This is the third installment of my Get Paid to Write Sites You Haven't Heard of series (read Part I and Part 2) where I try to maintain an up to date list all the new and upcoming content sharing sites from which you can earn money (either upfront or passive revenue share) from your published content.
The main purpose of writing this series of articles is to empower the reader to think beyond the established sites like Factoidz, AC, Suite101, Helium etc which has a tendency of developing strategies and installing rules that can create issues for your work ethics, work flow and most of all creativity.
So, without further ado lets dive straight into the list:
Wizzley
Wizzley is a really impressive content sharing site developed by some of the Squidoo big boys (and girls). It has adopted the standard module based writer interface similar to Hubpages and Squidoo. Though it does not have as many module types as Squidoo (which quite possibly has several thousand modules), Wizzley does feature some very innovative modules like the Wikipedia module.
However, my favorite module there is the Download module which allows the writer to upload a file to the Wizzley server which the reader can then download. An absolute godsend people looking to offer freebies to their readers.
Minimum article length is 400 words. Editorial system is fairly strict but that might prove to be a good thing in the Post-Panda Cyber world. Wizzley allows you to place one promotional link per 50 words (approx.)
You earn through your adsense publisher ID and you get 50% of the ad impressions. You can also earn through Amazon Associates, AllPosters and Ebay.
DailyWiki
DailyWiki is another India based content sharing site that user the standard and super easy WordPress platform which means that if are familiar with this platform (ever owned a WordPress blog or written for Snipsly amongst other sites) then you can start churning out those articles in no time at all.
The minimum wordcount per article is a standard 300 words but you earn more points for writing longer articles. And 400 words articles have a better chance of getting search engine traffic. Articles must be unique. 2 Dofollow promotional links are allowed per article.
You earn points for various activities and win cash prizes of upto $100 every month in addition to adsense revenue!
RitePad
RitePad is a VERY new and slightly unprofessional (nothing bad, just amateurish) looking WordPress based content sharing website which offers 80% adsense ad impressions on your articles.
Seekyt is an upcoming content sharing website where author's can make some some passive revenue through Google Adsense.
Vital Statistics of Seekyt
Home Page Google Page Rank : 3
Alexa Rank : 69,072
Overview of Seekyt
Seekyt only accepts unique content of length 2000 characters or more. Your 3 articles will be moderated before they are published to ensure that it is not spam. But, provided your article is unique and doesn't have too many spelling errors (don't forget to use the Seekyt spell checker tool) your articles should have no issues whatsoever with their editorial system.
You earn revenue through Google Adsense ads placed around your article, but you must have a verified Adsense account to earn from this site. Seekyt offers 70% Adsense ad impression to the author and is significantly higher than most of its more established competitors like Xomba (60%), Hubpages (60%), Triond(50%) and Bukisa (60%). In addition, you can also earn through your Amazon Associates account.In additon to this, Seekyt offers a whopping 25% referral bonus!
Seekyt also allows you to place a limited number of dofollow backlinks to your articles and so may be a good place to market your blog or website or even try and sell your products.
My Thoughts on Seekyt
The first thing that struck me about Seekyt is how active their network is. Your article is sure generate some nice comments and get tweeted, f-liked and shared within just hours of going online and that is a big advantage Seekyt has over many more established content sharing sites.
Seekyt is also one of the very few content sharing sites that actually allows you to chose your page layout (placement of adblocks etc.) and this makes the site very flexible for content writers.
However, on the downside Seekyt is a pretty new and site and so it might take a while before you actually start receiving tons of targeted search engine traffic or get a high page rank. But, the decent Alexa rank (for a rather new site) does prove that Seekyt has quite a bit of potential and it might be a good idea to get in the ground level of so promising a venture. Join Seekyt now!
A couple of months back Hubpages had announced the beta launch of their very own Hubpages Ad Program which would enable contributers to earn more money from their Hubs should they decide to opt in for it. Initially it was based on an invite only basis and they had hoped to make it open to all the Hubbers by June-July.
Well, things seems to have worked out perfectly for the Hubpages team and they have already opened up the Hubpages Ad Program to all their contributers and thereby joined a very small number of sites (Triond.com being another one) which enables its writers to earn both direct revenue as well as revenue through 3 rd party ad servers like Google Adsense.
