Factoidz.com shows content producers the money

Content producers say “show me the money!” Except for the occasional “good time Charlie” most of us that are spending hour after hour going clackity-clack at our keyboards want to see these freakin’ machines start spitting out some nickles and dimes. Working at home is probably almost as good as you would imagine. I’ve had some really good jobs in my time, but as much as I liked them, I wouldn’t have worked there if they didn’t pay me! How much does this pay? How do you get paid to produce content?

Answers: Not very much up front and not the ways you might think…Not always in cash.

Content is: writing, pictures, audio, video and programs. Cash is: Scarce, but still somewhat, for now, exchangeable for goods and services -like content. Before we get into how to trade our content for greenbacks or pounds, or euro’s…Let’s discuss what your content will be traded for mostly; always in addition to cash, but sometimes exclusively for -exposure.

EzineArticles.com is a site that will post your (written) content along with the articles of about 150,000 other authors. I don’t like this site at all. Why?

1. They keep ALL the Adsense revenue that their contributor’s articles generate. All you get for your labor is -exposure; a link to your site and a profile.
2. They also recently began a program where you have to “pay” to submit free articles. (someone there must have read the Tom Sawyer fence painting story!)
3. They are very restrictive, and these restrictions are enforced by robots. They have a strange idea of obscenity, they consider PG = XXX.
4. You can only mention yourself in the box at the bottom of the article, called the resource box. Don’t so much as mention your first name in the precious “give” box.
5. You can’t use a “keyword” or any word for that matter with density greater than 3%. Whip out that thesaurus and try to come up with as many different words for “page” as possible. Good luck! See this link, explaining that problem, with some of my own complaints in the comments at the bottom of this blog post: http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2009/01/keyword-density-rejection-case-study.html#more-1335
6. They pretend that this is to promote quality content, but this is total spin doctoring…They want quantity, quantity, quantity. The latest blog entry by Chris Knight flat out advises people not to concern themselves with grammar, or good development of an article; just write fast and submit a lot. (of garbage) “Blast the perfectionist” http://blog.ezinearticles.com/
7. They promise viral marketing, allowing other sites to search EzineArticles.com for content that they can use for free as long as they include the byline and backlink. Not bad in theory. If all you want is exposure, this seems a good way to get it. Here’s the rub: All of my articles have been stolen by other sites. No link. No byline. Incomplete and truncated.
8. No one at EzineArticles.com helps you with this problem. They simply tell you to contact the plagiarists. You are on your own. I got no where with that, I was just ignored by EzineArticles as well as the sites that stole my work.

AssociatedContent.com is a site that pays cash for content and allows you to plug other sites. They are open about the content that they let you submit, but they can also be a bit restrictive. Like most writers, I do not like censorship. They take photos, audio and video too. I like them better than EzineArticles.com, but not as much as Factoidz.com. Why?

1. They pay upfront for an article only if you give them certain rights to it. You only receive around $1.00 to $4.00 though. This is only for articles that they deem will generate a lot of Advertising revenue for them. They share a portion of this but….
2. They only pay between $1.50 and $2.00 per 1,000 page views (depending on how many total views you have, with associated rank) leaving themselves quite a margin between the $5.00 to $75.00 per 1,000 page views they receive from Google Adsense
3. I’ve had some good long discussions in the comments section below the articles. These can be time consuming, and do not generate income. Recently it is becoming belligerent and unfriendly as Content Producers fight tooth and nail over $1.47 worth of page views…Pathetic.

Your own Blog or Website This can be an all or nothing proposition. I recommend that everyone have one. They are a lot of work to start from scratch. With myspace, facebook, twitter and so on they are becoming obsolete for just a way of keeping in touch with others. Of coarse if you have hard products or services to sell you need a site. For content, you are better off, especially to start, with submitting your work to a submission site.There you may only get a percentage of the revenue that your content generates, but the upkeep and admin is not your responsibility. The amount of attention your work will receive is greater at a submission site, much of it coming from other content producers contributing to the site. Also combining your content with other authors builds a bank of data that attracts the search engine’s attention.

Factoidz.com This is by far the best content submission site I have found. I predict that if they stick with their program they are going to quickly rise above the rest. Here is what I love about Factoidz.com:

1. After just five published submissions you can collect adsense revenue, paid directly to your own adsense account. They show your Adsense ads a percentage of the time. and you collect on click throughs.
2. They choose that all important photo for you. When you see that your article has been published, It’s a thrill to see what they chose for an accompanying photo.
3. If you are rusty with SEO, and can’t choose the perfect spider-eye grabbing title, they will choose it for you. If you are touchy about that, check off a little box and they will leave your title alone.
4. There seems to be the highest degree of human interaction that I have seen with the articles that you submit. The fact that the editors choose a photo and title shows that they are reading your work - not just feeding it through a robot.
5. They will sometimes even submit your article to Digg.com or other sites to help it get more exposure.
6. Pay for the content producer, from my experience, seems to be around $5.00 per 1,000 page views. Triple what AC pays out -even counting their upfront payment.
7. When you have proved your metal and submitted 100 articles…You get a link with every article. Assistance, generous revenue sharing, exposure: Factoidz.com -gots it all!

There is a lot more to getting top dollar for your content. This is phase one, and in future Factoidz.com pieces I’ll get a little deeper into capitalizing on your work. Promoting it properly, no matter where it is placed, is crucial. Check out our articles on SEO if you need a bit of know-how to get going on that:

• http://factoidz.com/the-best-approach-to-seo/
• http://factoidz.com/the-future-of-seo-and-how-it-will-affect-content-producers/
• http://factoidz.com/seo-6-steps-to-improve-rankings/
• http://factoidz.com/progressive-keyword-targeting-climbing-up-the-long-tail-of-search-rankings/
• http://factoidz.com/seo-marketing-campaign-time-and-energy-investment/
• http://factoidz.com/black-hat-vs-white-hat-seo-techniques/
• http://factoidz.com/top-10-web-analytics-tools-for-measuring-your-websites-performance/