Make Money Writing Simple Web Articles

What is the one thing that everyone is looking for when they go online? You’ve got it – information. And if you can supply it in all kinds of shapes and forms then you will be paid for doing so, which could lead to a whole new career as a web writer.

Of course it isn’t just online markets that need content; there are hundreds of other markets you could break into as well, including magazines, but overall it is the internet which offers the best opportunities, especially for the beginning writer.

So why should you start online when you want to earn money writing? The reason is simple – it isn’t just editors that need your work. Website owners, people with newsletters that need writing and countless others all have writing jobs that they can’t or won’t do or don’t have the time to do themselves.

That generally sends them scurrying to websites like Elance and Get A Freelancer to find people who will write the articles and content they need for them. There are plus points and negative points to writing for the internet; you won’t often see your work published under your own name as you will usually be ghostwriting it for someone else, but you will get a lot of work since jobs quite often come in batches. You won’t often get just a single article to write for instance – you might get a half dozen, ten, twenty or even more, so the money can soon mount up.

The best places for finding work are the aforementioned sites, but you should also look on classified ad sites such as Craigslist for jobs in your own country and in other places around the world. There are also plenty of writing related websites that can easily be found via the search engines if you look for ‘online writing jobs’ or something similar. Don’t forget blogging jobs as well; if you have your own blog then you already have experience in blogging, so apply for as many as you can. Ongoing blogging jobs are great for bringing in a regular stream of income.

Getting started and building contacts is the hardest part. Go for jobs you feel confident in doing to begin with; after a while you will pick up speed and complete them faster and much more easily. You will soon learn to juggle your work as well in order to meet all your deadlines before they fall due – this is an essential skill you will need to develop in order to position yourself as one of the best in the business.


You could also work for a ghostwriting team if you prefer; these can also be found via the search engines and a simple email should reveal whether they are accepting new writers at any time. This can make life easier since you don’t have to go looking for work all the time – it is generally supplied by the team leader, depending on how that particular team works.

But can you really make a full time income by doing this? The answer is yes you can, but speed and quality are of the essence. If you produce good work then people will naturally come back to you for more of the same. They will also pay more for work of a better standard, so make sure you don’t put yourself down with the $2 an article crowd.

It will take time to build up enough work to be able to leave your current job and start a brand new career as a web writer, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do this if you persevere and keep checking the classified ad sites and job boards every single day. Don’t wait to apply for jobs either – do it as soon as you see them appear. Getting in early can make all the difference in some cases.


So do you think you have it in you to be a writer? If you do there is a huge market out there just waiting for you to dive in. Just remember where you came from, and leave us a comment by using the form below before you go and begin your new career!

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Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets Part II

Managing URL’s and channels

Adsense channels is one area where it’s really easy to go overboard with stats. You can set up URL channels to compare how one website is doing to another. You can also set up sub channels for each URL. If you wanted to you do something channels like this:

• domain1.com – 728 banner
• domain1.com – 336 block
• domain1.com – text link
• domain2.com – 728 banner
• domain2.com – image banner
• domain2.com – 336 block
• domain3.com – 300 block

While this is great for testing and knowing who clicks where and why, it makes your reporting a little wonky. Your total number will always be correct but when you look at your reports with a channel break down things will get displayed multiple times and not add up to correct total. Makes things pretty confusing, so decide if you really need/want that level of reporting detail. TIP: At the very least you want to know what URL is generating the income so be sure to enter distinct URL channels.

Site Design and Integration

Once you know you are going to put adsense on your website you’re going to have to consider where to put it. If this is new site it’s easier, if it’s an existing site it’s more difficult. While there are some people who will be able to do it, in most cases I’d say if you just slap the adsense code in, you’ll end up with a frankensite monster (props to Tedster of WMW for the buzzword). While every website is different, Google has published some heat maps showing the optimal locations. No surprise that the best spots are middle of the page and left hand side. Now I’ve done really well by placing it on the right, but you should know why you’re doing it that way before hand, and be prepared to change it if it doesn’t work out.
Google has also has published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:

• 336×280 large rectangle
• 300×250 inline rectangle
• 160×600 wide skyscraper

From the sites that I run, I do really well with the 336 rectangle and 160 skyscraper. My next best performing ad size is the 728 leaderboard, I don’t really use the 300 inline rectangle too often. So really it depends on how well you integrate these into your site. Placement can have a dramatic effect on performance.  

TIP: When working on a new site or new layout you may want to give each location it’s own channel for a little while until you understand the users behavior.

Another ‘trick’ that can increase your CTR is by blending your adsense into your body copy. For example if your body copy is black, remove the adsense border and make the title, text, and URL black.TIP: Try changing all of your page hyperlinks to a high contrast color (like dark red or a bold blue) then change the adsense title to the same color.

