My Writing for Money Journey July 2010

About the beginning of July 2010 I made the decision to begin writing articles for ad sharing websites to promote my blogs and to develop new income streams. This is an account of my personal journey toward my goal of becoming a self-employed freelance writer and making my living from the internet.

My Strategy to Build Multiple Income Streams
My strategy to build multiple income streams meant that I needed to concentrate on signing up for some content sharing sites.

1. I choose Xomba to start with because it sounds like a good way to build backlinks. To experiment I started backlinking to a lot of my older articles on my Easy To Scrapbook blog as I have given very little attention to promoting any of them or indeed that blog. Find out more about backlinking and potential earnings on Xomba
   
   
2. My second strategy was to start writing for HubPages. HubPages shares ad revenue from Google Adsense and affiliate sales from Amazon and eBay earnings with writers. I chose HubPages because of the level of community support there and the ability to earn revenue by recommending articles by other writers.
   
   
3. The third site I concentrated on was RedGage. RedGage allows you to post links and articles that direct readers to websites and blogs. It is a good vehicle for me to start generating traffic to this blog. Plus links created at RedGage are "do follow" so it helps to raise the Google PR of I Make Money Blogger and other blogs and articles I choose to promote. Read about My RedGage Make Money Challenge
   
   
4. One other content sharing website that I have also joined is Triond. Triond is good for article writers because it pays by page view. At the present time it is approximately $3.75 per 1000 page views. In addition it has a 50/50 ad sharing revenue structure which I am hoping to take advantage of.

Set out below is the tracking I have undertaken of my article submissions to various sites RedGage, Triond, HubPages and Xomba and a summary of how much revenue I am generating at each website for my efforts throughout July 2010.

July 3

Xomba
Signed up for Xomba and wrote an article about Charlie the Unicorn video Also bookmarked a scrapbooking page.
Articles = 1, Bookmarks = 1
Balance = $0.00

July 5

HubPages
Signed up by way of experiment and began crafting my first article Make Money Writing on Xomba
Articles = 1
Balance = $0.00

July 6

Xomba
Bookmarked my HubPages article about Xomba.
Articles = 1 , Bookmarks = 2
Balance = $0.00

July 8

HubPages
Article number 2 submitted at HubPages. I doubt I am going to be prolific here but will slowly drip feed my articles. Travel Writing - 8 Story Angles for Travel Writers
Articles = 2
Balance = $0.00

July 25

Triond
Signed up for Triond today and published my first article Potential for Making Money Online with Xomba
Articles = 1
Balance = $0.00

HubPages
Published my third article. Complete rewrite.Work From Home Micro Jobbing at Microworkers
Articles = 3
Balance = $0.00


July 28

I Make Money Blogger
Published Make Money Writing on Squidoo
Balance = $0.00

July 29

HubPages
Published Article Writers Make Money on Squidoo. Virtually all my article traffic is coming from within HubPages.
Articles = 4
Balance = $0.00

July 30

Triond
Published Get Paid for Writing at Squidoo
Earned my first cent after only 6 page views!
Articles = 2
Balance = $0.01

Multiple Income Streams Make Money Online Writing Articles

If you have some writing skills and some know how about a range of subjects you have two of the main ingredients necessary to make money online writing articles. Some people will tell you that you need to be a writer to be successful writing online but the truth is that there are many people who are making a decent living from the internet without ever having had a writing lesson in their lives.


There are many ways to make money online writing articles. I began nearly 18 months ago by creating a free blog at Blogger and then mushroomed into writing more blogs. Other writers begin with revenue sharing websites like HubPages that pay writers a share of the Google Adsense revenue. Still others get paid a set amount for each article. All of these methods of generating income online are worthwhile and can be combined to form multiple income streams.

I have discovered that it is not difficult to make money online writing articles. Working from home suits my lifestyle. No travel, no workplace conflict and complete autonomy. I enjoy the convenience of working my own hours and at my own pace. I have little to waste my time like endless meetings and interruptions which means I have more time and energy to devote to producing articles. Making money online writing articles ticks all of the boxes for me.

When I started I had the vague idea that I could generate some income online but I had no real idea how to do that. Through trial and error I learned the basics of making money online writing articles. Other bloggers have kindly shared their secrets of success with me. In a sense I am gifting back to others the help I have received by creating the I Make Money Blogger blog.

