Cash Cow

Ciao!

2011-03-31T00:43:00.000-07:00

I have been an ACTIVE member of Ciao for a few months now. Initially I have joined up ah...well over a year ago but I have not understood it well and have favored DooYoo more so I let it sit.
A few months back however I re-visited and it more or less 'clicked' for me!
Ciao is a website which pays its member for writing various reviews. Members get paid half a pence, pence, or two pence per a rating of their review. There is tons of products already on the site which you can review or you can suggest your own. Some categories (techy stuff and just released popular items) are usually paid 2p per rating and others vary.
Each item states (under the name) how much a review will be paid, this is something I didn't realize at first so I kept writing to unpaid topics and then getting angry that the site is being fishy! Ahhh yeah I know, silly me.
Ciao is a UK website and they pay out by transfer into UK bank accounts. The payout is low, only 5 pounds. I have requested my money once so far, I had 17 pounds accumulated and the transfer went through fine.
Now I am at 7 pounds some and will wait till it grows some more. I am still not very active on the site as far as writing goes I mostly rate (not every day) so I am happy with this site!

You can get more info by clicking on the below link

2011-03-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

Check out a new post on TweetAdder over on the Team Shepherd blog.

TweetAdder Review

This is my second month using Tweet Adder and to say that I am pleased is an understatement. I have known about this software for over a year now, however the price tag of 55.00 was too steep for me. In January I have decided, I am going to do some extra freelancing and tinkering around the PTC sites and such, if I reach the 55 dollars I will purchase Tweet Adder. Obviously I made my goal...

Helium.com changes

2010-12-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

The Helium website has caused a huge commotion amongst its writers. They have just introduced an outline of the new rules which they are bringing out. Their message board is going crazy with screams of YAY's and NAY's...mostly nays and lots of questions. The new rules go into effect on Dec. 6th 2010 and will definitely bring about a HUGE change.
Here is a post as it appears on Helium's Blog:
"As you may have seen on our board post, Helium.com will be switching to a new upfront program, effective Monday, Dec. 6. While the existing program has performed well and accomplished many of the goals we had set for it here at Helium, we believe there is always room for improvement, which the new program promises to address.

Our previous program encouraged our members to write articles in areas in which they were knowledgeable, giving us an extensive breadth of content; however, we recognized that we were missing content in some very important areas. We call these content gaps. By analyzing the current content on our site along with the content we are striving to provide, we are able to create quality titles that fill our content gaps making Helium a stronger and more encompassing information website.

Behind the scenes we focused on obtaining information about the areas of content that are highly searched on the Internet. We used this valuable information to craft titles from an SEO standpoint that we are confident will perform well for our writers. The new payment system allows members to earn more each month by offering higher payments for selected articles.

Another benefit of the new program is that we can now offer upfront payments for articles in any channel, which we were unable to do in the previous program.

Overall, these upfront changes will help guide our writers to write to titles that will earn more over the long-term and help the site prosper, making all stakeholders (that’s you!) more successful.

If you’re interested in finding out the details of our upfront change, please visit ourlatest post in the boards on Helium.com."

What are your thoughts on the changes? If you are a Helium writer will you keep writing? Potential new writers is this good or does it put you off?

