This article will serve as your user’s guide to writing online with Triond, covering every aspect of the site and answering any questions you may have.  As such, this will be a lengthy article, but, literally, every detail of the site will be covered.  So put your reading eyes on and get comfortable, you are about to learn how to make money writing online with Triond.

Video created by Triond writer Lauren Axelrod.

After watching that fantastic video created by one of Triond’s most esteemed writers, I would bet that you are excited about the prospect of making money online writing on Triond.  As you will shortly see, Triond is one of the easiest and most user-friendly writing sites available on the internet.  If you follow this guide, you will be writing, publishing and making money in no time as if you have been doing it for years.  Enough with the hype, though.  Let’s get started.

At this point you should have already registered and you are looking at the screen below.  This is known as your Dashboard, but we will discuss this in detail shortly.  The first thing you need to do is verify your email address.  At the top of the screen in the orange box, click the link that says Click to verify.  Doing that will send a confirmation email to your inbox.  Now all you have to do is check your email and click on the confirmation link provided in the email from Triond. 

Account Settings

The next thing you need to do is set up your account details.  You can do this by either clicking on Account at the top right corner of your screen, or click the link that says account in the second orange reminder box at the top.  Clicking on that will take you to the account settings page you see below. 

The first thing you will notice is that the Required Details are already filled out.  Your user name will always remain the same.  However, you can change your pen name at any time.  It is your pen name that will be visible on your articles as well as on your profile and in the community forum.  You can also change your password at anytime.  Just change the desired information and click the Update Account button at the very bottom of the page.

In the Additional Details section you see the language option first.  Choose your desired language and move on to the payment method.  You can choose to receive payment by check, Western Union, or Paypal.  The most important thing to know about payment method is the minimum payout.  If you choose to receive payment by check or Western Union, your minimum payout will be $50.  If you choose Paypal, your minimum payment will be .50 cents and you will enter the email address associated with your Paypal account below the payment method.  Paypal is, by far, the easiest and most convenient method.  I will go into more detail on earnings and payments later on.

Your personal information follows the payment details.  This section is optional if you chose the Paypal payment method.  However, if you are receiving your payment by check, Triond will need to know your name and address to send it to you.  The country is self-explanatory and your phone number is optional. 

Next, you must choose which submission method you want to set as your default.  This means that, when you click Submit, the method you chose will pop up first.  You can choose between the Online Editor or the Submit Media methods.  The Online Editor is used for submitting text such as articles and poems.  It is intended for you to write on that and submit directly from there as opposed to uploading a text file from your computer.  The Submit Media method is used for uploading mage, audio and video files for publication directly from your computer.  Both methods will be discussed at more length later.

The last thing to take care of in this section is your security question and answer.  This is, of course, used to retrieve your password in the unfortunate event of memory loss.

The next item is the Public Profile Details section.  This contains a field to write a little something about yourself and upload a profile picture.  Profile image file types supported are: jpg, gif and jpeg.  Please upload a profile pic.  Both items in this section will be viewable on your public profile. 

The last section allows for you to link your Twitter account with Triond.  When you publish content, Triond automatically posts the link in a Twitter update for you at the time of publication.  This can be very helpful if you have an established network on Twitter.  Remember, for every change you make on the account settings page, you must click Update Account at the bottom for the change to be confirmed.

Public Profile

You can access your profile by clicking on your user name or by clicking the link provided for it on your dashboard.  You will want to visit your profile at this point and edit it to your liking.  Simply click on the Edit Mode tab at the top of the screen and follow the instructions from there.  They really are self-explanatory.  Below is an example of how I have laid out my own public profile.

Dashboard

Now that you have your email verified, your account settings squared away and your profile looking presentable, let’s explore the Dashboard.  This is your main hub, if you will, for navigating the site.  You already saw it once in the image at the very top.  By now, your reminder boxes have been removed and your Dashboard will look like this:

First of all, in the very top right-hand corner, you will see your user name and logout.  Clicking on your user name will take you to your public profile.  I think you know what will happen if you click logout.  Also, you will see the menu bar that takes you to various functions of the site.  We will discuss those in detail separately later. 

