Choosing Keywords: The Make-or-Break Factor for Views and Earnings

Today's post will discuss choosing keywords for your online content. This is important and can spell the difference between readership and earnings or content that is dead in the water and fails to earn its keep.

Before you write any piece of content, whether it be a blog post, an article, or website copy, the first order of the day should be to sign in to whatever keyword tool you are using and check your chosen keywords before you begin writing. What should you be looking at when selecting your keywords?

December Musings: Storm Windows, Storm Doors, and Drywall Dust

Hello Everyone,

Unlike last month, which was a November repair nightmare, December has been quiet in comparison. Well . . . relatively quiet . . . This month has seen Xmas baking and decorating, storm windows installed, storm doors put on + drywalling of the old landing. 

Battening Down the Hatches
The window guys appeared and had two storm windows up and on the second story, in record time. I asked them for the broken storm from the upstairs bedroom and my contractor, Dave, replaced the broken glass with a piece of plexi-glass and popped it on my kitchen window.

Dave had some old storm doors in his shed, which had caved in, so he went through the rubble and salvaged two doors, to my benefit. Then he came into possession of a third door from a house he`d been working on. The weather cooperated and he was able to install the doors without freezing his fingers off. This has all helped to make this old place much warmer.   

A Face-lift for the Old Landing
He then went to work drywalling the old landing and he stopped working on the 24th. By that time, my home had a layer of dust in every possible nook and cranny. But I didn't care. He mentioned that a lot of women would have disliked all that dust with Christmas right around the corner and house guests imminent but I told him I'm was so appreciative to see the crumbling plaster finally laid to rest and any friends that came up would understand and that it was all very good.

Dave came back after Christmas and finished the old landing. He`ll come back later on to do more drywalling, as I can afford it.

It's encouraging to see this house being given some loving reparation. Roselane is a large Victorian and was neglected prior to my purchasing it. I've spent the last 5 years trying to put it to rights, which has been an adventure, to say the least.

It`s a great feeling to be battening down the hatches before the worst of our winter weather strikes and seeing this place getting a much-needed face-lift.

*If you enjoyed this post, please click on the stars below. Thank you!

How to Make Money From Stock Photography

Another way to earn income online is to take advantage of revenue sharing websites for photographers. If you have a collection of good quality images, you could make money from stock photography.

As readers know, I'm a fan of sites that share revenue with freelancers because these pay month after month and earnings from the pages you create are often much higher over the long-term. You basically do the work once and are paid continuously. It's a given that the more pages you create, the more you stand to earn. Many have gone on to create full-time incomes by continuing to submit either articles or photos to sites that compensate users for content.

Today, I want to discuss revenue sharing websites that allow photographers to submit their photos and earn with the revenue share model. This is somewhat different from sites where you are paid each time someone purchases a photo for use. Photographers can earn from their photos using these sites but for the purpose of this post, we will stick to revenue sharing websites that share a portion of ad revenue with photographers.

One site that offers this earnings model is FreeRangeStock.com. Members make money from their photos. How?

How to Make Money From Stock Photography
Writers, hobbyists, or anyone else with good quality images can sign up at FreeRangeStock.com and upload their photos. Images are reviewed by FreeRangeStock.com and Google and, if approved, Google ads start appearing on users' download and profile pages. Google serves text and image ads. An additional plus is that Google also places CPM ads on pages. Members are paid just for these ads displaying, sans actual clicks.

If a user does not have an AdSense account, no problem, because FreeRangeStock.com now creates AdSense accounts for their photographers and will also associate existing AdSense accounts (from users who already have AdSense accounts). AdSense reports can be accessed from the photographer's account admin area. 80% revenue goes to the photographer and 20% to FreeRangeStock.com.

In my books, this is a great offering. Those who want to make money from their photos can benefit from an established site that already has a following, while still earning the lion's share of ad revenue.

In a nutshell, you sign up and upload your photos and FreeRangeStock.com handles the rest of it. It couldn't be easier. This revenue sharing website is a platform that allows you to make money from stock photography.

Learn more about FreeRangeStock Revenue Sharing 

Money-Making Tip: earn money from stock photography by joining free sites that share revenue.

*If you found this information helpful, please rate it by clicking the stars below. Thank you!

Income From Advertising: Earn With Blogging Ads

One of the great things about blogs is that you can earn income from advertising.

Earning Income From Advertising

One site that offer this to bloggers is Blogging Ads. You register and submit your blog for approval. 

