Getting paid to write is a whole new industry that sprang up just a few years ago. In this industry, you have many websites and webmasters offering to pay you for your writing. Payment terms are varied and each site will have their own unique structure.
While it might seem the same, getting paid to write online is very different from what you might be used to in the offline world. The following is a short introduction of what to expect if you want to get paid to write in the online world.
Who Is Qualified To Write For Money?
It will definitely help if you have a writing background and have published before. But you can do this even if you have no prior writing experience. However, you do need to be able to write good English, with a minimum of grammatical and spelling errors.
What Topics Can I write About?
The usual advice is to write about what you are familiar with and what you are passionate about. Your expertise and passion will come through and result in a well-written piece. But there will be occasions in which you will be constrained to a certain topic, but you can always choose to reject the project or look at it as a chance to learn something new.
How Do I Get Paid?
When you write offline, you will usually be paid per article, or per column. Online, the payment structure is quite different. Each site might have their own unique structure but generally they will have one or more of the following elements:
- Paid Per Article Or Post. You might get a dollar or two from some sites for each post you make to your blog. Or there are some sites or webmasters that will pay you for your article, although normally, the deal might be in blocks of 5 or 10 articles each time.
- By The Number Of Words In Your Article Or Post. You might get paid by the number of words in your blog post or article. Rates vary, but at the moment, I would expect one to two cents per word to be fair for a start.
- Paid Per Thousand Views. The site will publish your article, and do its part in publicizing your article on their network. On your part, you are encouraged to do your own promotions. You will be paid based on the number of impressions your article generates. At the present rates, you can expect about $1 to $2 per thousand page views.
- By AdSense And Other Third Party Ads. The site will publish your article. Together with the page on which your article is displayed, the site will display other ads. These ads may be pay-per-click ads like Google AdSense or Kontera, or ads from sites like eBay and Amazon, or a combination. A portion of these ads will be display with your affiliate code, which essentially, is the payment for your article.
In Conclusion,
The paid to write industry has evolved along with the Internet. Much of the demand comes from the SEO sector, which uses the content to get backlinks, improve page ranking, and increase traffic from long-tailed keywords. As the search engines evolve to take these SEO activities into account, it is very likely that there will be changes in the SEO sector in the near future and this will impact the paid to write industry.