Credit: Fotolia.com

Are you struggling to make money from your blogs? Do you make some money blogging, but wish you could make more? The solution might be easier than you think, and it doesn’t always mean you have to increase your traffic dramatically. You can also find ways to increase revenue with your existing market reach by diversifying your income streams.

Let’s look at what it means to diversify your income streams, why bloggers should consider it, and some examples of income streams you might want to add to your blog.

What Does it Mean to Diversify Your Income Streams?

Diversifying your income streams is a simple concept. It means you should have several sources of income at any given time rather than just one. For example, if you only make money blogging through affiliate sales, you don’t diversify your income streams. If you use affiliate sales, your own product sales, and contextual advertising, then you do have a more diverse set of revenue streams.

Why Diversified Income Streams are a Great Idea for Bloggers

Here’s the problem with relying too heavily on just one revenue stream: when it’s disappears, all of your income disappears with it.

Members only content can be a great blog income stream. - Credit: Fotolia.com

If you get banned from a specific ad network for example, your income is gone. If you only sell one product of your own and it reaches market saturation, your income stops flowing. If your readers get tired of your constant affiliate promotions, that revenue stream might stop bringing in reliable revenue. No single income stream for bloggers is guaranteed to last forever.

When you diversify your blog income, you insulate yourself from this sudden drop-off in earnings. If one revenue stream dries up, you have other income streams bringing in money. Your earnings might decrease temporarily, but they won’t disappear completely.

5 Examples of Additional Blog Revenue Streams

Diversifying your blogging income sounds like a good idea, right? It can help you earn more than you do now, and it can prevent you from losing everything overnight. But how can you diversify your income streams? Here are five examples of blog revenue streams you might be able to add. Note that not all revenue streams are appropriate for blogs in every niche.

1. Industry directories with paid inclusion (or paid featured spots)
2. Job boards / Classifieds
3. Members-only content (advanced private content for paying members)
4. Information products (your own e-books, reports, e-courses, and other downloads)
5. Ad networks (affiliate, contextual, text links, banners, or whatever works in your niche)

There are countless ways to increase your blog income, with or without dramatic increases in traffic. Think about what members of your audience want and need. Then find a way to give it to them as a premium product, service, or feature to increase site revenue. At the same time, balance that with enough free quality blog content that you keep readers coming back. If you can’t monetize their traffic today, there’s always the chance you will tomorrow. When you put readers first and build trust within your audience, they’re often quite happy to help support your blog.

How do you diversify your blog income streams? What brings in the most money right now? Have some revenue streams failed to work in your niche? Share your own revenue stream ideas and stories about how you make money blogging in the comments below.

If you’re using Google Plus, you’ve probably heard about the controversy over Google’s “real name policy.” In the interest of transparency I’ll tell you that I have some very big problems with this policy, Google’s flip-flopping about what “real names” mean, and Eric Schmidt’s recent foot-in-mouth comments on the matter. And yes, I do use my real name on the network.

But I don’t want to talk (yet again) about why the real name policy is a terrible idea or why others think it’s great and going to lend some sort of greater credibility to the network. Instead I want to talk about the business of it all.

More importantly I want to talk about how this policy could have both good and bad repercussions for Google and businesses hoping to leverage this “identity service.”

How Eliminating Anonymity is Good Business for Google

Let’s face it. We all know Google is in the information business. They gather it. They find ways to monetize it. We, and the information Google can gather about us, are in essence the products they sell to advertisers. The more they know about their users, the more targeted ads can be, and the more valuable your eyes on an ad become. Cha-ching!

In this sense the real name policy is smart business for Google. The more information they can provide about their users, the more they can rake in from advertisers and the more they can tailor other services to your habits and interests to keep you on their site.

The Business Risks of the Google Plus Real Name Policy

On the other side, the real name policy could do some serious damage to Google’s best attempt in the social media game yet. I loved the concept of Google Plus from the start. They got some things right on the privacy front (Circles being a great example). We had control over everything we shared. But then they took control of our identities. In the end, it’s tough to have things both ways.

Google is already alienating some of their early users, myself included. It isn’t just that there are good reasons to use names other than our “real” ones. It’s the way Google still seems oblivious about how the social Web works. Platforms are created for the users — not the other way around.

If Google yet again shows people they aren’t prepared to give users what they want in a social platform, they’re going to devalue their own “product” early in the game. We won’t share all of the information they (and their advertisers) want or need. We won’t trade our time on one social media tool for Google Plus. And if they push G+ users hard enough, they risk pushing them away from other Google products as well.

After all, if you tell users they aren’t welcome to be who they are in this social context, why would they want to waste time with you in any other sense? They’ll move on. There are other search engines, other feed readers, other email providers (or means of checking Gmail accounts), and there are certainly other social networking platforms.

If Google does anything with this policy of exclusion, it might be to remind their users that all of these other options exist. That’s a risk they took when they chose to tie our beloved Google tools to this new identity service.

Personally, I hope the folks at Google get a clue before it’s too late (or at least change their tone on the subject). I’m a big fan of the platform itself, and I find some of the best conversations in my network happen within Google Plus.

Yet I’ve seen those conversations become shallower and more promotional in nature as colleagues and friends leave or cut back on information and opinions they’re willing to share. That’s even true of those already using their real names.

