I Make Money Writing Online

Although subject to change, my online money from writing comes from a half-dozen platforms. I'm a fanatic for analytics that tell me where my revenue comes from, just as you would in deciding, as a grocer, which items to put on your shelves and where. Interestingly, the results can be very easy to see and analyze, using Google Analytics. They allow you to decide where to put your content, along with other factors, and where to place link building sidelines.

My current favorites, in no special order: Squidoo (obviously), Seekyt, Hubpages, Blogger, Wizzley and Triond. Each are distinct in how your writing gets presented and the rules of engagement you must follow, otherwise known as "terms of service" or TOS. I'll cover each in order of which I think offers the best chance to make money and why. Your mileage may differ, of course, and when it does, I hope you'll share your thoughts at one of the comment sections below.

Just to be clear, I don't make all of my money writing online. With four books (see below) in print, a fifth coming, and a regular gig writing reviews and feature article freelance, I made more writing hard copy until recently. Even so, the reason I make more online is because more opportunities exist. Dollar per hour, my income from hard copy far outstrips online copy.

That all said. Let's get started!

Let's get the hard part out of the way immediately.

Squidoo, for all it's appeal to writers and readers, is not really a writers' platform. It's an artful hybrid that strives to turn loose the creator in you. That's why we're lensmasters, I guess, not writers, and why you don't really need to write well to carry content. Great images can carry a lens, like my Cat Artist Deborah Julian, which ranks well without relying on much writing for great content. The artist's images carry the lens. This can and often is a double-edged sword that cuts between eye-grabbing content and web-dragging complexity.

What do I mean? Alexa shows that Squidoo is a very high profile domain, but it also tells that it's speed or load time is slower that about three-quarters of the rest of the web. You will lose viewers when they are not patient enough to for your content to load. In the age of Twitter and Facebook, that means a reasonable number of loses.

Seekyt, on the other hand, is too new to rank anywhere near as high, but the site is rated "Fast" by Alexa and that's a help with Google rankings as well as holding readers attention long enough to get them reading. Nothing, of course, can save poor content, and both Seekyt and Squidoo make constant efforts to keep content good. Both also are Google friendly enough to get you indexed and available to searchers fast.

The polar opposite of Squidoo, Seekyt is a young, clean and clear article writing platform with a philosophy on visuals that is the opposite of Squidoo's. Seekyt feels that images can have negative impacts for two reasons. First, they compete with the written content, but more important, they slow content loading, a major factor in the eyes of the creator of Seekyt, who I first met while he was still doing what I do: making money writing online. Then, we were both writing on Hubpages, a platform now in a kind of free fall. More on Hubpages later.

Seekyt's simplicity means that you write straightforward content, using an editor that is pretty much like what you've been using for years on Word and other word-processing programs. This makes it very easy to enter links, to guide readers to important points through headings and to use any number of tools you're used to, including adding links. On the other hand, you ability to promote Amazon products is highly restricted relative to Squidoo, and some profitable moneymaking options, like Zazzle and AllPosters, don't exist at all, except as html entries you add, using the basics, on your own. Sometimes, that will give the editor serious cramps as it tries to do what it wasn't intended to do.

And, esthetics do matter. Seekyt just isn't as pretty as Squidoo. Without the ability to dazzle with images, eye candy is never a factor in holding or retaining viewers. Community counts too. There is solid management technical and vocational help easily available on Seekyt and a friendly, interactive community, but in my experience, no website has ever come close to providing the support, encouragement as close as you can get to touchy-feely affection as Squidoo. Squidoo is a place of constant encouragement and camaraderie from a brilliant HQ team.

Innovations and constant improvements for the creative experience are a Squidoo thing. And with an Alexa worldwide ranking of 213 (out of billions of web pages), they have a proven track record of success. On the other hand, there's the slowness and the complexity thing.

Simply put, if I want to write the same article on both SEEKyt and Squidoo, I'll spend twice as long (at least) on the lens. The creative interface is busy with requirements for visual and interactive content. All great if the results are worth it. Unfortunately for Squidoo, unless you have a topic, like my lens mentioned above, that thrives on visuals, the return on your investment in time will be less.

It's hard to say exactly why, since Squidoo's algorithm for rankings (and payouts) has not been made public while Seekyt's Adsense model is completely open, but when we get to the nitty-gritty of making money writing online, Seekyt just pays out better, at least for me, and it may not be that close a call.

Because I started writing on Squidoo earlier and didn't really get the value of Seekyt right way, my monthly views on Squidoo are roughly 350% more than on Seekyt. In the most recent month in which full results are known, even with that disparity, I earned only 25% more on Squidoo than Seekyt. And that includes money from Amazon and eBay capsules, not included in the Seekyt totals.

While this capsule may read like a knock on Squidoo, it isn't. I still love creating lenses. Seekyt and Squidoo are both fantastic places for writers. But if your goal as a writer is to make money, you'll make more with Seekyt.

(Example: My most popular article on Seekyt, Jerry Hicks Died, But Guess What? He's back!)

