What is an Affiliate Marketer and Why Are Affiliates the Bad Guys?

There's a certain embarrassment about being an affiliate.  When I talk openly about being an affiliate marketer, it's usually to someone who's never heard of the role, or someone who is herself an affiliate marketer.  The rest of the world looks on and disapproves.

In particular, affiliate sites have an increasingly bad reputation with search engines.  They also have a bad reputation in other online communities, for a lot of reasons.  The major ones are that they're seen as spammers and they're a new kind of professional animal that nobody fully understands.

Pros and Cons of Backlinks: Not Worth the Effort Anymore?

Writers or web content publishers who are also search engine marketers often tout the value of backlinking their own work.  I'm a maverick.  I think backlinks created for "link juice" are pretty valueless and getting cheaper daily.  I write web content for revenue share, and I don't systematically backlink, and my articles, many of them hosted at HubPages, don't do badly at all.  And I think I'm not alone.  I know, I know.  A lot of people swear by creating strategic backlinks.  But there's another group of people that don't touch the things and let the backlinks develop organically.  And it's looking like that may be okay.

Suite101 Scam? No, It's Not. You Just Can't Ignore SEO.

Many writers wonder whether Suite101 is a scam.  I've been writing for Suite101 for over 6 months, and I like it.  It's not HubPages; it's suited to different types of articles.  So is Suite101 a scam?  My answer is that it depends how you define scam.  Suite101 is a legitimate company and they have freelance writers with professional portfolios writing for them.  They ask for no investment but time.  They pay in a timely manner.  They have a solid reputation in the online publishing industry. But Suite uses one of the new earnings models known as revenue sharing.

Why Writers Write: To Communicate

I hear a lot of writers talking about why they write.  "To express myself."  "Because I have to."  "Because I'll bust a gut sneezing if the writing doesn't flow regularly out of my literary sinuses."  Whatever.  I'm more inspired by George Orwell, who demystifies the act of writing in A Collection of Essays in pieces such as Why I Write and Politics and the English Language.

EHow No Longer Publishing Articles Except by Demand Studios

I've been suggesting writers new to revenue sharing at article sites  and writing online web content in general start with an account at eHow.com.  However, minutes ago a pop-up appeared on eHow.com stating that "Demand Studios is now the exclusive platform for writing new articles for eHow.com."  This means that community members can't self-submit articles anymore.  There is a note to check your email for details, but that email has yet to arrive.

Why Opportunities for Earning an Income from Writing Online Aren't Going Away Anytime Soon

The chance to earn an income by writing online can seem almost too good to be true.  While the economy's shriveling, writing opportunities online are growing as they haven't in nearly a century.  Writing sites are everywhere.  Is it all a scam?  No.  Not all of it.  It's hard work, but the best kind of work.  You work from home, you work convenient hours, you have no boss, you can take time off, you're far more in control of your income than if you had a job...all while getting paid to put words together on a page, bless your soul. 

But before you invest a lot of resources in your writing career - specifically, the resource of time, as most legit writing opportunities are free - you may be doubting this pipe dream can last.  Well, I don't doubt it anymore.  I think it's here to stay.  And here's why I think so.

Published in Print But Not Making Money Writing Online? Tips for Moving to Writing for the Web

Many nonfiction freelance writers published in traditional print media - specifically, magazines and newspapers - are eager to start writing on the Web, but learn quickly that writing online is a whole new ballgame.  Many don't understand the different business models for earning money online, largely because the models are still so new and constantly in flux.  And if they do get how to earn money by writing online, many think the business models are inherently unfair and exit the game barely after beginning.  Which is a shame, because the Web needs the talent being bled from the dying print market as much as the writers need the work.  And the work is there.

Why Earnings Increase and Decrease So Crazily at Revenue Sharing Sites

Here are 20 factors affecting the rise and fall of earnings on revenue share articles (before you read this, read the introduction on page 1, 20 Non-SEO Reasons Earnings Go Up & Down at eHow, HubPages & Other Revenue Share Websites):

20 Non-SEO Reasons Earnings Go Up & Down at eHow, HubPages , & Other Revenue Share Websites

Writers often notice mystifying fluctuations in earnings while earning money with revenue share programs at websites like eHow, HubPages, Suite101, Squidoo, About, Triond, Helium, Xomba, InfoBarrel, and others. One day earnings are up, the next they're decidedly down.  This rise and fall happens even when writers write perfectly good SEO articles (search engine optimized).  Watching a radical decrease or even increase can be frustrating for writers trying to understand why they are earning the amounts they do - all the more so because the algorithm for calculating earnings is already shrouded in mystery at many of these article sites.

Signs of an Economic Depression: End of Daycare As We Know It

On the writer's forums at Suite101, an online magazine, the topic of the loss of availability of daycare (not just affordable daycare - but any daycare at all) came up today. As a mom who works at home writing, I'm not currently directly affected by this, but I have the utmost sympathy for the mothers and fathers who are.

