Xomba Goes in a New Direction

WebProNews has a really interesting article about Xomba's new direction. In short, they're making it more of a community site, and creating a business model that relies less on Google searches. After all the hubub about the latest Google algorithm change, a site with a different way of driving traffic is refreshing.

Here's a quote from the article:

"While most content sites rely on Google or search in general for the bulk of their traffic, Xomba’s approach reflects a newer way of thinking throughout the web – that less dependence on search (and being less at the mercy of algorithms) is a better approach for a sustainable business. In other words, it’s best not to put your eggs all in one basket."

For what it's worth, my Xomba earnings have started to rebound more quickly than my other Adsense sources.

Affiliate Marketing with Xomba

Just a quick update. I made my first Amazon affiliate sale with Xomba today. It's a product I had some luck with at eHow, back when affiliate links were allowed in the resource section. I created a separate Xomba tracking code in Amazon Affiliates so I could be sure where the sales were coming from and was pleased to see it had come from Xomba.

There are basically two ways to use affiliate links at Xomba:

1. Create bookmarks using the affiliate link. You can link directly to your product. In addition to putting the affiliate link in the bookmark space that Xomba give you, I would create another one in the body of your bookmark description.
2. Write articles that include affiliate links. Xomba articles only have to be 150 words long so this is easy to do.

You can sign up for Xomba for free. Where are you finding success with your affiliate marketing?

Xomba Earnings Update

I'm exactly two months into my experience at Xomba so I thought I would give a quick update. I've added 241 bookmarks at Xoma (mostly to my eHow articles and some other online content). I've also written 34 articles, although some are fairly short with Xomba's 150 word minimum. In two months' time I've earned $23.68. I certainly hope that keeps up as I am 100% okay with a $10+ per month residual income stream, mostly for posting links to my other online articles.

I'm not aggressively adding content to Xomba, but I've become so familiar with the interface there that I do go there to post bookmarks (backlinks) and occasionally write a quick article that I think will be a good fit for the site. I'm still the Business and Entrepreneurs Feature Writer and if you're considering adding content on Xomba, I encourage you to apply for one of the several Feature Writer positions they have available there. It can only help your exposure on the site.

If you're interested in joining Xomba, I would be honored if you'd consider signing up using my referral link. Please send me a friend request once you're there!

Three Ways to Make More Money with Your Existing eHow Articles

So the dust is starting to settle and the information is being sorted out around eHow's change to using the Demand Studios platform for all it's content. eHow writers are learning whether or not they have been pre-approved for Demand Studios or whether they need to apply at DS to be able to continue writing how-to articles for eHow. They're also making the decision about whether they want to continue writing for eHow at all.

Regardless of where you are in your decision-making process, the fact remains that you probably have a bunch of eHow articles that you've already written still live on the eHow site. And according the eHow, you will continue to earn from those articles with the same algorithm you already have.

So what can you do to beef up earnings on the articles that are already on the eHow site?

1. You can backlink to your existing eHow articles. There are a variety of ways to do that but two places where you can backlink to all of your eHow articles and earn money in the process are Xomba and She Told Me. I've already written about my Xomba experiment in backlinking to my eHow articles. Recently I joined She Told Me and I'm starting to experiment at that site as well.

2. Another thing you can do is to re-write your highest earning eHow articles for other sites. If you've written an article for eHow, chances are it's on a subject you either a) already knew a lot about or b) did the research necessary to write on it. In fact, you probably have groups of articles on eHow written around various subjects. You may find it surprising how easy it is to re-write articles on that topic for another site.

At first I was reluctant to do this because the 'how-to' format was something of a security blanket for me. Staring at a blank page was a little intimidating after writing 200+ eHow articles. If you find yourself in the same boat, remember that you can still write in how-to format for other sites. In addition you can create other 'security blanket formats' that might help you get the writing ball moving forward. This article is an example of that. '____ Ways to _______' can be a format where you fill in the blanks depending on the article you're writing.

You'll find publishing articles at sites like Xomba and Info Barrel a real pleasure and re-writing articles you've already written can be a real shortcut to getting content up fast. You can also write different articles on similar topics for revenue share at Demand Studios.

3. Finally you can improve the SEO of the eHow articles you already have up. If you look at your earliest eHow articles, you will probably discover that you've learned a thing or two about SEO since you started writing. Make some changes in the keywords, etc. and see if you earnings on those articles don't improve.

