Why I Decided to Set Up My Own Blog Under My Own Domain

Writing for other people and for share-revenue sites has taught me that earning money online is indeed possible. More than that, it has provided me with the skills needed to stay in the online world and on the freelance bandwagon.

Before, I have never thought of taking blogging seriously. I had always earned quite a decent amount writing for private clients and for sites that pay writers a minimal amount for their efforts. I have also earned from share-revenue sites, which give writers the freedom to earn as much or as little for their efforts. Every writing assignment provided me with new skills and knowledge. And with the success of each writing gig, I have become more aware of my earning potential.

After having written hundreds of articles for other people and after writing for a bunch of share-revenue sites, I finally realized that setting up my own blog under my own domain is the way to go. I have to do it not only for the money but for myself as well. Writing has always been my passion and I want to own the rights for the articles and web contents I have written. This has not been possible with private clients. With my own blog and domain, I can freely say that I own all the articles that readers find in my website. Now, I can freely direct my clients to my website without thinking for a second that they might doubt I was really the writer behind those articles.

Would You Write 500-Word Articles for $1 a Piece?

I was looking at Craiglist this evening and I was so frustrated to see a lot of ads from employers offering $1 or $1.50 for 500-word articles. It is a pity that there are writers who write for such meager compensation. Even when I was just starting out as a freelance writer, I never did want to write articles for a meager $1. If we are to do the math, $1 would not even compensate for the writer's effort at putting his or her thoughts down into words. Consider the tedious work of researching...will $1 be enough? Then there are the bills for electricity and the writer's time. I know that for starters, $1 may be enough for them to start with. They can at least build a portfolio out of that. But it is still not fair for writers. There are a lot of employers who insist on their meager pay and they demand a lot from the writers. They fail to realize that writers aren't slaves. Writers eat, too, and have bills to pay.

I know there are a lot of writers who may accept this meager offer just to gain experience and build their portfolio. But I just hope that employers are sensitive enough to the worth of writers. We are not slaves. If employers want to pay $1 a piece, then I suggest they don't ask too much from writers. They shouldn't be too strict if that is the only amount they can pay. If these employers feel that writers, especially those not from the US do not have the right to insist on their own rates and their worth, then these kinds of employers do not also have the right to insist on quality and originality of articles. It is a give and take process.

If you are a writer, think much about your worth. Do not let employers underestimate you. You can earn much better than that.

What SEO Can Do for Your Blog

There are many people who have made it big in the blogging world. They may have made thousands just from maintaining their blogs. How could they possibly have done it?

According to many successful bloggers, the secret to getting success in blogging is to target your articles for SEO. What is SEO? SEO is short for "search engine optimization". This is a process where articles are written with specialized keywords so they get picked up easily by search engines. Targeting your articles to keywords that are often searched for by people can bring a lot of traffics to your blog. The more traffic a blog has, the better chances it has to earn.

There are many people who write quality contents on their blogs but not all of these blogs may be easily found by other people. In short, despite the quality content found in those blogs or sites, they may not be accessed by people because they are not indexed by search engines. The problem could be that these blogs did not use the right keywords that make them visible in search engines.

SEO can do a lot to improve the traffic of your blogs or websites. Try to write using the right keywords and you may see a big difference in your blog traffic.

How Much Should You Charge for Your Article?

One of the problems that freelancers often face in their freelance writing career is how much to charge for their article. This is especially true for beginners. I have seen so many writers bidding $1 foe every 500-600 word article. I wonder how they are able to eat with that kind of rate?

It is always a pity to see people scrambling to get projects that pay only pennies for the kind of hard work they do. Even if I am in the Philippines and the cost of living is lower compared to the US, Australia and many parts of the globe, I still believe that $1 per project is way too low. Working for that kind of amount is some kind of slavery.

How much should you charge for your article? It all depends on the freelancer. However, a lot of things should be taken into consideration before we charge too low an amount. Even $4 per 500 word article is too low. Think freelancing as a business. Will you be able to pay for electricity, broadband and other overhead costs with that kind of amount? Will that amount suffice for all the hard work and efforts you do? I think not. When I started out, I started with $3.50, which at that time was good because others were being paid lower than that. But as I gained more experience, I also learned better. A dollar for an article is a pittance! No one should accept such amount in exchange for their hard work. I think $5 should be the minimum and it should not be much lower than that.

I used to get some work from Craigslist Philippines and I have had clients who pay according to my rates. But it pisses me to see employers offering $1 in exchange for high quality original articles. Huh! They usually make it clear that they need "high quality original article at fast turn around time" and if their specifications are not met, they may not pay. What the heck!

Fellow writers in the Philippines, you should know your worth better. We need to eat, too. We need to be compensated for the hard work we do. Like other writers from the US say, we should not work for peanuts. Know your worth. Do NOT undersell yourself. If a client declines your rate, then go to the next. Do not beg for them to give you pennies for the hard work you do. Strive for a much better pay. It is only in charging better that you will finally see fruits of your hardwork.

The Suite 101 Experience

It seems like Suite 101 has gotten me hooked. I have read in other blogs that share-revenue sites are no good and they only exploit freelance writers. I feel so too with Triond when I only received a few cents after months of having written a few articles there. But with Suite, it is always a joy to see my revenues rise day after day. Lately, though, I experienced days without revenue and it got me really frustrated. But after several days, there it was again, revenue rising.

