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• Reply Sarah H. on December 3rd, 2008 at 6:45 am This is fascinating and very useful data!! Thanks for going through the extra effort to get this analysis to your readers. I definitely have got to research keywords! I only have 6 articles so far so I can’t identify any trends yet, but I have been making money and I can see real potential. Keep the reports coming Pat!! Sarah H.´s last blog post..Houseplant Hacks – Three ways to manage your time more efficiently

  • Reply george on January 18th, 2010 at 11:11 pm ive made 29.79 in 10 days, 80 articles total. You can make way more than that

    • Reply george on January 18th, 2010 at 11:11 pm 8 i mean not 80

• Reply Dusty on December 3rd, 2008 at 7:46 am Impressive write-up my friend. I would anticipate seeing vastly improved earnings over the next few months. Your are truly a motivating force! Dusty´s last blog post..Fixed Income Investments – Using Treasury-Only Money Funds

• Reply Michele on December 3rd, 2008 at 7:48 am Awesome stuff! Congrats on the success you’ve had! I’ve also read Writer Gig’s eBook and am so pleased with my purchase! I haven’t had time yet to apply what I learned, but I’m really excited about seeing the results once I do. Oh, and my earnings are already steadily increasing, too, so I can’t imagine how well things will go once I do get busy publishing more articles using what I learned from WriterGig! *smiles* Michele Michele´s last blog post..5 Tips for Writing a Quality Article That Will Leave Editors and Clients Salivating for More!

• Reply Julie @ Write for eHow on December 3rd, 2008 at 8:41 am I love this analysis and I think you are right on with what you’ve learned. Your earnings are going to rock over time! I’ve basically been writing on eHow since July and I feel like my early articles are just now beginning to pick up steam. Now I’m off to read your “how to write 100 articles in less than a month” how-to. Julie @ Write for eHow´s last blog post..November eHow Earnings Update

• Reply the green ninja on December 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 am I have a tendency to write eHow articles about whatever comes to mind for me that day. After reading your post, I know I need to do more keyword research and be more careful about what I post. I have Maria’s ebook and it’s wonderful! Now, if I would only put what I learned to use! Thanks for the post! the green ninja´s last blog post..November Earnings (eHow, Suite 101, today.com, Bukisa, Helium, etc.)

• Reply Will on December 3rd, 2008 at 2:55 pm This is absolutely interesting to me. I look forward to your daily posts on this blog, particularly your updates.

• Reply ALRADY on December 3rd, 2008 at 6:47 pm Great article Pat and I have been following your blog for several days or more. The thing is that things vary. My best article is the very first one I wrote. It has made the most money and is on none of the things you mentioned as topics. That article also had already been keyword optimized somewhat. I also used feedburner for push advertising and had a headline animator made that went to all my emails messages. I also had several links from my blog to the article and about 500 Y! answers or more on Yahoo that linked to my blog. There was niche because there was not much in eHow search on topic (although I later found showpup had written one months earlier). Articles on food have made me some money but they are more like making wine and cooking for a crowd, not recipes. Also with ehow I hit into high Google ranks almost right away blowing past my blog by 5 million miles. Even outranking the Google answers results that had my name in the search. That was earlier, I have not looked recently. That is why I used my twitter wall as my URL website in this posting… because I want to link to two things… twitter and ehow articles that I have highlighted there. I think if you took your specific sports articles or lower ranking articles, optimize them, ping them and use links on Y! answers or other related forums you would find different results. JMHO Last month I exceeded my low goal of 1 buck per day. This month I want to triple that but ehow glitches have slowed me internally. We will see. Within 3 months I want to be at about 1K per month. After that doubling to 2500 within a month or two. We will see. I am on target for articles (150 by end of month) and 300 by end of Jan. This is fascinating though to watch your breakdown and some of the conclusions you have are similar to mine…. it isn’t always what you say its how you say it.

