How To Make Money Writing for eHow

ADDED 6-2-09 I bought and read Janet Fords eBook on writing for eHow. There is a lot of good info in there especially if you are new to eHow and need the tutorial on how to work the eHow interface. The writing specific sections are concise and the section on getting ideas makes you wonder why you didn't think about that. Read for yourself how one mom makes over a thousand dollars every month writing for eHow.

ADDED 6-2-09Write For Cash is another website run by a nice lady named Karen that is very focused on the title. As I make mistakes I find myself referring to the site for tips and reminders. There is a newsletter you can subscribe to as well.

The Cheap Bastid is a website devoted to SEO and freelance writing tips and tricks. I have to say that it would be in all of our best interests to read the whole site.

Desolator is an eHow high earner. He's written a guide to eHow that goes against the current RRCR mania sweeping the site. Well worth your time.

Then there is Grannyshirley who has a blog on how to ehow. Like me, she is fairly new to eHow and her perspective is simply awesome.

I will continue to update this as I learn new things.

The short answer to the question in the title is "I don't know for sure". But, I do know what my gut tells me. My gut says that Desolator is right. So, after you read Desolators e-book (which is listed in the resources section below) come back and tell me how you feel.

My solution to the question is to create a hybrid that sets well with my personal feelings on the issue. I will now quote from my freelance writing blog....... BTW, the rest of the blog post is pretty good, this is only the "what I'm gonna do" part.

So, my new policy is that I will post my article and broadcast it same as always. But I will specifically ask that you read it, not rate it, not comment on it.

Here is what I want: Please send me a PM with an honest evaluation of the article. Tell me if it was interesting. Did it read well? If you were to try doing it; would you be able to complete it without asking for more information? Were the ads on the page relevant in your opinion to the content of the article? Tell me all this in a PM and tell me what I need to do to earn a genuine 5-star rating from you personally along with an actual recommendation.

In return I will either do the same for you. Or, if you prefer I will default and RRCR your article of choice in the traditional manner. I want to help others and so even if I don't believe that RRCR is the way to go, I will do it for you if you want it that way.


What do you think?

eHow has a very simple interface that allows you to work from beginning to end in a fluid manner.

The fields are: Title, Introduction, Difficulty, Steps (individual text boxes), tips, warnings, and things you need.

Each is simple to fill in, and in the end you click publish and you are done.

I find that writing the article on a word processor best just in case eHow hangs up and you cannot publish to be a good thing. It has happened before, and having a local copy saved of your work is great.

Now, hopefully some details that will help you out.

Your title needs to be eye catching as well as Google Friendly. So, use your keyword trackers and optimizers to be sure that the index will catch your content. Long Tail or key phrases are the best items to use. If you need a handy dandy Google Adword checker, then check this out.

Using this tool you will see that "How to write a business plan" and "How to create a business plan" each have different stats. The first shows 18,100 hits. The second shows only 1,600 hits. So which one should you use? Additionally each shows you some alternative ideas and some of them have more hits than your idea.

The next area to write for is the body in the individual steps. This isn't the 1990's where the number of keywords rules. Instead what you want to do is insert keywords in the obvious places where they read naturally. You can use the same tool to test which turn of a phrase will generate the most hits.

Finally, once you have published your article, view it live and make sure the Google Ads are aligned with your topic. If they are slightly off, then run the entire URL through the Adwords tool. It will give you a break down of what Google sees.

All the best,
Phil