If you’re new to Internet marketing and still struggling to get that first $100 month, then I have some news that should boost your motivation and keep you plugging away at your marketing efforts. If you stay with this business, if you continue to learn, if you continue to test you will eventually acquire the knowledge and experience that’s needed in any business to be successful. And once you reach that hundred dollar month you’re going to discover that it’s much easier to ramp up revenue simply because now you know what you’re doing.

And when you know what you’re doing you’re going to start creating an enormous amount of wealth that you probably haven’t thought of.

I’ve been in this business for over a decade and I know that Internet marketing can generate steady stream of income thanks to the automated nature of the sale. I always focused on growing the business and never really gave any consideration to how much wealth I was building.

Now when I say wealth I don’t mean a mountain of cash in my backyard, I’m talking about the value of the money that I take in from my Internet operations. I had conversation with the renowned financial life coach Todd Tressider and what he told me made me look at my business in a whole new way.

$100 per month is the same as a $30,000 retirement package

Todd has a really impressive background in financial investment and planning. He started as a manager of a hedge fund that had a reputation of yielding high ROI for its wealthy clientele. In other words Todd had a talent for making rich people even richer but simply Todd decided that just simply wasn’t enough. He was very successful managing the fun, effective so successful that he decided to retire at the age of 35.

After a while I decided to open a new business and utilize his wealth building skills to help people that actually would appreciate it. That’s when he and I met. Todd wanted a website for his business and approached my wife Arlene and I for help in building it. During that time we chatted about many things and he took a look at how the affiliate marketing industry works. And then he said something that made my jaw drop.

“You know, $100 per month is the equivalent of having a $30,000 retirement package.”

A light bulb went on for me. Thanks to the automated system of sales that not just affiliate marketing but most online marketing businesses use, there is a steady stream of passive income just like a retiree receives a steady stream of retirement checks.

The difference between the online marketer and the retiree is significant. If an online marketer is receiving $100 per month on a product or service is because he or she has watched that product correctly and can count on a steady stream of income. The retiree however, had to lay out $30,000 during his working career in order to get his hundred dollars per month. For every hundred dollars per month in revenue that online marketer makes the value of that income is equal to the income from a $30,000 investment.

Now that’s wealth building!

Passive income – the wealth builder

Todd describes the income that comes from a retirement package as indirect passive income. The real “work” done in a retirement fund is performed by the principal investment. The result of that “work” is expressed in interest rates and dividends and that income is then funneled off to the retiree.

Todd describes online marketing income as being the result of direct passive income. Taking the place of the “retirement fund” is the marketing effort required to successfully launch a new product or service and make it attractive enough that it will generate automated sales. That marketing effort will continue to present the product to an audience and generate sales so long as the product or service remains relevant to the audience.

Todd was looking at affiliate marketing but I can assure you that the same concept applies to most online marketing operations be it e-books, video tutorials, podcasts or membership sites. If you’re using automated sales these principles of passive income apply.

Retirement planning made easy for the online marketer

While most people ask the question “how much should you save for retirement” the online marketer should be asking his or herself a different question. And that question is realistically, how much monthly income do I need support the kind of lifestyle that I want when I retire. Once you’ve decided on the number that simply a question of driving the sales of your business until you reach it. When you achieve that number you can quit.

Think about that for a second. If you decide that you need $6000 a month to live on in retirement then your objective is to build your business to $6000 per month. That’s the equivalent of the income you would receive from a retirement fund of nearly $2.5 million at 3%. And the bigger advantage is unlike most people you didn’t have to contribute a penny to that 2+ million dollar investment for. Your money that you earn today, all of it, is available to you today. Your contribution to your retirement is the effort you make in marketing your product.

That marketing contribution is the mountain of cash that will pay dividends when you retire.

Image via CrunchBase

I received an email today from eHow explaining that they will be removing my articles, but want to “compensate me” for the articles in order to obtain “full rights.”  In other words, the residual income is completely going away.  If I refuse this “offer”, my articles will be removed and I will no longer earn anything from my articles!

