The Cheap Bastid» eHow

What’s the deal with eHow?

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:14:27 +0000

What's up with eHow lately??

The latest news from eHow is that they’ll no longer allow the use of the resource section in any new published articles.

I have to say that the Amazon links I’ve placed in my articles have been a great source of income for the last year.

So the question has to be asked..

Does eHow really care if their writers make any money?

First the article sweep, then the UK ehow debacle and now the elimination of the resource section.

It seems that not only do they not care if we make any money, but they want to milk as much profit as they can from those people who actually do publish articles there.

Personally I don’t see the problem with affiliate links in the article as long as those links add value.

For example…

If I write an article about how to pick out a great toaster oven then I don’t see why placing an Amazon link pointing to a top rated toaster oven is bad. The link provides an actual real world example of a top rated toaster oven that can only help the reader pick out one that’s good. In fact, it can be argued that the visitor is reading that article because they DO want to buy a toaster oven.

To me, this is yet another nail in the coffin for eHow.

I love the site but seriously, the writers need to make some money for their efforts.

If you publish on eHow what do you think of this latest development?

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Why do we still eHow?

admin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:07:26 +0000

Over the course of the past few months I, like many of you, received a few of the dreaded eHow ‘About your eHow Articles’ emails. You know what those are, the email that tells you that one (or more) of your articles aren’t up to snuff and will be deleted.

Truth be told every time I get one of those it sort of takes the wind from my sails so to speak. I just ask myself why I even bother publishing over there.

And then, as usual it hits me.

There isn’t a single site on the net that makes me more money for me than eHow.

So, if you get a bit discouraged just keep in mind that for every article you lose there are probably dozens that remain (or even more)

Keep writing, follow their guidelines and absolutely keep a copy of your articles on your local drive just in case.

Now over the course of the past few months I must say that my earnings over at eHow have indeed gone up by about 15%. In fact I make more now with less articles than I did before the dreaded article sweep began.

So all in all I think it’s a good thing, they didn’t implement it very well or keep us writers informed but in the end It seems to have benefited us.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to start publishing over there again. I think I have a handle on their standards well enough now to publish safely, with little chance of a deletion.

If anyone has any thoughts on this please chime in, we’d like to know what you’re thinking!

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The Great eHow Experiment

admin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:20:54 +0000

I find myself in a unique position right now of having nearly identical earnings on eHow for the last two months. In addition, I’ve had no activity there in terms of rating, commenting, or posting on the forums.

I think the time is right to see if what they say over there is true….

Does a persons ‘social’ activity on eHow have any bearing at all on earnings??

Every day this month I’ll read, rate and comment on two articles. In addition I’ll also do one forum post.

It will be very interesting indeed to see if this has any effect on my earnings at all. I also want to see if this ‘social’ activity is judged on a daily basis, averaged out over the month or what.

I already ‘socialized’ yesterday morning so if it’s judged on a daily basis my earnings should be higher tomorrow.

If it’s averaged out however then I should see a steady increase over the course of the month.

If you look up top you’ll see a new page titled ‘The Great eHow Experiment’, I’ll be tracking my daily earnings there for the course of the month.

This should be very, very interesting indeed..

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A Message from Rich@eHow

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:19:32 +0000

I received a note from Rich over at eHow explaining what’s happening over there and what he is trying to do about it.

Now, as I’ve said before I totally agree with the cleanup, there’s some real garbage on there that does absolutely no good to anyone and it really needs to be deleted. In addition, there’s some bad apples trying to publish there that also need to read the TOS and either put out quality, useful content, or get lost.

In a nutshell he said that he is making every effort to explain to their team that their current system of article deletions is alienating their writing community and we’re not happy with it. They’re looking to implement a new system that is a lot more ‘user friendly’

To be honest I’m really flattered that he took the time to stop by and comment on how we feel about the current happenings at our favorite article site. It’s nice that our voice is being heard and considered.

Even better, once this cleanup is completed the future of eHow, and us, the writers there should be better (and more profitable) than ever!

The fact that he stopped by and commented shows a lot about his integrity and goes a long way to easing my concerns.

My opinion is that all will be ok soon, maybe not in the next few weeks but soon enough and then we can get back to ‘work’ at a new, and better eHow.

Hang in there people, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, I’m sure of it.

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Adsense/Adwords eHow Experiment

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:56:21 +0000

I’ve heard of people using adwords ads to drive traffic to their eHow articles. I’ve always wondered about this so I’m giving it a try.

The basis for this experiment is one of my articles that is now earning about 5 cents per view, which is great by the way.

It’s targeting a very high paying keyword.

Now, running an ad based on this keyword is quite stupid since I’ll be paying very high for a click as well. So what I did is found some related keywords that are real cheap, about 10 cents per click.

