farber

I had the privilege of hearing Steve speak at SOBCon Chicago 2011 and he was fabulous. We received a copy of his new book, The Radical Leap Re-Energized and it rocketed to my top must-read list. It’s not technical, and it doesn’t read like a typical “self-help” or leadership book. It’s intelligent and an easy read book that leads you through an entertaining novel-like story and teaches you something along the way. Learn how to leap into your OS!Ms and take your life in an exciting direction with confidence.

8. Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

One of the areas in which all of the top bloggers really excel is in creating a feeling of community. Whether that is centered around their blog, a cause, a passion, or a journey, there is some sort of community being built around that. And that’s the case that Seth Godin makes in his book, Tribes. Don’t expect this to be a leadership “how-to” book, but rather to be a book that will motivate you to think about and consider what YOUR tribe might be and to remember why it’s important.

9. The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice by Todd Henry

The Accidental Creative snags you right from the start and plants little splinters of interesting thoughts in your mind. Bloggers definitely fall into the category of “creatives” and learning how to do that on a consistent basis is one of the biggest roadblocks to long-term success. How often have you seen a new blogger quit after only a couple of months? Learn how to avoid “burnout” by combining three elements: Brilliant + Prolific + Healthy = “producing great work consistently and in a sustainable way.” After all, isn’t that what every blogger wants?

10. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown

This isn’t specifically a business book or a blogging book, but like The Slight Edge, The Gifts of Imperfection is a life book. It’s a book that explores what it means to be wholehearted and the huge ramifications this type of wholeheartedness can have. This book explores the tools that vulnerability puts at our disposal and guideposts to help us remain wholehearted in life, love and work. The echoes of this type of courage are profound.

11. Beyond Basketball: Coach K’s Keywords for Success by Mike Krzyzewski and Jamie Spatola (Coach K’s daughter)

While “Coach K” as he’s called, is a basketball coach this is a book I would add to the top twelve must-reads in the coming year. Beyond Basketball is precisely that, a book that looks at principles of success reaching far beyond the court. My husband bought the audio version of this book because he loves basketball and I came into the book about halfway through. After we finished, I made him replay the audio book on our road trip so I could listen to rest. Coach K shares some action words and what they mean to him in a series of essays that are easy to read and process, but profound and inspirational to listen to.

12. Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months by Melinda Emerson

I like that this book doesn’t sugar coat the reality of running a business. It’s. Not. Easy. There is a reason why most small business fail within the first few months – because they never should have been started in the first place. Melinda does a great job of starting this book with a look at evaluating and planning. I’m a huge fan of having a plan in place and Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months will help you do exactly that, while staying flexible enough to cope with the unexpected you’re sure to encounter. From the very first chapter you begin working through a series of questions that will be eye-opening about whether or not this is the right path for you. And if it is – you have a friendly guide to hold your hand along the way.

The links I used are affiliate links. Some of these books were given to me and some of these books I’ve purchased. They are all on my bookshelf or Kindle and are books I recommend!

I hope you will invest in a book or two each month this year – it’s one of my non-negotiable expenses. Feeding my mind with quality content is essential and I generally pick up one or two books like these each month. Do you have a favorite not on the list? Share it in the comments!

In future steps I’ll cover topic-specific books like Mom Blog SEO and List Building for Bloggers but I think it’s important for bloggers who want to develop a business to invest in BUSINESS and life-development books, not just technical tutorial books. A well-rounded blogger is a more successful blogger in life and work both!

Aug

Link Building Tactics – Increase Your Traffic Through Organic SEO

By AngEngland | SEO Tips

14 Comments

Are you building incoming links to your site wisely? Let them all point to a well-anchored post or page!

This post was written as part of the Blog Hop Conference at Home and you can check out the other 2 dozen + conference sessions being offered at Blog Conference Newbie’s Blop Hop Conference Agenda!

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a way to help search engines figure out what you’re writing about. I’ve written about the basics of SEO for Bloggers in the past, and have even discussed the importance of building incoming links. However, I wanted to share some more in-depth information since Google’s Panda changes and since I had the occasion to test the link-building principles in a recent case study after the launch of my new ebook.