Their reason?  Because they are “working hard to ensure all content is professionally created and editorially vetted.”  I called BS!  If they wanted to ensure that, why not give the writers a chance to edit the articles and resubmit to continue to earn money?  No, the only option is to take a sell-out and sell your articles.

Essentially, you have two options.

1.  To take some set dollar amount for full rights to the articles – so THEY can earn the residual income – how nice of them.

2.  Do nothing – and get nothing.  eHow ill remove all your articles so you will no longer have access to them nor earn any money.

That’s it!

I earn an okay residual income from them that I can guarantee thier “attractive” offer will not compare – in the long run!  It is like cashing out your 401K or stock portfolio.  Sure, you will get all that cash, but you lose out on the long term payout.

Such is life as an online writer.

What is the offer for all your hard work?  For me, it was about 8 months of residual income.  Not bad I suppose.  I have 8 months to come up with another residual, or passive, income source to make up for it.  The problem is no other site comes even close for me as far as passive income.  That has been my experience anyhow.  eHow was the most bang for my buck.

My residual from eHow will now go away and I have to find another source for this.  Demand Studios owns eHow now and I have to say their editorial process is really not that great.  The choices on articles for you to choose from are pretty challenging to write about.

This experience has taught me a couple important lessons as a freelance writer.  Don’t put your eggs in one basket and create your OWN website.

Having your OWN website as a freelance writer with YOUR OWN clients is beneficial when sites decide to change their writer’s compensation policy.  Things in the content mill world can change with the drop of a hat and you are left with nothing to show for all your hard work!  But, having that passive income is nice as well.

Any eHow writers want to share here, PLEASE do!  I would love a different perspective.

As I start to learn more about freelance writing outside of the PPC sites likes Suite 101, eHow, and HubPages, which don’t really add up to much, I am discovering more and more ways to make money freelance writing.

I recently got accepted to write for Content Divas.  The pay is not spectacular, but I am hoping I can build up my writing portfolio and learn more about writing for a diverse set of clients.  I also have found other styles of writing that seem to be in demand – and pay more – like press releases and sales copy.  I need to gain that experience if I want to move into corporate writing.

During my research, I came across Constant Content.  The basic idea is you write an article on anything you want and submit it to the site.  You price your article at three different prices: Usage, Unique, and Full.

Usage rights are similar to PLR (which I also just started to sell)  – the person has rights to use the article, but it will remain on the site for others to use.

Unique rights means just that, the article will be sold and removed from the site, making it unique to that buyer.  However, that person can not claim to be the owner nor edit the article.

Full Rights indicates the buyer has full rights, can do what he or she wants with the article, including claiming to be the author.  This is akin to ghost writing and the most expensive.

So, you have pretty decent potential to earn passive income with usage rights and more potential once people buy full rights.

The great thing is you can write about whatever topic you like.  The article has to be professional quality, as you are selling it to clients.  Constant Content is essentially just the host, so of course they will take a cut of your pay.  I am not sure what it is, but I think it is about 30%.

If you are a writer who writes quality articles you think you should get paid for and don’t know where to sell these articles, Constant Content may be a viable option.

It may be something I will look into.  But, I’d like to hear from others and if anyone has had good luck with this site.

Related articles

• You CAN Make A Real Living as a Freelance Writer (inspiredtowrite.com)
• Your Client Deserves Original and Quality Work (freelancewritingprofessional.com)

With all the recent crackdown on “content farms” and junk floating around the Internet from search engine giant Google, many content sites are becoming more strict on their submission guidelines.

Sites like eHow and Suite 101 are revising their guidelines to align with the quality Google is expecting and looking for. Consequently, this affects writers for those sites.

So, I have to ask for the strict writing guidelines writers are expected to follow, shouldn’t the pay increase along with that?  Or am I just off base here by demanding more revenue? I don’t think I am.

When you are expected more, you should get paid more – right?