That’s just what I’m seeing in my own Google Plus network. Have you noticed any changes in yours recently? Whether you’re for or against the real name policy, how do you see it helping or hurting Google’s position in social media? Are they doing what’s best for their advertisers and their own business, or do you think they might be doing more harm than good? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

Would you like to become a “professional blogger?” Would you just like to earn enough income to support your blog — pay for hosting and a domain name for example? If you’re like a lot of people who want to make money blogging, you’ve probably thought about tossing ads up on your site to do it. But did you know that there are other, often better, ways to make money blogging?

Let’s talk about why ads aren’t always the best option when you want to make money with your blog and mention a few alternative ways you can make money blogging, no ads required.

Why You Might Not Want to Rely on Ads for Blog Monetization

There are different types of ads you might think about using to monetize a blog. For example there are ad networks (like Google’s Adsense), affiliate ads (like those through Commission Junction or Clickbank), and private ad sales where you set your ad prices and directly sell space to advertisers. Each has positive and negative aspects, but one common drawback is that they all perform better for sites with a lot of traffic (more people to click the ads). That’s fine if you already have a popular blog, but it makes ad income little more than a pipe dream for a lot of new bloggers, or even experienced bloggers who are simply launching new blogs.

When you use ad networks there’s also the issue of relying on third parties. You don’t get to control how much you charge for ad space on your own blog, and they can cut you off at any time or close down their program. An awful lot is out of your control. Depending on your niche or type of blog, ads might even be a big deterrent for readers. In certain industries it’s frowned on to put ads on your professional blog for example (as opposed to running a niche blog where it’s more expected). Or if you were a doctor giving health advice on a blog, readers might be majorly turned off by ads promoting specific products because it damages your credibility.

Are 3rd party ad networks locking up your blog's income potential? - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

Sometimes ads just aren’t the best option when you want your blog to bring in income. But here are some other options you might want to consider.

5 Additional Ways You Can Make Money Blogging

I’ve been a professional blogger for a couple of years now. While some in similar shoes do rely heavily on ads to make money blogging, I don’t. I do use ads, but I’ve turned them into a small part of a much broader overall strategy — just like I suggest to other freelance writers that they diversify income streams, I diversify my blog income. Here are some of my favorite ideas for making money blogging without ads, including some I’ve already implemented and other ideas I have in the works for various blogs I own.

1. Sell services through your blog. I’m a freelance business writer and blogger. I also happen to blog about freelance writing. Clients often find me through that blog and others, and I make sure they have a way to contact me if they want to request my services. I’ve found this is one of the best ways to make money blogging — use your blog as a marketing tool or platform piece to attract other paying opportunities. You could do the same with any type of service from being a freelance designer to running a Web hosting company.
2. Sell e-books or other digital products of your own. Rather than advertising others’ products, create and sell your own! Blogs are excellent tools that keep your target market coming back for more, meaning you have a built-in, growing audience interested in hearing more about what you have to say. If you have something of value to offer, turn it into an e-book. Or create and sell a software program or other digital product through your blog if it’s a better fit for your readers (or at least the readers you’re working to attract).
3. Offer e-courses or webinars. If you have something to teach your readers — something they would be willing to pay for — why not turn it into a webinar or e-course? You could charge for access and use the blog to promote it. Basically your e-courses would be more advanced expansions on what you talk about on your blog anyway.
4. Consider premium content (even if just partially). Similar to running e-courses, premium content is about getting readers to pay for more advanced material. You can still be generous with free content, but if you have knowledge or expertise people are willing to pay for, consider adding a premium section to your blog that goes above and beyond your free content. This is another model that won’t work for everyone, and you have to know your target market first before assuming they’ll be willing to pay.
5. Tie your blog to another site model. A blog doesn’t have to be just a blog. It can be tied to another type of site that brings in your direct income, while the blog works to attract visitors. This site is a good example of that. DirJournal.com brings in income through directory submissions, but the site also features a whole network of blogs. The blogs provide content of interest to readers — the very visitors website owners want to ultimately reach with their submissions. The blogs are a value-added service. You can tie them to other types of sites as well — your business / service site, a product sale site, social network / forum, directories, or just about any type of site you can think of.

Don’t forget about donations. While there can be complications to accepting donations — no certain income, potential nonprofit registration issues depending on where you live, etc., they’re still an option used by many bloggers. It allows visitors to directly compensate you based on how valuable they find your material.

What's YOUR blog plan? - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

If you want to make money blogging but you would rather not set up your own blog, there’s always the option of blogging for clients. I actually combine the two — I blog for clients (such as right now) but I also run nearly a dozen different blogs of my own. They can both be very lucrative options. There are many businesses out there today that want to get into blogging, but they aren’t sure how. Don’t be afraid to pitch them your ideas and help them get the ball rolling.

Do you have any other ideas for ways people can make money blogging without relying on ad networks, affiliate programs, and private ad sales? Feel free to leave a comment and share your experiences with the suggestions I made, or to add to the list.

Credit: Fotolia.com

Despite the fact that social media marketing seems to monopolize internet marketing conversations lately, it’s far from your only option. For example, email marketing can still be a highly effective way to communicate with an audience, drive traffic, and increase sales.

I used to use simple email newsletters to promote site features and content, but stopped years ago because I didn’t have enough products to promote. The return wasn’t there at the time. With several new e-books and a series of e-courses in the pipeline, I decided that now was a good time to get back into email marketing.