How to get a rating star on Helium.com

2010-12-03T12:58:00.000-08:00

Apart from writing, the rating system is one of the most important components of Helium. Not only does your rating and writing percentage depend on it, along with your ability to gain earnings, but you also carry the responsibility of rating honestly and being fair towards the other members.
Having one rating star allows you to earn money through various options which Helium has to offer. Acquiring fiver rating stars means that you earn an extra $3.00 at the end of the month. You either want to shoot for one rating star or five, there isn't much point bothering with anything in between, unless you enjoy rating articles, then by all means go for it!
How to gain rating stars:
- First of all, you will need to have written at least one article before you can rate other members work.
- To gain one rating star all you will need to do is rate 10-29 articles in a 30 day period and maintain a 75% rating score.
- To get up to five rating stars, and receive that bonus at the end of the month, you will need to put in a lot more work than that. You need to rate 500 articles in a 30 day period. This means you will need to rate about seventeen articles each day.
- Do not randomly click on the choices you are provided with, you are being checked for quality after all! Take the time (3 minutes or so per article) that is needed for a quality rate.
How to rate articles:
- In the upper right hand side corner of the Helium website there is a "Rate" button, click on the link.
- Once you are on the page, you will be presented with the article A and the article B, essentially you will need to choose which one of the articles is the better one.
- While this is the time when your personal opinion comes into play there are some universal guidelines which you should follow when rating these articles.
What to take into consideration when rating an article:
- Relevancy of the article
+First and foremost you should pay attention to how relevant the article is to the title it is under. Sometimes the author rambles on and goes completely of topic, other times the article could be submitted into the wrong category, or there might be spam and advertising.
- Grammar
+ This of course is a given, read through the articles and take not of any grammatical errors.
- Message
+ Which article puts across a better message in relation to the topic it is written on?
- Length
+ Length by no means determines whether one article is better than the other but it often is a factor.
- Prohibited content
+ There are certain things that are forbidden on Helium, make sure the articles do not contain any of these.
After everything has been factored in it is up to you to determine which article you feel is the better of the two, and then click! All in all, the main thing that you want to remember is to keep your number of rates high and your quality higher.

Using Twitter and RSS to gain hits for your Helium articles

2010-12-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

So you are working your butt off writing articles for Helium and are getting upfront payments for them but you are not sure how to promote them? There are many ways to do this, and one is through the very popular website called Twitter. While you could take the time out to log into twitter and post a new "tweet" each time you submit an article to Helium linking to it, there is an easier way to do this. First of all you will need (obviously) a Helium account, then you should make a twitter account. On top of that you need to go to Twitterfeed and make an account there as well. If you have a Google or Yahoo account you can use those to log into TwitterFeed without creating a new user name and password. It might all seem like a lot of mess and much work but trust me, it is just a one time thing and once you set it up all of the work will be done for you.
How to set up your Helium RSS feed to Twitter:
- Create a Twitter account and write down your user name and password.
- Create a TwitterFeed account.
- Click the "Create New Feed" button in the TwitterFeed Dashboard.
- Now you will need to go to Helium and find out the URL to your About Me page.
- Log out of your Helium account and go to your About Me page while still being logged out.
- Click on the icon just to the left of the address bar (between the address bar and the Home icon) and a small window will pop up.
- Click the More Information button and another window will open in which you will see different tabs.
- Click on the tab with theRSS logo on it. You should now see a link there, this is the RSS feed URL for your About Me page.
- Go back to the tab with your TwitterFeed, in which you had started to create a new feed.
- You can type in "Helium" into the Feed Name field and into the RSS Feed URL field enter the URL link which you just found for your About Me page.
- You are now done!
What this does is, each time you submit an article to Helium the TwitterFeed will post a new Twitter message with a link to the article for you. Easy enough, isn't it?
Please note, while this will create posts to your Twitter account it does not mean that you will automatically receive hits. Go to your Twitter account and start following some people so you get followed in return. The point is to have as many people as possible to see your posts so they would read your articles.

5 Star writers: How to earn more on Helium.com

2010-12-03T12:50:00.001-08:00

Congratulations to all those of you who have earned that fifth and final star with Helium. It has taken a lot of work and effort, but what does it all mean in terms of how much you can earn with Helium now? Well it means that with a little bit of planning and some time set aside each day that you could come up with a nice little income for yourself. Surely it wont be like a full time job but nonetheless it will be a significant amount. So how can I earn you ask? I assume that you are already familiar with the ins and outs of Helium and its rules if you have come this far (if not read up on: How to increase your earnings at Helium, Earning rating stars on Helium as well as the Helium Help Guide) so I will jump right into it. To make the most of the stars which you have you need to make a plan, and in order not to overwhelm yourself you should divide your writing plan into daily tasks. The following is a formula I have come up with, for my personal writing goals, to earn you at least $630 a month from Helium. It calls for you to write a 180 articles a month, sounds insane doesn't it? Well that is why we are going to be breaking it all down on a day to day basis.
First of all you need to remember that you need at least ten percent of your articles to be competitive. I will make the calculation as if we are starting of clean since I don't know what your articles look like at the moment. So out of the 180 articles you write, 18 will need to be competitive and the rest will be empty.
What you will do each day is (and I have added in the calculation to make it easier to understand how you will earn the money):
- Write 6 articles per day.
-After each article is submitted rate 3 articles. What this will do is it will painlessly build up your number of rates so that you can get the 5 rating stars and 500 rates which in turn bring you a $3.00 bonus.
- As I said above, 18 of your articles need to be competitive and the other 162 empty. It doesn't matter which order you do this in.
The following equation will help understand how you are getting the $630.00 a month:
Empty: 162x3.5=567.00
Competitive: 18x2.5=45.00
Five Star Bonus: 3.00
Per click revenue: 15.00
Total= 630.00
Now the fifteen dollars from the per click revenue is an assumption, but it should not be a problem to receive. For more tips on how to get more views for your articles feel free to read: Using Twitter and RSS to gain hits for your Helium articles. While $630.00 might not pay all your bills it is not something to be thrown away either, and at the effort it is good money.