My freelance writing experience with Suite 101, albeit it's too early for me to tell if the site really is a good one to stick on to, has also made me realise that Triond is not bad after all. Anyway, I have only written two quality articles at Triond, the rest of which are poems which may not at all get the attention of readers. That must have been the reason why earning there was slow. But I have also seen improvement with my earnings in Triond in the last few days. Perhaps if I'd write more there I'd also earn more.

I am excited now to see my revenues at Suite rising more. I am about to add more articles and I think with more articles there, I'd be able to earn better. I'll see what the site has to offer me after a few months of writing there and post the result here. I think it will be a good one.

Trying Hard Not to Write

Geez. It is a Sunday and it has been my first Sunday that I have no articles to write for a client. I was elated because finally, I could use some rest for this day. But what the heck, I can't keep myself away from my computer. I feel I need to write write and write. Can't help it. Ugh...

Freelance Writing Pay Rate Increase

Just last week I received another batch of assignments from one of the writing sites that I currently write for. The assignment consisted of the same types of articles, same guidelines and the same number of words per topic. But there was one change that I couldn't help but notice. And that slight change made me happy.

You guess it! They raised their pay rate.I will not disclose how much they pay for every assignment but I can assure you pay is reasonable. Well, a bit. Not much but reasonable. It is not like other sites that pay a measly $3 for a 500-word article. And this latest assignment they gave me pays more by $1 per article. :) That means for an assignment that consists of five 500-word articles, I'd get an additional $5 more.

I hope they'd raise their pay rate again by next month :)

Plagiarized Article

I have only been with Suite 101 for barely a month but already, I have found one of my articles there plagiarized. My first article, which was about women's health, was found by a co-contributing writer to have been published on another site along with many other articles of writers from Suite 101 and Associated Content. When I received her message, I immediately checked on the mentioned site. Indeed, I found my article there, copied word for word without a single word being changed.

There was no way I could contact the site administrator so I tried posting a reply to the plagiarized article. That, too, failed. I couldn't get through to the site even through the comment section. However, the next day I noticed that my article had been pulled out from the site along with many others that were owned by other Suite 101 writers. Perhaps the site admin had received our messages after all.

Freelance Writing at Suite 101

After months of researching for sites that pay residual income to writers, I finally settled down with Suite 101. Suite 101 is currently hiring freelance writers and I submitted my application there at the end of July. By the first week of August, I had my first article published on the site.

Suite 101 has a good reputation among its contributing writers and what made me choose the site among many others is the thought that I can actually put my byline there. Suite 101 does not allow its writers to use pen names so I had to use my real name. I find it an advantage on my part since with my name written with my articles, I can safely claim that the article is really mine. I have had hundreds of articles published at article directories but all those were written under other names. Every time I deal with a new client I always had to direct them to those articles, which of course carried another person's name. And I had to convince them that it was indeed I who wrote those articles.

I have barely spent a month writing with Suite 101 but I'm enjoying freelance writing there now. I will be writing more about my experiences on the site once I have spent considerable amount of time writing there.

Blogging Site That Pays Bloggers: Get Paid From Us

Got something to write about but don't know where to start? Read on. You may just find some valuable information in this short article.

When I started to blog, I didn't know much about the techniques successful bloggers use to earn revenue from their blogs (I still don't know much till now). All I knew then was that they were earning and that I could also earn from blogging. By surfing through the Internet, I learned that I could potentially earn a few dollars by just blogging and blogging and blogging. That seemed quite easy for me. Well, that was what I thought. You see, I have always loved to write and before I learned to use the pc and the Internet, I had had this habit of writing down my thoughts on paper and notebooks.

Excited to start earning on the Web (ehem...that was my first goal), I started googling for sites where I could possibly put up my own blog for free. That was how I learned about blogger.com. I signed up and set up my very first blog (this is the one, under another name which I changed two years later).

My first entry on this blog was about ptc sites where I was a member during that time. Those ptc sites were the very first income generating sites I engaged in. Income with the ptc sites dragged and I actually felt it was a waste of my time but I kept on clicking ads to reach my goal of earning online. That time, paypal does not pay people from our country and I chose the now defunct e-gold. I did earn a few cents and had been very excited to see at least $4 dollars in my e-gold account.

After a few entries, I felt like I was just wasting my time. I never earned even a cent from my blogging and I really did not understand how some people could be so lucky with Google Adsense.

I did earn $10 (I think that was after a year or more):(. But that $10 was not from blogging. It was earned from Mylot.

After a failed attempt at earning from blogging, I searched again for writing sites where I may be paid for my efforts. I found a lot of blogging sites that have the potential to pay bloggers but only one caught my attention. This blogging site was Get Paid From Us. I signed up immediately after reading their terms and conditions and started writing.

The first month at Get Paid From Us had been a good experience for me. I was paid a measely $3 after a month. Not much. But it was still money and that was my first payment from blogging ever.

I still write for Get Paid From Us from time to time although I do not get my main income from there. I have learned quite a few tricks in earning money online after 3 years of surfing the Web and I no longer count on paid blogging sites to earn a few dollars. I have generated a good flow of income from freelance writing and I am earning quite a decent living from it. But I would still recommend beginners to try blogging sites that pay writers to garner a little reward for the efforts they are doing. They can start from these blogging sites, hone their skills and then go for larger paying markets such as freelance writing sites and private clients when they are ready enough.