Case Study of the Ebook Links

Before the book launched, I wrote a post about Why You Should Write an Ebook. If you search the phrase “Why You Should Write an Ebook” I rank second in Google results (right behind Seth Godin- Not bad!). However there was another keyword phrase that would have fit the post just as much – Benefits of Writing an Ebook.

I decided to focus on that second phrase when linking to the post from elsewhere around the web. I knew I had many guest posts coming up to celebrate the launch of my ebook, and I chose to link back to this Why You Should Write an Ebook post from many of them using the phrase “benefits of writing an ebook”.

Notice in this guest post at About.com about the steps of writing an ebook (different but similar topic focus), and here in this post about planning your posts with an ebook in mind, and this post about turning passion into profit through ebooks, or this one about getting started with ebook topic selection.

And with those incoming links alone, when you search “Benefits of Writing an Ebook” on Google my angengland.com Why You Should Write an Ebook post ranks #3. #3! For a term not even in the title or introduction. The term wasn’t added to the subheading until I decided to target this keyword phrase.

Incoming Links Have SEO and Traffic Power

Readers are looking for you. Are they finding you?

Can those four incoming links really impact the traffic of my site? Absolutely! That post is currently in my top ten of posts on my website with about 1/2 the traffic coming from search engine traffic and the other half coming from direct traffic (with guest posts expect a temporary increase in direct traffic that tapers off as those posts drop off the front page of the other website). So those four incoming links helped boost the importance of that post to Google.

Think of it this way – the 1/2 of the visitors that came directly from those websites were going to come no matter what type of link I used. They were visiting my site because they read the post and wanted to check out what I’d linked. However, the 50% of visitors that came from judicious keywording? Those were EXTRA! Those are the bonus visitors who found me because I implemented smart link building tactics with my guest posts. In a very real sense, I DOUBLED the traffic to those posts with my keyword selection in the first month. Wouldn’t doubling your traffic help you out? Is it worth one day of keyword research time?

When someone searches “benefits of writing an ebook” my post ranks highly for the term. Why? Because these other authority sites have TOLD Google that’s what my post is about. It’s the same reason why the top result for “click here” in Google is Adobe. Because every website with a PDF download says “To download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader, Click Here” and links to Adobe’s website. They’ve all, in a sense, told Google that “click here” is what that website is about.

How Can You Use This Tendency To Boost Traffic?

The right keywords welcome the right readers to your site.

Well if you really want to get fancy with it, you can target keyword phrases with higher search volumes. In otherwords, when you write a guest post or column somewhere, instead of linking haphazardly, you can link with a plan. Link with just a teeny, tiny bit of fore-thought and change the name of the game for yourself. Change how Google thinks of your blog. Or even a specific post!

Even just picking one main keyword phrase or focus per post – or choosing one post that you want to focus on highlighting when you’re guest blogging or writing as a columnist somewhere or contributing to a content site around the web, can make a huge difference in the results you have building your search engine traffic and rankings organically. You should consider doing keyword research, even just once, to find a handful of core key phrases to focus on in your search engine optimization efforts.

I’m talking about doing the research work ONE TIME (or hiring someone like me to do it for you) and then using that information any time you write anywhere else online. One time work. Long-term benefits.

Where Can You Get Incoming Links

For me it’s simple – the easiest way to control the quality and nature of the incoming link you have pointing back to your website is to create content for other sites. I’m a writer – that’s my default mindset. By creating a few extra tidbits of information, the way I did with the ebook guest posts, you can lead readers yes, but more importantly Google, back to your main website.

So where can you write to get those links? Guest posting is one way to build the incoming links. What websites have a similar or related topic that you could write a guest post for? I’ve collected a full list of websites to write at for incoming links that you can look through and select from. Contributing to any or all of these sites can be part of an important traffic building campaign.

Your contributions will not only bring you potential new readers, new followers and all the other benefits of direct traffic, but also help you create a highly effective search engine optimization strategy that works organically without feeling spammy or icky or using any black-hat techniques that Google is getting better at rooting out. However, those guest posts and contributions will ONLY work as part of a long-term traffic building plan if you HAVE a long-term traffic building plan.