Image via CrunchBase

eHow Changes

When I first began writing for eHow back in 2008, pretty much anyone could write for the site and craft articles titled, “How to Tie You Shoes.” In the last 2-3 years, there have been lots of changes to rid those “duh” articles from their site.

The biggest change was moving over to Demand Studios in order to submit your articles.  Once moved, you had to get your article reviewed by an “editor.”

At Demand, the editors there expect “how to” articles to get the same scrutiny as a high-quality journalistic piece.  For what?  A few pennies – if you are lucky – of residual income a day?  I do understand the expectation to get away from the how-to-boil-an-egg type articles, but don’t you think we should get paid more if we are expected more??

Image via CrunchBase

Suite 101 Guidelines

Another web content site that has recently changed their submission guidelines is Suite 101.  Now, throughout the last 2-3 years, this site has made some changes, but mostly for the better.  They pulled back on the reigns on some of their guidelines (only 3rd person perspective and a contract of minimal articles were removed).

However, they are tightening up again.  They expect cited resources (sites like Wikipedia, Associated Content, or About.com are NOT allowed).  A photo is required on ALL articles.

There are other websites as well including eZine which does not even PAY their writers that are trying to attract better articles with tighter writing guidelines.

Okay. I think it is a good idea to improve upon a site and expect higher quality articles to avoid spammers and those only using the sites for article marketing. However, how long can you squeeze work out of a quality writer before they realize they are literally getting paid pennies a day to have their well-written and well-researched article on your site?  I imagine not very long.

Thanks for the Loose Change!

These sites are high up in Google search engines and are getting lots of revenue from the articles.  Yet, the ones who actually WRITE the articles get some loose change thrown at them for the effort.  Gee, thanks!

I know there are a few writers for these sites that bring in several hundred dollars a month from these sites.  But, they have  probably written over 200 plus articles to get there!  Let’s say you have 250 articles on Suite 101 and that gives you $1000 a month.  That means each article you have written is only paying your $4!  And that is if you are actually making $1000 from these articles – some earn less!

I will tell you right now, you can write an okay article for an Internet marketer without any of those guidelines – no photo required – and get paid $5 and up for an article.  And that is on the low end!

I realize, it is residual and you will continually get paid that $4 every month, but still – is it worth all those man hours you put in to get that $4?  I have to question that.

If you are going to ask more of your writers – pay them more!!

I have to ask if a site has such high expectations and is trying to improve their reputation by removing any sign of being a content farm, shouldn’t they pay their writers more?

Please respond!

Note: This article is more applicable to SEO beginners – if you are an expert on SEO and keyword research, you can move on! 

I would guess that most people who write articles online are looking for some way to earn residual income for their efforts. One of the things I learned in the last couple years is the importance of SEO, specifically the use of keywords. Choosing the right keywords are important parts of optimizing your articles for search engines. This also applies with blogging or Web 2.0 articles.

Whether you write in a blog, Web 2.0, ezines or other article directories, keyword research is important! Search engine spiders scan the page in a way that makes it important to place your keywords where they will be found and recognized as a keyword, so that your article will appear when someone searches for that keyword.

What is a Keyword?

If you have any interest in Internet marketing or online writing, you probably already know what this is, so I am not going to insult your intelligence.  However, I will explain quickly in case you are new to the online business world.  A keyword is essentially a word or group of words that are placed in your article several times, not just once as that would make every word a keyword.

When a search engine crawler sees that word placed several times in an article, it will determine that your page may be useful to users that search for that particular a keyword.

Don’t Overstuff Keywords

It is important to note that there are also things like the over optimizing your articles for particular words, also known as “keyword stuffing.”  When you overstuff keywords in an article, a search engine will probably detect that you are trying to be misleading and trying to “trick” the spider into placing your article high in the search engine results for that particular keyword.  Not a good idea!  If you do this often on your own website, it could affect your site rankings of your other pages or get your site blacklisted from a particular search engine if you are found keyword stuffing too many times.