So now I have an ad, which will cost me 10 cents per click targeting my article which gets about $12 per click.

This has been going for about a week now and I’ve received 4 ad clicks (I’m bidding low for views). My article has earned money 3 days in the last week.

The idea here is that a reader who clicks my ad is a proven ‘clicker’ so I think there is a high probability of the person clicking an ad on my article page too.

I’ll run this for the month and see what the final totals are. Since eHow doesn’t report clicks it’ll be real difficult to judge the true results of my ad, I’ll just look for higher earnings than usual.

If this works out I have 4 other articles that have earnings in the 5 cents per view range that I’ll run ads on too.

I should say that I’m not a big fan of the ‘pay money to earn money’ club. But this article is targeting a keyword that has some fierce competition so I need to get more views to maximize my earnings.

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eHow Earnings Dropping!

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:25:19 +0000

I’ve noticed my eHow earnings are near pathetic, about $4 a day lately. At first I was panicking but then I realized there are a few factors that may be responsible for this.

Adsense advertisers are paying less, I know this for a fact, as you will see tomorrow
It’s spring, people aren’t cruising the ‘net looking for stuff
Tax time is here, again, people have more important things to do than shop online.

My views are down to about 400 a day, they are usually in the 1K range, again, people aren’t online, they’re outside doing stuff.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

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Article Writing Tips | eHow Strategies – Part 1

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:00:35 +0000

Some article writing tips that I think might benefit those looking to make money online are the different ways to use eHow articles.

Most people just write an eHow article with eHow earnings in mind, and, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing that.

There are other ways to use eHow though, each requiring a slightly different style of writing, keywording and linking.

Lets list the 4 different types of eHow articles and what they do.

The Earner – A basic eHow article, with two well researched keywords, one for traffic and one for earnings.
The Driver – An eHow article with one or two traffic generating keywords with no regard to the keyword CPC
The Promoter – An eHow article one or two deeply targeted keywords designed to draw targeted traffic towards an affiliate link thereby increasing the chance of a sale.
The Hybrid – Jack of all trades type of article. Basically an earner type article with affiliate or other links in the resource section. To me this just confuses the reader especially if you say ‘Click this’ and ‘Click that’

Now each of these types of articles need a different strategy for it to be successful.

The Earner article is your basic type. Two keywords; one for traffic and one for earning. We’ve talked about this type before. The key thing to note about this type of article is the resource section should have no links so as to make the reader click on an ad. The best way to get a click is to publish the article, see what ads come up, and then edit the article to name the most well know advertiser. Keep in mind though that as per google you can never say ‘Click this’. You can however say ‘Visit so and so’

The next type is the driver, very simple here, get some high traffic keywords onto the article, don’t concern yourself with how much they pay, that’s not your goal. Make sure you say ‘I’ve linked blah blah in the resource section for more information on blah blah’. The key here is to get as much traffic to your article and then, in no uncertain way, tell them to visit what you have linked. With the page rank of eHow this is an incredibly effective way to get some traffic.

The Promoter is a bit more difficult. Simply put you want to draw as much TARGETED traffic as possible to the article that directly relates to whatever you’re trying to sell in the resource section. The key here is targeted so for the most part those keywords with traffic over 100k aren’t targeted. Choose three, and yes, even four word keywords deeply targeted and make sure you tell them to click on the link in the resource section. It isn’t a Google ad so you can do that.

And the final type of eHow article is the hybrid. This type tries to do a little of everything. Personally I don’t think this is very good at doing anything at all. You’re not limited to the number or articles you write and you can even write two (or more) articles using the same keyword. This type basically has two keywords like the earner type and then a few links in the resource section, either to an affiliate or maybe another site. Do yourself a favor and try to avoid this type and instead write multiple articles each designed to excel at whatever it’s trying to do.

Armed with this information you can make adjustments to existing articles to maximize your income.

Let’s assume you have an article with 200 views and $15 in earnings. Obviously you need to drive traffic here, there’s no rule that says you can’t create a few Driver articles on eHow and direct them to the other article, trust will be high since it’s the same site so you should see some results rather quickly. I know I have.

So the next time you sit down to write a new eHow article think about what your goals are with it and choose the appropriate type for the best results. If you want to drive traffic don’t beat around the bush, grab as much as you can and get it moving towards your target. If you want to sell something don’t waste your time trying to get 500 untargeted readers a day, they won’t buy a thing. Try to get 5 deeply targeted visitors a day for a better chance at a sale.

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Article Writing Tips | Avoidable eHow Blunders Part 4

admin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:00:37 +0000

This is the last of my article writing tips on eHow blunders. This one is simple yet for some reason so many people just don’t bother with it.

SPELL CHECK your articles and make sure it reads well. Let me repeat myself, don’t rely on the spell check feature of either eHow, Firefox or whatever editor you are using. Sometimes the spell check will recommend a word that, although correct, is not what you intended.

