Suite 101 - Page 70

[white_queen_22]

In other news - I've been swamped with speaking at Type-A-Mom and then got caught up in the Jaeli crisis (who is home now, by the way, and her family facing Social Services investigation), that I ended up getting a polite "do you need a leave of absence or are you planning to write something this month" email from Barbara. Lol!

So I've been on a roll - highly motivated - and have posted four articles in my topic area and one very late-to-the-game Halloween article.

By the way - I'm rather peeved with whomever that lady is who ruined her articles and made us all look bad in the intererim. Google sent you more traffic because your exposure GROWS with time - not shrinks. Silly goose. Anyone could have told you that.... Two of my top ten articles were one of the first five I wrote right now. THREE YEARS AGO. "everygreen is a myth" my rear-end...sorry I'll behave now. :-)

I've also been gangbusters on Untrained Housewife lately too. Published an editorial calender, partway through a New Author Guide, wrote blog posts to bring in traffic, did two blog carnivals, submitted to several more, etc. We're officially launched and GOING!

My goal was 10 Suite101 articles per month. I need five more this month to make it.

Is anyone else going to take the NanoWrimo rebel challenge and try to write 50,000 words of non-fiction articles next month? I'm totally on board for this. I HAVE to write more content. :-)

Angela <><

[widemouthedfrog]

Oh my, Angela, you're feeling ambitious!
At the moment I'm writing about 37,000 words a month, I figure. If I manage to get an Examiner position (and write more and better content for UT Housewife, sorry ) then that's likely going to go up to almost 50,000 (as she gasps in alarm).

No wonder I feel busy.

I know that some of you might not want to write for Families because it only pays $4-5 per blog post, but the blogs take me about 15 minutes to write and 5 to post. So that is still $15/hr. They are looking for people to write in the Babies category specifically. Maybe Disney and Scrapbooking too? Plus, you can repurpose them for Suite articles and other articles!

[white_queen_22]

What is this? Families?

Oh Tricia - did the editorial calender come through ok? I designed it, specifically the second portion, to be a resource for writers who write at other sites too. :-)

Angela <><

[widemouthedfrog]

families.com - can't remember if we can post these links.

yes, the calendar came through. I need to start doing more rewriting / repurposing of articles. I find that my parenting writing can easily be reworked into articles for other places.

i'm also really enjoying my work at justmeans - it's an honorarium, but it's on a topic that I really enjoy (sustainable food).

[Smokering]

Ech, my NaNo cheat was supposed to be beefing my pretentious novel up from 22,000 to 50,000. The non-fiction cheat thing would certainly be more lucrative, though. And I do have an article due on December 1...

[lisarussell]

50,000 words/30days/500word articles= 3.3 articles a day. I can do that with my eyes closed.

Actually that's not true, I am a terrible typist, I always look at the keys. Not that I need to because I've closed my eyes and typed just fine, it's just a bad habit. So maybe I could do it with my eyes closed, though the research would be tricky...

I'm off to check out families.com, I've never even heard of them and I can write mom-stuff really fast- I'm always looking for places to plant gentle parenting seeds and it sounds like a good one.

PLUS- Suite101 is down for maintenance, it's been a few hours and I'm bored

Angela- I love what you've done to raise awareness for Jaeli. I hope all goes well on that front. What on earth are they investigating for? I hope they're not considering canceling her benefits because of the donations, that happened to a friend of ours. They were on food stamps and her husband passed away, she took donations for the burial and they made her pay back the food stamps for a while because of the "income."

[widemouthedfrog]

lisa, that's one of the reasons I write there. It's a somewhat conservative site, and I'm not a particularly conservative person (except financially).

[Mamja]

So next month will be my 1-year anniversary at suite. Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of 3 month evaluation? Well, I never got anything like that. I can just assume I've been doing ok since I've only gotten a few, minor flags.

So a couple days ago I had my first $1 day, and the next day was significantly higher! Within the past few months I've done enough to start getting paid every month. Not much, but I do see it building. It really just happens as my articles get out there more, and I learn about SEO more. I've gone back and reworked my keywords on some articles. I just really feel that you get out of Suite what you put in. Just wanted to put that all out there to all the Suite haters.

I'm at 38 articles (currently writing my 39th) and hope to get to 40+ by November... so I can do NaNoWriMo! Er, well, attempt NaNo. I tried last year and only got a few thousand words.

So my only issue with Suite is that it seems like the trendy articles make the most money. I understand that that is kind of the point of SEO. But Suite wants us to be experts in our subjects and write well-written, researched articles. I've been doing that, but the subject matters I'm most comfortable with are just too obscure. How do you guys feel about that? Do you tend to write more popular, timely articles? Even if it's not something you know much about, or maybe even care about?

For example, I wrote an article about flu shots locally. It gets a TON of hits even though it's very recent. I feel like I could start writing a ton of articles relating to this, but I am just not that interested in the flu or vaccinations. I'd rather write about things I'm more passionate about, even if they don't make as much.

[white_queen_22]

No - I think they called on her because of a "potential to mismange feeds". Whatever that means. It's ESPECIALLY ironic coming from the medical staff that DID mismanage feeds in (allegedly) skipping at least one feeding known, cutting back on feeds during at least one night when Jaeli's fussiness made the feedings last longer than usual (without consent) and byt he way - what the heck is that about? The nurses just couldn't be troubled to give a boderline failure-to-thrive-baby the full amount of prescribed feeding because it was "taking too long" or what? and thirdly - by misplacing the Gtube when they replaced it when she first arrived. For TEN DAYS. Yeah.

