Why SEO Matters Writing for eHow

SEO Matters for eHow Earnings

One thing that it doesn't take online freelance writers long to figure out is that SEO isn't just for Internet Marketing. If you are trying to make a living by promoting your website, or writing for sites like HubPages or for AdSense funded blogs, you know you must understand search engine optimization. It can be easy to assume that because many good writers on eHow make a good side income just from writing. But the best writers do their keyword research. I guarantee it.

Not every writer might get into SEO (Search Engine Optimization) the same way, but in some shape or form the best writers know how to study their results and figure out what articles are making them money and which ones fizzle out. Writing for eHow gives a writer a lot of lee way because the sheer authority that Google gives to eHow gets you a lot of traffic because eHow articles tend to rank very highly in the search engine rankings very quickly.

So why does SEO still matter when writing for eHow? Because if you can do really good keyword research to locate very profitable keywords that also have little competition, then you can write good "how to" articles around those words that will be very easy to get to the top ratings on Google. This means by targeting your articles, your earnings per article will be much higher and require less supporting work to get them there. It's much easier to get to a solid income if you make $5 an article per month on average than if you make 30-50 cents per article per month on average.

If you're an online writer, don't let a lack of SEO knowledge keep you from writing. It's better to write an article a day without any SEO considerations than to write nothing all. Just read this post about writers taking action now if you need a little kick in the pants. If you're going to be a freelance writer, you need to write. If you're going to make money as a freelance writer online, you need to learn SEO.

And if you're really a newbie and somehow you haven't heard of Courtney Tuttle and the Keyword Academy, I strongly recommend them. There's plenty of great information for free on that site, and the Membership section you can get into for $1 for the first month, and then it's $37 a month after that if you decide to stay. It's worth every penny. If nothing else, spend the $1 just to learn how they do keyword research. In my opinion that formula alone is worth several thousand dollars.

Then if you don't want to stay subscribed, fine, but that $1 would be the best you ever spend. Not only as a writer, but also the understanding of Internet Marketing and SEO they give you can really open your eyes to what is possible with making money online with your writing.

Brief eHow Writing Update

Writing & Moving

I've actually been pretty pleasantly surprised how many visitors my little eHow writing blog has received in the past couple months. It's not a monsoon by any stretch, but after doing no article marketing or SEO for this blog, I've been surprised that anyone has found it, much less a steady trickle of visitors. The kind words are also greatly appreciated.

If the freelance writing updates seem a little erratic over the next month and change, it's because I'm moving while still dealing with all the other messes that have been going on this year. That said, the testing is going along well, although I'll be the first to admit I haven't written as much on eHow as I wanted to. That doesn't mean I'm not getting writing done: I've finally reached the $100/month point with Google AdSense. Based on how much of that money was in the last 10 days, I pretty much KNOW that it's $100+ a month every month from now on. I think that's one of the great early milestones for making money online.

Other writing venues have done really well, and I've landed a couple of major freelancing jobs that take priority since: surprise, surprise, moving costs money.

Anyway, this was a brief note to let people know I fully appreciate the comments and the readers, and a very good blog post will be coming soon. Until then, keep on writing a variety of articles and hammer away. There are no short cuts.

Catch ya'll later, I'm off to do some writing before bed.

Brief eHow Update

eHow Writing Update

Well one of the things I really enjoy about online freelance writing is that sometimes you get a nice pleasant surprise. I thought that my earnings from eHow last month were nice, and I was hoping that based on some studying I was doing that maybe I had really figured out how to maximize my earnings on this site. To some extent, it definitely looks like I'm on to something, although to what level only time will tell. The one reservation I had was two "fluke" articles that had very little traffic, very little attention, and both produced $10 each in less than a month.

This was a very nice surprise, but without really solid search engine rankings behind either one, I have to figure that $20 as a one time thing. Even bracing for the hit my earnings could have taken this month, it seems that instead of being down twenty, I'm still going to break last month's earning records, and without a single "surprise" article that has picked up and done really well. To me, this is absolutely fantastic and shows that my body of work as a whole on eHow continues to pick up steam.