The activities that support my online writing are still the same as when I started blogging. I spend a lot of time doing research for my article and its associated keywords. I try to learn as much as I can about the various ways to make money on the internet as I can. The internet is such a dynamic place that it is crucial that I stay alert to new opportunities to make money online writing articles.

I make it a rule to only pursue legitimate methods of earning income on the internet so if you are looking for get rich quick schemes you won't find information about them on this site. There are plenty of honest ways to make money on the internet now and more potential emerging everyday that I can't see the point in scraping other people's content or other backdoor methods like spamming.

I won't lie to you about the effort required to make money online writing articles. Let me dispel that myth right away - writing is not an easy option. Freelance writers need self discipline. They need the ability to stay on task without any prompting. They need to be motivated to get up in the morning and produce despite whatever else is going on in their personal lives.

I write everyday even when I don't feel like it. I write even if I am not making as much money as I thought I would from the last half a dozen articles. I write and I research and I produce quality content no matter what.

I currently make money on my blogs from Adsense and Chitika revenue together with affiliate referrals such as EBay and Amazon. This revenue is growing all the time and has happened largely without me actively promoting my blogs.


Now that I have moved from dabbling to trying to make some serious income part-time I have had to crank up my online activities to generate multiple income streams.

My first choice in considering new ways to make money online was to join ad revenue sharing websites such as HubPages, Triond and Xomba. Each of these sites is a way to make money online writing but requires consistent posting and participation in the community as well.


More recently I have also joined RedGage, Squidoo and Wikinut. Although I have been a member of each of these sites for nearly a month now my only revenue is $0.21 from RedGage. However I am hopeful that once I get established on these sites and build a community I will start attracting the traffic necessary to make money from article writing.

Another website that I have just joined this week to make a little extra money is Microworkers. Microworkers pays you for performing easy online tasks some of which involve writing. In my first week I made $2.46 from 5 micro jobs and 1 referral. Not bad considering I spent less than 1 hour to complete the tasks.


I have made quite a few mistakes in setting up my passive income streams. Although my earnings are enough to meet the Google Adsense threshold for a monthly $100 check I have had to learn experientially about what works best. I think my main downfall is in not actively promoting my blogs however I am currently beginning to address this by using social media to gain some valuable backlinks.

Generating an income from writing articles online requires me to keep publishing and marketing my articles on an ongoing basis. Search engines reward productivity. The internet is fast becoming more and more saturated with articles of similar content and competition for keyword dominance is growing. However, in real terms this just means I need to take a creative approach, research my articles well and stay informed so that I can easily identify any gaps. There are still plenty of keywords that have not been fully exploited yet.

That little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with your name on it is there waiting for you once you figure out how to find it.

Best of all my articles will keep earning money for years to come. The opportunities for earning residual income writing on the internet are high compared to conventional outlets for your writing. I concentrate largely on writing what are known as evergreen articles (articles that don't date quickly) about subjects that people are searching for information on. This gives me a mechanism to be able to create a continuing source of income that has the potential for growth too.

If you are considering writing articles online then don't limit yourself with one or two sources of income. I believe the secret is to diversify. Build yourself multiple income streams that way if an earner stops generating revenue you are not so vulnerable to the decline.

If you would like to sign up to some ad revenue websites where you can submit your written articles I would suggest you try Triond and HubPages first. Triond because it pays for page views and that will give you a little encouragement to see your articles earning a few pennies. And HubPages for the excellent community and as a great training ground in learning to write keyword rich article against pretty stiff competition.

How To Make Money - Week 1 at RedGage

I recently discovered RedGage, a website that can assist me to promote my blogs and articles for free. I signed up to RedGage because I found out that I can build backlinks to my blog articles and make a little money at the same time.

RedGage is a social community site that pays its members to post content. Members are able to add links to blogs, websites, HubPages, YouTube videos, images and miscellaneous articles and make money depending on the number of page views on RedGage each item receives.

Even more valuable to me than the money I make though is the chance to gain a backlink for every piece of web content that I link to on RedGage. Backlinks are useful for promoting blogs because Google assesses a blog's value and relevance based on the number of links pointing to a blog or website gets from site with a high PR of 3 and above the more credible the site will becomes and the more likely that PR will increased as will relevant position of your blog's articles in SERPs

To give you an idea of what I am doing I have posted my activies on RedGage for the first week. Please note I did not try for the RedGage referral bonus which would have doubled my earnings in the first 48 hours.

RedGage - Day One - Sign Up and Post Content

Today was sign up day at RedGage which took only a minute or two. I then spent some time familiarizing myself with the site content and how it works from the excellent help pages.