How to get the most out of Helium.com contests

2010-12-03T12:49:00.000-08:00

They are loved, hated and leave many of our fellow writers just frustrated! As puzzled as we might get by the secret inner workings of the Helium contests they are still going to be around, constantly, so why not make them work for you when you can? Many writers raise their hands from these competitions because they don't understand the random and dramatic rises and falls of the same article during its lifetime in the contest, as well shortly after the contest ends. If you adapt to the next few ideas you should be able to benefit from the Helium Contests whether you win or lose.
Stop thinking of it as a contest. Instead of embracing all of the stresses of a competition simply imagine that you just got an idea for a bunch of great articles all under on theme, and that the titles have already been suggested for you. Convenient, isn't it?
Get familiar with when the contests start and end. A batch will usually close on a Tuesday and a new group will pop up on a Wednesday. It helps to know when you can check for new writing opportunities, as well as to know your deadlines. Each contest runs for two weeks, and is then on a one week hold for rating, so check each contest for its specific deadlines.
Participate in the areas which you know. Choose the contests with the most article titles which you have knowledge on, or ones you are confident you will be able to adequately research and write on. You should write, if not in every single title then, in as many titles in the contest as possible. Twenty articles at two points each are better than two articles at five points each, and points are what you are collecting after all.
Do not wait around. Start writing articles as soon as possible after spotting a contest of your choice. There are a couple of reasons for this, the deadline being one of them of course. And once that worry is eliminated you will want to get the most money possible out of your work. Helium Contest titles fill up fast and since Helium pays for only the first five articles in a title you will need to hurry. You will also want to be the first to write in as many articles as possible for the extra $1.00 bonus. If you make sure you write in each title before it reaches the cut off for payment, and have as many of those be Empty Title Bonus qualified you will ensure that you are paid for every article you write so that even if you don't win, or come up in the top three, the whole thing wont be a big loss after all. If you do win you could double your money. Either way you come out of it with a gain, hey you even up your competitive percentage score!

Get the most from your Helium.com earnings

2010-12-03T12:47:00.000-08:00

Many aspiring writers, or just souls in need of a little cash, out there put in a lot of work into writing these online articles but then they don't know how to make the most of it. They submit them to a website, sometimes not just for (literally) pennies but for a chance to earn pennies. And that chance to grab a penny or two all depends on the exposure and the rank of your article. Some earn nothing, maybe a cent or two over months, while others more lucky and skilled ones earn a hundred or more from one article alone in a month. To get the most out of what Helium has to offer, money wise, you will, of course, first need to reach the five star status. Not to say that all the time spent building up to that is wasted and fruitless. Take that time to earn a few bucks on the side but most importantly take it to learn the ropes of Helium, of promoting your articles and online writing in general. Get into a habit of writing a certain set of quality pieces a day, create a sort of a regime. To read more on how to efficiently earn the five stars please read: "How to increase your earnings at Helium", it will help you reach that goal quicker.
Once you have your five stars go through the following list and do as many things as you are able to. Most all of them are doable, however not everyone will be able to do each one. Also if you keep your rating star status up at five each month you will get a little three dollar bonus. If you need help with the rating stars please read: " Earning rating stars on Helium".
What to do to get more out of your articles:
- Make sure you write to empty titles, this will give you an extra dollar per each article. So instead of earning $2.50 you will earn $3.50.
    + Keep in mind, while writing to empty titles is ok you need to make sure that your competitive article percentage does not fall under 10 percent.
    + By writing in empty titles which have potential to become popular topics you might kill two birds with one stone. Get your empty title bonus, as well as have that article turn into a competitive one down the road.
- If you don't already have the usual social networking accounts open up following: Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Triond, AdSense.
    + Hook up your Helium account to Twitter and set up RSS, to find out how to do this please read: "Using Twitter and RSS to gain hits to your Helium articles".
    + Opening accounts such as Triond and Bukisa will earn you money each time someone views the articles. They also allow you to connect your Twitter, Facebook, GoogleAdsense and other accounts.
    + So in essence you would do something along the lines of: Submit to Helium> Submit to Bukisa> Link to Twitter.
- You should also find sites that buy articles for more money. They are usually harder to get your articles into as they pay anywhere from $5 to over a $100 so each article is submitted for review and approval before being accepted, unlike at Helium.
    + Once you have found some sites like this which fit your writing area you should write some high quality articles and submit them there before submitting to Helium. In case they buy the article they might not want it re-posted, and if they don't...well no harm done you can still submit it to Helium.
We do online social networking like crazy, so you should make it work for your articles as well. Figure out who pays the most per click and link your articles there. Post the links to your written works on your Facebook accounts, Myspace, Friendster, whatever, the more people get an opportunity to see it the better. It might seem tedious but it will pay off in the long run.