That meant I had to choose a new email marketing service. In my case, I chose Aweber. I won’t tell you to run out and sign up for their service, but I do want to share some of the issues that came up when making that decision.

By answering the following questions, you’ll have an easier time choosing the best email marketing provider for your small business.

1. Is this for a new list or are you moving an existing list?

Any email marketing service can help you start a new list. But if you already have an opt-in list, your choices might be more limited by things like import limits or rules regarding new opt-ins. Rather than potentially losing subscribers with a new opt-in for the service transfer, you might be better off asking your current provider if they can offer a different plan that better suits your needs.

2. How many subscribers do you anticipate early on? In the future?

An important consideration when choosing an email marketing service is whether or not they can handle your current subscriber count. Check their limits (which will likely vary based on pricing tiers) and make sure they can accommodate your current list size. Also consider anticipated growth of your list. Does the service you’re interested in offer scalable options that can grow with your business, or are you already maxing out their subscriber limits?

3. What will you use the email marketing service for?

Different email marketing services can offer different features. Which are most important to you? That will depend on what you plan to do with the list. For example, I mentioned e-courses earlier. So I looked for a service with good autoresponder features to deliver scheduled course materials.

What's involved in email marketing? - Credit: Danard Vincente (via Flickr)

You might want to do something similar, use it mostly to deliver RSS feeds via email, send manual newsletters, send scheduled announcements or promotions, or do some combination of these things. Even if you aren’t ready for all of these things right now, think about the foreseeable future. Choose an email marketing service that fits into your ongoing marketing strategy to avoid having to switch services again too soon.

4. How much can you afford?

Another important consideration is the affordability factor. If you can’t afford to use a paid service at all, then you might want to tailor your strategy to free options available. If you have an adequate budget you can go for premium services that offer greater reliability, no ads in your emails, and better response tracking (in addition to the primary features you want).

Did you recently choose your first email marketing service or change providers? What made you choose them? What were you looking for and what made that provider stand out? In addition to the things mentioned here, what other factors would you suggest small business owners consider? Leave your thoughts, stories, and tips in the comments below.

Stock photos let even the non-artistically inclined amongst us add some pizzazz to our work, from blog posts to print marketing materials. For the best selection, it can be a good idea to purchase image licenses from stock photo sites like Fotolia.com. These stock photo sites allow photographers and graphic designers to upload their material and make a profit. You, on the other hand, get access to low cost images from a diverse collection of designers without having to wait for custom work.

We recently switched to Fotolia.com for our images here at the Directory Journal, and today’s review will give you some early feedback after using the service. Below you can find highlights (some of our favorite things about Fotolia) and suggestions (changes that might make the service better in the future).

Highlights

Here are some things we love about Fotolia’s stock photo website.

Fotolia.com Image Credit Pricing - Credit: Fotolia.com

• The Price — After using two major competitors in the past, I can say that Fotolia’s prices are attractive, especially if you use a lot of images as a blogger. While the price-per-credit can be comparable to the competition (although a bit lower), what’s really nice is that they don’t require multiple credits for most images that would work on your blog (although you can pay more to get higher quality images when needed). This can save you quite a bit.
• The Options — Another price-related highlight is your ability to choose between the credit-based system where you purchase packs of credits and a subscription option that lets you download a certain number of images each day. If you need a lot of images, a subscription might be a good option for you and it might help you save even more.
• The Selection — I sometimes have to search for rather obscure things to illustrate blog posts, and in the past it’s been a struggle to cover some topics. For example, even e-books (with their rapid growth in popularity) aren’t well-represented on many stock photo websites. Here I was able to not only find images that were uploaded to other sites, but plenty of new options. I felt like I had much more choice due to the sheer selection here.
• The Search Tool — There are great search options on Fotolia.com, some of which I hadn’t seen before. For example, you can search by how recently the image was uploaded so you can weed out similar images you’ve seen and rejected in the past. I also notice that there tend to be more search results on this site when compared to other stock photo sites. Fotolia seems to be able to pull images that could represent something as much as directly relevant results. And that’s a good thing. There are plenty of “ooooh! I never thought of that!” moments when you have more options available to you.

Suggestions

No review is complete without a bit of balance, so I always share the negative side as well as the positives. And I try to frame those downsides as suggestions, should a site or service ever make changes in the future. With Fotolia, I only have one suggestion.

Example of Fotolia Download Options - Credit: Fotolia.com

• The site can feel rather cluttered, especially to a new user. On doing basic research into the service as I figured it out, I found that some information was a bit difficult to dig out. It’s there. But there is often so much information on a page that it can be tough to spot at first. More importantly, this became confusing during the first download process (with a subscription account). The clutter on the download page threw me for a loop as I tried to figure out which download option was the right one. While I “get it” now, I still think it could be a bit more intuitive for new users. For example, in the future I think it would be awesome if a subscription user could have the “single download” section on an image page automatically minimized so the subscription options showed up alone (and they could open the other options again if they needed to).

Conclusion

Overall, I can wholeheartedly recommend Fotolia.com to other bloggers. And the great selection of images and different size options could also make this site ideal for those working on print design projects. Check out Fotolia.com today and see if any of their stock image licensing options is right for you.

Disclaimer: This article may contain affiliate links or have been the result of other compensation or business relationships (such as special offers extended). However, the author of this article is not directly compensated by the subject of the review. The author is compensated by the site owner the same regardless of a review being positive or negative. Here at the Directory Journal we strive to keep all reviews balanced to keep our readers better informed.