After you publish your article make sure you give it a read through. Sometimes you will catch a word that is spelled correctly but is in the wrong tense or plural or whatever. Go back and fix it.

As I’ve said so many times, we may not know exactly what makes a person click, but we sure as hell know what makes a person hit the back button.

A poorly written article with typos and other misspellings is an indication that the author just doesn’t care.

This is one of the easiest article writing tips to implement, make sure you do it!

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Article Aging | Do they really get better with age?

admin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:59:01 +0000

Like any new eHow’er, when I first started writing articles I lurked in the eHow forums reading and learning.

The following dialogue would happen over and over again, seemingly on a weekly, if not daily basis.

Newbie24 “I have 32 articles but I only made .06 cents last night, why??”

Veteran3 “I checked your articles, they are all only a few weeks old, you need to wait until they age at least a month or two before you’ll start making money off of them”

Well, what the hell does that mean?? This isn’t wine, it’s words!

When I first read this I didn’t believe it, I though it was foolish to say that. After all, once Google indexes your page nothing more needs to be done, right? wrong!

I’ve read books and visited sites for the last few months and gradually I came to realize that articles do indeed age, in fact it’s only after about 12 weeks that you can really say an article is nearing it’s full potential.

First off, let’s talk about the reason Google exists. Believe it or not Google does not exist solely for webmasters to jockey for page rank. Google actually exists to “provide Internet users with quality relevant content based on their search inquiries” Simply put, Google will display the most relevant content based on what a user types in.

With that being said consider this..

If two eHow articles with the exact same title should show up in the search engine results page (SERP) based on what a user types into the search box we all know that the oldest article will appear first, with the second article as a subset of the first.

In addition, if two exactly identical articles should appear the oldest (original) article will be the ONLY one listed. I’m not going into the whole duplicate content debate right now, that’s another post..

Here’s what the experts have to say from SEOMOZ.ORG, a well respected SEO site..

Older articles have more authority

As you can see, the experts agree that the older an article gets, the more authority it is assumed it has on it’s keywords. This also means that if somebody copies your article and posts it on some other site, your article will always be listed first.

Now, let’s talk about another reason an article needs to age. You might want to brace yourself for this one…

Not everyone uses Google!!

I know, blasphemy, but alas, it is indeed true. I myself was a non believer up until a few years ago.

So, whereas Google may index your article in a day or two, other websites may take weeks, possibly even months to get to it.

Here’s a look at the traffic stats on one of my Squidoo lenses, notice NO Google traffic, but one hit from Microsoft Live…

No Google traffic!

Some of you may have noticed that my earnings have been extremely good over the last week. Why is this happening? I can honestly say it isn’t the 16 articles I’ve published this month or the booming economy.

One thing I do know is that from December to January I published over 85 articles, some of those articles are now nearing the 8-10 week old mark and are starting to make real money, I know this because I checked my reports and I see articles from January in my top 50 now, some in my top 25 list.

Be patient when it comes to earning, it really does take time, don’t get discouraged. Just keep writing and remember, the article you write today will ‘grow up’ in 2 – 3 months.

Another thing to remember is that to take full advantage of holiday or seasonal articles you need to publish them at least two months, preferably three months in advance. That means get your summer articles out NOW!!

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Article Writing Tips | Avoidable eHow Blunders Part 3

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:00:10 +0000

Some people may not consider this part really article writing tips per se. But, in my opinion, anytime you don’t use an available tool, especially when it’s a beneficial one, is a blunder.

Consider article formatting, and by that I mean not only making your article pretty, but making it easy to read. Once again I want to stress how easy it is for a reader to hit the back button. Big blocks of text with never ending run-on sentences are difficult and annoying to read.

Now we all visit forums that cover subjects we’re interested in. How many times have you read a post that is just one long sentence, the eternal run-on sentence. After a few seconds you give up and hit the back button or skip to the next post.

Well, don’t give your readers a headache. Hit the enter button from within a step and create a little visual and mental break.

Check out this article, notice how I broke up the different engine sizes. Imagine how hard it would be to read this if it was one long sentence.

Break up long sections of text for easy reading!

Don’t underestimate the power of doing this! For one, this draws the eye to the list and immediately makes the reader realize that there is some useful, technical information to be had from your article. Check out my article on motor scooters and you’ll see what I mean. <- Shameless link

Also notice the way I inserted a keyword into the ‘Things you’ll Need” area. Pretty slick huh, and also another way to utilize the space that’s given to you.

Article writing tips like this should be implemented whenever you have lists or technical information to convey. It makes it easier to read and the reader will notice the information before he can hit the back button. Try it, it can’t hurt.

Anyone else come upon useful article writing tips they’d like to share?

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