The left-hand column of the body of your dashboard contains statistical tables that help you track the progress of your content.  However, these tables are not visible until after content has been published and some traffic has been generated to that content and are, therefore, not displayed in the image above.  I have provided sample images of these tables below with a brief explanation of each. 

Content Overview

This table displays daily statistics for your top five traffic-generating articles for that day.  The title of the articles are clickable links to the articles themselves.  These statistics update as you refresh.  The next day, new information that corresponds with content performance for that day will be displayed. 

Visit Trends

This is a neat little graph that shows you how many views you totaled for each day for the past 30 days.  If you hover your cursor over each day, a box will pop up, as shown above, that will contain the specific number of views for that day.

Top Referring Sites

This is another neat little graph that shows the source from which your views originated from.  In the example image above, I hovered the cursor over the first bar and it displayed that I have received 59 views from a specific source within the past 30 days.  Hopefully, your numbers will be a little better than mine. 

Top Search Phrases

This table shows the top search phrases people used on search engines to find your content.  This information is helpful because it allows you to identify the keywords that are used most to find your content.  This also reflects statistics from the last 30 days.

At the bottom left of your dashboard, beneath these tables, you will see the Hot Content list.  Oh, I could write volumes about that, but I’ll refrain and stick to the basics.  This list is to serve as incentive for you to produce the best quality and most marketable content you can.  Those two standards are the key. 

Triond will tell you that the list is determined by a complex algorithm that calculate the ratio between number of views, ‘I like it’ button hits, and comments on the specific content.

At the top right of the body of your dashboard you will see a large green button telling you to Submit an Article.  This is just a shortcut button, if you will, to the Online Editor where the magic happens.  You can also access it by clicking on Submit in the menu bar at the top of your dashboard. 

Just beneath the big green button, is the Earnings Overview.  You will notice in the image of your dashboard above that this section contains two monetary figures.  The first one is how much money you earned the day before.  In other words, the money you earn from all the views you acquire in one day will not show up here until the next day.  This is the answer to a very common question by new users.

The second figure is how much money you have earned since the first of the month.  New users often come in the forum expressing confusion over this table.  Keep in mind that the site will suffer a glitch from time to time and you may notice that all your money and views have disappeared.  Do not worry, they always come back within hours of the glitch.  On the last day of the month this second figure will freeze and that will be the payment you will receive in your Paypal on the 10th of the following month. 

The table beneath the Earnings Overview is the Triond News table.  These are updates about new features and glitch resolutions that are linked to the Triond blog.  With that said, this table does not change often.  It is advisable, however, to read the past posts on the blog.  You will learn a lot about the site.

Just beneath that is the Quick Action table.  This is largely a shortcut to functions you can access through other venues.  Starting from the top of the list, Popular Topic Suggestions can be accessed by clicking the Submit button in the menu bar.  Next is Edit a Draft which can be accessed through the Content button in the menu bar. 

Following that is Add the Triond Widget to your Blog.  It is a good idea to take advantage of this.  When you click on that link it takes you to Widgetbox.com where you can modify the appearance of the widget and get the code to post it to your blog or other social networking sites.  You can also add it to your Facebook and Twitter profiles.  You can change the height and width of the widget, as well as insert your pen name, change the color from black to silver, and display up to ten articles.  Here is an example of the Triond widget:

Get yours here!

After the Triond widget is Update your Pen Name and Enable Updates to Twitter, both of which can be accessed through the Account button in the menu bar and has been covered above.  Next is Visit the Community Forum.  This can be accessed through the Community button in the menu bar.  If you become a forum junkie, however, which is easy to do, you will find this quick access to be a convenience.  The forum will also be discussed in detail later on.