How to supplement your income with Ebay

2010-11-29T10:20:00.000-08:00

Ebay.com the worlds most famous online auction website has benefited a great number of people. Many people have found "treasures" for mere dollars on Ebay and saved money, and tons of them have sold many items and earned extra cash. Ebay can help supplement your income and allow you to earn a little bit of extra cash or it can grow into a full time job or a private business.Out of the many ways you can go about earning extra cash below are few examples.
If you are going to go into this you should be comfortable providing your personal and banking information to Ebay. So create an Ebay account, as well as a Paypal account and fill out all of the needed information and do all of the verifications and checks so you are ready to go.
Both Ebay sellers and buyers get reviews, comments and rating scores, often times if you are a new seller people might feel worried to buy from you because they don't know if you are honest, if you will keep up your end of the deal. To help offset that you should create a good profile, provide the sellers with information about you and your products, give them certain rules and an ability to contact you without much hassle. If you have a returns policy, or any guarantees post them there clearly, anything about shipping as well. People will react more positively to a seller that seems serious and with ample information than to a blank profile with no reviews.
Once you are done setting up your accounts you should set a budget. Yes, you DO need to spend money to make money. Ebay charges small fees to sell your items. While this is no big deal if you are starting out with just a few items, if you are doing large quantities you might want to keep it all in check. Maybe account for the fee in the price of your item.
Now would be a time to figure out what to sell. If you look through Ebay you can find anything from a rock to high tech gadgets, and the weirdest thing sell. It is suggested that you go through your house and see what you don't need, think of it as prepping for a garage sale. There might be some tools in the garage, like that nail gun from last summers roof project, which you have bought but honestly wont use again. Sell them, it will help someone out, get you some cash and free up your space. If you are into arts and crafts of any kind chances are you can either make pieces or already have them lying around, these would be great items to sell on Ebay to supplement your income.
When listing the item you will have various options. You should think about your auction price, which starts small, and your "Buy now" price which should be your ideal price. You should have quality pictures that will show off the item adequately as well as a good description, and once again any rules of sale.
Once your items are up for sale you shouldn't just leave it up to Ebay and the Gods of Chance, you should promote your items online as well as off, it will pay off for you big time in the long run.

Readbud.com

2010-11-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

Product:


Rating:

Advantages: easy to earn

Disadvantages: not 100% sure if legit

Readbud.com is a website, which could be a hit or a miss but I thought why not give it a try? It is just another way to earn a few pennies online, however it could be worth your time if it is able to provide enough work.

The way it works is that you sign up and read articles for a small payout. Ideally you would ACTUALLY READ the given article, notice the advertisements and maybe even click on some. In reality all you do is open the offered article, scroll to the bottom and give it a 1-5 rating.
Before you open each article you will be notified how much that specific article is paid. I have spent 12 minutes on the website, 15 including account set up, and have earned $1.16.
The articles I have read were paid from $0.04-0.10.
When you sign up you will be asked to choose up to 50 interest areas, these are the areas in which you will receive the articles you will read. DO select all 50 choices. You can change your selection once every 24hrs if you want to keep things interesting or just get more articles heading your way.

