Tips for Food Articles

Follow search trends for your food related articles.

Many of you publish food related articles on revenue share sites and your own blogs. If food is your thing, you should know a little about food related search trends. As with just about everything else online, food articles follow trends. Visitor and search trends for seasonal articles, general tips, recipes and reviews are predictable to a point. The easiest way to watch these trends is with Google Insights for Search.

1. Food searches begin to rise on Friday, generally peak on Sunday and decline on Monday. This is a general pattern I have found to be true for most food related searches. Take advantage of these trends with well-timed articles, marketing and keywords.

2. Christmas food searches begin to rise around October, according to Google Insights history. They continue to rise in November and peak in December. January through September they bottom out. Plan and post your Christmas food articles well before the searches hit high volume. You can publish Christmas food articles anytime, including December, but you will get better results if you have posted in advance and taken the time to market your articles.

3. Restaurant search trends have remained fairly steady month-to-month for the last four years. Weekly trends, however, peak on Saturdays. Have your restaurant reviews and articles posted and ready for your weekend readers.

4. Cooking articles typically peak in December and drop significantly in January. Expect cooking searches to begin rising in October.

5. Look for trends within trends. Enter any food related term into Google Insights and you will see the top related searches for a given period and location, as well as the rising searches. You can customize results for a metropolitan area. If you are writing a local food blog or stories, use this tool to find what interests your audience.



Photo By Jason Lam (02 Buffalo Nickel Wingers - potato snacks) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Take Care of Your eHow Articles

Writing on eHow is in the past, but your articles live on. Make the most of them. You can still track your earnings and views, and promote your articles. You are missing out on money if your articles are lying there, languishing due to your lack of effort. If you will take just a few minutes a day to promote your work, you could see your eHow earnings increase.

1. Mention and link to your eHow articles in your blog posts. (Read Blogging Your eHow Articles)
2. Join ListMyFive.comhttp://www.listmyfive.com. This is a newer site, similar to what eHow was. Write lists based on your eHow articles and include links to the article.
3. Comment on blogs and include a link to one of your related articles, if permitted.
4. Answer questions on Yahoo!Answers, include a link to a related eHow article. 

Start tracking your earnings so you know which articles are doing well and which ones need more help. Click here for more ideas on how to promote your eHow articles.

Julie at Home: Work at Home: Freelance Writing Opportunities

Hello writer friends. It has been a while since I've posted here. I wanted to share some writing opportunities with you. Many of you are former eHow writers. Hopefully, you are still seeing some income from your articles there. If you need to boost your income, check out these sites at Julie at Home: Work at Home: Freelance Writing Opportunities

Happy Holidays

Blogging Your eHow Articles

Hopefully, as an eHow writer you are taking the time to blog your eHow articles. The most effective way to do this is to write blog posts that relate to your articles rather than posting a snippet from already published content. If you aren't sure how to do this, you can take a look at this blog post: Holiday Sanity Savers.

In the last few days, I have published several holiday season articles on eHow.

How to Cook for the Hectic Holiday Season
How to Protect Your Holiday Mail from Thieves
How to Shop for Vintage Holiday Gifts

Rather than just post a list of recently published content, or pull quotes from these articles, I wrote an entirely new article. Holiday Sanity Savers offers tips on how to get through the holiday season, get everything done and still have the time and energy to enjoy your family and friends. In the article, as you will see, there are three links to my eHow articles.

To take this one step further, once you write and publish a blog post, you should link it to the articles that were mentioned on your blog. In effect, it is creating a circle of links. But it really does much more than that. It helps to boost your page ranks so that people can find your articles.

Maybe you are still wondering what the point of back links is. Simply put, without going into a long explanation, they are a valuable tool to drive traffic to your articles. Even if you don't fully understand why, you should still be creating backlinks for all of your articles. Blogging is a great way to do this.

New Opportunities for Online Writers at Triond

Triond has implemented some changes that make it easier for you to make more money writing online. In the past, I had recommended Triond to you as an outlet for your writing. That was some time ago, and I admit I haven't spoken much of it in the last few months. The reason was that I was not seeing an acceptable return for my money. With their new policies, earnings are increasing. You can now integrate your Google Adsense account into your articles published through Triond, and you can also earn from referrals. And, you still earn money through page views as well.

Since these changes have gone into effect, I have seen a significant increase in my articles earnings. On Triond, you are able to submit creative writing, opinion, poetry, news stories; and use Triond as a blog. Actually, you can submit just about anything you want. Triond reviews your work, and if it is accepted publishes it on one of many websites.