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

Have you ever let a blog “slip” before — where you stopped posting for an extended time, maybe a planned break or maybe not? Do you want to bring that dormant blog back? If you’re ready to resume blogging, and you’re sure you’re prepared to stick with it this time, you’ll want to bring that blog back with a bang! After all, a simple update after a lot of lapsed time won’t necessarily get much attention. And you want people to take notice.

One of the best ways to bring back a dormant blog and build a bit of excitement in the process is to treat it as a sort of re-launch event. Here are some tips to help you re-launch your blog, get back your old readers, and attract some new ones.

1. Don’t apologize.

Don’t waste your first post back by apologizing for the lack of recent posts. Kicking things off that way puts the emphasis on the fact that you were gone. You want the emphasis on the fact that you’re back.

2. Consider a redesign.

Do you have a re-launch plan in place for your blog? - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

To make your re-launch more attention-grabbing, consider a new or updated blog design. This makes it look like there was more of a reason for the time away, and it gives you something to talk about (site-wise) when you re-launch, in addition to jumping right back into your typical style of content. Not up for a full redesign? Then consider adding a new feature or two or making just a few minor updates to improve upon the old design. Think of it as the new and improved version of your site — the one that’s here to stay.

3. Line up some content.

The last thing you want is to re-launch your blog and then run out of blog post ideas, leading to another lapse. Pre-write a few posts so you can get at least one up every week (more if you want, or have one pre-scheduled post intermingling with your on-the-fly ideas). This way you’re guaranteed to have fresh blog content for your readers, and you’ll keep them coming back for more. You want them to get used to seeing you around again after all.

4. Improve your SEO.

Did you pretty much ignore search engine optimization the last time around? Take the opportunity to optimize your posts better now — have keyword-rich permalinks, add meta titles to each post, tag them, etc. It might not help with the initial re-launch, but it might get you ranking a bit higher in search engines on a regular basis, driving even more traffic to the blog. If you change your permalink structure, just remember to set up redirects so you don’t lose traffic from existing links.

5. Get the conversation started.

End your new blog posts with a call to action. Just make it a quick line or two to encourage people to comment. For example, ask if they have additional tips or ideas to share (like at the end of this blog post), or ask them to share their own stories, reviews, or whatever else is relevant to the posts. The idea is to get more people interacting with you and your content rather than just treating the blog as a simple publishing platform. Engaged readers might be more interested in coming back to see what else you have to say. Besides, people love to know you’re listening to them and that you value their input. This is especially important if your original blog lacked a lot of comments.

6. Tell people about it!

Tell your subscribers about your blog's re-launch! - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

What’s the point of re-launching your blog if no one knows about it? Announce it in your Twitter account, your Facebook page, your LinkedIn profile, or whatever other social media tools you use. If you have email subscribers, send out a message to let them know about the re-launch and any changes. You could even give them advanced notice of a day or two just for subscribing. If you’ve launched something major tied to the blog (a new product, significant tool, etc.) consider putting out a news release. Write a few guest posts on others’ blogs with a link back to the re-launched blog. Comment on other related blogs and leave your link (usually allowed with your name — don’t spam it in the body of your comments). Give people multiple ways to find out about and visit your re-launched blog. Then worry more about giving your blog readers a reason to stay.

What about you? Do you have any other tips for re-launching a dormant blog? Would you create some other kind of event around it (like a contest)? Would you opt to re-brand the blog entirely? Leave a comment below to share your own tips and stories.

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

Ah, content mills. If I have a pet peeve in the freelance writing world, they would be it. Outside of my own client writing, I also write for other freelance writers. I help new writers get started without falling into the ruts of extremely low pay. I try to help them get past the misconceptions about Web writing specifically. And the issue of content mills often comes up.

The simple truth is this: any writer worth their salt can earn more with private clients or by developing their own income streams than they can with mills. Content mills are never the best option for these folks who are looking for more than some quick cash as a hobby writer. If you’re making a career out of it, you can do better.

Still, I constantly see writers trying to justify mill work saying that they can “easily” earn $40k or so per year there which is better than what they might have been making at a full-time job. Here’s the thing. It’s not usually better. What they forget is that $40k per year as an employee is a very different thing than earning $40k as a freelancer (what you are when you write for content mills). They are not directly comparable. Yet these numbers are thrown out there even by the mills themselves to try to suck in new content producers. And it works.

As a former writer and editor for mills (someone who was basically paid to use this information to pull in new writers), I know how the marketing game works there. I’ve also covered some of the lies content mills tell and more about my background with them rather extensively in the past, so I won’t rehash that all here.

Today I want to take a look at two different types of content mill revenue schemes you might come across, and how the numbers really break down before you get too excited about what you’re told will be a great gig. Let’s start with some basics though.

Writers: Would you rather be indespensable or replaceable? - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

What are Content Mills?

If you’re new to the idea of content mills, it might be a bit confusing at first. They’re known by several different names — content mills, content farms, content networks, etc. — and people often disagree about which sites should be classified as such.

For the purpose of this article we’ll say content mills are any sites that hire a massive number of freelance content producers to publish articles with the intentof driving search and social media traffic to convert it into ad revenue. Some examples include Demand Studios, Suite101, and Associated Content, although there are certainly more.