After the forum is Customize your Profile Page.  This was covered above.  Anytime you are logged in and you visit your profile, you will have the option to edit it.  You can also access this by clicking on your user name in the top right-hand corner of the screen as described previously.  Follow us on Twitter comes after that.  This will take you to Triond’s Twitter profile. 

From there you can start following Triond.  It may take a week or so, but Triond will follow back.  I will give you another quick hint so I don’t have to go over it when talking about social networking on Triond.  After you follow Triond, take some time to systematically follow everyone that is following Triond and everyone that Triond is following and you will notice your Twitter following explode over the next week. 

The last two tables at the bottom right corner of your dashboard are Friends News and Latest Messages.  Both of these are also accessible through the Community button in the menu bar at the top.  Again, they are convenient for quick access.  The Friends News contains the latest publications from the writers you have added as a friend.  I will also explain adding friends in more detail in the social networking section.  The Latest Messages displays the most recent private messages sent to you by other Triond users.

The last, but certainly not least, aspect of your dashboard is located at the very bottom of the page. 

This is all recommended reading for any new member.  About Us outlines the history of Triond and How it Works is a basic explanation of how to get started publishing.  I would suggest, however, that this article is the most comprehensive guide to Triond available.  The Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are, hands down, absolutely required reading for a new user.  Before you even publish one word, read and understand these.  The Explore contents are also accessible through the Explore button in the main menu bar. 

The Help Center and Contact Us are basically the same thing.  When you have an issue needing resolution, I would suggest going through the Help Center as displayed in the image below.  I ask you to now direct your attention to the column at the far right.  This column serves as a FAQ for the site.  You should always search for an answer to your problem there first. 

If your problem is a little more specialized, you can type your question or complaint in the field provided at the left side of the screen.  This is routed through Getsatisfaction.com and you will be required to register with their site.  It is a very simple process, though.  Just describe your issue in detail, include a title and hit Continue.  You will then be directed to the Getsatisfaction.com website where you will be prompted to either log in or register for an account. 

If you have to register, just provide a user name and email address and your issue will be posted for review by Triond administrators.  When an administrator or company representative addresses your issue, you will be alerted by email.  Another quick way around all of this is by emailing Triond direct.  For all issues pertaining to content and the publishing thereof, you should direct your query to editor [AT] triond [DOT] com. For technical and miscellaneous issues, direct your query to support [AT] triond [DOT] com.

I would advise you, at this point, to stand up, stretch your legs, or maybe even grab a cup of coffee.  There is still quite a bit to cover.  We have covered everything displayed on the dashboard and we can now move on to the menu bar.  The first item on the menu bar is Dashboard.  I think we covered that quite well already.  For the sake of not being redundant, we’ll move on.

Submit 

The next item in the menu bar is Submit.  This is where I will attempt to explain the Online Editor and the overall publishing process in detail.  When you first click on Submit you will be taken to the default submission method that we went over in the account settings section.  Most set the Online Editor as their default submission method.  Both methods are still accessible through the same page. 

Online Editor

As I said before, this is where the magic happens.  I first want you to take note of the tabs just beneath the menu bar.  An explanation of these will follow this.  The Online Editor is where you can type your content directly into the editor, or you can copy and paste text you already have on your computer.  When using it, you will find that it is pretty self-explanatory.  I will only briefly touch on some of the more common questions about this process. 

I will assume that you already have the title and description of the article in place.  Next is the body of the article.  I would advise you to explore all of the icons provided to get familiar with what they do.  The three I want to you to focus on, however, are the Insert Image, Embed a YouTube Video, and Toggle spellchecker icons.  To insert a supporting image in your article, click on the little photo icon.  A box will pop up prompting you to either upload an image from your computer by clicking the browse button or linking the url of an image in the second option.  I believe the maximum width an image can be is 640 pixels.  You can still embed an image larger than that, but it will be resized during the editorial process.

