How to Make Money Writing for Examiner.com

Today I want to talk to you about making money online writing articles for Examiner.com.    I know I’ve covered this before, but that was back when the ‘Dome was still standing and I want this on the record again.  So bear with me and I think you’ll get something out of this post.

Let me just start off by saying that I think that anyone who’s spending any kind of time writing articles, whether it’s to promote their own sites or to sell to clients, should be taking a serious look at becoming a writer at Examiner.com.  

And here’s why:
Examiner.com is NOT an article directory – Examiner.com is a news site – like Yahoo News or MSN or Celebitchy, etc.  There’s a world of difference between a news site and an article directory.   Let’s take a look at how they each work:

How do Article Directories Work?

You write a 400 or 500 word article and submit it to ANY directory – Ezine, GoArticles, even Squidoo.   With some of those directories you’re going to have to wait and see if they’ll even accept your article for publication – for example, Ezine.  And even if you use a program like UAW to mass submit to hundreds of directories, there’s still a better than good chance that most of them are not going to accept your article.

Now, assuming you HAVE used a mass submitter program and you’ve sent that article out to 1000 article directories.  Do you really know where it’s going?  Yes, it’s probably going to 5 or 6 – AT THE MOST – key article directories, like Ezine, etc.  But the other 994 articles are going out to blogs and websites that are using auto-POSTERS to pull content for them so they don’t have to write it themselves.

Most of those 994 sites are sitting dead in the water somewhere – I know, I’ve used an autoposter on a few dozen blogs myself and those few dozen blogs are NOT getting any of MY attention right now.  In fact, if the domain names expired tomorrow I probably wouldn’t even be aware of it.  And a lot of those 994 sites only publish a snippet of your article.

The fact that I have no idea what those blogs even look like anymore should also tell you something else - their quality sucks. Let’s face it – if they were quality sites they’d be making me money and I’d be paying attention to them, right?  So obviously, they’re duds and NOBODY IS READING THEM.  And in case you’ve been asleep at your desk since the beginning of May, Google has stopped giving credit for links that come from crappy blogs and websites.

Each of those blogs is chock full of articles – some of them might even have been written by YOU.  Yet, no one is visiting those blogs because I’m not worried about the quality and I’m not promoting them in the search engines.

ERGO – Even though that report you got back from UAW or whoever you’re using says they submitted your article to 1000 blogs, websites and article directories, it may actually only have been published at a dozen sites and most of them suck.

Now, one MORE thing to consider about article directories…

Do you know who IS reading your articles at Ezine or the other directories?  Searchers who do organic searches looking for information.  That’s right – they go to their little Google search box and type in their keyword and they find your article on the index – that is IF you’ve submitted to a high PR directory or promoted the article yourself.

Now, assuming you’re somewhere near the top of the index, and assuming you’ve written a quality article that only gives enough information that the reader is compelled to learn more, and assuming you’ve written a resource box with a strong call to action – the searcher will end up at your website.   But that’s ALL a big IF.  What if that reader doesn’t like your article?  What if they want more information and continue to search other articles – some of them NOT yours?  What if they’re a publisher and they only looked at your article because they need content for their own blog?

Don’t get me wrong here.  I’m not completely against using article directories and article marketing to promote your website.  In fact, I still think it’s one of the best ways to generate targeted, organic traffic for free.   And believe me, I’ll be delving into article directories here, too.

However, Examiner.com is better.  Here’s why:

Greater Visibility -Submit an article to an regular directory and if you want it to make it to the top of the index you’re going to have to promote it yourself.  In fact, the directories are counting on you to do just that.  And Examiner.com is, too.  However, Examiner also is a much bigger name in the news industry AND they’re aligned with Google News.  So what, you ask?  So this…

When a searcher is looking for just basic, everyday, lah-dee-dah information, they go to their search box and enter the keyword.  When they want cold, hard facts and RELIABLE information, they do NOT say, ‘Hey, I think I’ll go see what Ezine has to say about the price of tea in China today.”  No.  They go to their favorite News site.

In other words – searchers do not go to Ezine and search for information.  If they end up at Ezine at all, it’s because YOU’VE done the work to promote your article high enough on the index that they could easily see it and click on it.  On the other hand, I, like bajillions of other searchers, have Yahoo News, Google News, MSN and now Examiner.com bookmarked and I go there every morning to see what exciting events happened while I was sleeping.

More Authority -The simple fact that you’re writing is being viewed on a respected News site adds that much more authority and credibility to your name.

Greater Exposure – Examiner.com is aligned with Google News and they submit newsworthy articles throughout each day.  Granted, if you’re a local Examiner, as most are, it’s a little more difficult to get your articles accepted by Google.  However, it’s not impossible and you’ll have the added benefit of the additional traffic that the National Examiners bring to the site.

You Get Paid – Obviously, one of the key benefits for writing for Examiner.com is that you get paid for all of your page views.  It’s a small amount, like .007 cents per page view.  But I have only 2 categories right now that I write for and I’m up to making over a dollar a day and it’s only my third month.

There are additional incentives to increase your income – you can recruit new Examiners, you can find someone to sponsor your articles, etc.  And when you work all of this together, PLUS start building up an archive full of content, it’s not hard to make some money with Examiner.com.  My first month I made $45 and my second month I hit somewhere around $250 – not sure yet, the reports aren’t in yet and the site’s been in a little bit of a disarray lately due to a CMS changeover.

But think about it - I’ve written around 80 or 90 articles in less than 3 months and made almost $300.  Have you ever made that much off of your Ezine articles in that amount of time?  For one thing, Ezine doesn’t pay you to write.  And for another, well… we’ve already discussed the difference in traffic.  $300 in less than 3 months – and I have nowhere to go but up!

Perhaps the BEST reason for writing at Examiner.com…

At Examiner.com, you’re writing for YOURSELF.  Yes, Examiner is making money off of the traffic that you bring in.  They have to.  The have a platform to pay for.  BUT – you write what you want to write and you can link where you want to link.  For example, one of my categories is Berea Food Examiner.  If you click on that link, you’ll go to my page and you’ll see an ad for Halloween Mart in the corner.  That’s MY affiliate banner.  And not only am I making money with affiliate sales, but I’m also being paid a premium on my articles this month because I have a sponsor.

How did I find that sponsor?  It’s ME!  I paid for my own ad.  It cost $29 and for that $29 I get to run my banner for a month AND I’ll make $40 just for writing 20 articles – about anything I want that has to do with Food in Berea.  So I’ve already made a profit with my advertising.   Obviously, I’ll attract more targeted traffic if I write about Halloween food, which I fully intend to do.  But I’ve also set up a Halloween Blog.  I’ll be starting a series of Halloween articles at Examiner this week and I plan to link back to the blog, too, along with that affiliate banner.

I could go on and on and on…

But I won’t. If that’s not enough information to at least make you want to learn more, then just let me tell you THIS:

I’ve only been writing for Examiner.com for 2 1/2 months and I’ve just requested my third category – and this one will be a National Category, meaning even greater exposure, traffic and income potential.  During this 2 1/2 months I haven’t submitted a single article anywhere else because I SEE the potential with Examiner and I want to get an archive built up as quickly as possible.

Am I going to make it my only source of income?  Heck no!  Even I know not to put all of my eggs into one basket.  But I will be making it my main source of TRAFFIC.  And if I make a few hundred – or a few THOUSAND – dollars a month off of it in the process, so much the better.  And yes, there ARE Examiners out there making $10,000 a month – JUST WRITING FOR EXAMINER.