My first approach to gaining a presence on RedGage was to start building my RedGage community. I did this by first concentrating my efforts on adding content to RedGage. I uploaded four photos taken by me that I consider good shots. I also linked to an article I wrote several days before about how to make money writing on Xomba. I was interested in the kind of response I would get so I just waited to see what unfolded.

RedGage Day 1	Today	All Time
Photos Added	4	4
Links Added	2	2
Friends Added	5	5
Sites Added	0	0
Unique Views		41
Earnings	$0.01	$0.01

RedGage - Day Two - Make Friends Make Money

My money making strategy for RedGage today was to start building my RedGage community. I concentrated on adding friends and in particular featured users who were doing well on RedGage because of their level of activity. My plan has been to link up with active users so we can mutually admire each others content.

I was pleased to see that my earnings on RedGage had doubled in less than 24 hours. By the end of my second day I had earned $0.02. Not bad when you consider that all I did was post one new link, link to my HubPages account, one of my blogs Easy to Scrapbook and and invite a number of featured users to be my friend.

RedGage Day 2	Today	All Time
Photos Added	0	4
Links Added	1	3
Friends Added	15	20
Sites Added	3	3
Unique Views		41
Earnings	$0.01	$0.02

RedGage - Day Three - Add More Content Make Money

My strategy for the third day on RedGage has been to add some more content - both photos and links. I have started linking to older blog posts for RedGage today was to start building my RedGage community. I concentrated on adding friends and in particular featured users who were doing well on RedGage because of their level of activity. My plan has been to link up with active users so we can mutually admire each others content



As you can see I have added this blog I Make Money Blogger to the list of sites. My intention is to start driving traffic to this blog by linking to every blog post.

I was interested to note that my RedGage earnings went up by $0.02 today. To make any bonus money I will need to have one of my links or photos featured. Featured content is handpicked by RedGage so I can only hope that my page views increase to make the effort so far worthwhile.

RedGage Day 3	Today	All Time
Photos Added	2	6
Links Added	1	4
Friends Added	6	26
Sites Added	1	4
Unique Views		70
Earnings	$0.02	$0.04

First Week RedGage	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Photos Added	4	0	2
Links Added	1	2	1
Friends Added	6	20	26
Sites Added	1	4	1
Unique Views	32	48	70
Subscribers	0	1	0
Earnings	$0.01	$0.02	$0.04

RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 4

Day 4 of the RedGage Make Money 2 Hour Challenge. If you have just landed at I Make Money Blogger welcome. My earlier articles about my RedGage make money challenge you can find here:

RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 1
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 2
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 3

Sign up for RedGage and start making money writing online today

I started the RedGage Make Money 2 Hour Challenge to record the steps I took to build my presence on RedGage. I have found that my readers on some of my other blogs have been interested in what I do to build successful blogs. Rather than answer heaps of similar questions from readers I thought I would directly record what I did to set up RedGage.

Please keep in mind RedGage is an experiment for me. I don't know the outcome or whether I will make much money. I know I will make some money but just how much is anybody's guess. As I have said before in earlier posts making money on RedGage is less important to me than building backlinks to promote my blogs. RedGage has a Google Page Ranking of 4 so links from RedGage to my articles and blogs are valuable.

RedGage Strategy - Add More Content
My money making strategy for day 4 on RedGage has been to continue to add quality content. I am aiming at a mix of photos and links to my blogs. I hadn't intended to add so many photos but I have altered my strategy as I see photos are a good way to attract new friends and develop interest. Being flexible is the key. I respond to what is in front of me and adapt my game plan to suit if I can see a clear advantage.

RedGage Mission Challenge Day 4 - Up to 2 Hours

1. Add 2 new links to blog articles, Mine are about making money online on Xomba - 10 mins
   
2. Add 2 photos (prep time to resize and watermark) - 25 mins
   
3. Add 10 friends - 10 mins
   
4. Reply to messages on my wall - 10 mins
   
5. Respond to comments on my content - 10 mins
   
6. Comment on RedGage friend's content - 5 mins
   
7. Add 1 site link to another of my blogs. Now have links to my HubPages, my Youtube videos, 3 of my blogs I make Money Blogger, Easy to Scrapbook and Free Blogger Templates blogspot - 5 mins
   

1. I linked to 2 of my posts about making money online. I am being selective about what I link to at this stage largely because I am still getting a feel for the community and what kind of articles work best
   
   
2. Good photos are popular on RedGage. I have adjusted my strategy to include posting half a dozen photos per week
   
   
3. At this stage I expect to make at least 10 new friends each day. Some of my friends are now coming from requests but I am also still actively seeking friends
   
   
4. I am now getting some activity on my wall. MrBill who is a very prominent member of RedGage dropped in. I will make a point of responding to all who post on my wall.
   
