A great deal of attention has been paid to the subject of making money on individual articles. Countless individuals have written articles specifically about it, myself included. But lost in the fact that as writers, we love the relative ‘glamour’ of ripping off hundreds or even thousands of views in a brief period and seeing our name up n the pretty lights of the ‘hot content’ list, these articles are nothing more than eye candy, and have nothing to do with long term profit or success in terms of financial gain.

So how, then is one to actually make money at this without spending hours upon hours promoting? Because that is the inherant problem here. While I do have articles who’s views reach the tens of thousands, these are articles which I spent innumerable hours promoting and advertising. And while my position in life does afford me a certain amount of free time to use on this, for most it does not. Which leaves us to decide: do we write articles for views, or for profit? When you are in a position of financial security and have the spare time, the simple answer is to do both. But for those who do not, here is the answer.

The secret lies in this article

It isn’t necessary to read it, although of course I won’t object if you do. What’s important is that you understand the nature of the article. If you did read it, you would in all likelihood find it to be moderately informative, and see that there are some deep space pictures that are generally appealing. I spent very little time promoting this piece; I simply used all of the sites made available on the ‘My Content’ screen using the ’share’ icon.

Understand that what this does is make your article available when people search for it. I select my key words very carefully for these articles, as this is how people will locate it. The entire process, including the research, writing, editing, and that small amount of promoting, took a grand total of 2 hours or so.

This article never made the hot content list, nor will it. It has yet to receive more than 100 views in a day, in fact. So how does it justify 2 hours of work for me on a subject that, while I find it mildly interesting, doesn’t fall into the area of an article I would write for personal enjoyment? Here’s how… The Hubble Telescope will never stop being searched on the internet. This article will continue to attract 30-50 views per day for years if left untouched. 50 views a day is worth all of a dime. Big deal, right? 365 dimes is $36.50 a year. That’s money that beyond those initial 2 hours, I have to do nothing for. Now, look at the titles of these articles.

Football Helmet Designs: Far Cooler Than You Thought (100)
Memory Boxes: A Way to Preserve Your Kid’s Childhood (60)
A Man’s Easy Recipe for Bourbon Chicken (125)
Halloween Costumes for Couples and How to Make Them (30)
Does Chicken Cause Cancer? (100)
The Best of The Undertaker (40)

The number after each is th average number of views they continue to get to date. These articles collectively earn me about a dollar a day. They all experience sudden flows of traffic; the article on costumes will triple in traffic during the month of October, for example. But because they are general topics that will have staying power; bourbon chicken will be just as popular 2 years from now as it is today, and people will still be looking for recipes for it online. I currently have over a hundred articles published on Triond, and around half of them fall into this 60 of them get residual views like this.

So here is how to get this done in an hour a day.

Day 1 Research. Subjects are critical for articles like this. Try to find topics that people in general would look for online. ‘How to’ or informational articles tend to work the best. Do a google search, to see what kind of articles are out there.

Day 2 Write your article. Make sure to put links to your other articles in the article, even if it’s just a “Other articles by” at the bottom. (don’t be greedy; more than a few is overkill). Make sure to put some thought into your keywords. Ask yourself “what would I look up?” Spellcheck, check for grammar, and submit.

Day 3 In most cases, your article should have published by now. Use the sharing tool to get your article out. Use the remainder of your time to write something you enjoy. If you think you may have found something that will do well, by all means promote it.

Day 4 Use this day to write what you enjoy. Don’t promote, don’t research. If you spend too much time focusing on profit, the magic will go away all too soon. Leave time for the creative writer in you.

Day 5 Start over.

This may not seem like the golden egg, but if you can get 2 or 3 of these out each week, in 6 months you’ll have 30 articles sitting back generating views, and money.

Hopefully this helps some of us; it is possible to make this work, even on a limited schedule. It’s still going to require a certain amount of time and work; there is no magic formula to instant success. Good luck!