How much you get paid per article depends on its length.
Article content word count and corresponding rewards:

Under 100 : 1 cent

Between 101 and 200 : 2 cents

Between 201 and 300 : 3 cents

Between 301 and 400 : 4 cents

Between 401 and 500 : 5 cents

Between 501 and 600 : 6 cents

Between 601 and 700 : 7 cents

Between 701 and 800 : 8 cents

Between 801 and 900 : 9 cents

Between 901 and 1500 : 10 cents

Between 1501 and 2000 : 15 cents

Over 2000 : 20 cents

I have been offered only 21 articles so far and have easily gone through them in 12 minutes while doing three other things at the same time. Assuming the website can provide enough articles, I think its worth the time. At this rate if you spent the whole hour doing this you'd be paid $5.80 an hour... Not too bad for an online gig of this kind.
They have a pretty high minimum for the payout. You will need to earn $50.00 before you can request a payment. They will pay you via Paypal so that is pretty decent as well.
They have referral programs where you get $5.00 when the person which signed up through you reaches their minimum payout amount.

On paper the website looks great, however I have not reached payout yet. I have been using the site on and off and can safely say that I can get around a $1.00 per day on it, currently I am at $33.27 and hopefully I will reach the payout minimum soon!

Summary: looks great on paper, still to see if it will pay out

UPDATE: I have reached my payout of $50.00 and have requested it on the 25th of Nov. if the site is legit they should payout within 30 days. So i suppose I will write another blog in a months time letting you guys know how it went!

Triond.com

2010-11-28T07:35:00.000-08:00

Product:

Rating:

Advantages: Reliable, as far as per view payments go

Disadvantages: No upfront payments for posting your work

Triond is another one of the many websites where you get paid to write. And while it is reliable as far as getting you your money, it might not be worth your time unless you are a member of other such website which implements upfront payments. Triond will pay you revenue share for your articles, pictures and other media. So basically you get paid per click. From my personal use of Triond it is nothing compared to Helium. With my articles (even when I had a lot less) on Helium I easily earn ten dollars per month whereas on Triond I get barely a dollar. Recently though they have implemented a merge of a sort with Google Adsense. This will earn you even more revenue share each time someone clicks on certain Google ads which are showing on the pages containing your articles. To help lure people into reading your articles Triond has also teamed up with Twitter.

A look at some of the Triond's features:

- Dashboard.

While it might not be super flashy and what not I have actually taken quite a liking to this page. It shows graphs of visits to my articles and all other stats that we are usually dying to know. You can see your total months earnings from both Triond and Google Adsense as well as daily and per article. Another important thing is it shows the most searched phrases which lead people to your articles, as well as where the viewers came from.

- Submit tab.

This is one of the easiest ways I have come across as far as submitting your articles, and from the same place you can do photos and videos as well. The article format is wonderful, you can include links, photos (either suggested or your own). You can even embed Youtube videos. What I don't like however is the thumbnail picture. You must include one, it can't be your own and the search engine for them is bonkers, I rarely get anything related to my articles.

- Earnings tab.

This is another nifty feature, on the right hand side it has your current earnings and the next payment date. On the left side it has a summary of all the past payments with the Payment ID's. If you click on any of the Payment ID's you will get a detailed review of how much each of your articles has earned for that month.

All in all Triond is a good website, honest and reliable. However if you are writing all your articles and submitting them there you are getting screwed as far as earning money goes. Otherwise it is a nice edition to your articles being submitted elsewhere.

Summary: might not be worth your time unless you are a member of other such website which implements upfront.

InboxDollars.com

2010-11-28T06:23:00.000-08:00

Product:

Rating:

Advantages: A legit site

Disadvantages: I wish they paid through Paypal

Inbox Dollars is an online website which gives you a chance to earn money in return for various small favors, or to "Be rewarded for your online activities" as the websites slogan would say.

Inbox Dollars offers a $5.00 Sign on Bonus and requires you have at least $30.00 earned in your account before it sends out your check. The way to earn this money is to complete certain tasks such as reading the Paid Emails, and by reading that means clicking on them so you are taken to another link. You need to click so the site would register you looking at the advertisement . Just clicking on emails will earn you around two cents per email.