So one wonders their true motivation behind the complaint. Deflection? preemptive move? I don't know but it's totally illogical seeming to accuse a mother who just spent 3 1/2 weeks BEGGING the hospital to help her baby of abuse/neglect/whatever.

Donations are going to the milk bank. Not Brandy/Jaeli so if the milk bank happens to recieve extra donations I don't guess that will impact them at all. Besides - they aren't GETTING any coverage for the milk so I don't think it will impact them.

As for 50,000 words...you kill me. You really do. I'll be pushing it for sure to reach that goal. I so want to chat with you some time and pick your brain about how you put together niche sites. My two big sites are just constant new projects that need steady infusions of content. Not niche little things I can put together in a few hours and then let them bring in income.

Angela <><

[white_queen_22]

Mamja - It SEEMS that way (trendy articles vs evergreen articles) because of the infusion of PV's but I would encourage you to balance it out a lot. I tend to write primarily in my topic - probably half of my articles, and the other half sprinkled where I feel comfortable around other areas. Sometiems I'll write a seasonal like Halloween, but then I try to pull it back into a more evergreen topic by linking to another related piece. I am not the highest by any means - Lisa earns more per article than I do. But I am also balancing what I write as best I can. I've learned a lot. I wish I knew three years ago what I know now!! LOL!

Angela <><

[KoalaMama]

Angela, we're going to start a little 'niche website' club over on my LoA forum. It will basically be a mastermind group of sorts for people looking to create niche sites. I saw today that you registered over there, so I'll send you a PM there to let you know more about the plan. You're welcome to join us if you'd like!

That goes for anyone else, too... the forum is about the law of attraction and other woo-woo stuff, so if you're interested in the URL PM me and I'll let you know where to go. (The group won't be limited to creating niche websites on LoA; I'm just pointing out the topic of the forum so people can decide whether or not it might be their cup of tea overall.)

I think one of my November NaNo rebel goals will be to create a new niche website. I'm already brainstorming and doing a little keyword research...

[widemouthedfrog]

I have a little niche site but I haven't done much with it yet, so I'd be interested.

mamja, I am coming up on my 1 year anniversary too. I try to do a mix of my feature writer stuff, current seasonal titles, and "evergreen" articles with high CPC that also interest me (like a recent one on public cord blood banking in Canada).

[lisarussell]

I'm certainly no expert in niche sites, I'd really like to learn from others who are doing better than I am. Angela- your site has HUGE potential- I really admire the way you've created a community around the theme

Mamja- I think Suite encourages evergreen articles and I think that in the long term they really do make more. it sounds like you have an interesting combination- obscure titles and current events, maybe you wanna go for more in-between things, everyday average things, maybe?

You can always tweak your older articles to reflect the new things you've learned.

I wish I had a systematic way of balancing the seasonal and evergreen content.

Melanie- I checked out your Examiner, you're doing great over there and your picture is so cute, it looks like you're laughing, the smile is so deep in your eyes, I hope everyone gets a warm impression from it I'm PMing you in re: your LOA forum. Thanks for mentioning it, is it a ning? I might have already joined??? I guess I'll find out soon

[Smokering]

So next month will be my 1-year anniversary at suite. Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of 3 month evaluation? Well, I never got anything like that. I can just assume I've been doing ok since I've only gotten a few, minor flags.

It's a 10-article evaluation, in theory. I got mine after I'd been there for months and months - I had, what, sixty articles up? Heaps, anyway. The editors are busy people. Don't even waste brain-space on it; if you're not getting constant, major flags you're doing fine. The recognition is nice, though, when the editor gets around to it.

KoalaMama: Now you have me wondering what the CPC value of "woo-woo" is!

[KoalaMama]

Smokering! I had to go look... a mere .43 for woo-woo, but if you take out the hyphen it jumps to .53. Guess I won't be rushing off to build a niche site based on that term!

[Smokering]

Ha! I'm surprised it wasn't just a nine-center. That's still better CPC than half my haircare keywords. And come to think of it, most of my alternative haircare articles could be titled "Woowoo Natural Hair Dyes" or "Woowoo Organic Shampoos" and so on.

[lisarussell]

If you want to fast-track your evaluation, you can apply to be a featured writer.

To see what the evaluations were like, a few of us posted ours on this very thread.

Somewhere in the 60somethign pages, I'm thinking before page fifteen somewhere 10? 13? 7? I don't remember

[Mamja]

Originally Posted by lisarussell

If you want to fast-track your evaluation, you can apply to be a featured writer.

To see what the evaluations were like, a few of us posted ours on this very thread.

Somewhere in the 60somethign pages, I'm thinking before page fifteen somewhere 10? 13? 7? I don't remember

Oh, I definitey remember reading about it. And I'm in no rush to get one.

[KoalaMama]

Do they still do evaluations? The only place I heard about it was on this thread. I don't recall seeing anything about a review when I joined Suite, or on the Suite forums.

So... what would you do if you read an article with a typo? Would you email the author? The editor? Ignore it? As a writer, what would you prefer someone do if they found a typo in one of your articles?

I know typos might seem like no big deal, and they certainly happen to everyone, but I hate it when I discover one in my own work. I'd rather someone point it out to me so I could fix it. It's like having spinach in your teeth... tell me, please!!

I saw a couple of errors (typographical and formatting inconsistencies) in a Suite article the other day, and it had received an editor's choice award! That kind of blew me away, as I thought those were held to pretty high standards.

[evies_mom]

I thought you definitely get reviewed if you requested a promotion to FW. That could have changed, I guess.

As far as typos, I always send a polite message, something to the effect of "I was surfing and found myself at this article you wrote (link). Great piece! I also thought you might like to know you have a typo..." I personally would want people to let me know about it.