Blogging on Triond has its benefits. There is nothing sadder than a lonely blog with no views. On Triond, however, you have the benefit of a very large, supportive community that will take the time to read your work. Of course, as with any other writing site, reciprocation is expected. If you want to be successful, you have to participate. You still will need to promote your articles through other means such as backlinks, social media and search engine submission. That means that SEO counts on Triond as well.

For my friends at eHow, this is an opportunity for you to expand your horizons, and break out of the how-to format. If you haven't already, take a look at Triond. And, if you checked it out in the past, give it another try. Click here to join me on Triond.

Writers Can Make a Difference

There will be times as a writer trying to make a buck online, that you get so caught up with the whole process you forget why you are writing. This is time when you need to sit back and remember your purpose. Why are you writing? Most of us write not only because we have something to say, but because we hope to evoke some sort of response from our readers. When we lose sight of that, our work becomes meaningless, and worse, it becomes robotic, and that shows in the words we put down on paper or the screen.

Finding success as an online writer is not all about links and keywords and SEO research. To truly be successful, you have to write what people want to read. More than that, you need to understand that your readers want to trust you, they want to be entertained, informed and feel like they haven't wasted their time on you. Keeping your readers happy means that you have to meet their needs.

Write about things that matter. Not everyone will be interested in everything you write, but you can make a difference. This morning as I was reading the local news, I came across a story about a wheelchair garden at Loma Linda University in California. This garden was a community project involving 40 volunteers and 5 master gardeners. What they created was a garden where wheelchair patients undergoing treatment could have a gardening experience, much like they would at home. I thought, "Wow! What a great idea. This needs to be shared because wheelchair gardens could benefit so many people." So I wrote a story for my eHow library, How to Plant a Wheelchair Friendly Garden. This article made me feel like I did something good today. Hopefully, it will inspire projects across the country.

This was a story that had meaning for me. I believed in it, and I believe it will do good for others. If it makes money, great. But that wasn't the point. Sometimes, money isn't everything.

Don't Let Impatience Ruin Your Writing Career

Starting an online writing career requires enormous amounts of patience. In no way is it a way for you to get rich quick, or make fast, easy money. The earnings, in the beginning, are not much to speak of. High expectations and less than stellar results are the reason many would be writers throw in the towel. Those that give in and give up will never realize the opportunity they had. Long term income is possible. Higher earnings are possible. It just takes times, diligence and hard work. Nothing of value in life is free. Everything comes with a cost. Why should your writing career be any different?

Developing a plan, sticking to it, and systematically working toward your goals may seem like drudgery. If you consider your writing as your business, then consider your plan just like any other business plan. Taking time to plot out how you will conduct business, how you will market and promote your content, and working out an order of operations is a logical approach to building a reputable career as an author. One that any entrepreneur will tell you is worth the time spent. Otherwise, you are taking a poke and hope approach to achieving success.

New businesses generally don’t make huge profits right out of the gate. There is a growth period. Any business that is growing is succeeding. Most writers are a one man show. They do it all, from SEO research, writing content to quality control, marketing and promotion. That is a lot for one person to do. Organization helps tremendously. A simple writer’s to do list can keep you on track and moving toward your financial goals.

Many authors post their content on a number of sites. This is wise for several reasons. First, it is always wise to diversify. Putting all of your content on one site is a gamble. What if that site goes out of business? Then you’ll be scrambling to get your content back online with another service. Second, publishing through a number of sites creates the opportunity to build numerous incoming links and increase your search engine page rankings, which increases the potential of making more money writing online.

How long it will take for you to reach the point where are you making the money you want depends on many things. Subject matter, quantity and the quality of your content are deciding factors. The more you write, the more your earning potential will grow. But if you are not following your marketing plan, you will hurt your bottom line. At any rate, it comes down to patience. Writing online is a process, which if pursued, can result in long term residual income. It just takes time to get there. The more you work, the more you learn about online publishing and the longer you stick with it the greater your chances of success.

Winter Gardening in Inland Southern California

The Inland Empire, and here at home in the Wood Streets, we are blessed with a nearly year round growing season. Growing vegetables in the winter is easy. Learn what to plant, and how to protect your winter vegetable garden from the Santa Ana winds and the occasional frost. November is a great time to plant many cool season crops. You can be enjoying home grown vegetables throughout the winter. Winter Gardening in Inland Southern California

The Craziest Things Can Inspire a Great Article

Sometimes when I am sitting at the computer working on my daily writing and related activities, something will happen that inspires me. This morning, it was one of my three dogs. Since they were lying behind my chair, I can't pinpoint the culprit who let one go. Now, you wouldn't think that dog farts would be much of a topic to write about. However, since it is becoming a serious problem in my home, I decided to do a little research. What I found out is that their flatulence may be caused by the food I give them. With the weather turning colder, they will be spending more time in the house. I just can't face another winter of waking up in the middle of the night to the stench. I cannot be the only dog owner in the world that deals with this problem. "How to Stop Dog Farts" may seem like a crazy thing to write about, but it actually offers some decent advice about how to stop the stench coming from your dog's rear end.

