It has been said that eHow is a good place for US and UK residents to make extra money by writing articles. According to many eHow reviews, many featured writers claim that they can make $2000 per month simply by writing on eHow. Is that possible? This is the first question came to my mind when I saw the message. Then I wanted to know the answers to all of the following questions: What is eHow? Why does eHow want to pay people to write and publish articles on their website? How much and how fast can people make money on eHow? How does ehow pay its writers and who are eligible to be paid at eHow? Can I join eHow to write and get paid? I did some research on eHow, and the following is a review on eHow as a “get paid to write” site.
What is eHow? Is there any special about eHow articles?
eHow is a popular online community of writers who give other people step-by-step instructions on doing things with “How to “ articles. All the articles published on eHow have to have a title beginning with “How to”, which makes eHow a unique “get paid to write” website. Writers can write “how to” articles on any topics they like. If the writer can’t come up with a topic to write, he or she may want to check the list of Top Requested How To Articles on eHow website to get some ideas. A typical “How to” article on eHow has 3 sections: a brief introduction, a step-by-step detailed instructions and a section for tips and warnings. This layout is easy for readers to read and understand, but it may not be convenient for the authors. Unlike at other “get paid to write” websites, authors can’t upload and submit the article as a whole; instead, they have to submit the article section by section, step-by-step, which makes the submission process tedious, particularly for those articles with many steps in the instruction section. All the steps have to be submitted one by one. If there are 20 steps, the author has to go through 20 pages simply to submit for the instructions section. It is time consuming and boring. So if you want to save your time and energy during the submission process, you should merge the instructions into several major steps when you write the “how to” articles. Don’t worry about losing readers. You did not cut down on the content; you just changed the article layout slightly. Since readers are flexible human beings not rigid robots, they can easily adapt to the more concise format. Too many detailed steps just cause you problems without benefiting readers much.
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Why does eHow want to pay people to write and publish articles on their website?
The simple answer is they want to provide a service and make money. How does eHow make money? Like most other websites, eHow makes money mainly from advertising revenue. When people publish articles on eHow, they are generating content for the website, and eHow puts up ads such as google adsense on the same page as the content displayed. The keyword-rich content are favored by search engines and will bring in a lot of highly targeted traffic. Most of the time, people who come to eHow to read “how to” articles through search engines are looking for specific information. They are very likely to click the ads displayed beside eHow articles. The ad clicking will generate ad revenue for eHow. For example, when people look for information about how to make money online, they simply search “how to make money online” and then they may find an eHow article on this topic listed on the search result page. Then they click the link and come to eHow to read the article. When they read the article on the eHow webpage, ads about making money online may also gain their attention. When they respond to the ads by clicking the ads, joining the advertised program or making purchase from the advertised online store, eHow gets rewarded for the advertising. eHow keeps part of the ad income and shares part of their ad revenue with their writers registered at their Writers Compensation Program.
How much and how fast can people make money on eHow?
How much and how fast people can make money by writing on eHow varies from person to person. It basically depends on how good the person’s article performance is. If his articles can generate more ad revenue for eHow, he will earn more money on eHow. The article performance is influenced by many factors such as article quality and writers writing skill. But the most important factor is the quality of the traffic that the articles bring into eHow. If the readers are not interested in the topic and do not respond to the ads, there will be no ad income for eHow and no writing compensation for the writer.
Howevery, it is not clear how eHow’s writing compensation system works. In the other words, eHow doesn’t clarify what percentage of the ad revenue will be shared with eligible writers. This makes eHow an unfavored writing site by many writers, because these days there are so many ad revenue sharing writing sites, most of which will tell the writer up front the percentage of ad revenue which will be given out. For example, currently at Bukisa, writers will be paid approximately $3.5 per 1000 page views of their articles. AssociatedContent pays $1.5 per 1000 page views. Xomba is another Google revenue sharing site. Writers will share 50% Google ad revenue generated by their published Xombyte or Xomblurb (two types of articles) with Xomba. But writers have to send in their own google publisher ID when they register at Xomba so that the Google adsense ad income will directly be accumulated in their own google accounts. For eHow users, they don’t know how much percentage ad revenue will be shared by eHow and they don’t need to have their own google adsense accounts or publisher IDs to get paid by writing at eHow. But they do need to register their social security number and full profile ID when they sign up at eHow’s Writers Compensation Program for tax purposes. eHow’s writing income is taxable. Whenever a person makes more than $10, their minimum payout amount, eHow will file a 1099 form to IRS and send a copy to the writer.
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Next I will estimate how much time you will spend and how much money you are going to make at eHow. According to an eHow writer, he wrote and submitted 2 articles per day to eHow and after 4 months, he began to make $10 per day. If that is the case, let me do the math. On average, there are 30 days per month, and approximately 120 days in 4 months. So if he made $10 per day on ehow you must have 240 articles published on eHow. Even if he only wrote everyday on week days, he should have at least 160 articles. Is it worth it to write 160 articles to make $10 per day? It depends how much time he spent to writing those articles and how long this reward ratio will persist. If it took him 1 hour to finish a 500-word article, 160 articles will have taken him 160 hours. If the $10 per day payout rate can persist for a year, he can make $3650 during in one year from 160 hours work which makes approximately $22 per hour. That is not bad pay at all. Of course there are many factors which can make things complicated. For example, if he stops writing and generating new content and his old contents get out-dated, his daily payout rate may not persist for long time. If he keeps publishing new and high-quality “how to” articles, there will be a network effect and his daily payout may increase exponentially. Also eHow allows writers to publish their own original articles at other places such as their blogs or websites or other “get paid to write” websites, which gives writers a better chance to earn more from their work.
How does ehow pay writers and who are eligible to be paid at eHow?
Anybody can write and publish articles on ehow as long as they write according to the eHow’s writers’ guideline. But only writers registered at eHow’s Writer Compensation Program are eligible to get paid for their writing participation. Currently, only US and UK residents over 18 years of age are qualified to register at eHow’s Writer Compensation Program. eHow pays writers via Paypal transfer, not check. The minimum payout threshold is $10, and they make payment once per month. But eHow has an inactive penalty system. For account balances of less than $10 per calendar year, eHow charge $1 management fee every year until the account balance reach zero.
Pros:
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It is easy and fun to write “how to” articles on eHow sharing your knowledge with the public and getting paid. You don’t need to be a professional writer to publish articles on eHow. Anybody can do it as long as he can write in English with correct spelling and grammar.
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How delivers payment through PAYPAL which saves you time in dealing with checks. And the cashout threshold is low, only $10.
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eHow has been in the business for many years. It is a legitimate and trusted “get paid to write” site. Another reason to trust eHow is that it is a BBB accredited business.
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You can gain more exposure for your blogs or websites by linking them to eHow profile page, even though you are not allowed to advertise your own sites in the eHow articles.
Cons:
- It is not clear how much of their ad revenue eHow shares with writers.
- The article submission process is quite tedious.
- Not every writer can be paid. Only US and UK legal residents with age older than 18 years are accepted at eHow Writer Compensation program.
Bottom Line: eHow provides the opportunity for people to share their knowledge with the public. US and UK residents can join eHow’s writers compensation program to get paid for their article writing.