How the Hubpages Ad Program Works?
To get the HAP ads to run on your Hubs you need to opt in for the program and fill out a Tax form and provide a Paypal ID. In case you are a bit apprehensive of sending your tax info online, you may also fax it to the Hubpages team. For non-US individual operators like myself the "tax form" is very basic and basically amounts to a statement confirming that my Hubpages earnings has nothing to do with anyone or anything in the States.
After you fill in these details Hubpages will verify whether your Hubs meet their ad serving T&C and then start displaying Hubpages ads on those hubs which they judge as having appropriate content.
Payout threshold is a rather high $50 (compared to Triond's 50 cents) and payment is made through Paypal. So effectively, if Paypal services are available in your country then you can earn from the Hubpages Ad Program.
However, a very important thing you should know about the Hubpages Ad Program is that you must have an active Adsense account in order to run HAP ads on your hubs even though there is no direct link between the two affiliate programs.
Will You Really Earn More With the Hubpages Ad Program?
Well , I guess this is definitely the most important you have ask regarding the Hubpages Ad Program and it rather a tricky question to answer, specially considering that the program is very new (a week old at the most) and I have up signed up for it just a few hours ago. But one thing is for sure: the Hubpages Ad Program definitely sounds like it can give Adsense a real run for its money as far as making money from Hubpages is concerned.
For one thing, Hubpages is a major online publisher with millions of PVs every month. This mean that it has access some very lucrative CPM ad programs which normal publishers like you and me won't have.
However, it is also important to realize that once you decide to run Hubpages Ad Program ads on your site it will encroach on your Adsense ad zones and so you may expect to see a dip in your Adsense earnings from your hubs. But whether there will be an over all increase in your Hubpages earnings is time will tell and (as far as I can read the situation) it may very well vary from publisher to publisher depending on their Hub style, content and niche. But there is no reason to get overly pessimistic as beta level testing seems to have produced encouraging results. So go ahead, cross your fingers and give it a shot!
Undoubtedly, Chitika is one of the most popular Google Adsense alternatives and many people swear by their service and often they are the only option for Bukisa and Infobarrel contributers who do not have an approved Adsense account.
Definitely Chitika has a lot of advantage over Google Adesense, but an issue that has been coming up a lot in the recent past in a number of forums is the highly controversial Chitika Revenue Audit, and you will be best advised to know about this before signing up for Chitika Publisher Network.
What is a Revenue Audit?
In case you have not yet guessed what a revenue audit is, it simply means evaluating or rather estimating the number of VALID clicks (as decided by your Ad server's T & C) and paying you accordingly. This amount will be definitely lower than or equal to the raw data displayed on your account dashboard which is displayed throughout the month (assuming your ad provider pays Net 30).
Is the Revenue Audit Unique to Chitika?
NO! If you would care to read through the fine print, you will find that almost all ad providers including Google Adsense performs a revenue audit before charging their advertisers and paying their publishers. This is the reason why some ad providers will tell you your ESTIMATED earning for the month is $x.y
So What is Wrong with the Chitika Audit?
The concern with the Chitika audit is that they are regularly decreasing the raw amount earned from your site by around 20-30% and may even be as high as 90% according to some publishers whereas for Adsense the numbers are almost always less than 10% and generally varies between 2-5%.
According a forum post one publisher allegedly had his earning reduced from $28.03 for 44 clicks to $3.05 for 4 VALID clicks!
So Is Chitika a Scam?
Chitika is positively NOT a scam in the sense that they always pay your audited revenue on time, in fact they are probably the best Adsense alternative available in terms of the ability to serve contextual ads on your site and has a remarkably high click through rate. However, whether their auditing technique is faulty is a totally different issue. And before we get too judgmental, bear in mind click frauds are not entirely unheard of and it is just possible that some unscrupulous publishers may have taken the efficiency of the Chitika click tracking system a bit too lightly.
My Personal Take on the Chitika Audit
I have had no personal experience with the Chitika audit yet, and would stick with Chitika at least until I get approved by Adsense. I will just have to be careful I don't buy that DSLR camera I'm after before my Chitika earning is safely deposited to my Paypal account.