   
5. As RedGage is a social community it is important to engage with others on the site. If a member of RedGage takes the time to comment on my content I will respond. The RedGage interface is clunky and not set up to easily answer comments. It is a pity that when you are viewing content you can not see at a glance how many comments have been made and if any are awaiting reply
   
   
6. I am continuing to comment on and rate the content of others. This is the fun part of being a member of RedGage
   
   
7. I am gradually adding my blogs to my list of sites. I am working on a drip feed method.
   

RedGage Statistics
My RedGage earnings now stand at $0.05. $24.95 away from the $25 RedGage payment threshold.

The photos I have posted continue to receive the most page views

The number of friends is expanding and this accounts for the growing number of page views

My RedGage statistics were as follows:

RedGage Day 4	Today	All Time
Photos Added	2	6
Links Added	2	6
Friends Added	10	36
Sites Added	1	5
Unique Views		95
Earnings	$0.01	$0.05

Sign up for RedGage and start making money writing online today


Related Links
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 1
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 2
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 3

RedGage Make Money 2 Hour Challenge - Day 3

Today is Day 3 of the RedGage Make Money 2 Hour Challenge. If you have yet to read my posts about the first two days on RedGage you can find my earlier articles at:

RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 1
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 2

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Sign up for RedGage and start making money writing online today

I have made the RedGage Make Money 2 Hour Challenge in order to document the steps I went through to make money on RedGage and how successful RedGage is in helping me build backlinks to my blogs and associated web content. For me the money is secondary as the big bonus is driving traffic to my blogs to increase the Google Page Ranking and increase my Adsense revenue on my blogs.

RedGage Strategy - Add More Content
My money making strategy for the third day on RedGage has been to add some more content - both photos and links. I have started linking to older blog posts. The more quality content I post the greater my chance of increasing page views. Remember this equation the more page views the greater the revenue earned.

RedGage Mission Challenge Day 3 - 2 Hours

1. Add 1 new link - blog articles, website articles or articles from eHow, HubPages etc - 10 mins
   
2. Add 5 friends - 15 mins
   
3. Comment once on the content of a RedGage friend - 5 mins
   
4. Add 1 site link to websites, blogs, youtube profile, HubPages profile etc, Facebook profile - 5 mins
   
5. Add 2 photos that are cute or striking in some way - 30 minutes
   

1. I added a link to my one of my old posts. From here on in I will be backlinking to a lot of my earlier posts. If you don't have older posts on a blog you can start concentrating on writing some articles to generate revenue
   
   
2. Make sure you keep adding new friends to take account of the ones who drop off and to give your RedGage content some good exposure. I added 5 new friends although several were as a result of requests.
   
   
3. I commented on another member's photo and rated it today. Keeping up community activity on RedGage is an important part of being a member
   
   
4. I added another one of my blogs to my site list today. This blog in fact I Make Money Blogger. I have decided to add the sites manuallyy as the RedGage import feature has problems. Another reason is that I have some blogs that I don't want to add to RedGage and this gives me control of that.
   
   
5. I added another couple of photos to RedGage before the site crashed and I couldn't do anymore for about 15 minutes, My photos are getting good traffic
   

RedGage Statistics
My RedGage earnings doubled today probably as a result of adding many new friends. I now have $0.04 in my account and am $24.96 away from receiving my RedGage Visa Card. I am pleased with my progress in general but my efforts got hampered by RedGage's clunky interface and the 15 minute outtage of the site.

I am noticing that my photos are receiving more interest than my bookmarked content. Heaps more page views infact. I will monitor this trend with interest

I also got my first subscriber today which was exciting.

To make any bonus money I will need to have one of my links or photos featured. Featured content is handpicked by RedGage so I can only hope that my page views increase to make the effort so far worthwhile.

My RedGage statistics were as follows:

RedGage Day 3	Today	All Time
Photos Added	2	6
Links Added	1	4
Friends Added	6	26
Sites Added	1	4
Unique Views		70
Earnings	$0.02	$0.04

Sign up for RedGage and start making money writing online today


Related Links
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 1
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 2
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 4

RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 2

Today is Day 2 of the RedGage Make Money 2 Hour Challenge. If you haven't read day 1 yet you can find it at RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 1.