There are other ways to earn money as well and they are sorted in the following categories:

- Cash Offers, "Earn cash for trying out new products and services".
The Cash Offers part of the website consists of 100 percent free offers, meaning you do not need to submit your credit card info or pay for anything. Usually these might include something like signing up for another survey website or getting an auto quote. Usually the money earned on these offers is not that great, from 25 cents to $2.00. Other than this you also have Trial Offers, for these type of offers you will sign up for a service and provide your billing information. Signing up for these doesn't mean paying, even if you do have to put in your credit card info. You will have free trial periods and as long as you remember to cancel the service before the end of the trial period you will not be charged. The money earned for these is more than the Free Offers, ranging from $3.00 to $15.00 per offer.

- Cash Surveys, "Earn cash for sharing your opinion".
There are surveys you can take daily. You will be paid 50 cents per survey and entered for a chance to win $50,000.00 each time you complete one of the surveys. The down side is that the surveys usually take twenty minutes or so to complete and you get paid only if you qualify and meet all of the criteria, more often than not you will go through the majority of the survey before you are informed that you do not meet the requirements.

- Cash Games, "Earn cash for playing your favorite games".
This part of the site is pretty nifty for those that love simple games such as Solitaire, Bejeweled, Monopoly, etc. The first time you start the Cash Games Inbox Dollars will give you four bucks or so to start you off, after that you are responsible for making your own deposits if you want to play for money. Its sort of like online casino, with more variety. If you are good at games and can beat the competition those four bucks might earn you some money, and if not oh well no loss on your part.

- Cash Shopping, "Earn cash for shopping online".
If you often shop online this is probably a good section to check out before you make your purchases. Their offers are, depending on the store, earning from 0.4% to 10% cash back. Some of the partners participating in these offers are: Wal-mart, Dell, EBay, Macy's, Banana Republic, Best Western, GAP, and many more.

- Insurance Center, "Save more on your insurance".
This is just a one time jig. If you want you can try and save money on your insurance. That's it.

- Referral Center, "Earn cash for referring your friends".
Pretty self explanatory, get a friend to sign up and earn money off it. You get 10% of your friends qualified earnings, without any money being taken away from their end.

All in all Inboxdollars.com has potential to make you some money. It is a good site and it is not a scam, i have received two checks from them already. And have just earned enough for the third one!
It does take a while though, but considering the lightness of work its not a big deal.
If there is an issue with an offer and money coming through they are pretty helpful and diligent when it comes to sorting stuff out. If you are interested in earning money online in any of the above ways or something similar don't pass up Inbox Dollars.

UPDATE:
I have actually requested the check from inboxdollars.com after writing this and have learned a new bit of information. The payout is $30.00, there is a $3.00 processing fee for the check so you really get only 27.00. Anyway, this time around they offered me this:
If I hold off the request and reach $40.00 within the next 30.00 they would waive the processing fee. $10.00 in a month isn't bad but due to the fact that I am moving and what not I declined and requested my check anyway.
As soon as I did they informed me that i got a $3.00 bonus for reaching the payout. So rather than starting at 0 I started back up at $3.00...not a big deal but not as dreadful as seeing $0.00 either!
All in all more brownie points for inboxdollars.com

Summary: A bit slow but great site to earn a few bucks on the side without any real effort

Helium.com

2010-11-28T06:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.helium.com/

Product:

Rating:

Advantages: a great earning potential

Disadvantages: after a while there is no room to grow, the top you will get is $3.50 per article

Helium is considered, by many, to be the largest online writing community, with well over a million articles under its belt.
So if you want to learn how to realistically, and by this I mean slowly but very steadily, earn some money here on Helium read on. First of all, get any sort of notion about quick and easy cash out of your head. Helium pays, however, no one pays you to do nothing, so with that in mind let's get to work. If you were starting your own business you would need a business plan in order to get anywhere, same with this. You can create one on your own, or you can use the one I wrote up (mostly in form of calculations):

The first month:

- Make it a point to write at least 30 articles total this month

+ All of calculations for the first month will be based on the 30 article count, feel free to recalculate with a higher number

+ Do not be intimidated by such a big number, take it a day at a time (one article per day doesn't sound bad at all does it?)