Also, it is imperative for you to understand that if the image you are embedding is not of your own creation, you must provide a link back to the original source of the image.  After you position the image where you want it in the body of the article, simply add the words “Image Source” just beneath it and hyper-link the text with the url of the source.  If all of the images you use in a particular article are all from the same source, it would suffice to only include one link back to the source of the images at the end of the article. 

This actually brings me to another feature of the online editor, the hyper-linking icon.  They look like little chain links.  The first one is to embed a link in text and the second one that looks like a broken chain link is to break the link you have embedded in some text.  With your cursor, simply highlight the text you want to hyper-link and click the first chain link icon.  A box will pop up prompting you to insert a url.  This will enable your reader to click the designated text and go to the designated source.

Embedding a video is just as simple as embedding images.  You can only embed YouTube videos in your articles.  Simply find the video you want to embed on YouTube, right-click and copy the url of the video and come back to the online editor and click on the little film icon.  When the box pops up, right-click and paste the video url in the field provided. 

Your video embed will show up as code instead of an actual video.  The video will be embedded wherever the cursor is left in the article body, so make sure you’ve clicked in the place where you want the video to be embedded.

Next is probably the most important icon you will ever use, spellchecker.  Please use this every single time you submit content for publication.  Remember that quality articles will do much more for you than a frivolous slapping together of text.  After completing your article, click the spellchecker icon.  You will notice that the suggested corrections will be highlighted in yellow.  Simply click on the word suggested for correction and a box will pop up suggesting a variety of corrections for you to replace it with. 

Keep in mind that the spellchecker does not have every single word in its database.  If you know the word you are using is spelled correctly, click on the word and then click on Add to Dictionary.  This will add the word to the spellchecker database and it will never suggest that word for correction again.  I would also advise you to read your entire article at least once after you conduct a spelling check.  This will help identify grammatical errors that the spellchecker may not pick up.  Also, I have experienced words joining together upon the completion of spell checking.  I’m not sure exactly what happens here, but it is another good reason to read over your article before you hit submit.

Add your pertinent tags. The Get Image Suggestions and Get Link Suggestions buttons will suggest images and links based on your content and tags, so make sure your tags are relevant and pay attention to the order of your tags. You can also support your article with specific images and links you can find on your own. 

The language and category options are self-explanatory.  The Find Image button will provide thumbnail images to be displayed along with your article.  You can continually refresh the images to try and find the most appropriate image you can. This image is also selected based on the tags you have chosen.

Finally, check the box verifying that you are the original creator of the content you are submitting and click the Submit button.  The Save as Draft button serves to save an article in progress in your Drafts that is accessible through the Content button in the menu bar.  We will discuss this and what happens to your article after you click submit in the Content section below. 

Submit Media

This is where you can submit an image, audio or video file for publication.  Simply click the Browse button and upload the file directly from your computer.  All file types supported are as follows: jpg, gif, jpeg, wav, wma, mp3, mpg, wmv, mp4, avi, mpeg, mov and 3gp.  The rest of it is self-explanatory.  Provide a title, description, set your language, add your tags, verify that it is your content and click Submit, that easy.

Topic Suggestions

The topic suggestions are to serve as a solution for writer’s block.  Whenever you need fresh marketable material, look here.  The hot topic is listed in the column on the left.  When you click on one of the topics, information sources are provided to the right.  The topics and research venues are brought to you in one place.

Since we are talking about topics, there is something that I must make clear.  Do you see any poems or short stories among the topic suggestions?  My point is that the web reading community has a short attention span and is information hungry.  They are not interested in poems and short stories.  With that said, don’t expect any kind of creative writing to generate a substantial amount of traffic.  They are good to publish simply because you love to write and it is nice to provide something for your friends on Triond to read, but they are just not marketable.  If it is about the money for you, informative article are the key.