Types of Content Mill Revenue Models for Writers

We’re going to take a look at two common revenue models for content mill writers — up front payments and residual earnings. Up front payments are self-explanatory. The writer is paid a set dollar amount per article they write. To get up front payments, they might have to sell full rights to their work to the mill.

Residual earnings work differently. There is generally no up front payment at all. Instead writers are paid either based on pageviews their articles receive or based on a percentage of total ad revenue earned through their articles (although the exact percentage generally isn’t shared with the writers).

I mentioned $40k per year as an earning level I’ve seen writers tout as fantastic for mill work before. Looking at the average salary of a starting Web writer in the U.S. (based on data from Salary.com), it’s not that far off. The average salary is $47,492.

Already these content mill writers aren’t earning beginner level wages in their field, and those $40k earners are not the majority. If we’re talking about hobby writers who just want to earn more than they could at the local fast food joint or something, I can’t fault them in any way. But we’re often talking about professional writers, sometimes with extensive experience and advanced degrees, who are looking to mills as a long-term full-time career option. In their case there’s little excuse to be earning less than salaried beginners in their field. And those are the writers who can do much better if they want to (and if they don’t want to, that’s fine and it’s completely on them).

Here’s the kicker though. Even if someone could earn $47k with a content mill consistently year after year (and mills have been known to close, be sold off, and completely overhaul their revenue share models seemingly on a whim), they still wouldn’t be earning as much as a starting salaried writer doing similar work. That’s because of what I mentioned earlier; freelance and salaried yearly earnings aren’t directly comparable.

When you talk about a $47k salary for an employee, it involves much more than that base salary. It includes paid time off like sick time and vacation time, a portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes, usually health insurance (and real health insurance — not the far-from-adequate discount plans some mills use as a marketing tactic), 401k contributions, and other benefits. Freelancers serve the role of both the employer and the employee, and therefore have to account for all of those things in their yearly earnings. Based on that same Salary.com data, a $47k salary for a starting Web writer actually comes to $67k when you factor those things in. That is how much a mill writer would have to earn to keep all things equal and compare their earnings to that of a similar employee position. In other words, if you wanted to leave a $47k per year regular job to freelance full-time as a Web writer, you would need to earn $67k freelancing to earn an equivalent income. And that doesn’t even include business expenses. But for example’s sake we’ll assume those are minimal and stick to $67k.

Earning $67k through freelance writing is absolutely possible. Many writers, including myself, do it without a problem. And it doesn’t involve mill work. But if you could create a sustainable mill writing career earning that equivalent of a beginner Web writer’s salary, what would it actually take? Let’s look at some specific examples.

Forget content mill marketing hype. Crunch the numbers for yourself. It's enlightening. -- Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

Potential Revenue Example: Up Front Payments

I mentioned that Demand Studios is an example of a content mill. Most of the Demand writers I know (and I know many) earn around $15 per article. So how many of these articles would they have to write each year to earn that $67k we talked about earlier?

4467

Yep, you would have to write nearly 4500 articles in a year just to earn the equivalent of a salaried starting Web writer with this mill if you earn what most of their writers seem to earn. There are some who earn more but they’re the exception, and no one should ever expect to be the exception to the rule when it comes to their career.

Okay. So when we break that down into monthly and daily totals, maybe it won’t look so bad, right? Let’s do that.

You would have to write 372 articles per month to make that happen. Assuming you work full-time hours, meaning five days per week, that comes to 19 articles per day. That also assumes no holidays, no sick days, no personal days, and no vacation days. The only way this kind of content writing is truly sustainable as a career option is if you choose to earn far less than you could be earning.

Potential Revenue Example: Residual Earnings

Now let’s look at the residual earnings method. I’ve often seen people get worked up about these models (it’s the model I used to have to recruit writers into before I wised up and got out). It’s easy to take a starry-eyed look at residual earning content mills. After all, you write the article once and you keep getting paid for it month after month after month. The lure is the idea that you can eventually do nothing — just sit back and live off the residual earnings from your old articles.

For the vast majority of writers, that will never happen. For those situations where it does, it generally happens with residual earnings from your own projects and products — not mill writing.

Several months ago one of the contributors on my freelance writing blog wrote up an evaluation of a residual earning model mill. Commenters on these content mill articles often tend to take general comments about the models themselves personally even when they’re not. That post was no exception. We had people commenting saying how fantastic they were and how wrong we were to criticize the model and the writers because they could earn $1000 per month residually.

That’s great. But $1000 per month is nothing to write home about if you’re building a career as opposed to hobby writing or side income, as our readers are trying to do. I always find one thing curious though. When people tout the greatness of content mills and how much they can earn, they very rarely tell you the full truth about the work that goes into it. It’s no wonder new writers see those stories and think they’re inspirational, jumping on board hoping for similar “success.”

For example, when I saw those comments I did some research on the writers. Those two writers in particular had both written more than 1400 articles for the mill in question. Guess how much they’re really earning per article each month if they’re getting $1000 residually? A measly $.71 — not even a dollar. Residual earnings also often don’t come quickly, which means you’re basically writing unpaid for a while (although less than a dollar per article is still practically “unpaid”).