• Reply Anthony Delgado on December 3rd, 2008 at 8:35 pm Hey thanks for the info. I also offer an eBook with detailed information on how to keyword both for traffic and for ad targeting. My book is focused more toward general internet writing so it is useful for bloggers, AC and Helium writers or others as well as eHow. Anyway, I hope this inspires many to get on the eHow bandwagon. Anthony Delgado´s last blog post..The Wonderful World of eBook Publishing

• Reply pfincome on December 4th, 2008 at 4:31 am Please, please, please keep writing these posts! I really find them interesting and extremely helpful with my own eHow articles. I just wish I had the time to turn out 5 per day. pfincome´s last blog post..PFI Weekly Updates – December 2 (2008)

• Reply Katherine on December 4th, 2008 at 9:36 am You are on the right track thinking about keyword research and the topic. It ties into how google works. In my experience, BUM keywords seem to perform the best. Katherine´s last blog post..Making Money Online is About Doing the RIGHT Things

• Reply Building a Nest Egg with eHow — Passive Family Income on December 4th, 2008 at 10:40 am [...] If you are interested in generating residual income from writing, I suggest you check out an inspiring post over at Smart Passive Income. [...]

• Reply Andy @ Retire at 40 on December 4th, 2008 at 1:06 pm Good work Pat. I love the fact that you optimised your articles and already you’re seeing a whole lot more return on your mental investments. Andy @ Retire at 40´s last blog post..December Challenge – Free Yourself of Material Possessions

• Reply WriterGig on December 5th, 2008 at 6:39 am Excellent summary of your first month at eHow, Pat! I do think you win the award for the most in-depth analysis of one month’s earnings and performance. The only thing I would have suggested is timing this post with eHow’s payday, which should be any day now. WriterGig´s last blog post..Niche Affiliate Marketing

• Reply Online Dividends on December 5th, 2008 at 11:56 am Good Job Pat! One thing about the chart that you have is that it is a cumulative chart, isn’t it? So you made $22 from writing 140 articles? It would be interesting to see how much you could make if you stopped writing for one month. I would be also interested to see how google ranks two competing ehow articles about the same subject. I started a new blog site in October and bought my domain for $10/year. I wrote 7 articles in Oct, and made $1.98 I wrote 13 articles in Nov, and made $21.75 So far in December I have made $2.69 from only 3 articles. I don’t rely only on google for traffic, which is less than 10% of visits, most is social bookmarking. I do know however that if I didn’t write and promote I would get very little traffic and maybe no earnings. Online Dividends´s last blog post..Passive Income as of 11/30/2008

• Reply Chasing the Bull » Weekly Round Up - Passive Income Style on December 6th, 2008 at 10:33 am [...] wrapped up his first month on eHow. SPI is quickly becoming one of my favorite sites. It is well-written and you can learn a lot about [...]

• Reply wiggie on December 6th, 2008 at 2:44 pm This is a great write-up. I’m just starting out with eHow, and your blog has been really helpful. Keep up the good work, Pat.

• Reply Pat on December 7th, 2008 at 2:32 am Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments. I’m so glad you appreciate the hard work I’m putting into my eHow experiment, and I will definitely continue to keep track and come up with more information that can be useful to you.

• Reply It's My Birthday! About Me and an Important Lesson | The Smart Passive Income Blog on December 7th, 2008 at 4:49 am [...] eHow Experiment…Am I Going About It All Wrong? I Need Your Help! (41)My First Month of eHow Unwrapped (17)The Math Behind My eHow Experiment – 40k+ a year? (13)Happy Thanksgiving Link [...]

• Reply Jamie on December 8th, 2008 at 2:05 pm I’ve also seen a steady increase in my eHow residuals after putting WriterGig’s suggestions into practice. The problem for me is finding time to keep those articles coming! Thanks for an informative post – I’m interested to see how your earnings increase over the next couple of months. Kudos for having the stamina to get all those articles written.

• Reply oky de la rocha on December 8th, 2008 at 8:03 pm I think this article was really wonderful, I think the big problem for me to join e-how was on my grammar, i think my grammar was really bad ;( oky de la rocha´s last blog post..I just try to post some survey in my blog

  • Reply Pat on December 18th, 2008 at 3:38 am @oky de la rocha, Grammar can be very important when writing online and trying to earn money, but it shouldn’t be a hurdle that you cannot overcome! Thanks for your comment!

• Reply Don on December 11th, 2008 at 7:45 am Thanks for the very useful information, Pat. I started writing for eHow just one month ago. I’ve done pretty well considering I’ve just started, but I’m interested to learn more about refining topics and maximizing income. For me, I think I tend to spend far too much time on articles and images, so I have relatively few articles. And I’ve hesitated to write on a topic that has been covered, despite that often the existing coverage is often … well … less than stellar. Finally, the whole social networking aspect is just my thing. I came to write in hopes that the content would be of value, so the idea that I need to develop a network of “Friends” seemed a bit strange). So I’m still trying to figure it all out. Thanks again for this information.

