Brain Drain and How I plan to avoid it.

Writing is hard work. That is for sure. Aside from the grammar, there are other things, which make writing hard for some of us. Paid content does not mix to well with the creative stuff. There is a better way to accomplish this stuff and I am anxious to figure it out here.

When I am writing paid content along with a mix of creative writing, most of the time the creative stuff is harder because my brain turns to mush. There is nothing like brain drain to zap the motivation out of you. I have come up with a new plan here and I am hoping it will work.

First, let me share my old way with you. I would do the paid stuff in the morning or after a nap while my brain was still fresh. However, after a few hours the brain drain set in and left me wanting to nap a few hours. After I got the paid work done, I would do the housework and then dive into the creative stuff. It failed, as I was not giving myself any real mental breaks to relax during working hours. Soon, games replaced the day and that certainly was not good.

Therefore, the new plan is something like this. Write one sponsored blog post of 300 or so words, and check out Facebook groups. Then I will write two blog posts for another article and then play a game on Facebook. I think the two-fer deal is working well this morning and I just might stick with it. I know I need to write at least 6 articles, and I am well on my way here. 

In the afternoon with a lunch break away from my desk I will come back and hopefully have some one on one time with my muse for the series I am writing. 

Top 3 ways blogging beats content writing

Blogging beats writing content for editors who are slow to offer upfronts.  It is also more profitable and fun. When we content writers write articles, we sometimes stifle ourselves to appease the editors in hopes that they will give us a higher payment.  When you blog for yourself you have more fun. You search for the best key words and phrases and let the words flow from the fingertips.

Another way blogging beats writing content is you can schedule blog posts. With that content crap, you have to write every day to keep your portfolio updated.  If you are trying to engage a private client, sending them to a niche blog is way better then setting them to a scattered content writing portfolio.

Another way blogging beats content writing is the profits are only shared two ways instead of three.  Content writing at a content mill means you are sharing profits with Goggle, the site and then you get your tiny cut. I have seen click through rates of some of these key words and phrases trust me with 42 views and 1 click through at the rate of .25 cents sure beats that  1 or 2 cents you’d make at a content site. 

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. 

Becoming a blogging success

Becoming a blogging success is much easier than you might think. If you have been in the content writing game for more years then you will admit then you have found your niche. Take your niche and turn it into a profit stream. 

If you have a few niches, this will work well, I Know because I am doing it.   Here is how to successfully run seven or more blogs in your niches.

Get your blogs set up on Blogger.com.  Click on the earnings tab, set them up one at a time, and add it to your adsence.  Then copy the url of the blog into your adsence information area.

The begin writing on your blogs. For this one here, which is focused on content writing, I will create a document of 2,000 words.  Each 200 words or so will be a small section focused on a subject.  I will turn it into ten blog posts of 200 words.  I just look on adwords for the right key words or phrases and take off.

Once your little blog posts are written, paste them in one at a time into the blogger interface. Schedule them to appearance once a week. This on updates on Mondays, so I schedule the other nine posts for successive Mondays.  Blogger will then publish them on the chosen date and to everyone it appears as if your blog is getting new information on a weekly basis.  That is successful blogging my friends and is more cash in your pocket.

Set up each blog to update on a different day of the week, and with 10 posts on each blog you will be set for 2 months. 

Pre-writing Your Blog Posts

Prewriting your blog posts for weeks in advance has many benefits, and the most oblivious one is updated blogs on a regular basis. Blogging is fun and rewarding but it also has to make some money for the owner or it is not worthy of your time. It also needs to help those who need it, so make sure you figure out what people need help with and write your post around it.

I run more than seven different blogs and I write multiple posts for each blog one day. I then schedule a different one to be published each week. Prewriting these blog posts makes me appear to have lots of writing time, which I do not have. In one day I can create up to ten blog posts that will be published over two months time.  If I spend one-week prewriting, these blog posts I can have enough so that I do not have to write for two months on each blog. 

Many successful bloggers do this exact same thing, you write one day and schedule the posts for weekly publishing. They are making a large profit at it, and I want some of that money. As I have learned, I will teach you how to do it.   Prewritting blogs is time saving and profit building.  

How to Profit off a blog

How to profit off a blog is something I have learned how to do, and I share that knowledge.  As a former content writer at the content, mills I saw the beauty of blogging long ago. When you update a blog often, you earn more money if it is the right niche. Visitors will return often because you update often and more visitors equal more money. 

Make sure the information is relevant and helpful so people will return. If you have good information, they will return repeatedly. Maybe they will post it on Facebook, or email a friend about your web site. Every bit of traffic helps if you are trying to profit off a blog.  Find the right keywords in your niche and write up the posts.

Add fun stuff, make your blog helpful or entertaining and they will return.  More visits means more profits for you and if that is your goal update often.  Updating often does not mean writing daily, although you could do that. The smarter blogger pre-writes posts and schedules them to be published a week at a time.  That is how to profit off a blog!  I hope this short blog post will help you on your road to profits or at least gave you food for thought. 

Pimping Content Page Views

If you are sick of pimping page views for articles, you have written on the content mills, this is the blog post for you.  Take that anger and make something positive happen. Begin to get profits off blogging. Get an adsence account and put your articles on line.  Of course, you need to make sure your posts are SEO’d or you will be writing for free, and that is a bad thing.

Every niche out there has a golden key word or key phase that will bring in the visitors, which means more visitors to your web site.  Find that golden key word or phrase and you will be set to begin profiting off your blog. Chances are if you are interested enough in a topic to write about it, then these are others who also enjoy that subject. Make your content engaging and people will return and perhaps bring a friend.

Of course, not all the visitors in the world will mean anything if your blog is filled with typos and grammar mistakes.  Type all posts in MS word to insure they are typo free, write good content, and keep the blog updated often. If you do these things perhaps, you will begin to see profits off your blogs.