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Most people don't believe me when I say I make money online just by writing articles for sites. The problem is there are plenty of sites setup online solely to take people's money and unfortunately they are also usually the most advertised. There are sites that are legitamate though. I write for two such sites Associated Content and Helium.

Associated Content

Associated Content prides itself on user created content. All of AC's content is created by people just like you and I. You don't need any special writing skills and you certainly don't need a writing degree to write there.

You can either your articles for up-front payment or publish them for performance pay only. I'll touch more on the performance pay aspect a little later. If you decide to submit your article for up-front payment your article will be reviewed by one of AC's editorial staff and they will send you an offer. These offers can range from $3.00-$50.00. The average is around $8.00 or $9.00 though and rarely above $15.00.

They base your offer on a handful of criteria:

Seachability- How search engine friendly is your article. Does it have a few specific keywords that are searched on search engine's a lot?

Length- Is your article at least 300 words? Is your article extremely long? Generally I strive to have between 300-1000 words per article.

Seasonal or Evergreen- Generally evergreen articles are ideal because they are topics that will be searched for year round and for years to come. Seasonal articles will only be popular during a specific time.

Editorial issues- Do you have spelling errors in the article? How about gramatical issues?

Formatting- How easy is your article to read? Is your article just one slab of text or is it split up into concise paragraphs.

These are the main criteria AC is looking at and there are plenty more but nobody really knows what they are and to what extent they play on payments.

It can take up to 3 weeks to receive offers from AC so be patient. Usually they come within a few days but if they are backloged it can take quite awhile.

If your article is declined for payment you have two options. You can either edit it and re-submit the article or you can submit it for performance pay only. Now all articles receive performance payments some just aren't given offers for upfront payment. Performance pay is based on the number of page views your articles receive. Currently AC offers $1.50 for every 1000 times your article is viewed. Now in the online world visitors can really pile up if you have a popular article. One person received over 100,000 page views to an article! That's $150.00 just from people looking at your article. Performance payments are sent out monthly when you've reached a minimum payout of $1.50.

Helium

Helium is another place where you can write for pay. They do not offer up-front payments though. They do pay on pageviews but I'm fairly certain it isn't $1.50 like AC.

Helium relies on fellow writers to rate each other and essentially be there editorial staff. Writers are encouraged to rate other's work. This is main reason I write for helium. I can see how my articles are doing compared to the rest of the articles and see how I can improve. I find the extra critiqueing well worth the decreased earnings.