The Right Density

No matter what exact density select, it is important to place keywords in a naturally way in your articles.  A good rule of thumb is in the beginning, the end, and a couple times in the article, depending on how long an article is.   Having the right keyword density in your article makes it more likely that you will make money from this article when search engine results are seen by more people.

Keyword Tools

When I first started out online, I had a general sense of keywords, but not the big picture on how to use them effectively in articles.  As time went on and I began writing more articles, so I needed better tools.  While the Google Keyword Tool is great (and I still use it), it doesn’t give me the full picture.  So, I began looking for more information on how to use keywords effectively.

I found The Keyword Academy (TKA) and learned so much more about keyword research.  Since I started using applying what I learned, my articles were getting higher on the search engine pages and more traffic!  Super cool!  I used the site and the forums for a couple months and really learned a lot!  TKA is a great resource to learn more about keywords, and well worth the membership (FREE for the first month).

My other favorite keyword research tool is Market Samurai (MS).  This tool has saved me COUNTLESS hours on finding the right keywords.  You can do so many things with MS that will save you a lot of time.  Market Samurai not only looks at the relevance of a keyword, but the competition, traffic, potential for earning, and more!  I did a full review on Market Samurai if you are interested in reading more about this tool – there are videos as well for the visual learners.

Bottom Line

If you want to save a lot of wasted time (like I wish I did), it is important to understand the importance of keywords.  If your articles are not optimized, you may be missing out on traffic.  If you are missing out on traffic, you may be missing out on making money with articles!  Whether, you use the Google Keyword Tool or any of the other tools I mention is up to you.  But, I would definitely recommend doing research of the importance of keywords!

If anyone uses these tools or has any other advice of the importance of keywords, PLEASE leave a comment!

So you want to be a writer? Excellent. Should you consider making money for your creative skills?  Possibly. Writing for pay is an ideal lifestyle for many.  However, it’s certainly not the right choice for everyone.

Here’s how to know if writing for pay is right for you.

1. Do you enjoy writing?

If you answered, Yes with a shrug of your shoulders or a simple, “sure”, then take a minute and pause. When you write for pay you’re going to be writing.  A lot. Often. Daily. So, you better enjoy it.

To write for pay and embrace it as your career writing needs to be your passion. You need to actually enjoy the process of writing, and rewriting. If you answered with a “YES!” then you are on the write career path.

2. Are you self motivated?

Your clients will have deadlines and expectations. You will have goals.  If you’re not able to get up each morning, sit down at your computer and write, it is probably going to be a challenge to make a decent living. However, if you’re able to tackle your writing projects, write well and deliver them on time then you’re ready to write for money. Take a look at your habits right now. Are you motivated? Do you approach projects with energy? Or do you procrastinate?

3. Can you manage your time well?

Here is something many people do not stop to think about. If you get a $500 project and it takes you fifty hours to complete it that’s $10/hour. However, if it takes you ten hours to complete it, that’s $50/hour.

How can the same project take 10 or 50 hours?  Skill. Focus. Time management. If you’re checking email, surfing the web and chatting on Facebook in between pages it very well could take you 50 hours to finish that project. However, if you’re completely focused on writing it will take you much less time. Good time management is a huge part of freelance writing – one that can make or break you as a professional writer.

4. How are your cash management skills?

Writing for pay requires an ability to budget. It can be feast or famine, especially when you first start out. Sometimes you have a ton of work and everyone pays on time. Other times it can get slow. People may pay slowly. If you spend money as quickly as you make it, those slow times can be really stressful.

On the other hand, if you manage your money well then those slow times can be enjoyed. If you plan in writing being your only source of income, you MUST be able to budget your money! If you have a planned budget, during the slow times or when you feel like taking a break, you can use the time to build your business. To network. To work on personal projects. And you won’t have to worry about your next paycheck or the bills stacking up on your desk.

5. Are you a good writer?

This seems like an obvious question.  But, there is competition out there and if your work is sub-par, you will probably not be very successful.  Take time to really analyze your skills, get opinions.