Apr

Paid Staff Writing Positions at Blissfully Domestic

By AngEngland | Sites That Pay

11 Comments

Looking for a paid writing job? Photo by Jakub Krechowicz

I’ve been with Blissfully Domestic just over a year now. In March of 2010 they brought me in as Editor-in-Chief and I’ve been working so hard to see the site grow and increase ever since. I’ve met some amazing writers and the site has doubled in page views because of them (the writers).

This is why I am thrilled beyond measure to be able to share that Blissfully Domestic is growing yet again! We’re now hiring Staff Writers for several current or coming topic areas. And at $25 upfront per post it’s nothing to wrinkle your nose at!

Topics include:

Travel
Pets
Marriage
Homeschooling
Celebrity News
Entrepreneur

and several more. If you have professional writing experience or knowledge in any of the topics listed on the application take a minute to fill out the form! I’d love to see some of you, my faithful readers, apply to work with me at Blissfully Domestic. If you’re interested fill out the Staff Writer Application here.

Jan

Review of 75 Ways to Make Money Blogging Ebook

By AngEngland | Ebooks, Resources

5 Comments

This is a review of an ebook by a good friend and colleague, Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen, founder of Quips and Tips Blog Network, and someone who’s guest posted here before in the Focus Your Efforts post as part of the Ten Habits. She has authored a book titled 75 Ways to Make Money Blogging: Without Selling Stuff, Overdoing the Ads or Offending Readers.

Her introduction sums up one of my personal philosophies so nicely,

“It’s not just about making money; it’s about building a blog you’re proud of.”

And the book continues with it’s amazing goodness from there. The ebook is 63 pages and three main chapters or sections covering how to build your blog, advertising, and making money.

How is 75 Ways to Make Money Blogging Organized?

Each sub-section begins with a “snags untangled in this chapter” list of what is covered. For those who like to jump around in a book and pick out only the most relevant bits, this is the section to glance at to see if you need to read the whole thing. Easy to digest tips make up the meat of the chapter, which finishes with the inspirational “quips” or quotes finishing up each chapter.

What are the Benefits and Weaknesses of 75 Ways to Make Money Blogging Ebook?

Easy to read information that is truly helpful, for one thing. This ebook is written in the same style as the blogs that Laurie writes, and it’s a brilliant writing style that I have always enjoyed. I found the information a great starting place, especially for beginning bloggers.

The information starts right at the very beginning from choosing a topic to looking for ways to help build your traffic. Some of tips don’t delve as deep into the technical or second step of things, for example the SEO section was rather sparse. But that’s not the main focus of the book. Instead the sheer amount of tips and information given are more than enough to get you started on the right direction with your blog.

I learned quite a few things as well, even though I’ve been online for awhile. It always helps to be able to pick someone else’s brain every once in awhile, and that’s exactly what this book is like – sitting and chatting with Laurie about what’s worked for her.

I specifically came away with some specific ideas and takeaways like:

Create a plan to generate traffic. (Something most bloggers do not do enough of in my opinion.)
How to work with a bigger blog network. (Something that I have not done enough of lately.)
Use those free Google Adwords vouchers to advertise your blog (Man why have I not done this yet!)
Stay focused on your blog strateg…..hey! Look at that shiny over there!
Ad placement matters – this was immensely interesting to me and something I highlighted for additional review later.

While her ebook may not go hugely in-depth on a lot of the technical details, or specifics on various ad networks, it represents a lot of overview information for bloggers to work through. In doing so, they are sure to come away with plenty of ideas and takeaways of their own. This is an ebook I would recommend in the future to consultation clients - especially those who felt overwhelmed by “where to start” or “what now” feelings. The concise, easy-to-read style cuts through the clutter with brilliance.

PS – Tomorrow I’ll be resuming the Beyond 31 Days Series.

Nov

SEO Basics for Blogging – Writing for Google Traffic Without Losing Readers

By AngEngland | Personal Blogging, SEO Tips

10 Comments

This post is written as part of The Blogging Mavens blog series which you can see the rest of at A Closet Writer.

There is a delicate balance between using basic SEO principles to bring in the search engine traffic you should be seeing on your site, and “writing what you want to write”. Many bloggers are under the misguided opinion that being aware of SEO will be selling out from their writing and their audience. I disagree – knowing how SEO works will enable bloggers to FIND their audience. Or rather, to help their audience find them!