A quick update. One point I neglected to make is that Seekyt may yield better results per view because they share a considerably higher percentage of Adsense revenue. On the other hand, Squidoo's ability to get you more views may make up for that. More recent changes in Seekyt's layout has increased my Adsense revenue. It's great to see that both websites go all out to make writing online profitable for us.)



I write for both because creating on a single platform gets dull and because complementary articles let me extend my themes and to enhance reader experience by providing links to both. Google may even love Squidoo a little more, but when payday comes, it's a dollars and cents matter. Smart writers who want to make money go where their work yields the best results.

If variety is not your thing, you can skim from here. If I wanted to restrict myself to two writer sites, they would be Squidoo and Seekyt. Both are rewarding and keep you in good writing company.

But, ya know, sometimes you get a really good hold on a niche and there's too much to park in even two places others when a new way of doing things will ring your buzzer. Or, like me, you might just be writing all the time and enjoy having a fresh dance partner sometimes. So, I'll give you my second tier of places to go when the writing bug strikes.

Google's own Blogger is easy to use with all the familiar interface attributes of Seekyt. It also can double as a bookmarking site that pays, unlike, say Tumblr or Delicious. But there's also something about Blogger that seems old and clunky. It lacks the clean simplicity of Seekyt while not coming close to the colorful complexity of Squidoo. As for moneymaking, it's okay with Adsense, if not the best, but Blogger gives you many options for affiliates, like Amazon's aStores and other widgets, that the others don't. It also makes it super simple to include links, including continuously updating RSS feeds, to complimentary places of interest.

(Example, a popular article on Blogger: Pictures of New York In Summer)

Blogger was my article resource before I discovered Seekyt, and I don't think any quality writer who monetizes Blogger will regret it. The site just seems to be stuck a few years back.

Among the newcomers with exciting potential is Triond. Although the Triond writing experience, the familiar editor and tools, is much like Seekyt or Blogger, the way they present your work to potential readers is radically different. Triond has many magazine style formats, and their automatic process is to place your article in the most appropriate. The community support is nice, and a couple of other features are worth noting.

Unlike any other writers' site I know of, Triond automates assistance with images as well as key words. Click a button and Triond presents you with an array of images easily added to your article. Don't see one you like, just refresh and Triond gives you more. As you wrap up your article, Triond offers you not just an identifying icon but a list of keywords gleaned from what you've written. Pretty nifty, especially for the keyword challenged.

What's not nifty with Triond is that these innovative features have a history of not working as expected. On two occasions, the icon and keyword tool froze for hours (no exaggeration) until the spinning ball led me to deleting the content and moving it over to Seekyt where it worked just fine. Also, the images can be giant sized, but you have not option for resizing or cropping. You get what you get. Further deviling this promising platform is that the content placement can be funky and funny (if your in the right mood.) An article I wrote about new age charlatans got placed in a health-focused magazine because one of the subjects had leukemia. It was like 90% of the content was swept aside.

In time, I expect Triond to correct the flaws mentioned above. What is less certain is whether they can improve performance with earnings from Adsense. Right now, they lag far behind. A separate ad revenue stream partly compensates, but not by much.

Finally, in the middle tier, is Wizzley, a site I usually feel a little funny about using. I find it impossible to see Wizzley as much more than the bastard offspring of Squidoo and Hubpages with no real innovations of their own. They seem to have "borrowed" equally from both. You might say the creators found a way to emulate the best of both in a way that neither could do on their own.

And wizzley is firm on demanding quality content. They like images but they have a minimum word count, which makes them more a writers's site than Squidoo. Yet they also have a capsule based interface that makes Hubpages look rickety.

As for earnings, for whatever reason, I find getting clicks vastly harder on Wizzley than for any other platform. All content being equal, I find getting clicks for ads on Wizzley at least twice as hard as anywhere else. Maybe it's layout issues or something else, but this will keep them permanently out of the top tier unless results change.

In sixth place and barely in the running is Hubpages, once the leader. In the last year, Hubpages has dropped astonishingly in Alexa ranking, from within the top 200 to barely scraping under 300. Their readership has tanked similarly. They may have the resources to stabilize, and they still have innovative features. None of those were factors when I dumped Hubpages for Squidoo nearly a year ago.

Hubpages is much more restrictive on content, especially as it relates to back linking, than the other platforms. They are also inflexible about it, and for a site that needs good writers, they are exceptionally rude on enforcement. Who needs that? Hm. What else? Oh, yeah, the Adsense revenue is decidedly mediocre.

That said, here is how I'd rank the sites for making money writing online.

Although the contest is very close, Seekyt wins out over Squidoo by a hair. I recommend enhancing your creative fun by writing for both. Your efforts will be rewarded.

In the middle tier, Triond has the potential for becoming a great site. Worth keeping in mind and learning to write for. You never know when you'll want the spice of variety in your life. Wizzley and Blogger can make your writing life worthwhile, but shouldn't be your main source for revenue.

Wait for Hubpages until you're sure they've righted themselves, if that day comes.

And have a good time making money writing online!