• Reply Don on December 11th, 2008 at 7:48 am Correction… social networking is just “not” my thing. (and on this note, I continue to try to sort out the value of this aspect of eHow… I’m curious what you think… if it’s about writing on in-demand topics, using good keywords, good titles, and getting ad click-thrus, then how much value is the social networking on a site like eHow?)

  • Reply Pat on December 18th, 2008 at 3:37 am @Don, That’s a great question you pose, and I hope to answer that in the future! Thanks for your comments Don!

• Reply Stephanie PTY on December 17th, 2008 at 6:47 pm Wow, that graph is horribly misleading. It’s not a graph of your earnings for that day, but a graph of the running total you’ve earned. So it’s not actual exponential growth, is it, unless you’re earning $20 per day? There’s a lot of great stuff in this post, I just think the graph is hugely misleading. Stephanie PTY´s last blog post..Tax Considerations for Student Loan Interest

  • Reply Pat on December 18th, 2008 at 3:33 am @Stephanie PTY, I’m sorry that you feel the graph is misleading. But how is this so? It’s exactly what it is – my earnings over time. If I was earning the same amount each day, my graph would just be a constant slope upward, and the amount of the earnings each day (or the derivative of the graph) would be a flat line at a certain amount. Since this graph is exponential, that means my earnings are steadily increasing each day (or the derivative graph would be a constant slope upward). Oh well, anywho – take it as you may. Thanks for the comment and the compliments!

• Reply Stephanie PTY on December 18th, 2008 at 8:17 am Maybe I’m reading the graph wrong. Did you earn ~$20 on November 30th? Or is it that you earned ~$20 by November 30th?

  • Reply Pat on December 18th, 2008 at 9:14 am @Stephanie PTY, As stated in the post: “In 28 days I’ve made $20.02.” I know it’s not much to brag about, but considering it was the first month, and most was made within the last ten days of the month, it’s pretty decent. At least this is what the other eHow writers are telling me. Do you recommend I change what I’m showing in my graph (total earnings?) to something like, earning’s per day? I think it’s much easier to grasp the former as to how much money has been made overall. Your thoughts? Cheers!

    • Reply Stephanie PTY on December 19th, 2008 at 4:21 pm @Pat, yeah, if that’s your cumulative earnings, I do think it’s misleading. If you look at the graph without reading any of the accompanying information, it looks like you earned $20.02 on the 30th, not up to the 30th. Earning per day would be easier to read and would communicate the information faster. You could then simply add in text, on the graph: “Total for November: $20.02″ I think that would get the point you’re trying to make (that the little bits from each post add up) across better.

      • Pat on December 19th, 2008 at 4:34 pm @Stephanie PTY, Thanks for your input. Next month I’ll try a graph showing only my earnings per day, rather than cumulative earnings. Now I’m curious to see what that will look like. I’ve been keeping track every day though, and it’s almost the new year, so I guess we’ll find out soon. All the best, and Happy Holidays!

• Reply ALRADY on December 18th, 2008 at 11:19 am This time I linked to my articleon adsense since my Twitwall link had more promo’s for other people than myself! Pat, I think the GRAPH is just fine… Just put the explanation in large, darker font and move astop title to the top of graph. Alternately, copy the dates on bottom of graph to the top of the graph. I personally would not bother redesigning it. I would however for clarity keep each month’s graph separate and not try to combine months… so you are starting at zero each month. I DO have comments however about the results of your article on loving a woman. In the first place you concluded, stay away from relationship topics as low paying. IF there were no money to be made from that topic, then a zillion websites are pretty well disappointing for revenue resutls. I think you need to locate better paying keywords and incorporate into the article in a revisions. After you get better ads, you can then promo and draw conclusions. YOu would want to do this before Valentine’s Day. I have been writing to Rich on the topic of ads, because since the changes on ehow, there have been many strange things happening it seems. You have an ad for instance on that page that is for buying auction houses (or something like that). If that is not something you designed you should either figure out why its there or email Rich if it isn’t done by your keywords. Hard to have the ideal experiment with all kinds of variables, but this still is interesting. ARLADY, (including link here as a feed is not found GRRRR on articles page) http://www.ehow.com/members/Alrady-articles.html

• Reply Bill on December 20th, 2008 at 8:15 pm Pat, I am following your progress with great interest. I have just learned about ehow and came across your site when doing some research on how the whole ehow process works. I was also curious about the various types of how to articles that were being written. I’m impressed with your goal to write five articles a day for the entire year. I thought your content was pretty good, but on a couple of them (the one on finding cheap international airline tickets and the one on finding Celtic wedding rings) I didn’t really learn anything new. The information was helpful, but I didn’t pick up on any real inside tips. I was looking for a bit more insight. Those two appeared to be rushed to meet your five article goal each day. That said, I am inspired by your writing goals and your self-motivation. Keep up the great work on your site. I will be back to check it out in the future.