Based on that, how many articles under this model would these folks need to write each year? Well, at $.71 per article per month, that comes to $8.52 per article per year (less than even Demand Studios, which is pitifully low pay for professionals to begin with). That means to earn the equivalent of a starting salaried Web writer they would have to write 7864 articles per year. That comes to 655-656 articles per month, or around 33 articles per day. This example also doesn’t include holidays, sick days, personal days, or vacation time. You would have to work full-time, five days a week every week to make these numbers work out. Otherwise the weekly requirements go up.

You also have to keep something else in mind. Residual earnings are never guaranteed. A hot topic getting traffic and ad revenue today can flop completely tomorrow. Many of the high earning examples you see play upon timely topics (like holidays or something in the news) which only earn well for a month or two and then drop off. That means many of the articles you write for higher residual earnings now won’t actually be earning the same into the future, and you won’t be able to stop writing to live off of residual income that way. You have to keep churning out more content on more timely topics to keep income levels up. Most of the writers claiming they earn very well through residual income models with content mills that I’ve looked into do indeed put focus on these timely topics. You would have to be able to do the same consistently for evergreen topics to make the long-term residual model work.

Myths and Tips about Earning More Without Mills

When you take a look at the reality of the numbers, content mills almost never make sense. It’s simply bad business to try to build a sustainable full-time career with content mills for most writers. But there are a lot of myths floating around out there which discourage people who do want to earn more from working towards it, and they stay with mills as a result. Let’s sum things up by taking a quick look at some of the more common myths about earning more without mills, and the reality of the situations.

Myth: Content mills pay weekly or bi-weekly in some cases, which you’ll never get with private clients.

Fact: When you’re the business owner, you decide your payment terms. Personally I charge up front for my work with private clients, and I have a waiting list of people happy to abide by those terms as soon as I have an opening (which is rare). I do that because I do rarely have openings, and it keeps less serious prospects away. Most professionals I know charge at least a portion up front before starting work, and charge the rest immediately on completion (when it comes to Web writing). You can actually get paid not only more but get paid faster with private clients, especially if you accept payments online via Paypal (which you probably do if you accept mill payments anyway).

Myth: Getting private clients involves a lot of time marketing yourself, which undercuts the real hourly rate you earn.

Fact: Will you spend time marketing yourself? Absolutely, and more in the beginning. But it doesn’t even come close to making content mills a better deal. And here’s a perk for you — when you build visibility and a demand for your services, it doesn’t take long for clients to start finding you instead of you having to find them. Remember that waiting list of mine? That’s how I built it. And it took me just three months when I went full-time with my freelance writing to get to the point where I had a consistently full schedule at much higher rates than mill work ($100-200 for most 400-500 word blog posts for example — at least twice that for features and higher rates for most business writing work, and I’m far from the highest end of the professional pay spectrum). I know plenty of writers who got to a similar position with private clients in an even shorter amount of time. In fact, I recently offered to coach a content mill writer working for Demand Studios to help her get away from mill work. We were able to replace her full monthly average content mill income in just two weeks with private client work, and increased it significantly shortly after. It does not have to take a long time to earn better than what you’re making with content mills. That’s only true if you’re lazy about your marketing or you don’t do the proper targeting, so you market to the wrong prospects.

Myth: Content mills are fantastic because they let people work from home so they can be with their families more.

Fact: What’s far more fantastic is earning what you’re worth as you work from home, making more than content mills pay, and having even more free time to spend with your kids and your spouse or to pursue your own residual earning projects (like selling e-books and reports).

Myth: Private clients are more demanding than content mills so I’ll earn more hourly with mill work.

Fact: Many Web writing clients are actually far less demanding than content mills. In my case for example, I generally choose the article topics I want to write on and the client picks from that list. So I write what I’ll enjoy writing, which will also benefit the client’s website or blog. I also very rarely get edit requests from private clients, whereas I’ve seen numerous absurd edit requests from content mill editors who clearly know nothing about the subject matter. And if you refuse edits even if they would make a piece factually incorrect, you risk not being paid anything at all there. When you work with private clients, you can also dictate how many edits are included in your price structure. For me that’s two sets of edits max. Anything beyond that (such as a client having everyone they know look and give feedback for edits one at a time) is billed as an extra fee. If the client makes any major change to the scope of the project, they not only pay for the time already put in, but they also pay for the new article in full at the normal writing rate. So no, they’re generally not more demanding. Content mills often demand more than what they’re actually justified to based on what they pay, and with private clients if they demand too much you simply invoice for the additional work not included in the original contract. Try invoicing a mill when they pull that.

These are just a few common myths about content mills and writing for private clients. There are certainly more out there, and I have no doubt that mills will continue to pull in new content producers. For some, they’re fine. But for those looking to build serious sustainable careers full-time, there are better options. All you have to do is crunch the numbers and push past a few common misconceptions to see that.

It might still feel like winter outside, but it’s the season to start preparing for summer internships. Businesses both large and small are starting to think about summer internships, and if you’re trying to land a highly-coveted position, now is the time to get started with your application process. But before you do, read our tips on how to navigate the world of summer internships:

What Type of Internship: The first question is whether your college or university requires you to complete an internship in a specific field. For example, if you are a public relations major in college, you may be required to complete a public relations internship in order to qualify for graduation. However, if you’re not bound to any strict requirements, there are dozens upon dozens of options out there once you identify what interests you. Make sure to include this info on your resume!

What Industry? While you may have to apply for more than one internship, it doesn’t mean that you have to apply for every public relations internship out there. Start by narrowing down your industry focus. Do you like fashion, social media or want to work for a non-profit? Find a few areas that interest you and begin your search there.

