Content Farms Headed Out

Sometimes I am glad Google let loose with the Panda updates. It hurt my business a bunch.  What business is that you ask? Well I am one of those former content writers for a whole bunch of web sites.  When the panda updates hit I seen, my income drop a bit but as the updates continued I seen my income dropping further and further.  On one web site where I have written since 2007, I seen the biggest drop and it’s caused me to stop writing on that site.

Last February I got 200 dollars for page views, I rounded out the year with 30.07.  That is a drop of almost 170 bucks amonth. Not only did Panda hurt but also the web site ran every article on one page, where before if they were long enough they were two or three pages long. They pretty much cut out any upfront payments unless you go a beat.

All of the content sites are facing similar fates.  All of them are drying up which is hurting the former content writers, myself included.  Some of us have found private clients to write for, or having taken a job in the real world. More than fair share of us have begun to write eBooks and publish that novel we have been writing. 

I am a former content writer for those so called content farms.  I will stick with my blogs and fiction writing for now and pray for the best. 

Writing content for one of the sites, which pay upfronts or give page views, may seem like a great idea at first.  Trust me it may appear like a good plan on first thought but as many content writers have learned, content sites dry up quicker than you will believe and there goes a stream of income.  

I have written for Associated Content long before it was Yahoo Voices or the Yahoo contributor network,  been writing for pennies on Helium, Mahalo, eHow, Demand Studios, and Bukisa.   I used to make good money on all of them, until Panda hit.

The bottom line is if you are writing content for any of the content mills, your income is suffering. You are lining the pockets of the sites and those who run it. On the most profitable site, I make $2 bucks per every 1,000 views.  Sometimes I made $300 or $400 there a month, before changes came about.  Now that site is down to about 30 bucks a month.  I am struggling these days to make decent money. In my struggles, I have learned one thing.

If you have adsence you could be writing blogs and making more money than you do at those on those writing content sites. As long as your blogs are focused, you could see big profits.   I suggest opening a blog in your niche, use Google adwords to learn the best keywords. Begin writing these posts.

You will still be writing content but instead of the pay being split between the site, google and yourself, the profits will go to you and Google. Splitting profits two ways is always moiré profitable for you.  Now imagine if you had five or more profitable goals running. 

Panda Updates Sucked away my money1

Now that the continued Panda updates from Google have destroyed the websites, which earn income for lots of people. What are you doing to earn the money you lost?  Many freelance writers are doing ghost writing work, picking up private clients, starting more blogs and selling fiction.

I learned long ago that writing only for one web site would bite you in the butt in the end. For a long time now, I have been writing for upfront payments, gathering rev shares on five sites and blogs for pennies. I was even doing a bit of ghost writing for various web sites. 

Now I have begun to focus on the blogs. I have recently added a few niche blogs. Now I have them all bringing in money because I have placed ads on them.