The ABC’s of Good SEO Writing

When I’m talking about search engine optimization, especially with beginning bloggers or those who are just learning about SEO, I like to talk about the ABC’s.

A = Active Titles: Call the post what it is. Titles are one of the key elements on the page that Google checks when determining what the post is about. If your post is about making homemade pizza, call the post “Making Homemade Pizza” and you’ll bring in the right readers.

B = Bolded Subheadings: Use subheadings like mini-titles to describe each paragraph or two so Google, and your readers, know what you’re talking about. That way Google can send you the readers that want to hear what you have to say.

C = Cut Away Fluff: With very few exceptions, it’s better to write multiple, shorter posts, than it is to write one gigantic post. Don’t cram the homemade pizza, the delicious dessert and the family fun night game into one 1500 word post. Make them three 400-500 word posts and give your readers more opportunity to find you.

Moving beyond the ABC’s of good SEO there are a few other tips to keep in mind.

Additional Ways to Increase SEO on Your Blog Posts

Here are a few other ways to improve the SEO on your blog posts and articles. While I go in-depth into each during my talks at conferences, I want to just highlight them here for you. If you have questions, let me know.

Name your photos with a strong keyword phrase.
Use image alt text and/or captions to improve your post’s SEO.
Interlink relevant posts from within your website.
Crosslink to relevant content on other sites (your own as well if you write in more than one place).
Register your own domain name.
Get rid of your clunky themes (sites that load too slowly are penalized by search engines).
Use clear categories and tags instead of cutesy and obscure.
Build incoming links to your blog. Consider linking to specific posts in addition to your main website.
Write, write, write. Fresh content gives you more chances to be found.

So when you’ve moved beyond the very basics of search engine optimization keep some of these other tips in mind. Use your keyword phrases wisely and remember that you can still choose to write about whatever topic you want to write about. By formatting the post with a few of these SEO tips in mind, you’ll bring in additional readers from search engine traffic you may have otherwise missed.

Sep

Interlinking and Crosslinking for SEO to Increase Rankings

By AngEngland | How tos, SEO Tips

9 Comments

This is a training I recorded for Blissfully Domestic and Untrained Housewife but I hope that many of you are able to benefit. Interlinking and cross-linking (what I call linking across multiple websites) can hugely benefit bloggers and web writers and I’ve given a few examples in my screencast below that you may find helpful.

Writing for multiple websites can be a challenge but there are benefits. When Google May-Day hit I found that Untrained Housewife traffic did not suffer at all, in fact increased slightly, while other websites were shaken up.

In researching some possibilities with a few good friends who are STARS with the SEO stuff, we concluded that linking in from multiple websites really matters more than ever. And interlinking to specific posts – not just main homepages. How does it work? Here I demonstrate two main ways to interlink around the web.

Sites and Resources Mentioned:

Blissfully Domestic (Analysis of Blissfully Domestic on AngEngland.com)
Untrained Housewife (Analysis of Untrained Housewife on AngEngland.com)
Hubpages (Analysis of Hubpages on AngEngland.com)
Squidoo (Guess I need to write a post about this one, eh? *laughing*)
Suite101 (Analysis of Suite101 on AngEngland.com)

Aug

27 Must-Read Tips and Tutorials for Bloggers – Day 6 of Build a Better Blog

By AngEngland | Build a Better Blog, Resources

Can You Make Money Writing at Blissfully Domestic? The Pros and Cons

By AngEngland | Sites That Pay

How does Blissfully Domestic Pay Writers?

Writers at Blissfully Domestic, called Column Contributors, are given 99% of the Google Adsense impressions on the content they author. Given the site’s large traffic volume, and page rank of 5, a writer has good potential to earn money there. The percentage of adsense share is relatively high compared to other revenue-share model websites.

What Rights Does Blissfully Domestic Take?

Blissfully Domestic now requires that all content submitted is new, original content and they take electronic rights of that content. Authors retain print, ebook, and other rights, however, which is a benefit compared to Demand Studios or About.com. So you could republish a Blissfully Domestic article in a magazine, but not on your personal blog.

What Other Benefits are There to Writing at Blissfully Domestic?