I am, however, afraid that this is not a temporary thing. Daycare as we know it is being phased out before it ever really had a chance to get going. It never had the government sponsorship it should probably have had as women were compelled to enter the workforce and their kids were left out in the proverbial cold. And now it's too late.

Because I think the cause of daycare's downfall is the restructuring that's occurring as the world shifts to a new economic model (of which we work-at-home writers are a part - and anyone who makes money on the Internet). The economic shift is manifesting as a worldwide depression/recession.

Depression Economics: Why Making Money Via Revenue Share Is the Wave of the Future

Writers making decent money at revenue share sites such as Suite101 or HubPages may wonder if this is just a flash-in-the-pan opportunity, or if there's really a future to it. After all, we're in a recession (actually, I'd say a depression, though, like the Great Depression, it won't be called that until some time has passed). In an economic downturn, things are unstable, right?

The answer is, both are true. There's a future to it because the world is shifting to a new economic model. It's flash-in-the-pan for the same reason - because we're shifting to a new economic model.

So if you're game, take a deep, relaxing breath for a rather meandering but brief sociological bus tour of 20th century history.  On this tour, you'll learn why I think we're in the Greatest Depression and what's caused it.  We'll be back in less than twenty minutes in the familiar world of revenue sharing.

Using Ubuntu Linux and Why It's Like Wikipedia

This is not exactly related to writing, except insofar as we need computers to write.  But computers are always on my mind, especially since I seem to go through them like candy.  In the last reincarnation of our computer, we switched to Ubuntu, a platform for Linux, an open-source operating system (i.e., an alternative to Microsoft Windows).

Easy To Use CMS, Where Are You? Talk About a Brilliant Business Startup Idea

In my search for an easy to use CMS, I've been following a thread on the Webmasterworld forums on the best content management systems.  I've been using Wordpress to create my websites, and though I like it well enough, it's not exactly what I'd call easy.  I've been looking for an easy way to build a site for a long time, and despite the truly educational threads on Webmasterworld, I'm not getting anywhere.  Anybody looking for brilliant startup ideas?  Matt Cutts from Google has some ideas, or maybe you can tackle my problem.

My problem is this.  To create a website from scratch, a non-techie like me can use a supposedly easy-to-use content management system such as Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, or the less well-known ones like ModX, Textpattern, and, oh, a lot more.  Or you can use a WYSIWYG HTML editor (what-you-see-is-what-you-get, referring to the fact that you can use it like word processing software to format your web page) such as Dreamweaver, Frontpage, KompoZer, and oh, so many more.  Or you can code your own CSS, HTML, PHP, or whatever using a text editor.  Or you can use pricey and much-promoted plans like the very expensive Site Build It.  Or you can pop up a website on someone else's pages, as with Google Sites or Blogger or Yahoo! SiteBuilder, or even publish on Hubpages, eHow, and other content sites.

HubPages Review: A Site to Write and Make Money

I've written about HubPages before, comparing it to eHow as a revenue sharing website.  Here is a more comprehensive review than what I wrote earlier, including what I like and don't like about writing at HubPages.  My review is based on my experiences since starting posting articles there in the spring, both with the site itself and with my earnings.  (Side note: As of 4/5/2010, eHow, a revenue share site mentioned above, is no longer publishing revenue share articles through its Writers Compensation Program.)

HubPages is a site for writers, photographers and other creative people to post their original content and optionally earn money with their own Google AdSense account or their Amazon Associates, and/or eBay Partner Network accounts (commonly called "affiliate programs" by Web marketers).  While not everyone on HubPages participates in each of those revenue-share affiliate opportunities, I do use each of them, though there are rumors the eBay one won't last.  The only revenue sharing money-making opportunity HubPages offers that I don't participate in is Kontera (both because I don't like the ads and because I've read of various bad experiences with Kontera in the HubPages forums.)
 
Basically, I still really like HubPages, and I'm trying to get articles up as fast as I can, though it isn't easy while chasing after the wild toddler.  My earnings are better what I expected--and I was afraid that nobody could top eHow's money-making model.   Yet my per article earnings are nearly comparable to eHow, though my Hubs are only half as old.  But it's the website and customer service where this writing site excels.  To me, HubPages is the best around when it comes to flexibility of format and the way they treat their writers.  And the search engines like them.  Given their new status in reaching the Quantcast top 100 websites and an excellent search engine ranking, they're on par with eHow from my perspective.

Constant-Content: Scam or Not? No Way, Not in My Experience

I've been so busy defending HubPages from being thought a scam that I've neglected Constant-Content, which some writers have found great success with, and which others have been unhappy with or not had massive success with.  Having just received notification that I recently sold a $125 article (of which I got about $80 as my cut), I've begun to renew my excitement with this article writing website.  I should say first, though, that I think I understand why Constant-Content might be thought to be a scam.