In case you are wondering about the challenge I have set myself a target to make a little money on RedGage by spending a couple of hours per day growing my community. The main reason that I have chosen RedGage is that they offer "do follow" links so I am hoping to gain some valuable backlinks by posting links on RedGage to some of the better content of my blogs.

RedGage Strategy
My money making strategy for RedGage today was to start building my RedGage community. I concentrated on adding friends and in particular featured users who were doing well on RedGage because of their level of activity. My plan is to link up with active users so we can mutually admire each others content and build our communities.

RedGage Mission Challenge Day 2 - 2 Hours

1. Add 1 new link - blog articles, website articles or articles from eHow, HubPages etc - 10 mins
   
2. Add 15 friends - 50 mins
   
3. Comment 3 times on the content of selected RedGage friends - 15 mins
   
4. Add 3 site links to websites, blogs, youtube profile, HubPages profile etc - 15 mins
   

1. I added a link to my latest HubPages article to create a backlink. In the coming months I will be linking to my blog articles, website articles and articles from HubPages etc - 10 mins
   
   
2. I added 15 new friends to RedGage. I chose my friends from the featured list by clicking on their photos content. The process of adding new friends to RedGage was kind of slow going. Each new friend I had to manually invite. It would be nice if RedGage were to update this part of the interface to automate the process.
   
   
3. While inviting friends I saw lots of posts and photos I was interested in. I chose several to comment on and rate. This is a way of interacting with friends and also giving quality content on RedGage the recognition it deserves.
   
   
4. I linked to my HubPages account, one of my blogs Easy to Scrapbook and my YouTube Videos by going to Edit Profile and adding them under sites

RedGage Statistics
I made good progress in building a community around me on RedGage today. I was pleased to see that my earnings on RedGage had doubled. By the end of my second day I had earned $0.02. Not bad when you consider that all I did was post one new link, invite some new friends and make several comments on their content.

My RedGage statistics were as follows:

RedGage Day 2	Today	All Time
Photos Added	0	4
Links Added	1	3
Friends Added	15	20
Sites Added	3	3
Unique Views		41
Earnings	$0.01	$0.02

Sign up for RedGage and start making money writing online today

Related Links
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 1
RedGage Make Money 2 Hour Challenge - Day 3

RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 1

Today is Day 1 of the RedGage Make Money Challenge. This is a challenge I have set myself to see what kind of earnings can be achieved by spending no more than a couple of hours a day on the online community website RedGage. My mission is to build an online presence on RedGage to drive traffic to my blogs, websites and online articles.

RedGage Strategy
My initial approach to gaining a presence on RedGage was to start by building my RedGage community. I did this by adding content to RedGage. I uploaded photos and linked to several articles.

RedGage Mission Challenge Day One - 2 Hours

1. Sign up to RedGage - 5 mins
   
2. Read self with RedGage - 30 mins
   
3. Add up to 4 images - 45 mins
   
4. Add links to at least 2 blog articles or articles from eHow, HubPages etc - 30 mins
   
5. Add 5 friends - 10 mins

1. Sign up to RedGage took only a minute or two.
   
   
2. I spent some time familiarizing myself with the site content and how RedGage works from the excellent help pages.
   
   
3. I uploaded 4 photos that I consider good shots. I spent time resizing the images and adding a watermark. With so much stealing of content on the internet I considered it a good idea to watermark my images. Also means that people will start to recognise my work. The time was spent writing a concise description of each image and adding relevant tags to facilitate search queries.
   
   The interface on RedGage to add tags is plain silly. You can only add one word tags which makes absolutely no sense
   
   
4. I also linked to an article I wrote several days before about how to make money writing on Xomba. I was interested in the kind of response I would get so I just waited to see what unfolded.
   
   
5. I added 5 friends today. Several people approached me from the content I posted. I approached several people who willingly approved my friend request

RedGage Statistics
By the end of the first day of my RedGage Make Money Challenge I had surprisingly earned one penny from 41 page views and 5 new friends. My RedGage statistics were as follows:

RedGage Day 1	Today	All Time
Photos Added	4	4
Links Added	2	2
Friends Added	5	5
Sites Added	0	0
Unique Views	32	32
Earnings	$0.01	$0.01

Sign up for RedGage and start making money writing online today

Related Links
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 2
RedGage Make Money Challenge - Day 3