You also have to have good business communication / writing skills.  One of the most important elements of writing for pay is to be able to hear what your client wants. This means good listening skills. It also means knowing what questions to ask. Good communication is essential for success. The good news is that you can set up your business to support your communication skills. If you communicate better in writing, consider an email system for communicating with clients.

So how did you do? Were you able to navigate these five  basic questions with confidence? If you were, great! You  have great potential to do well as a freelance writer. If you hesitated with some of these questions, don’t give up. Simply take some time to assess why and create a plan to overcome these challenges.

Last Point About Writing for Pay

Writing for pay is much different than writing for fun.  When you write for pay, there are many more things to consider, depending on the writing venue you may take.  There are SEO considerations if you are writing articles or blog posts, and proper grammar and spelling are essential.  Writing for pay also requires you to have organized pieces, helpful points, and the ability to handle criticism.

If you are not up for all of these requirements, take time to think about the question, Is freelance writing for me?

I finally created my 50th article in Suite 101.  I seems like I should have a lot more articles since I started writing on that site over 2 years ago!  What took me so long?

There Used to Be a Contract

Well, those of you who do not write for Suite or may be a newer writer, their policies have changed significantly in the last two years.  For me – it is for the better.  When I first started writing for Suite back in November of 2008, I was under a contract to write 10 articled in 3 months.

This doesn’t sound like a lot, but I was so busy, sometimes it was hard to even make that quota.  I had some very tragic things happen in 2009 and so I had to stop writing for them for about 9 months.  I began writing again in early 2010 and by that time, their article quantity contract had changed – you were no longer required to meet a quarterly quote.  Phew!

You Were Required to Write in 3rd Person

This was another thing I struggled with on Suite.  I am much better at writing more personable, than in 3rd person.  They required research and a very objective 3rd person tone.  I simply did not enjoy writing in this style, so it took me a bit longer to write an article.

Since that time, they are more flexible.  While you articles can not really be a personal memoir type piece, they do allow 2nd, and even 1st person writing – this makes things much easier!

My Topic is Specific

While you are not required, as a Contributing Writer (CW), to stick to one topic area, I choose to do this because it makes more sense to me.  So, as much as I love to travel and write about this topic, it is more difficult to come up with articles when you are focused on one niche.  If you are considered Suite, as a CW, you do not necessarily have to pigeon hole your articles in this way.

My Commissions Will Rise

The good news about the 50 article milestone is not only is it a nice goal to reach, but now my commissions will go up another 10%.  This is not a significant jump, but it should have an impact on my residual income.  I am not sure how much this will affect my revenue, but only time will tell.

They have made lots of changes in the last few years, most of them for the better!  I have had an up and down relationship with Suite over the years, but I am now enjoying where I am at and hopefully the payoff will be sweet!

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Thomas Urville.  Please read about Thomas in the footer.

HubPages is a great way to diversify your web holdings and get your writing noticed by lots of folks who otherwise might not find your website.

Many folks who are new to online publishing find it difficult to get organic traffic from Google. It’s a catch-22: until Google ‘trusts’ your personal website, you’ll have a hard time getting noticed. But you won’t get noticed until you’ve earned some trust.

Webmasters often take advantage of the power of HubPages (or similar sites) to shortcut this trust acquisition process and send traffic (and Google link juice) to their websites.

But sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. And many folks claim that it’s nothing more than a crapshoot. Either you get lucky and HubPages sends you some traffic, or your hub languishes in obscurity.

But that’s not exactly true. You don’t have to leave things to chance. It’s easy to get your hub noticed if you follow this simple trick:

Make your hub the right way and watch the traffic roll in

HubPages has a Google PageRank of 6. It’s ‘trusted’ in the eyes of the search engines.

And thanks to an aggressive internal linking setup, many high-quality hubs get their own share of this link juice, leading to great placement in the SERPs and plenty of links from other webmasters.