Talk to Your Advisor: Some, if not most, internships require that you receive college credit as a condition of employment. Even if you don’t need an advisor to register for the internship or to receive credit, speaking to one might still be a good idea. An advisor can tell you what to expect from an internship, how to apply and might have connections with companies you are interested in. It’s an important appointment to make, even for the most independent students.

Prepare Your Cover Letter and Resume: Before you can start applying for summer internships, you have to make sure your internship resume and cover letter are updated and are in working order. Did you remember to add that new club you joined in the fall? Does your cover letter look professional? Make the strongest first impression possible, and if you need help, there are hundreds of websites on the Internet that offer free samples and guides. College career centers also provide assistance.

Get References: A potential employer could very easily want to check your references, so keep the screening process moving by having them handy. Ask your college advisor, perhaps a previous professor or two or boss.

Where to Apply: If you know specific companies you want to work for this summer, try searching their website for career information. If you want to see which companies are advertising summer internship positions, try a job board like Urban Interns that has up-to-date job listings.

Learn and Have Fun: You are taking an internship to learn, so try to apply for positions where you will build tangible skills and credentials. But just because a summer internship is work does not mean you cannot have fun! Finding an internship that is both educational and fun—now that’s the position you really want to get!

Creative Design

Facebook is known for its uniformity. You can post different content, pictures, and multimedia, but the basic design is the same on each page. Now with Static FBML (Facebook markup language) businesses can create their own custom landing pages. This is important because where searchers land will influence whether they click “like.”

A custom landing page can look more like a mini website inside of Facebook rather than the wall or newsfeed. There are a quite a few really good landing pages out there.

Even though you land on their wall, I particularly like Burt’s Bees. Their “Natural Too…” page really fits their overall marketing image/campaign. It looks natural, simple, clean, refreshing. What does surprise me is that they just went over 110,000 fans last week. Maybe this shout-out will boost their numbers. Kudos, too for letting us default to see posts by Burt’s Bees and others.

Runners up for best Facebook business page for creative design include, Coach, The Children’s Place and Wonka. Although, Willy, it’s time to update.

Free Stuff

I really wanted to find a great Facebook business page that gives away lots of FREE stuff. This was harder to do than I thought it would be. My best advice is to go to the pages for your favorite stores and products and click like. Also check for tabs on those pages with headings like, special offer, coupon, and deals. Really the best deals are for stuff we already like.

You may also enjoy checking into sites like freesnatcher.com and freestuffonfacebook.com. These diligent bloggers do the work so you don’t have to.

Most Likes

It’s funny how popularity works on Facebook. I still don’t know how Vin Diesel got to be so popular (16,809,153 fans), for example. Right now the most popular pages are Zynga’s game, Texas Hold’em Poker (24,841,218), Facebook (22,111,133), Michael Jackson (21,637,836), and Lady Gaga (20,366,689).

The October 11, 2010 issue of Forbes says Zynga, who owns Texas Hold’em Poker and Farmville (59,497,299 users), “is worth perhaps $5 billion.” According to that issue, “today there are more than 1 million developers working with Facebook data worldwide, mostly small-timers hoping to hit it big like Zynga.”

It was hard to shuffle through pages like “I need a vacation!!!” to find actual business pages. Top ranking consumer goods on Facebook are Coca-Cola (which has a very nice landing page, even though I prefer Pepsi) and Nutella. These two make Business Insiders top 25. I was surprised the page The Art of Travel by Louis Vuitton has garnered 1,434,226 fans. I wonder how many of their fans actually own a real Vuitton bag. I do have to say I give them points for their latest ad campaign, featuring Ali and Bono.

Local Businesses

Social media has changed what we can influence. Facebook is mostly free and small businesses are finding it greatly advantageous to spend time networking. One local pizza company claims that facebook saved their business.

Local to me? I live in a small Wisconsin town and I’m impressed at how well local business owners keep up and hold their own. Body Essentials at 88 likes is still pretty new to facebook, but owner, Kathy Hansen, does it well. She’s got video, pictures, and regular updates.

Forbes asks, “Who would you trust more for a recommendation, Google or your friends?… Now 80 of the world’s 100 largest advertisers are on Facebook.” Facebook has leveled the playing field. Big names and local business can have an online presence for free (or nearly). Local businesses are finding success on Facebook as people travel less and begin to realize the importance of shopping locally.

Best Two-Way Communication

Starbucks. Hands down. Most of the pages on here one of my friends likes. The popular pages are usually liked by five or six of my friends. Starbucks (at last count) has 10. Maybe that says something about demographics, but it says something. Starbucks has videos, actively engages, posts every couple of days, and keeps their content varied, fun, and interesting. They don’t push, there is no hard selling. They keep their fans interested and entertained.

Whatever your industry, you’ll find your fans are on Facebook with 500 million users and growing isn’t it about time you got “liked?”

By: Terra L. Fletcher, freelance writer and marketing consultant. She also teaches classes on Facebook and owns Fletcher Freelance.

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

If you’re a freelancer, you’ve probably come across freelance bidding sites (also called freelance marketplaces) at some point in time. They’re sites that connect buyers to service providers. Buyers post gigs. Providers post profiles. When you see a gig advertised that appeals to you, you can make a bid, competing with the bids of other freelancers.