The craziest things can spark an idea that turns into a great article. This is part of what makes writing fun. A good writer will listen to the muse, and act on it. Let your thoughts wander, let your mind go where it will and see what comes out of it.

How to Stop Dog Farts | eHow.com

The Language of Italian Cuisine

The Language of Italian Cuisine

Amo la cucina italiana. I love Italian food.


Italian. The language of romance. The food, equally sensual. Does it need to be said that if one is going to practice the art of cooking Italian cuisine, that one should learn la lingua della cucina italiana, the language of Italian Cooking. Read more...

eHow Experiment: Saturday November 14, 2009-11-14

Link. Link. Link. That is the name of the game if you want to get views. The more links, the higher the search engines will rank your pages. And, my friends, that equals more views and more money.

Today, the buzz is about Yahoo! Buzz. This is a free service provided by Yahoo that is definitely worth taking a look at. Some of you may be familiar with it, so please bear with me. You might even learn something new.

On your eHow article pages there is a share button. When you mouse over or click on the share button your will see a box with a number of options. Click on Buzz to go to the Yahoo! Buzz site, and the share a story page. If you are signed into Yahoo!, you will be allowed to buzz up the article that you were on. If you don’t have a Yahoo! account, you can sign up for free. A Buzz is a link with the title and first few words of your article that will appear on the Buzz activity page.

Posting the link to your article is not all Buzz is good for. You can share updates on Buzz from your blogger account, every time you use Stumble Upon and every time you tweet on Twitter. There are actually a number of sites that you can set up in your automatic updates. What is cool is that this service allows you to automatically create links for just about everything you do online. To get this set up, go to your Yahoo! profile page, click on “Updates”, and then on “Share More” to enter your sites.

For example, you’ve published an article on eHow. As soon as it is published, you Buzz it up. Then you bookmark your article on Stumble Upon. That bookmark shows up on your Buzz activity. Then, you post a summary with a link to your article on your Blogger blog. That also gets a link on your Buzz activity. Next, you bookmark and Buzz your blog, and all of those actions get posted on your Buzz activity. The possibilities are endless. Want to keep going? Go to Xomba and write a Xomblurb about your article (don’t forget the link), and buzz it up. Then write a longer Xombyte and do the same thing. I think you are getting the picture. You can use Buzz to promote all of your articles, blogs and websites, get everything linked together, and generate more traffic to your pages. Yahoo! Buzz makes it simple.

One last thing, you can blog on your Yahoo! account. Click here to check out mine. You will find the post button on the right side of the page on your profile. Just another way to promote yourself.

eHow Experiment Week One


eHow Experiment Update November 11, 2009

Promoting Your Articles-Xomba

eHow Experiment Update November 14, 2009

Follow me on Stumble Upon, my member name is JulieMcM.
Follow me on Delicious
Follow me on Yahoo! Buzz
Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/juliemcm

Read more articles by Julie on eHow.

Oh, and please, buzz up this page if you have found it helpful.

How to Tips for a Green Kitchen Redo | eHow.com

How to Tips for a Green Kitchen Redo | eHow.com

Promoting Your Articles

For my eHow, HubPages and InfoBarrel friends. We are always looking for ways to promote our articles, boost our page ranks and increase page views. Here is a really easy, fast way to get more links posted to your articles and maybe even earn a few dollars.

Xomba.com has a great little website (okay, maybe not so little) where you can post Xombytes and Xomblurbs. Corny, I know. But check it out. For each article you want to promote you can write a Xombyte, which is a minimum of 150 words about your article or a related topic with your link. You can also post a Xomblurb with a link to your article. Xomblurbs are a minimum of 50 words. As for earning on Xomba, you can plug in your Adsense publisher ID and start earning 50% of the revenue for your pages. In all, it is a good deal. They even have a referral program. This is a deal you don't want to miss out on.

