Why You Really Make Money Writing For Helium

I've noticed a lot of people asking "how much can you make writing articles for Helium". A lot of you probably signed up, wrote some articles and checked every fourteen seconds to see how much they had made. A few days and $0.32 later you gave up, deciding that Helium wasn't worth the money.

The thing is, you do make money writing for Helium, but you have to look at it differently. Consider it an investment of your time that turns into money.

For example, if you are a we writer and you wrote for an hour, you could probably make around $30 including fidgeting, browsing, researching etc. I know some writers make a lot more, but most of us don't.

Say your average Helium article takes you 20 minutes to write. You know what you're talking about so it shouldn't take that long. Consider that 20 minutes to be $10 worth of your time that you invested in Helium.

So write 5 or 10 articles and forget about them. Don't write in news or current events, because people stop reading these. Write well-optimized articles and Digg them, and write in "how-to" fields or "about" topics.

Most of my articles make me around 1c per day, but some don't make any money and some make a little more. If there are 365 days in a year (and there I'm informed that there are) that means $3.65 per year. Ok, so that's optimistic - say they have a few bad weeks, and it ends up at around $2.50 for the year. That's a 25% return on your investment!

Real estate doesn't normally give you that, and neither do savings accounts or bonds come even close. Stocks might, but you have a chance to lose your money whereas at Helium the worst that can happen is you don't make any money at all. If the site runs for four years you'll get 100% return on your investment in that time.

I just think this is a better way to think about it.

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Write Articles and Make Money on Helium

If you haven't heard of Helium by now, you should definitely go check it out. It's not a get rich quick scheme, and it doesn't beat writing SEO articles and web content for clients in terms of how much you can make, but damn it's just so much fun.

Here's how it works: You write articles on Helium on any topic you choose. You can write on a new topic, or one that already has articles written about it. All of the articles on one topic get lumped together, and users rate them. The higher up yours goes in its little group, the more of a share it earns from advertising revenue. Obviously the groups with 20 or so articles pay more if you get yours to the top, but this is harder to do in bigger article groups.

There are two other ways you can make money writing articles for Helium. The one is the competitions: first prize is $75, but to do this you will probably need to write 15 or so articles on various topics in the competition. This isn't really worth it money wise, but write about 5 articles and these articles will earn you money slowly anyway. You might even get a few bucks from winning!

The other way is to write articles for Helium publishers. Companies post article projects, and then anyone can have a go. The publisher picks the article they want, and pays that person. You get paid anywhere between around $20-$200 per article so if you're good, you can make BIG money writing articles for Helium.

Remember it pays to pick your topics well. Choose topics you think a lot of people will want to read about, and this way you'll make more money from your articles on Helium. The only drawback is that you can only be paid by Helium via your PayPal account - they don't offer other options.

Other Stuff About Helium (and a lot about gas)

Write for Money at Helium

For those of you who haven't tried writing for Helium, I would definitely suggest you give it a bash. This site is different from a lot of freelance writing sites, in that you write articles that they want to publish, and they pay you for them!

All you have to do to get started is pick your categories and subcategories, and start writing. When you article is approved your account will be credited - simple as that. It's also a place where you can read articles on just about anything, so if you want to look something up, this is the place.

It's good to see a new generation of paid article sites coming up, and I really hope this one does well. It's about time people started making good money for writing about things they care about. Forget about those sites that pay you 50c per post, the best way to make money writing articles without going out and finding clients is on Helium.

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Why I Use Google for Damn Near Everything

Google has really come a long way since its inception. Most people still think of Google as a search engine, but to me the G-Men have a lot more to offer. For starters you might have noticed their little acquisition of a website called YouTube, which made instant multi-billionaires out of two punks just like yourself.

This has little effect on users of YouTube and Google, but the guys at Google have a lot more to offer. For starters, I use Gmail. This is the starting point most people use to create their Google accounts, and it gives you access to the best online email system by far, and all of the other cool G-stuff.

Next up, I use the iGoogle homepage as my script aggregator. If you subscribe to any feeds or posts using bloglines, technorati, digg or anything like that you can do it all easier and better on iGoogle. On my front page is my email, a currency converter, a to-do list a Wikipedia search bar, the weather and a George Bush quote generator, because he makes me laugh.

This is not the end, because I have 2 other tabs of feeds - one for blogs I like and have subscribed to, and another for tools like my instant .doc to .pdf converter (which is something I've been hunting after for a long time) and a few other gadgets that I use less often. It makes an excellent home page, and I can see what's going on in my little universe all of the time.

This is all pretty run of the mill stuff, but just go and check out the Google Products to see what they have available at the moment. It's all free and there is a lot of useful stuff. I would recommend the Google Pack (You can see a link to this on the right) if you want to protect your computer and keep everything running smoothly for free.

The most exciting bit of it all, though, is Google Labs. This is where they work on all of the cool stuff. Google Earth (the full 3D interactive map of the earth up to resolutions of a few centimeters) was one of the first graduates of the labs, but a lot of cool things are coming up. There is even a rumor of a complete Google Operating System coming being dreamed up, but this is unconfirmed.

I just have to say, you gotta love a company that gives its employees free foot massages and allows them to work on their own personal projects once a week, with full pay. You might love their search engine or hate it, but the cool stuff they are turning out is really worth a look.

Google Stuff

Writing Jobs at WriteNonsense

I have received several requests recently about writing jobs that I might have to offer. If anyone has noticed, I have two or three features on my blog that allow you to find writing jobs easily -- without shelling out any money first.

I have writing jobs available for my South African readers at the moment. Hopefully I will be able to offer projects to international writers soon, but I cannot give any time frame for this. My reason for this is that the rates I could offer overseas writers are not really worth the trouble. (Unless you live in India, or another country whose currency is weak against the dollar) You can email me to find out what writing jobs I have available at the moment.

For my international readers who really want to get started writing for money, I would suggest looking at the writing jobs on GetAFreelancer. These are the most recent internet copywriting jobs that have been posted. For information on how to join GetAFreelancer, bid on projects and win them, see my post here about how to do it.

If you want to get work through GetAFreelancer, you will need either a Moneybookers or a PayPal account so you can get money out of GAF. There are a lot of other internet copywriting job posts, but this is the one that comes most highly recommended. I use it and I can tell you it is a really easy way to get jobs. You usually end up getting long term clients who supply you with a comfortable flow of work, and that's your ideal situation as a freelance writer.

So, if anyone is looking for online writing work, drop me a line. If I can't help you out I can point you in the right direction. The "Helium needs you to write" ad on the right isn't kidding - they want writers and they pay you in perpetuity! So check it out, write some articles for them and watch your writing earn money!

Writing Jobs