New Sources of Income

If any of you write for content mills and internet sites like suite 101 or hubpages, you know that google recently changed its algorithm for displaying search results. This change has "devalued" the content on many of these sites and made them appear further down on search results. The result has a been a large decline in the traffic on these sites.

What this means is still unclear. Some site,s like Suite 101, have taken huge hits. Some writers who were earning passive income on websites like hubpages or squidoo (myself included) have seen a dip in their traffic and thus their revnue stream. What this means for the long term is unclear. Several content sites are restructuring the way they accept writers and aritcles. Others are changing their standards in the hopes of receiving a better valuation by gogle. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Good writers should still survive while the bad ones will get weeded out.

However, for those of trying to eek out an income by writing, these are uncertain times indeed. While I wait to see where the chips will fall on each individual site I an also trying to diversify the websites that I write for.

Demand studios properties, particularly livestrong.com and eHow, seem to be doing pretty well. however they are making several changes to how writers can access articles and how writers are evaluated in order to ensure their quality impresses google. I am continuing to write there, but titles have become scarce as the reorganization progresses.

My application to Wisegeek.com is ongoing. I was invited to test last week and am awaiting the results. The pay is not as god as demand studios, but right now the titles seem more abundant and easier to write.

I am continually looking for About.com jobs that fit my resume and applying for them. however About.com is notoriously slow to respond and even harder to get into.

I am also looking into generating passive income via things other than my squidoo pages. I am considering writing and eBook. I am also spending more time on this blog, because here I can control the content.

Non-web clients are another ideal way to expand and I am actively looking to recruit some. So far I got a decent lead from a work at home mom website that lead to a small gig.

Perhaps this algorithm change has been the kick int he pants we all needed tog et out there and diversify our writing portfolios.