Go to Xomba.

eHow Experiment Week One


eHow Experiment Update November 11, 2009

Promoting Your Articles-Xomba

eHow Experiment Update November 14, 2009

The eHow Experiment: Update 11/11/2009

11/11/2009
I am earning approximately $4 per 1,000 views. In order to earn $1,000 per month at this rate or return, I would need to have 250,000 views per month. My current average is about 425 views per day, or 12,750 views per month. I have a ways to go. However, page views are not the only deciding factor. Keywords play an important role. Even though I am averaging 425 views a day, which is barely more than I was getting a month ago, my average daily earnings have significantly increased, going from an average of $1.02 per day to $1.69 per day as of today, for the month of November. What is the increase in daily earnings due to? I believe a number of things.

First, I am taking the time to market my articles. I post on Buzz, Stumble Upon, Delicious and submit my URLs to the search engines. Posting those back links is crucial.

I have spent numerous hours in the eHow community, reading and rating articles, and building my network. Even though most eHowers don’t make a lot of money off views from other members, the comments help to increase page rankings. (if they are made with SEO friendly wording).

I have written a number of new articles: 41 new articles between 10/16 and 11/11/2009. Many of these articles, which I have done SEO research on, are beginning to earn.

I have also continued to market older articles on Twitter and by posting links in newer articles. Some of my ‘dormant’ articles are getting views again, and earning a little bit as well.

I took a few days and resubmitted my old articles to the search engines. Page rank is a competition among web publishers. Just because you are high on the list one day, doesn’t mean you won’t get bumped was down in the results the next. Stay on top of your Internet marketing, and don’t forget to take care of your eHow babies.

My conclusion is that earnings will increase with more articles and marketing. Don’t take the poke and hope method, in other words don’t guess with your keyword selection. Even if you are writing articles about topics that interest you, do your best to pull down the best keywords. Use them in your title, in the first paragraph and throughout the article, with a saturation of about 3% keywords.

My next phase is to blog every single article in my library, as well as post Xombytes about my articles on Xomba, and hubs on HubPages. I am hoping this will increase my page views and earnings significantly.

Check back soon for my next update on the eHow experiment.

eHow Experiment Week One


eHow Experiment Update November 11, 2009

Promoting Your Articles-Xomba

eHow Experiment Update November 14, 2009

How to Use eHow Tools to Increase Views and Revenue | eHow.com

How to Use eHow Tools to Increase Views and Revenue | eHow.com

All eHow writers need to read this article. There are a number of tools and applications built into the eHow system that are often overlooked by even the most seasoned authors. These tools are there to help you build your success. This article lists a few of the most useful built-ins that can help you increase your views and make more money writing online.

The eHow Experiment: Week One

The eHow Experiment is a project I've begun to find the best ways to make money on eHow. Hopefully, this experiment will result in effective ways for all of us to increase our earnings. Here is the first week's journal:

Week 1: My plan was to write several articles per day; however, I had some problems with the eHow publishing wizard. These problems were apparently on my end, and were related to an outdated version of Firefox, and the need to clear cookies and my cache. Once these problems were cleared up, I was able to start publishing again.

During this time, I continued with my standard marketing methods which include bookmarking and submitting to search engines. For newer articles, I also began blogging my articles. I resubmitted a number of previously published articles to freewebsubmission.com, and bookmarked several that I had overlooked when they were originally published.

In the first eight days, my average daily earnings increased from $1.02 the previous month (September) to $1.68, a considerable percentage, but still not enough money to call my experiment a success.

Of course, I am marketing with legitimate methods. I am not increasing my earnings by clicking on my own ads (a big eHow no-no) or encouraging any of my visitors to click on ads. I am in no way padding my earnings with questionable methods.

As far as my new content, I am striving to write useful, informative articles on topics that have not been written to death already. This requires some research, but hopefully it will pay off in the end. Too soon to tell at this point.

eHow Experiment Update November 11, 2009

Promoting Your Articles-Xomba

eHow Experiment Update November 14, 2009

Calling All Writers: Get on the WriteTrack

For all of you writers who have not yet joined HubPages, now is a great time to do it. I know that many of the people who read this blog are my eHow friends, and some of you have already joined and started writing your Hubs. Now is the time to put it all to the test. Can we make this work? Yes, and HubPages has built in tools and money making systems that can benefit all of us.

HubPages is a revenue sharing site, which means that any money earned with AdSense is split between the company and the writer. But, they also have a referral program that enables you to earn money from people who sign up using your referral tracker. You can also tag articles written by other writers with your referral tracker and earn a portion of the AdSense revenue generated by your links.

If you want to get on the Write Track:

First join HubPages, it is free.

Second, get set up with AdSense, Amazon and eBay, or any of the affiliate marketing programs you choose.