Many service providers swear by these sites. But they have many problems and in the majority of cases you could get much better gigs by staying away from them. Remember, running a serious freelance career isn’t just about landing gigs. It’s about landing the right gigs — the best gigs you can get that allow you to reach your goals and grow your business.

Here are five reasons I recommend staying away from freelance bidding sites especially if you’re new. Going to them early on can significantly set you back and the clips you get are often for very different markets than the ones you’ll ultimately want to target.

1. Increased opportunities are often outweighed by increased competition.

One of the most common reasons I hear freelancers give for using freelance bidding sites is that there are a lot of gigs all in one place. But that doesn’t account for a couple of important things like the quality of those jobs or the increased competition.

It doesn’t matter if more jobs are available publicly if you’ll have to compete with ten times the number of other contractors for every gig that looks interesting to you. Gigs landed through other means cut down on the competition greatly and even sometimes completely (like bringing prospects to your own professional site through search engine rankings or building an authority status that makes clients want to work with you, and only you).

2. High paying freelance gigs are usually not advertised publicly.

While you might occasionally find a really decent gig on bidding sites, those gigs are usually few and far between. There’s good reason for that. Prospects know that these sites are overpopulated with new and unqualified freelancers (whether they be writers, designers, or anything else). They’re seen as an easy place to get a start.

That’s not to say there are no professionals on these sites. The problem is that as soon as someone advertises a gig — on bidding sites, forums, job sites, or anywhere else — with a decent budget attached, the buyer gets bombarded with a lot of applications and enquiries from people who are not qualified for the job. People apply simply because there’s more money than they’re used to seeing advertised. It’s not worth a buyer’s time to sort through all of this when there are far more efficient ways of finding qualified professionals — search, referrals, and turning to contractors they have past relationships with.

Most of the really great freelance gigs aren’t advertised publicly, leading to the misconception that low rates like $10 per article or $100 for a full Web design are the industry norms. They’re not. You’re just looking at a client base that cares about price more than quality or that doesn’t know what real professional standards are for their projects. If you want those better gigs, your time is best spent elsewhere like building your professional website and using Internet marketing and SEO to improve its rankings or building a solid referral network.

3. You miss out on the branding benefits of marketing.

Marketing can do so much more than lead to your next gig. The marketing you do today could be bringing in new freelance gigs for years. That’s if you focus on platform building and gaining visibility and recognition in your specialty area. By doing those things you get branding benefits that carry with you for a long time.

People start to recognize your name or your work. They seek you out. They refer you to others. Building a solid brand image is one of the best things you can do when marketing freelance services. But you get very little branding benefit from the time you spend marketing if that time is spent on bidding sites. Why? Because it’s no longer about your personal brand. It’s about the bidding site’s brand. You become nothing more than yet another fish in a very large freelance pond.

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

4. You’ll find a lot of unrealistic demands and repeated ads.

Freelance bidding sites have become famous over the years for some of the absurd ads. Buyers often jump into their own businesses with no adequate financing, so they have little to no budget to work with. But they still expect you to be happy with the little bit they offer, and they expect far more than they have any right to expect from contractors in relation to what they’re willing to pay. Demands are high, but the value they place on your work (and therefore the respect they have for you as a professional) is low.

For example, you might see someone asking for 100 articles for a total of $100 and they want a two-week turnaround. And oh yeah, you have to be a native English speaker and have an engineering degree if you want the gig. Or they might want to pay that $100 for a five-page Web design from scratch, with two design options to choose from and less than a week’s turnaround time.

Professionals have spent time highlighting some of these ridiculous ads and their unrealistic demands for years now in an effort to enlighten newer freelancers. And it’s for good reason. Things haven’t changed in all that time. Cheap clients will almost always remain cheap clients, and they’re usually the most demanding clients to work with. Not only that, but these are often gigs with high turnover rates which means you can find the same gigs advertised over and over again. That artificially inflates the true number of advertised gigs you’ll find on these sites.

5. It’s never smart to market services solely or mostly on low prices — something freelance bidding sites often force you to do.

I’ve said this countless times to newer freelancers, but it’s worth repeating here. Any marketer worth their salt will tell you it’s never a smart idea to market freelance services solely or mostly on low prices. It’s downright silly. You cannot mass-produce your time to sell it for less. And that time is the real asset you’re selling. You have a limited number of hours each month that you can spend on client projects.

If you keep lowering rates to underbid other freelancers, you’ll eventually find yourself stuck in a rut that can be very difficult to climb out of. You need to determine the minimum hourly rate you can charge to meet your financial goals first. Then convert that into project rates if you prefer. Only then can you figure out what you should be bidding for gigs. And those rates should be the lowest you go. You shouldn’t bid lower just because others are. That devalues everything you bring to the table and it ultimately sets you up for failure. Any client worth having will hire you based on your credentials and past work; not based on the lowest bid they receive.  Yet this “race to the bottom” mentality is exactly what freelance bidding sites promote.

There’s nothing wrong with testing out bidding sites and other methods for landing quality freelance gigs. But if you’re competent at what you do, you can do so much better. If you do insist on using bidding sites at least try to limit your time there so you can build a solid platform for yourself and your services at the same time. It’s not ideal (that would be seeking professional markets and building that platform more quickly early on), but it’s far better than being caught in a perpetual bidding war for gigs that usually aren’t worth it.