  • Reply Pat on December 21st, 2008 at 5:11 am @Bill, I appreciate your honesty about some of my entries. It’s true, a lot of articles can seem rushed, but know that there are people out there who don’t know anything about those subjects that would still benefit from such information. You just happen to know all of that stuff already Thanks again Bill, and I hope you continue to follow my progress.

• Reply Marissa on January 7th, 2009 at 1:35 pm I want to write eHow articles now!!! This is a great post, very informative. My friend Daryl linked me here. Thanks! Marissa´s last blog post..Blinded by the Light…

• Reply RON on January 20th, 2009 at 6:44 pm I respect the fact that you have broken it down for the newbies out there, and I appreciate the fact that you explain the business aspect of the ehow “technicalities”. I myself have used these techniques you’ve mentioned in this article. Maybe you should check out my articles on ehow, explaining every possible method of making money online for free, including traffic methods, keyword research, and much more!!! stop by when you can!!! and thanks!!!! CHECK ME OUT HERE!!! http://www.ehow.com/members/ridla-articles.html

• Reply Zaberisk on February 9th, 2009 at 2:04 pm Your site is very inspirational.I just started with ehow, and wrote my first article. Zaberisk´s last blog post..English composition- lesson one

• Reply Julie on February 18th, 2009 at 6:18 pm Hi there, Great in-depth summary on your first month at eHow. Keep up the good work! -Julie Community Manager, eHow

• Reply Julie on February 18th, 2009 at 6:19 pm Hi there, Great in-depth summary on your first month at eHow. Keep up the good work! -Julie Community Manager, eHow Julie´s last blog post..eHow Makes Facebook Easy

• Reply Howie on August 27th, 2009 at 11:33 am Hey Pat, Have the rounds of eHow ‘article sweeps’ affected you at all? I’ve heard that some people have had quite a few articles deleted from the eHow Database…. P.S. definitely keep your Blog updated! I’ll be reading it!………..

  • Reply Pat on August 27th, 2009 at 11:36 am Actually, I didn’t have any of my articles deleted on the first round of sweeps. I never copied content or spammed, and I try to keep my articles as true and honest as possible, which is probably why I wasn’t hit hard.

• Reply Alrady on August 29th, 2009 at 7:00 am Pat I am not sure there was a lot of rhyme or reason for some deletions. Certainly not spamming and not have copied content helps. I know people that EHOW has held up as good writing examples on front page, that had articles deleted. AT this point anyone with articles that are making money that are still standing should make back up copies and double check for newer rules that ehow has started to crack down on.. ALRADY

• Reply » eHow? Early Retirement Extreme: —a philosophical response to runaway consumerism on August 29th, 2009 at 9:36 am [...] I want to see if it is really possible to derive an income by writing such articles. I am not the only one doing so. For my “lifestyle”, I [...]

• Reply Michelle Tee on October 11th, 2009 at 5:11 am Thanks for the article. I started writing for ehow last month. It is nice to see earnings on these articles. In one month.. with about 27 articles…. close to 20.00 I am pretty impressed so far.

• Reply Paola on October 24th, 2009 at 4:41 am Hey Pat, I just discovered your site and I love it! I just got to know that ehow is just for US citizens would you have any advice on similar sites suitable for Europeans?

  • Reply Pat on October 26th, 2009 at 11:23 am I’m not ENTIRELY sure, but I think that sites like infobarrel.com, busika.com, squidoo.com and hubpages.com accept countries outside of the US. Someone will have to confirm that with me, but I think it would be a great place to start by looking at these websites. Squidoo and Hubpages are a little different than eHow, but they can be just as lucrative, if not more.

• Reply Make $1,000 per month by writing for ehow : Profit Herald on November 2nd, 2009 at 9:09 am [...] Janet Ford, the aurthur of ebook How To Write For Ehow, claim she earn $1,000 from ehow. Pat from smartpassiveincome.com making $150 per month with about 150 articles. John D from ehowexperience.com making $20 per month [...]

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