The one area where I’ve found blended ads don’t perform as well is forums, especially ones with a high volume of repeat members. Regular visitors develop banner blindness pretty quickly. One ‘trick’ to keep the ads from being ignored is to randomize the color and even the placement. As with any of the decisions about location, placement and color it’s a trade off. How much do you emphasize the ads without annoying your visitors. Remember it’s better to have a 1% CTR with 500 regular visitors as opposed to a 5% CTR with 50 visitors. TIP: For forums try placing the adsense ads directly above or below the the first forum thread.

Using Images

One of the latest ‘secrets’ to make the rounds is using images placed directly above or below an adsense leaderboard. This has been used for a while but came out in a digital point forum thread where a member talked about quadrupling their CTR. Basically you set up the adsense code in a table with four images that line up directly with the ads.

Whether or not this is deceptive is fuzzy and very subjective. Obviously four blinking arrows would be ‘enticing people to click’ and be against the adsense TOS. However placing pictures of 4 laptops over laptops ads isn’t, so use your best judgment here and look at it from the advertiser or Google’s perspective. If you have a question as to your implementation being ‘over the line’ write to adsense and ask them to take a look.

As far as using the images, I’ve done it and can tell you it definitely works. You get the best results when the images ‘complete the story the ads are telling’. For example if you have ads about apple pies, use pictures of freshly baked apple pies, instead of granny smith, Macintosh, pink lady, and braeburn apples.

TIP: Don’t limit yourself to using images only on that size ad unit, it works just as well with the other sizes, like the 336 rectangle.

Added:
I got a little criticizm for this and rightly so, as I wasn’t specific as I could have been. Do not use very identifiable brand name or products for your images. Use generic non-specific stock images whenever possible and appropriate.


Source: Net

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Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets Part I

I’ve been reading a few forums and blogs about Google Adsense tips lately, and thought it would be helpful to consolidate as many as possible in one place without the comments. I’ve also thrown in a few tips of my own. We start out with some of the basic general stuff and move to the more specific topics later on.

Build an Empire?

When you’re deciding to become a website publisher you will fall into one of two broad categories:
 

• Publish 100 websites that each earn $1 a day profit
• Publish 1 website that earns $100 a day profit

The reality of it is, most people end up somewhere in between. Having 100 websites leaves you with maintenance, management and content issues. Having one website leaves you open to all sort of fluctuations (search engines algorithm’s, market trends, etc). You can adapt your plan on the way, but you’ll have an easier time if you start out going in the direction of where you want to end up.

General or Niche

You can build your website around general topics or niche ones. Generally speaking niche websites work better with adsense. First off the ad targeting is much better. Secondly as you have a narrow focus your writing naturally becomes more expert in nature. Hopefully this makes you more authority in your field.

If this is your first try at building an adsense website, make it about something you enjoy. It will make the process much easier and less painful to accomplish. You should however make sure that your topic has enough of an ad inventory and the payout is at a level you are comfortable with. You may love medieval folk dancing, but the pool of advertisers for that subject is very small (in fact it’s currently zero).

Once you’ve gotten the hang of how Adsense works on a website, you are going to want to dabble in some high paying keywords, you may even be tempted to buy a high paying keyword list. This does come with some dangers. First off the level of fraud is much higher on the big money terms. Secondly there is a distortion of the supply and demand relationship for these terms. Everyone wants ads on their website that make $35 or more a click, however the number of advertisers who are willing to pay that much is pretty limited.

Additionally the competition for that traffic is going to be stiff. So, don’t try to run with the big dogs if you can’t keep up. If you have to ask if you’re a big dog, then chances are, you’re not. I have used a high dollar keywords report from cashkeywords.com and was pleased with my results (see cash keywords free offer recap).

New Sites, Files and Maintenance

When you’re building a new site don’t put adsense on it until it’s finished. In fact I’d go even farther and say don’t put adsense on it until you have built inbound links and started getting traffic. If you put up a website with “lorem ipsum” dummy or placeholder text, your adsense ads will almost certainly be off topic. This is often true for new files on existing websites, especially if the topic is new or different. It may take days or weeks for google’s media bot to come back to your page and get the ads properly targeted.  

TIP: If you start getting lots of traffic from a variety of IP’s you will speed this process up dramatically.

I like to build my sites using include files. I put the header, footer and navigation in common files. It makes it much easier to maintain and manage. I also like to put my adsense code in include files. If I want/need to change my adsense code, it’s only one file I have to work with. TIP: I also use programming to turn the adsense on or off. I can change one global variable to true or false and my adsense ads will appear or disappear.

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