Blissfully Domestic does have a page rank of 5 currently, so incoming links from the site would be valuable to newer blogs and websites. Blissfully Domestic allows you to link from your articles there to specific posts or articles on other sites, provided they are relevant and on-topic. Blissfully Domestic also allows reviews, and the author bio information appears at the bottom of each post (not in the sidebar beside the content as on Untrained Housewife).

What are the Cons to Writing at Blissfully Domestic?

Blissfully Domestic does not allow affiliate links by Contributors, unlike Untrained Housewife or Hubpages. The site does have an editorial process, so all submissions are looked over by an editor before being scheduled for publication. Some sites, like Hubpages and Suite101 publish immediately, so authors who are accustomed to the immediate gratification of being published may find the process cumbersome.

Applicants to write for Blissfully Domestic will be assigned a specific topic area and are required to publish at least one article to that column per month. Contributors are free to publish as many articles as they want, in any topic area they want, once that minimum requirement has been met. Inactive Contributors who fail to meet the minimum requirements, or quit for whatever reason, will only receive 50% of the Google Adsense impressions after leaving.

Blissfully Domestic is a rapidly growing website with contributors being sought in many topic areas including Music, Education, Humor, Entertainment, Technology, Beauty, Fashion and Style, Kids Crafts and more! If you want to apply to be a writer with Blissfully Domestic, I know their Editor-in-Chief personally. Tell her Angela sent you! Lol!

Feb

SEO Tips For Bloggers – Merging Humanity With Technique Blissdom Workshop Recap

By AngEngland | Conferences, SEO Tips

18 Comments

This is the teaching outline and merged notes from the Blissdom Wisdom Workshop on SEO and Stats that was taught by Kelby Carr (@typeamom) and myself, Angela England (@AngEngland). Thanks to @econemicliving who shared her copy of the notes – the basic teaching outline was created ahead of time, but the Q & A’s came from the audience and helped guide the session outcome!

Writing Good SEO Does Not Have to Hide Your Humanity. Photo by Ivan Petrov

Kelby -Understanding SEO for Bloggers

SEO does not have to mean geeky/soulless. You do not have to choose between writing for humans and computers.

Reasons SEO is important to bloggers

Look at SEO as a different style of writing, just like newspapers, books, TV, radio, etc. are all media with their own styles. Cover basic standards for web/SEO writing: clear, concise, on point, etc.

Ask Yourself: “What Would I Search?”
Go to Google and do a search before you start writing – what comes up is probably what your title should be. (What is this about?)
-Slight tweaking of a phrase can make a big difference

Researching and choosing your keyword phrase (with demo of doing keyword research)
-Ex: mommy blogger, mom blogger: MOM BLOG, top 10 mom blog
(Google – keyword tool –click on global monthly search volume (keep use synonyms checked) – be sure people are searching it.

(Angela’s Note - one of the best features of my ebook is the step-by-step visual guidance on how to do this. If you are “stuck” on this portion of keyword research, or still having trouble applying it to your specific situation, that may be a resource for you to consider.)

Angela – Implementing Human-Friendly SEO on Your Blog

Understand the ABC’s of Web Writing

A – Active Title “No Cutsey” – Start with a good, clear title (should ALSO be title tag next to Mozilla/IE symbol)

B – Bolded Subheading – Use Heading (Angela uses H3) setting vs just bolding

-Subheading for clarity, helps catch the eye
-work some of the words in your title into your subheading

C – Cut Away Rambling Fluff (narrow focus)

Things that help with SEO also help with human readers -(Sub heads – bullets – scan )

Don’t be Afraid to Tailor SEO to Site and Situation - (demo of posting book review to three diff sites)

SEO in Action – Formatting the Post

Tag your photos too – people search for photos- google image search – use hypens between your words – alternative text to increase SEO. Do intro paragraphs for videos and then embed it

From Kelby -Categories = chapters and Tags = index

Takeaway Handout – post from my blog/ebook w/article template for web writing

HUB PAGE – a post to send people to other posts – put your links in a keyword sentence

(Angela’s Note – By popular request, here are some sample hubpages. This is the round-up post for the Ten Habits of Successful Blogging Series on my site. This shows Popular Children’s Books for Preschoolers and here’s one Kelby did about Traveling in the Summer. )

How Can You Improve SEO Now?

