Making Time for Revenue Share

I'm as guilty as anyone else when it comes to putting off revenue share work and paying more attention to upfront fee work. It's hard to make long-term wealth a priority over immediate income. So how can we change our frame of mind and start putting that long-term money as more of a priority?

We have to start seeing that it is possible. Are we ever going to hit our goals? Will I actually be able to make $1,432 per month (The goal of this blog). I know it is possible! But it's not going to happen by magic. I have to set aside the time to write in this genre. I have to do the research on SEO and incorporate my keywords into my writing. If I don't do the work I will never hit my goal.

So how have I done this last year?

Mediocre, is probably the best word to describe my progress. Here's a simple breakdown of my earnings to date with this project:

Updated Numbers! 01/12/2012

2009 Ending Totals- $2.25

2010 Ending Totals - $116.33

Currently I only have 28 active revenue share articles. 

So it's now 2011 and my big goals for completing 5 revenue share articles each week are again going by the wayside. Now I have to make a plan. You can make your plan too. It's only a few days into 2011 so we have the whole year to make progress on these goals. 

Step 1

Make a list of articles you want to write. 100 titles is a good first start. Use your SEO knowledge to choose your titles. I own "Search Engine Optimization in One Hour a Day". I like how it makes the SEO concepts easy to understand. But I really love the idea of spending minimal time working on SEO.

 

 Step 2


Set your daily or weekly Revenue Share writing goal. Do you want to write one article per day? Keep your goal reasonable and in line with how much other writing you are doing each day.


Step 3


Write one revenue share article right now. Don't wait! Do it now. Get yourself ready for a great year of revenue share writing!


Step 4


Keep track of your progress. I'm printing my article list out so I can draw a satisfying line through each article as I finish them. Do what works for you to stay motivated this year.


Step 5


Find your carrot! What can you dangle in front of yourself to keep you motivated to write your revenue share articles? Obviously the long-term passive income is important, but for many of us that is not going to be the best motivator. We need a more immediate reward that we can work towards each week or month.


Good luck everyone on your year of revenue share writing and building your passive income to fit all your hopes and dreams!

Search Engine Optimization

We hear about search engine optimization often when writing for online clients. Use keywords, repeat the keywords in every paragraph are all common search engine optimization tips. But I want to do more! My goal is to be earning $1,432 every month from these articles. I need the search engines to find my writing and I don't want to wait a year for this to happen.

I've done a lot of research on this topic, but admittedly I am no expert. I always use a small set of keywords, always have the keywords from the title in at least three places throughout the article and I use the keywords in any pictures I use with the article.

Another important aspect of search engine optimization is when outside webpages link back to your article. External links to your article help drive Google and Yahoo to see your page as a useful source of information. If you write a lot of articles in the same genre it may be possible to link to your other articles on the topic. Some writing service will not allow this though, like Demand Studios. At Demand, where I write, I cannot link to other eHow articles as a source of my information.

When adding the keywords to your article do not over do it. A useful informative article is much more useful to you than a keyword packed article that does not make sense and is not useful to the readers.

I'll keep experimenting with my optimization and keep you all updated as I learn new tips and tricks.

New Start

Well a year has come and gone, and the Project 1432 continues on. The website eHow stopped their writer's program and now goes through Demand Media for their web content. This change was disruptive to my project.

The new guidelines for writing revenue share articles through Demand Media are not much different from the old eHow. The main difference is that each article you write is viewed by an editor before being submitted to the eHow site. I have to have references for every article and I cannot make changes to my articles once they are submitted.

Changes to your revenue share articles are helpful because you can add links to similar articles you have written and make updates to the information in the article. Both of these things are useful in making your content fresh to the search engines.

I have decided to continue with project 1432 in the coming 2011 writing year. I feel more comfortable with the revenue share program through Demand Media and I have also seen some initial earnings in the first article I wrote through they revenue share program.

So to start of the next stage of Project 1432 I am submitting my updated numbers:

In November I made                      $22.90 (eHow) 1.29 (Demand)
Total earnings Dec. 09 to Oct. 10  $72.21 (eHow) 1.38 (Demand)

Days left in the Project:      New start
Total Articles Written:       25 (24 on eHow and 1 on Demand)
Articles left to write:          1407 Article
Earnings to date: 2009         $ 2.25
                          2010         $ 95.53
Grand Total on eHow          $ 97.78

Ok. The first thing you will notice with these updated numbers is.... WOW my eHow articles have been earning some cash this year! The month of November my 24 article on eHow almost earned $1 each. Now I know what your thinking, $1 for an article is crazy. Why would I think that is good.