Blogging Ads is apparently looking for bloggers to post one-time ads on their sites and payment is via PayPal. I contacted them and the reply I received indicated that bloggers are paid month after month from the ads they place on their blogs. I'm not sure if this means bloggers are paid for each post they create or whether bloggers are paid repeatedly for actual "ads." I say "ads" because the site is a tad confusing. When one sees "blogging ads" one thinks of an actual ad block. The Blogging Ads site may be making available to bloggers paid "posts that are advertisements," over actual income from advertising that remains on their blogs.

The site also claims that bloggers just have to post the ad to their blog and that the text is even supplied--or bloggers can opt to write their own post. But why would they? This looks to be an easy method to earn from a blog. Digging a little further, a section of the site indicates that bloggers create a post and embed a link to the applicable advertiser's site. Hmm . . .

Whatever the upshot, each entry earns you $5.00. Not a lot, for sure, but if this was paid each month from a one-time ad block placement it would be a good show. Bloggers are allowed three of these "ads" each month. Personally, I could get behind a passive $15.00 each month if it were income from advertising that appeared on my blog. If it means $5.00 per post it might still be worthwhile if everything is supplied to the blogger and he/she merely has to copy/paste the info. If one has to actually create a post and do the usual linking, $5.00 is hardly worth the effort, depending on what you are used to earning from sponsored posts.

I contacted Blogging Ads and was given the following information:

• Bloggers log in and select posts that are available to them based on the categories they selected for their blogs. 
• Bloggers are paid for each accepted and approved post, at $5 per post.
• Posts are usually reviews or simply 100-300 word posts.

My thoughts about Blogging Ads: payment is on the low side but because post lengths are short, for someone who is just starting out with paid blogging or someone who types quickly, this is another way to make income through posting on your blog.

Note: blog submission is temporarily on hiatus but should be up and running soon, so if you like the look of Blogging Ads, make sure to bookmark the site or save it as a shortcut on your desktop for future reference.

I'm wondering if readers have had experience with Blogging Ads. If so, please leave your comments.

*If you found this information interesting, please rate it by clicking on the stars below. Thank you!

Sites That Buy Photos

Many freelance writers amass a collection of good quality photos that they use for their articles. What to do with all the left-overs? Why, earn income, of course! from sites that buy photos. 

Selling Images to Sites That Buy Photos

As I touched on previously, in my post Adding to Your Writing Income, writers earn in a multitude of ways, not just from writing but from using related skills, which round out the whole freelance-writing-for-a-living package.

If you have a collection of good quality photos, left-overs from photo shoots you've done for your articles, a way to capitalize on your efforts is to submit your work to sites that buy photos.

Sites That Buy Photos
There are a number of sites on the look-out for photos and you, as a writer/photographer can make use of these to supplement your income.

• 123RF.cpm
• CreStock.com
• Dreamstime.com
• Fotolia.com
• Shutterstock.com 

Writers, by dent of the very work they do to round out their articles--adding photos to make them visually appealing--are one step ahead of the game because over time, it is easy to collect untold numbers of folders containing photos. Many of us prefer our own photos because we can choose our backgrounds and reduce outside clutter.

Both print publications and the online sites that buy photos offer another means to earn money via good-quality photo submissions.

*If you found this information helpful, please rate it by clicking the stars below. Thank you!

A Word About Simple Article Writing

Is there any such thing as simple article writing?

Many people, from website owners to bloggers--and yes, even writers--groan inwardly at the thought of article writing. Writing articles is perceived as a laborious and boring task, one that is easily put off and oft takes a back seat to other, far more interesting activities.

However, that doesn't get the job done. If writing articles generates income for you, it pays to get the process down. The whole endeavor can actually be made much simpler by breaking article writing down into manageable-sized chunks.

Simple Article Writing
One of the easiest ways to quickly write articles is develop a working formula and use it as the basis for most of the articles you create.

Writing articles becomes easier when you think of each article as having three basic parts:

1. Introduction
2. Body 
3. Conclusion

If you mentally break your articles into these three parts, writing them becomes much easier. Each section will vary in length--whether from one or more sentences and/or one or more paragraphs--but using this formula will help you to execute your articles.

This is a simple article writing technique that will help you to structure your articles and arrange your ideas in logical progression, which will make for better and more effective articles.

It is an easy matter to introduce your subject matter, enlarge on it, and bring it to logical conclusion. Do this each time you write an article and get the leg up on simple article writing.

*If you found this information helpful, please rate it by clicking the stars below. Thank you!