Your job is to get some of this link juice for yourself. And here’s how:

HubPages ‘tags’ and ‘hot hubs’

HubPages’ internal linking scheme involves tag pages. These pages link to hubs which all share the same tag. So, for instance, if you tag your hub with ‘writing‘, it’ll automatically get linked to other hubs with the same tag.

So, to get the most bang for your buck from this scheme, find the most valuable tags and use them on your new hub. Try this search in Google: site:hubpages.com/tag. Combine the results with a pagerank checker and you’ll find plenty of tags you should be using to maximize the internal linking power of hub pages.

For instance, here are some of the best tags used in HubPages:

• PageRank 4: entertainment, travel, music, movies, health
• PageRank 3: actress, diet, weight+loss, film

So, when you tag your hub with ‘entertainment’ and ‘movies’, it potentially gets two automatic pagerank 4 backlinks. And those are like money in the bank.

Associate your new hub with established, high-ranking hubs

But tag pages are only part of the story.

HubPages tags give you the chance to get links from other, high-ranking hubs. All you have to do is make sure your hub shares one or more tags with established, trusted hubs.

If the HubPages system determines that your page is a good match, it’ll automatically give you a link from other hubs. And this equals link juice and traffic.

So, find a popular, high-traffic hub and check out which tags are being used. As long as your hub is related, you should use the same tags because that gives you the best chance of getting a link placed in the ‘related hubs’ list. And that means traffic and link juice to your new hub.

So there you have it, a quick way to make sure your hubs are as strong as they can be. Pay attention to the tags you use next time you write a hub, they just might help you get the traffic you deserve.

Online writing provides a way to make money while writing articles that cover various topics.  There are a few ways to make money online and article writing is just one example.  In addition to my blog (which doesn’t really earn any money), I freelance write for different sites.  One of the newest places I began publishing articles is HubPages.

HubPages is a great place to write articles on a variety of topics.  What I like about it is the community,the ability to write about diverse topics, AND the chance to earn money in the process. This is just one more tool in my writing tool belt.

Many successful freelance writers use many methods for online income: blogs, revenue share (like HubPages), article writing, ebooks, ads, affiliate marketing, etc.  Diversity is key.

HubPages is just one more way to get into article writing and making money online in the process.  Just like anything, this is NOT a get rich quick.  Hubs should be of good quality, good keyword research, and helpful to the readers.  It really is about quality and not quantity, or better yet, a combination of the two.

As I began reading other hubs and the HubPages Learning Center I started learning the different ways to be successful on HubPages.  I also found useful information on online writing and making money online in the hubbers articles.  A few particularly  stuck out for me and I thought would be helpful to other writers.

To learn more about these great hubs, check out my article on Helpful Hubs for Online Writing Tips.

I recently got a comment on my Teaching Blog that I have not written in for over a year!  I put this Today.com blog on the backburner, since a) I am not currently teaching and b) I got busy with different writing ventures, including updating my Inspired to Write blog, and c) Today.com just wasn’t very lucrative, nor did it get a lot of traffic.

Well, I followed the comment and realized it was no longer a “today.com” site.  After looking further, I discovered

Today.com has moved to Blogdog.com.

This new blog site is based on the WordPress platform.  That is a good thing.

After I logged in, I realized all my posts and comments were seamlessly transferred over Update: As of July 25, 2010 they are no longer there!

The big difference with this new format is how you get paid.  You will get paid with the ads via Google AdSense.  Therefore, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT POST on this blog anymore, I would highly recommend you add your Google Adsense code in order to make some money from this site.  Depending on the articles, you may get increased traffic, now that it is a WordPress theme. Note: Currently (as of June 28, 2010), you can not add your Google Adsense code.

Now, since Blogdog is hosting your website, you can not do too much modification.  However, you can edit your links and the pages sections. No longer true! The site is still under construction, so there will probably be more changes.

This may be something worth looking into if that blog is inactive.

For those that have stayed active and maintain a blog on BlogDog, I would love comments on how the changes have affected your traffic and/or earnings!!