Content

I will not provide any images for this section for a few reasons.  One reason is that it is all pretty easy to understand without an image.  The second reason is to save space.  The final reason is that the images would contain sensitive information about my content.  Let’s face it, we are all selling the same thing, some things have to remain sacred.  After clicking on Content in the menu bar, you will notice a sub-menu just beneath the main menu bar.  That sub-menu and descriptions are as follows:

Published

This is where you can view the overall performance of all your content.  Starting from left to right it provides the type of content published denoted by a specific icon, the title of the content hyper-linked, the date it was published on, the total views received for the day before, the total earnings for the day before, total views since publication, total earnings since publication, total number of comments since publication, total number of ‘I like it’ hits since publication, a sharing icon resembling resembling up and down arrows, a fix icon resembling a pencil, and a delete icon in the form of an X. 

The sharing icon is used to submit specific content to social networking sites automatically.  I highly recommend its use.  The fix icon is used to submit a fix on some specific content after its publication.  If, after your content is published, you notice an error, you should always submit a fix by clicking the pencil icon.  This will take you to the Online Editor.  Make the appropriate changes, include the reason for the fix in the field provided at the bottom and re-submit.  The X icon is used to permanently delete specific content. 

Pending

There really isn’t much explanation needed here.  Simply put, this is where your content goes directly after you submit it.  It will stay here while it goes through the editorial process. It will determine if there are too many spelling and grammar errors as well as the topic’s compliance with the Terms of Service.  If your article is kicked back for any reason, it will either go to the Revision or the Declined tabs, which we’ll discuss in a second. 

Revisions

As stated above, if your article is kicked back for simple reasons, it will go here.  Click on the article and make the appropriate changes based off of Triond’s reason for kicking it back for revision.

Drafts

Quite simply, this is where you can retrieve an article in progress.  While working on an article in the Online Editor, you may want to stop and finish it another time.  As described earlier, click on Save as Draft at the bottom of the screen and your unfinished content will come here to Drafts.

Declined

Again, as mentioned above, this is where a declined article will go.  If your content is a blatant violation of the Terms of Service, it will more than likely be declined.  Triond will also provide the reason for decline in this section.  This information is permanent and will always remain there.

Comments

In this section you will find a listing of the latest comments on all of your content in the order in which they were received.  It provides the title of the content being commented on, the date of the comment, the name of the commenter, the comment itself, and an X icon to provide the option to delete the comment if it is vulgar and offensive.

Earnings

Again, I can not provide an image of this screen due to being sensitive information.  It is very basic and easy to understand.  On the left side of the screen is a table listing your payment history by payment ID number, payment date, and payment amount.  You will notice that each payment ID number is hyper-linked.  click on one of them and a table will pop up at the bottom right itemizing every item you have published and how much each had earned for that specific payment period.  This helps to track the performance of your article from month to month.  At the top right side of the screen you will see the Earnings Overview table.  This table was explained in the Dashboard section and is merely replicated here. 

Community

Now we have gotten to my favorite aspect of Triond, social networking.  What is social networking?  It is simply meeting people and building a rapport with them.  Once you have done that, you can usually count on them to read your content and provide sincere feedback to help you improve your writing skill.  So, let’s get to the sub-menus in the Community section. 

News Feed

This is nothing but a duplication of the Friends News explained in the Dashboard Section.  It is a display of content recently published by those you have added as friends. 

Inbox

This doesn’t need much explanation either.  This is where the private messages you receive from other Triond users are stored.  However, it is useful to note the icons at the left of the message.  These provide for replying to the sender, deleting the message, and a blocking option in the unfortunate event of harassment or incessant spam.

Outbox

This is also pretty basic.  This is where all private message you have sent to other Triond users is stored.  The one thing to note about this is that you can not delete messages in the Outbox.

Friends

This is where the friends you have added yourself are listed.  How do you add a friend?  In the top right-hand corner of another user’s profile you will see an add friend icon.  Click that and they will be added to your friends list. 

Fans

This is where all those that have added you as a friend will be listed.  I check back to this periodically.  You will find that you acquire new fans sporadically over time.  As they pop up in my fans list, I take a look at their profile and content and then I make the determination whether or not to reciprocate the friend add.

