Slow and Steady

"Slow and Steady" is a fitting title for this entry for two reasons: (1) My earnings have averaged about a dollar a day now for a week. (2) Because of a very interesting website I discovered yesterday.

Recently I had gotten to the point where I thought I had read it all and seen it all (when it comes to eHow). This thought came after I spent $20 dollars on an eBook and learned absolutely nothing new. I'm not bitter though, and I'm not going to rag on the ebook (or even disclose which one it was). I am actually glad I bought it, but not because I found much value in what it said. It helped me "wake up" in a sense. I realized that maybe I was over-complicating and over-analyzing things too much. Maybe I needed take what I knew and just go write articles!

Soon after that (yesteday) I found this website, and it finished the job of bringing me "back to earth." The site reads like an ebook, and it's entitled, "Make Money with eHow," but it's free, and it offers a refreshingly unique perspective. I highly recommend you read it if you are investing much of your time writing for ehow.

Big Jump in Views

This morning's numbers surprised me with a big jump in my views count. Previously, my views had never increased more than 323 in a day (that was the previous record) and usually it has been closer to 200 each day. Today, my views increased by 705! That's encouraging, but I hope it will translate to more money as well, or it won't really matter.

I discovered a trick a few days ago, and implemented it over the weekend, and I suspect that is the reason for the sudden increase. I'll wait until I'm more confident that that's what it is though, because I am still experimenting with the trick, and I have yet to see if the increase in views holds.

I was slightly disappointed in the money total today, I only gained $0.64. That's actually still exciting to me though, because I didn't do anything yesterday. If I didn't do anything else at all, and earned that much each day, I would earn about 20 bucks a month for a long time...for doing nothing! That would be nice boot to the grocery budget, the date budget, or anywhere in the budget. Plus, I suspect the daily totals will keep rising.

I am beginning to see the true meaning of "residual" income.

Once a Week is Not Enough

I had originally intended to make a blog entry once a week, but I have decided that won't be enough. I find that when I sit down to write, I have already forgotten most of what I had told myself I was going to write about. I'm sure sometimes a week may go by between entries, and I certainly don't intend to make an entry every day (but I will update the charts every day), but is a lot that is not getting recorded on this blog that should be.

Today was an encouraging day. I think I am on the right track with my keyword research for my articles and my keyword usage within them. The only other thing I have been doing to drive traffic is that I started leaving comments on the sxc website when I use a picture. The photographers want to know where their pictures are being used, and so they don't mind the back-link to the article where the . It's about the only place on the internet where spamming is okay...

Week Two: eHow Withdrals

Articles Written: 47
Total Views: 2039
Cumulative Earnings: $7.21
Biggest Day: $2.33

This week I was out of town and unable to write any new articles until the last day of the week, and I only finished three. I actually missed writing eHow articles, and must admit that I'm slightly addicted.

I learned traffic from google is better (if you want your articles to earn money) than traffic that comes from other ehow members. Here is the proof.

Week One: No Clue What I'm Doing

Articles Written: 44
Total Views: 688
Total Earnings: $1.54
Biggest Day: $0.83

This week was extremely eperimental. My changed by the minute. So much in fact, that I don't really know who to track which strategies were successful and which were not. I would write a few articles, then research a little more (on how to write money-making articles), then write, then research again...

The "category" I have revisited the most is "how to draw _______." I have tried to think of simple things that wouldn't be difficult to explain or demonstrate in the eHow format. I also tried to target kids with this series (how to draw spiderman, pikachu, etc) figuring that kids are probably a little more click-happy with the mouse, and hoping that might translate to a little more revenue.

Here are some of the tips I have been able to find so far:

1) Don't write lame articles. The eHow community and managers will shut you down if you are violating the terms of use policies, and you simply will not earn money if you are writing articles with no substance. I intended to write quality articles from day 1 but I still have felt like I need to go back and polish a few. The bar is much higher than I initially though - if I want to actually earn money.

2) Become part of the eHow community. Accept friendship requests, comment on and rate others' articles, and participate actively in the forums. In the real world, this would be called "networking" and when you look at it like that, it makes perfect sense. The other eHow authors are not your enemy, they are your allies and your greatest single resource. They're really friendly too.

3) Promote your articles. Add them to websites like Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, and so on. This one was a bit of a let down to me, because I wanted to just write the articles and be done with it, and I don't know how to do it very well yet.

4) Write articles that are specific rather than general. The general topics are all covered. Period. Nothing left. You will quickly run out of material, and people know most of the "general" information you would write about anyway.

5) Keywords: Find keywords using google's keyword tool. This will give you the search data for any keyword or key phrase you enter. Use the same keyword in the title of your article, the intro, as many of the steps as possible, and in the keywords field that you fill out at the end of publishing wizard.

6) Balance quality with quantity. I found loads of advice suggesting quantity and suggesting quality. Time will tell, but to me it doesn't make much sense to spend any time writing an article that won't generate any income.