- Out of those 30 articles have 22 be written into Empty Titles

+ Great thing about this is that you are not limited to the subjects already posted on the website, you can suggest your own titles

- Write the other 8 articles into competitive titles, choose topics with at least 3 articles already in them and write in them. Make sure you pick the titles in which you know you can beat the competition or get into at least the top 25%.

- Make sure you set some time apart each day for rating. You need to make 500 rates to have 5 stars, do not just randomly click through articles, you wouldn't want it done to you and the quality of your rating gets scored as well (you need your rating score to be 75%).

- I will mention revenue in calculations and set it for $1.00, that is about how much you can earn through it if you don't put any effort in (more on this will be explained later on)

- If you do what i listed so far you can earn 1 or 2 writing stars and the earning calculation for each is as follows:

+ One Star: Competitive articles: 8x.50= $4.00

Empty Title articles: 22x1.5= $33.00 (For each empty title you get $1 plus whatever you get per article at your current star status)

5 Star Rating Bonus: $3.00

Revenue: $1.00

First Article Bonus: $5.00

Total Earned in the first month = $46.00

+ Two Stars: Competitive articles: 8x1= $8.00

Empty Title articles: 22x2= $44.00

5 Star Rating Bonus: $3.00

Revenue: $1.00

Total Earned in the first month = $56.00

- If you put in at least 30 articles in your first month you can very well work up to 3 Stars, if you write quality articles that get rated to the top in your Competitive Titles and have those remain at 85% or more your earnings will be even higher than what has been shown here ($1.5 per each article posted!)

Second Month:

- You will need to put in a little more work into this one if you want to move up to the next level and get more earnings, this time we are shooting for the 100Th article. Now don't freak out, this is 100 articles total, so you really need to write only 70 articles.

- Again, do not let yourself get scared, take it a day at a time. Two or three smaller articles a day is not a big deal, you think about so many things throughout the whole day that at the end (or any other time you catch a break) you have plenty to write about!

- For the second month the same basic rules apply, except there will be no $5.00 bonus you received the first month.

- Calculations:

+ One Star:

Competitive articles: 17x.5= $8.50

Empty Title articles: 53x1.5= $79.50

5 Star Rating Bonus: $3.00

Revenue: $1.00

Total Earned in the second month = $92.00

+ Two Stars:

Competitive articles: 17x1= $17.00

Empty Title articles: 53x2= $106.00

5 Star Rating Bonus: $3.00

Revenue: $1.00

Total Earned in the first month = $127.00

+ Three Stars : $161.50

+ Four Stars : $197.00

- Things are looking much better aren't they? Just make sure that out of the total number of articles you have submitted at least 25% are in competitive titles and doing well and so will you!

You have probably figured out how to calculate how much you can earn with simple article writing to Helium, however there are other ways of earning money on this website. Earning through Revenue simply means that each time someone clicks on your article to read it Helium gets money and they give you a share of that. There are many ways out there to promote your articles and get traffic to them.

If you have any of the networking website accounts such as Facebook or MySpace be sure to put a link up to either your About Me page or to specific articles. Same goes for any other similar website, if you have a blog better yet and you know people read it, put the links up there. You can put a link into the signature of your emails or if you are a member of any forums put it into that signature. One very overlooked way to get clicks is by getting to know people right here on Helium! Say hi, give feedback for someones work, make a Zone, join a group and post on the forums!

All of these methods will get people to notice you, to get curious and to take a look at you and at your work. Helium also offers many contests where you can earn a nice little sum if you win. The Helium Marketplace is another part of the site where you can earn anywhere from $16 to $200 per article, if chosen. Think of it as Ebay for publishers and writers. Perhaps you can't (...or can you?) drop your job and do Helium full time, but it is a very nice supplemental income and it can pay a bill or two each month.

Before you write any articles make yourself familiar with the website, this might seem unnecessary and tedious but it will save you a lot of trouble and frustration down the road. The two links you should be familiar with are How to earn money at Helium and Helium Stars and Badges, once you have read through those you will have an idea of how things work, and any instructions you receive will be much easier to understand.

Summary: a great site for many starter writers, and even later on its a great supplemental income website