Forum

This is another place where the magic happens.  The main thing to be aware of first and foremost is that the forum is an open forum.  What does this mean?  An open forum basically means that anything goes.  There is no moderation whatsoever.  Everyone is held to their own ethic of social behavior.

I, personally, am pleased that our forum is unmoderated.  Moderation only means restriction and censorship to me.  As writers, I think that we should all support free speech and individualism at all costs.  With this said, you must have thick skin and be able to accept criticism in stride if you intend on playing with the vets in the forum.

Also be aware that the forum is very anti-spam.  If you blatantly spam the forum, your hopes of building rapport with anyone in the community will pretty much be shot.  It would be best to start another account and try again, without the spam. 

The forum is something I would encourage everyone to participate in.  You can not beat the discussion that takes place in there sometimes.  You may see a lot of nonsense taking place in there, but if you have a question and you ask it in there, it will be answered quickly and accurately by several users.  After a few days of normal socializing in the forum, it is not difficult to identify those who are friendly, sincere and always willing to answer your questions.

Triond will not let me publish an image of the Latest Discussions section just beneath the main themes table.  Nonetheless, it is not difficult to figure out how the forum works.  The threads are listed in order of most recent reply.  My advice to anyone just starting out in the forum, just engage people in normal conversation for a while.  If you do this without begging for friends or content views, you will build a reputable rapport.  This rapport will bring you more views than any amount of spam.  For more information about the Triond forum, check out this article.

A Guide to the Triond Forum by Mnofdichotomy

One last note on social networking within Triond, just be a real person.  Start reading and commenting on other articles.  Again, we are all selling the same thing, so don’t hop in here and shove your content down our throats.  Use some tact in your approach and be sincere.  I would begin my social networking in the forum.  Engage people in conversation and for those you establish an association with, add them to your friends list and they will usually add you to theirs.  There are some great people within these digital walls of Triond and I can honestly say that I am a better person for having met them here. 

Explore

Content

The Content tab displays the current Hot Content list for all four content mediums, as well as the most recently published by all Triond users for all four content mediums.  You will also notice a tag cloud that displays the most common and popular tags used for all content published on Triond.  In addition to this, you will see a search field at the top that you can use to find content that corresponds with specific search terms.

Users

This is the Hot Users list.  As with the Hot Content list, there is much conjecture as to what determines the inclusion on this list.  It used to be thought that those with the most content made it on the list, but I have seen profiles with thousands of different items published and they were not on the list.  The latest theory is that it is determined based on earnings per specific periods of time.  Those names that are displayed largest are thought to be the higher earners.  This is a good place to visit random profiles and get acquainted with some of the more successful writers on Triond. 

To bring this comprehensive user’s guide to Triond to a close, I would like to talk briefly about reality.  The reality of writing on Triond is that your content honestly serves as nothing more than advertising space.  That is how Triond makes their money, ad revenue.  With that said, in my opinion Triond is more concerned about quantity rather than quality.  Does this mean you should slide by and produce a mass of sub-standard content and play the numbers game?  Absolutely not.  The level of true success with writing on Triond is measured by the quantity of high quality content.  If this standard is maintained by all of us, it will benefit us all in the long run. 

I did not cover the specific sites Triond publishes your content on based on topic and content medium.  However, they are all linked in the bottom right corner of Triond’s front page.  Feel free to explore them.  I also did not cover specific pay rates as they vary per publishing site and they fluctuate over time.  A good rule of thumb is approximately .01 cent per 10 views.  Some sites take a few more views to reach a penny and some take as little as five or six.  It is best to keep on eye on this rates yourself to make an estimated determination of potential earnings.  If this guide did not answer any questions you may have, please feel free to leave your questions in the comments below.  I will maintain this guide as an open Q and A forum.  You are now well on your way to making money writing online with Triond.  Happy writing, friend.