Well because that is actually my goal with this Project 1432. To earn $1 per article PER MONTH in passive income. Think about that for a second.... Wouldn't it be nice to get $1,432 every month from work you have long since completed?

So I have a renewed excitement for this project and I'm happy to be doing it through Demand Media. I am eager to learn what types of articles work best. I am excited to write some topics I am an expert in. I am also excited to write more product oriented topics and see if that helps my revenue share numbers.

I'll keep you all updated as this project continues!

Update on Changes with eHow

Ok so I have not written any more articles for eHow. I know it is so disappointing! eHow has gone through some major changes and you can no longer write articles directly on their website. Instead, you have to write them through DemandStudios.com. I am a registered writer with Demand Studios and will work to figure out how to write the eHow articles with their revenue share program. I will then add those article numbers to the ones I have already done through eHow's website.

One interesting note I'd like to share is the continued money I have been making through eHow even though I have not written and article for them since January!!!

In February I made         $4.45
In March it was               $4.48
For April it was               $5.81
May was a total of            $7.91

Days left in the Project:      189
Total Articles Written:        21
Average Articles per day is like ZERO..lol
Articles left to write:          1412
Article Earnings to date: 2009 $2.25
                                     2010 $26.91
Grand Total on eHow          $29.16

In some other interesting, exciting, terrifying news.... I am no longer working as a counselor :( This saddens me because I have spent so many years working towards being a counselor and dedicating my time to my patients. But I do have to admit I have felt wonderful since leaving my job. I love spending my days with my children. I love writing and all the freedom that it offers. I love that my constant stomach pains from stress are no longer here. It will be a transition but I'm excited to see what is ahead of me.

It was memorial day last weekend and we took the whole family up to visit Army. We still haven't picked out a headstone for him :( This is distressing to me. My husband has such a difficult time talking about the loss of Armstrong that anytime I want to discuss what will go on the headstone he quickly distracts himself with something and just refuses to participate. It is getting to the point that I may just take the kids to pick one out with me. I know they all have some grandiose ideas of what Army's headstone should look like. I've heard it should be shaped like giant french fries, a Diego the Explorer head, and even just a life size statue of Armstrong...lol. They are all so creative!

Well that's it for now. I'll keep you all updated on the progress through Demand Studios as I learn how to post the eHow articles with them.

Update

Well it has been 2 weeks since I updated you all on Project 1432 progress. I've been really wrapped up in the disaster in Haiti and just totally forgot to update. Here are my numbers as of today:

Days left of project: 318
Total Articles Written: 21
Average Articles per day: WAY...LESS THAN 1 per day :(
Articles left to write: 1412
Article views: 2,335
Article earnings: 2009 End of year (Dec. 9th -31st) $2.25
                         January $3.64

So I'm still not up to the minimum of $10 to have a payment sent out. But I am very optamistic considering the low number of articles I have actually written so far.

Here we go again

Well I've completed a whoping 1 article to add to last weeks totals. But on the positive side I have finished the 106 page rough draft for my clients workbook. So with that done I can now get back to working on Articles on a more regular basis.

The other big goal I'm working on right now is running a marathon on May 2nd. Yesterday was my BIG run for the week. Normally I would try and go slow and steady on this run but I really just wanted to see how hard I could work yesterday. So I ran faster than normal, but still took walking breaks in between. My knees are really sore and it is just impossible for me to run a long distance without walking breaks. But we will see how that progresses as I continue my workouts in the coming months. Super sore today though :(

Here's the Stats for this week :)

Days left of project: 332

Total Articles Written: 16
Average Articles per day: WAY...LESS THAN 1 per day :(
Articles left to write: 1416
Article views: 1764
Article earnings: 2009 End of year (Dec. 9th -31st) $2.25
                         January $.85

Here's my latest article addition on Social Networking :)

How to Use Social Networking

I wrote it to go along with my application for a job at about.com :) I'll let you know if anything comes from that opportunity!

Happy Monday,

Lindsay

Snowed in but still no progress...

You would think being snowed in would give me the perfect opportunity to finally get caught up on my eHow articles. But nope! I'm still working on this darn workbook project for a client. The good news is the workbook pays $850, so it is well worth my distraction. But all I keep thinking about is how far behind I'm getting on my articles per day :(

A sunny picture of Armstrong at the beach to warm us up :)

So my procrastination wasn't all that bad today and I actually got about 3 workbook chapters completed. There was a definate time where my productively lapsed and I started playing on Facebook etc.

Tomorrow is another snowed in day...so maybe I'll be able to get this whole workbook done and move on to normal article life! 8 chapters left of the workbook!

Go go go!