I'm also amazed at the pure strength of eHow as an authority site. Based on my findings, I'd say they outrank all the other writing sites by far. The second half of my recent series of surprises on eHow: odd articles across a variety of platforms are earning pretty nicely. Because of that I would definitely say to anyone interested in writing for eHow to join and start building up your future nest eggs today.

For those of you who want to see a little bit of what I've done since the last post:

How to Smoke a Cigar Properly

How to Find Great Carp Fishing Gear

How to Choose Between Liposuction Procedures

How to Beat Medieval 2 Total War with Hungary

And for the video game geeks out there (not insulting - I am one myself), yes, I fully realize that Medieval 2 is not the newest game any more, but it's still the one I know best.

Pretty diverse group. Obviously my goals haven't come to pass so far this month, but I am making sure to do something each and every day to move my freelance writing goals and my money making goals forward - and the testing on my little experiment is moving forward, so it's not like I'm being slothful or anything. Let's just keep hammering it forward.

Thanks for stopping by to read, and if you're a freelance writer who hasn't started writing for eHow, you'll want to get started now.

Returning to the Freelance Writing for eHow Blog

Writing for eHow Update

First off, an apology for not having been here for a while. In the beginning of July there was a major family emergency that is still actually ongoing and may be a very long term thing. Obviously family comes first, and for a month everything (and I mean pretty much everything) fell to the wayside. Now I'm making a hard effort to get back into the swing of things, starting with relatively modest goals for August that still put enough on my plate to work 18+ hours a day it seems like. Then again, I have a lot on my plate for many various reasons, but we're working to get everything set right and pointed in the right direction and right now that means getting back to a daily freelance writing schedule.

First bit of news: I'm going to be spending the next two months experimenting with eHow, article marketing, and another writing website. I did virtually no writing in July, but my passive income earnings went up almost 70%. So I checked over what I did in the month of June to see if there was something specific and different that I did that could have affected those dramatic results, and yes, it seems like I might have stumbled upon something HUGE.

This makes me especially eager to test, because if the results hold up and aren't just a coincidence or the result of two or three articles that just hit the keywords right, then this strategy is going to be especially geared towards (and effective for) freelance writers who are more into writing than SEO and Internet Marketing. This makes me particularly happy since I am definitely a writer first.

So the earnings update. For eHow alone, my income in June was $53.42, with almost 1/3 of that coming in the last week alone. Then in July when I was dealing with personal issues and not really marketing, link building, or writing at all? My income for July was $87.74 and is already looking higher for the month of August. Oh, yeah, my AdSense income went up by about the same percentage and my Amazon affiliate sales were right on target, as well. So it was a good month, and I'll be testing to see if my little "discovery" is indeed the main cause, and how scalable my new online freelance writing strategies are.

There aren't many new eHow articles of note. Most of them I've written since July 4th have earned me $0.00, so I'm in a bit of a slump now, but earnings from some articles I tweaked have jumped, and there are a couple newer ones that I think could be great for me coming up. If you're interested in reading some:

How to Choose a Non Surgical Liposuction Expert (some potential)

How to Learn from the Stoics ($0.00 so far, but I love the topic)

How to Lose Weight Following the Cambridge Diet (this one has actually shown some serious potential to be a $8-10 a month article if I can move it up the Google rankings a little bit)

How to Set Freelance Writing Goals for eHow (just seems appropriate for the blog)

That's it. I haven't done nearly the writing I needed to in July, nor the amount I wanted to. However, I'll be starting to get back into a writing groove in August and hopefully be at full shape in September, especially with all this testing I have to do now. And if it turns out my "discovery" continues to kick butt, you can be sure I'll let ya'll know shortly afterwards. Keep on writing, and keep on running towards your dreams.