We're very lucky to live in a world today where we can make money, right from the comfort of our own home. The thought of making your own schedule, and sitting in your nice warm bed with a nice cup of coffee and your laptop to work from sounds like the ideal job for a lot of people.
There are dozens of sites that pay people to write articles for them (with varying payment methods), but many are only available to US, Canadian or UK citizens. Here is a brief overview of some of the best writing sites that are open to Australian writers.
The good things about Suite 101
- Because there is an application process, and not just anyone can come along and join, the quality of articles at Suite 101 is higher than some of its competitors.
- The editors are very helpful with assisting you to make your articles better, pointing out things you may need to change, or fix to increase your page views. The forums are also full of writers willing to help each other out, and there is a great community atmosphere about it.
- Learning hub. Suite has a section called the "learning hub", which contains very well structured and organized information, that contains everything you need to know about writing online.
- Because of Suite's status on the internet, you have the potential to have massive exposure on Google and other major search engines.
- You receive residual income forever, on the articles you have written for Suite.
- There are many writers making a lot of consistent income from Suite 101
- Bonus income after you hit the 50 article mark, and chances at becoming a "feature writer", to make a bit of extra income on your articles.
- Write about whatever you want, in any topic you want, if you have a demonstrated knowledge of topic.
The bad things about Suite 101
- No upfront payment like some of the other sites
- Because there is no upfront payment, to make any revenue from Suite, you need to understand SEO and page ranks in order to drive traffic to your articles
- Not anyone can join, you will need to submit a couple of examples of your work upon application. It's not a guaranteed "yes", and many people miss out.
- When you publish an article, Suite has 1 year exclusive rights to it, meaning you cannot post your article anywhere else, or sell it off. (This, however, is better for your page ranking anyway.)
- Whilst you get a revenue overview, you cannot see which of your articles is bringing in the most, or least amount of income
The good things about HubPages
- Anyone can sign up straight-off, there is no application process
- Because revenue is gained from your personal Google AdSense account, you can monitor your own earnings.
- HubPages use a 60:40 method of revenue; 60% of the time, your personal affiliate ads show up, and 40% of the time, HubPages ads show up. Therefore you theoretically gain exactly 60% of the revenue your articles make.
- A lot of writers making a lot of money, and has a high level of traffic coming in from the major search engines
The bad things about HubPages
- Because anyone can sign up, there are a lot of poor quality articles floating around. This takes away from the integrity of the site, and some people don't like having their good quality articles associated with them.
- No upfront payment on articles
- Again because there is no upfront payment, you need to understand SEO and key phrases in order to get traffic flowing to your articles
Other options for making money with online writing
- Freelance writing job providers
Anyone can sign up these sites for free, and they're full of hundreds or even thousands of freelance writing jobs. One good things about this is that these sites is that there is heaps of variety. Not only article writing, but also graphic design, marketing, website design, and dozens of other sub-genres.
The way these sites work, is that after you create a profile, you can "bid" on the available projects. This means that you apply and tell them how much you would like to be paid for the work. The problem is that with so many new writers trying to make a name for themselves, most of the jobs really aren't worth it for what they're paying. However, it can be a good way to find some decent jobs if you keep your eye out.
Here are a few of the more well-known sites available to Australians:
- Blogging
Steps:
- Go to Blogger and create an account
- Create a new blog, and write about ANYTHING you want. The controls and settings are all very straight-forward even if you have a very basic understanding of working your way around websites.
- Go to Google AdSense and create yourself an account.
- Go back on to Blogger, and click the "Monetize" tab on the blog you created in step 2. This will allow to to quickly and easily connect your Blogger account to your AdSense account.
After this is all approved, Google ads will now appear on your blog. Every time someone reads your article, and clicks one of the ads, you will get a small payment from Google. The amount varies, depending on the ad. Estimates are that clicks vary from paying you anywhere from $0.01 - $3.00+.
Whatever the case, many people are making thousands of dollars per month, just from AdSense revenue. The great thing about this is also that it's residual income - Once you set it up, it's there forever.
Joel Bickerton - Joel is a 23 year old university student from Melbourne Australia. He is currently completing a Bachelor of Social Science majoring in ...
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