Third, start writing and publishing your hubs (articles). Look through our followers and find other hubbers/followers and link to other hubs as well.

The HubPages system makes forming a network of Hubbers who are committed to each other's success super easy. That is what the Write Track is all about. For all of you who are looking for new outlets and ways to make money writing, this is a great opportunity. Granted, it takes time to build a satisfying income, but it is worth the effort.

Looking forward to seeing you soon on HubPages.

Make Money Writing for Local Websites

As a freelance writer, your biggest challenge is to sell what you write. Finding the market isn't always easy. You are up against tons of competition. Putting your articles into a writer's pool is one way of getting exposure for work you have already produced. Another way to get jobs is to market your services to website owners.

More than likely, there are numerous companies in your home town that have a Web presence in need of quality content. Therein lies your little gold mine. The potential for success is huge is you are willing to spend the time marketing to the locals. In some cases, they may need a little education along the way. In other words, you may have to sell them on the idea that they need content, before you can sell them your services.

Put together a presentation, a website or blog that describes your services, expertise and experience as well as a discussion of why content is so important. You will also want to include samples of your published work. Or, if you are yet to be published, include writing samples for your potential clients to review.

Once you have your basic marketing campaign designed, you will be ready to go public and begin offering your services. As with any business, it will take time to build your clientele. Be patient and persistent. If you have the skills and talent, you can make money writing.

The Down and Dirty Truth about Freelance Writing

If you are looking for the down and dirty truth about writing for a living, you have landed in the right place. What you are about to learn may discourage you. On the other hand, it may give you just the push you need to finally, seriously pursue an online writing career.

While there are numerous and varied writing opportunities on the Web, it is important to realize that not all of them are worth very much of your time. Most likely you have already done some research into writing online and have probably even joined a few writing sites, submitted a few articles. Now, you are waiting for that lucrative, freelance income to start flowing your way. If you haven’t figured it out yet, writing isn’t going to make you rich over night. Yes, you can earn a respectable income from writing. No, it is not going to happen tomorrow. In fact, it is going to take a concerted effort just to get started. But, there is little more satisfying than those first few dollars you make from selling your work.

If your writing skills are a little rough around the edges, it would be wise to brush up on the basics. Spelling, grammar and punctuation do matter. To be taken seriously as a writer, you need to take your craft seriously and treat it with the respect it deserves. Even a semi-educated audience will be turned off by poorly written, misspelled content passed off as expert advice. If you plan to sell your words, learn how to use them.

As a writer, there is no excuse for shoddy work. Nothing is better than Strunk and White’s Elements of Style for brushing up on the basics of grammar and punctuation, or for use as a quick reference guide. It has been a standard among writers for years, considered the writer’s bible, recommended by Stephen King and worth every cent of the few dollars it will cost you. If you are serious about writing, get the book.

Other tools you should have on hand are a dictionary and a thesaurus. Please, don’t embarrass yourself by misusing a word. If you are not sure of the definition, look it up. Using a thesaurus will help you avoid redundancy in your writing.

Proofread your work. Any professional writer will tell you that you cannot rely on the little, squiggly lines in Word to find every error. Spell checker will not catch improperly used words. Reading what you think you wrote is a common trap that many writers fall into. One way to avoid that is to read everything you write out loud.

Learn how to write web content. While writing is writing, and certain rules must be followed, web content is its own animal. You will need to become familiar with search engine optimization. Learning a little bit of HTML code wouldn't hurt either, just enough so you can insert bold and italic text, and hyperlinks.

Understand your audience. The typical surfer is looking for valuable information in short, easy to understand language. They are not interested in lengthy volumes or lofty verbiage. Typical web content ranges from short blog posts of about 200 words to articles with no more than 1,000 – 1,200 words. The average word count is generally between 400 – 600 words.

Don’t get discouraged. Any business takes time to build, and the writing biz is no different. If you haven’t written for a while, you may want to get your feet wet on a revenue sharing writing site such as eHow or HubPages. You will not make large amounts of money with articles on these sites, but they are valuable for a number of reasons, some of which will be addressed in another post. Once you have honed your writing skills and built up some confidence with a few articles, you will be ready to enter the freelance market, where the real money is. But, don’t get too excited, at least not at first. Freelance writing is highly competitive, and you will compete for almost every job you get.

Coming up: Marketing and Selling Your Content

How to Get an Accredited Online Degree | eHow.com

Want to get an online degree? Need more information about the process and what to watch out for? This article can help

How to Get an Accredited Online Degree | eHow.com

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