Freelance Writing and Article Investment part 2: Maximum Exposure

In my previous post regarding Helium and Associated Content, I discussed how both article repository sites can help you earn some residual income in the long-term. By uploading your non-exclusive articles to these sites, you’re actually making your words work for you instead of residing silently in your massive hard drive.  Of course, the first thing you’d begin to think of is “Why should I write articles that benefit me in the long run instead of hunting for work that would get me paid as soon as possible?”

It’s a valid question about article investment, and one that would certainly lead to a lot of valid arguments. As freelance writers whether full-time or part-time, receiving appropriate compensation for services rendered is a prioritized concern. The ‘problem’ with Helium and Associated Content is that unless your work wins in the Marketplace (for Helium) or gets up-front payments (from Associated Content), we’re looking at literally a penny a day for all the hard-work you put into your article, and maybe even none! This is where proper article promotion comes into play: by maximizing the opportunities for your articles to be viewed, you minimize the chances of dry-spell days that net you absolutely nothing.

Helium and Associated Content certainly aren’t for everyone. Some freelance writers might think of it as too much work and effort over a generally long period of time for too little returns, which is true. However just like with any low-risk financial investment, it really does take a lot of time, strategizing and upkeep to maintain the health of your portfolio. Your investments also aren’t the main source of your regular income (at least not yet), but rather they augment what you are already actively earning by working passively for you. Perhaps viewing both sites as article investment portfolios is the first step to setting future goals for your earnings. Here are some tips to getting maximum exposure for your articles and netting you your highest possible returns:

1. Write quality, relevant content – whichever topic you choose, make sure that your article accurately represents your style of writing. If it doesn’t reflect your command of the given topic, you’re just wasting your time by creating content that people would glean nothing from.

2. Write about high interest topics – if you’re looking for topics that you would like to specifically write for Helium or Associated Content, do a search on the ones that get the most traffic. Better written articles have a better chance of being viewed because of the peer ranking system (in the case of Helium), but this also means that your best work may not make it to the top of a subject that has hundreds of articles already, which brings us to the next tip

3. Write special interest/niche content – if you’ve got 500 words of ace work about nanotechnology, put them up on Helium or Associated Content. If you’ve got a handful of articles about Russian Philately that you did in your spare time, upload them! The internet gives everyone the chance to find even the most obscure information available, and if you happen to be an expert then you’ve found yourself an audience on these sites as well as web crawlers.

4. Maintain a blog/facebook account/lifestream/twitter/social-media-whatever thing – every time you write about something on Helium or Associated Content, write about it on your blog. Post an update on your facebook account for people to read, post a tweet or make sure that it gets mentioned on your lifestream. The best way for people to know about your content first-hand is to let them know yourself! Make use of your social networking skills.

5. Don’t give up – article investment is about keeping at it for a long period of time. Don’t get discouraged just yet if you haven’t reached your first dollar. The more articles you have on these sites for a longer period of time, the better.

Perhaps posting to Helium and Associated Content shouldn’t be a top priority for busy writers at the moment, but the earning potential for both of these sites over time and the ability to actually make your non-exclusive articles gain money passively is hard to overlook. Years down the line, those penny earning articles could actually sum up to form a bulk of your monthly income (let’s say you’ve got hundreds of articles on both sites already) without you doing virtually nothing! As both sites are relatively new, maybe a few more years of operation and a handful of success stories from freelance writers would make them a more convincing force to be reckoned with.