Earn Money Freelance Writing Online: My Findings

With the recession, I've found I'd had to bump up my efforts to earn money freelance writing online. It seems that there is more effort need to earn money freelance writing then even as early as the beginning of the year. My suspicions are that it is primarily the economy. More companies are outsourcing their freelance writing work to writers that will charge less. Others are hiring one good editor and then paying bulk prices per word and accepting lower quality freelance writing. This of course, makes it hard on others that earn money freelance writing online.

I am one of those freelance writers that needs money now to be able to pay the current bills. I need money now to restock the cabinets and refrigerator shelves. Being able to make money online is the only way that I work. I had been job hunting earlier in the year for a more traditional job. However, the jobs simply aren't out there.

Here are some weird things that I found with my freelance writing online this year. Let's look at the sites that I normally do freelance writing for and see my results. It really makes you have to ask are some of these avenues worth the continued time and effort.

Demand Studios: I applied for a writing position and was politely rejected. They pay $5 and $15 an article with a maximum of 10 in your queue at a time. A new writer will probably have to wait around a week to get work reviewed. Therefore, at Demand Studios, a new writer can expect to make around $20 a day.

eHow: eHow seems to pay strictly on the number of ads clicked from the articles that you post. I've just started experimenting with eHow. To be honest, the eHow earnings is what made me decide to write this page view only article and share my journey with making money with freelance writing online. I will report on the first week with eHow. I wrote 75 articles for eHow during the first week of joining. I am averaging 48 cents a day from that third week. If you look at my Helium, Bukisa and Associated Content volume of articles and average daily earnings, I will have to say that eHow is going to be the biggest and best investment for writing time to get money from online freelance writing. Bukisa is would be my second highest earner with Associated Content coming in third.

Increase eHow earnings: I should submit higher volume on eHow using the insider tricks that I learned to generate the appropriate ads. There really isn't a need to worry about socializing, networking or even advertising articles on eHow. The site is so huge and big on the search engines that with SEO'ed articles that are around 300 words long, you can be pretty much guaranteed money. The trick seems to be the older your articles, the more they start making you per day.

Helium: I have been a member of Helium for almost 3 years. I have up 457 articles on the website. They pay by page views and ad revenue. I don't know their secret formula. My earnings on Helium average 45 cents a day. That's not so hot if you really think about it. You must maintain rating stars and be active to receive your payout. You must reach $25 to get a payout. However, I didn't know about SEO and all of that when I started writing at Helium. Perhaps that knowledge would've earned me more on Helium?

Increase Earnings on Helium: I could increase my earnings on Helium if I rated their articles more. I should also network with the others on the Helium site more and participate in the forum. When I was doing this, in the beginning years, my daily average was around $2 to $3 a day.

Bukisa: I joined Bukisa back near the first of the year. I thought it would be a great place to put non-exclusive articles that I wrote on Helium and write for Associated Content. Now, with Bukisa I haven't had the time to copy and paste all my non-exclusive work for AC over to there. I expect my earnings will triple per day when I complete that task. On Bukisa, I'm average 27 cents a day with 135 articles. This is a BIG difference from Helium with over 400 articles. Bukisa pays strictly on number of unique page views per 24 hours. The minimum payout is $10.

Increase Earnings on Bukisa: Bukisa, I've noticed that my older articles generate quite a bit more income than my newer articles. This tells me, like other sites, it's imperative to submit daily to Bukisa new content to give the other articles time to age. I also don't have many friends or comment very often on Bukisa. I'm sure reciprocal page views would increase earnings there quite a bit too.

Associated Content: On AC, I currently have just over 2,000 articles published. I have lots of fans. I comment at least three days a week. I do all the social networking and so forth on Associated Content. My daily earnings for AC is highest of all the freelance writing sites. I average $18 a day from Associated Content so far submitted. However, if you compare the other websites and AC, I would suspect that this amount per day should be significantly higher. This is taking into account the upfront payments and page views combined. After all, I'm comparing daily earnings with amount of freelance writing work. I noticed no increase in upfront payment with page views accumulated, so it's almost pointless at this time to increase promotion, commenting and so forth to hope for a larger upfront payment to make more on average per day.

Increase earnings on AC: I should write more volume. Although, many of my regular fans say they don't know how I could submit at much higher volume than I currently do on AC. I could comment more and I could promote more. But for $18 a day, is it really going to increase the amount of earnings and be worth it?

NinerNiner: NinerNiner is a blogging website that pays roughly 50 cents per 200 word post. I write as a dedicated blogger there. But I only average around $1 a day with ad revenue sharing and upfront money for posting.

My Conclusions from this Freelance Writing Analysis:

I should focus my need for immediate money on Associated Content. After all there is a monthly page view bonus money and upfront money when I submit articles for payment. My second priority should be to build a very large library of eHow articles that can start getting age on them. Then my third priority should be Bukisa since the increased daily earnings are proportional to volume as well. The other sites, I should just take the passive income and not worry about them since I have the primary sites that will give me the most return on my money and my time for online freelance writing gigs.

There are lots of places that you can write for, such as online magazines, but if you're not able to wait long periods or not lucky enough to land these freelance writing gigs, then hopefully some of this information has helped you.

Here are some of my eHow articles that are doing well:

How to Back Up and Organize Freelance Articles Written

How to Increase SEO Using Comments

How to Use Makeup for Brown Eyes

How to Make a Natural Ant Trap

How to Make a Natural Fly Trap

How to Naturally Condition Hair with Marigolds