At the end of post – call to action (what do you think, post a comment, read this) Link to other people
Weave your keywords/title throughout your post – words in title should be in first paragraph
Google pagerank, firefox browser extensions, seaquake, pagerank
Optimize your past posts – will re-index your SEO’s, including your page titles – rework old content
When you repeat posts (Freebie Friday) put more interesting title at beginning (CVS freebie – Freebie Friday)

A Word About Stats and Analytics

Install Google Analytics – look at referral from google (if under 50%, there’s a problem)
Get Clicky – to see what people are clicking on when they leave your site
Take advantage of seasonal content
Social Bookmarking (wikipedia and digg = no follow links)
Curtsey, mom share, propeller, facebook fan page, stumbleupon.com, Hubpages website are follows (This sample from Hubpages includes another example of a round-up page designed to get On-Topic links back to other posts and articles).
Google.com/webmasters

-set preferred domain
-Claim a sitemap (please use rss feed as a sitemap) – not ideal, but a place to start

Angela says: Content attracts, relationships keep

Search WP extension: “redirect” if you’re going to start changing page names

Create HUB PAGE with lots of resources – with links – and put in side bar

People love Top 10 Lists

(Angela’s Notes – I couldn’t take exact transcriptions on this session because my mouth was open the whole time so I hope you’ll all forgive the rather abrupt and “bullet pointed” type of notes. The information is, of course, still helpful I hope. Kelby and I bounced off eachother so much through the session it was hard to note who said what sometimes. For Mommy Bloggers SEO Advice, please check out Kelby’s upcoming book which will have more specifics on SEO tips that WON’T make you sound like a robot!)

Jan

Re-examining Examiner – Is Examiner Still Paying With the Recent Changes

By AngEngland | Sites That Pay

22 Comments

I’ve recently received a ton of traffic and emails about the post I wrote almost a year ago “Can You Make Money Writing For Examiner.com?” now that Examiner has undergone some changes. Everyone wants to know – What does the local Examiner writing bonus mean? What happened with Google news and Examiner? Is writing for Examiner still “worth it”? So then, let’s talk about the latest and greatest with Examiner.

What is Examiner.com Paying Per Page View Now?

When I did the math on my last month’s revenue the pay-per-thousand pay rate was $9.11. It’s still just over double what I make at Suite101.com per thousand page views, although my base revenue there is more than my base payments at Examiner. Of course, I’ve been writing with Suite101 for over three years so there’s the time and volume issue to consider. I still maintain that the key to making a good revenue at Examiner will be to choose a higher search volume topic – traditionally topics like finance which have higher pay-per-click with Google adsense also have lower page views and more competition and will probably not perform as well on Examiner. On the other hand, topics like recipes and sports which draw lots of page views, are topics which do poorly in traditional revenue share models so may be topics to consider for Examiner.

What did the Recent Local-Writing Pay Structure Change?

Honestly? Not much. Local Examiners now receive a $1 bonus for writing local-focused pieces. This is in addition to the regular pay! After a conversation with Examiner personnel via telephone I can assure you that Examiner is not going to delete posts that are NOT locally-slanted; those pieces just won’t be eligible for the extra $1 bonus. The reason Examiner specifically mentioned they have the ability to delete inappropriate content is because too many Examiners were posting articles completely off-topic, such as a Beauty Examiner posting about a sports team or some such thing.

Is Writing for Examiner.com Worth it?

I cannot answer that for you. I do know that with the new minimum requirements of one post per month it is EASY to contribute there. My articles are picked up by Google fairly quickly. I am able to drive traffic to other sites I write for or resources my readers would enjoy. And it’s definitely platform building. When I call someone and introduce myself as the Oklahoma City Alternative Medicine Examiner, they tend to take that pretty seriously. Which is nice. Am I getting rich? Nope. But it did pay for my plane ticket to #Blissdom (the blogging conference I’m speaking at next week).

Will it be worth it FOR YOU? I have no way to know that. There are pros and cons, to be sure. There are benefits that can come and I know many who are doing well there with their writing. I can’t guarantee you will be one of them but it might be worth a shot for the minimal investment it takes to contribute. If you do decide to give Examiner a try, let them know [2287] Oklahoma Alternative Medicine Examiner sent you. (affiliate link)

12 Business and Blogging Books for Your Bookshelf in 2012