So this can all be summed up in three tips:

1. Drive traffic to your existing eHow articles.
2. Examine your successful eHow articles and write similar articles on the same topic at other sites.
3. Improve the SEO of your existing eHow articles.

An Additional Note About Putting More Time Into eHow

I know some are less than trusting about eHow's claims that our WCP articles will stay up and continue to earn. I feel about this the way I felt when I wrote about what I thought was the future of the WCP over a month ago: the WCP articles may not last forever but they're there for now and I might as well maximize my ability to earn money from them. Especially since they are already written and aged. I don't need a guarantee that they will be there forever because there is nothing in the online business world (or offline business world for that matter) that will be unchanging. My strategy is to:

• Make my best guess about what is worth putting my time into. 
• Give it my all. 
• Adapt and move forward when someone moves my cheese.

A Change at Xomba

If you're confused by Xombytes and Xomblurbs when writing at Xomba, you don't need to be confused any longer. Xomba is now simply referring to them as Articles and Bookmarks, which is a lot less confusing. To summarize:

Bookmarks (the old Xomblurbs) allow you to link to any other site or article on the web - including your eHow articles - by just copying the URL and writing a 50 word description. Articles (the old Xombytes) are full-blown articles, but are still very easy to write with only 150 words required. I can usually create a Bookmark of one of my eHow articles in under a minute.

I am still in the process of bookmarking all of my eHow articles on Xomba. I like the idea of backlinking all of my eHow articles and creating an additional residual income stream for me at the same time. To date I have written eight articles and entered 161 bookmarks at Xomba and have earned $10.92 in the process.

February Update: eHow and Xomba Earnings

eHow Earnings

eHow earnings seem to be getting back on track. My February earnings were $183.59, a 15%+ increase over January. They still haven't rebounded back to my October high of $205 but I do feel we're moving in the right direction. As I like to point out every month, almost all of this was residual income as I only wrote five eHow article in Feburary.

Xomba Earnings

While eHow was having publishing issues in February, I began an experiment using Xomba to build a residual income stream while creating backlinks to my eHow articles. I posted my first Xomblurb (a link to an eHow article with a 50 word description) on February 18. Since that time I have posted approximately 90 more Xomblurbs linking to my eHow articles, which I estimate has taken me only a couple of hours to do because these 50 word blurbs are so easy to write.

Last Friday I told you my Xomba earnings stood at $4.35. Today they're at $5.99 so they continue to grow.  I love this for two reasons:

1. Like eHow, Xomba is another source of residual income and I've become very passionate about residual income.
2. The income I earn at Xomba is primarily a result of creating links to my eHow articles, so it is win/win.

I'd love to hear how your February turned out, both at eHow and at other online sites. I hope you'll take a moment to share.

Making Money with Xomba

In the comments of my last Xomba post, Gayle asked me if I had any tips on writing for Xomba. Keeping in mind that I've only been focused on Xomba for a little over a week or so, these are some of the things I'm doing that might be helping with my Xomba earnings:


1. If at all possible, become a Featured Author as it increases your exposure on the site. I am a Featured Author for Business and Entrepreneurs and there is another opening in that category. (There are two Featured Authors in each category.) There are openings in several other categories as well. Pick something you have some experience with and use your eHow articles as part of your 'resume'.

Your only requirement to keep your status as a Featured Author is to write one Xombyte (minimum 150 word article) every two weeks and post it in your category. That is so easy to do! You are free to write in other categories as well.

2.  Vote for your Xombyte or Xomblurb once you have posted it. Content is featured on the site, based in part on the number of votes it gets. In some cases it doesn't seem to take very many votes to get your byte or blurb featured.

3. Post lots of content. As I mentioned in my last post, it takes almost no time to write a Xomblurb. I estimate two minutes or less. If you look at my list of Xomblurbs you can see that their posting times are all 2-4 minutes apart. That includes the time it takes to copy and paste my eHow link, type in a title, choose a category, type in five tag words, type my 50 word description, and submit the blurb. In a few cases I even uploaded a picture.

You won't believe how easy it is to post a Xomblurb until you try it yourself. Consider doing ten a day until your entire eHow library is linked to.

That's really all I've done so far to generate $4.35 in earnings and put up backlinks to 70+  of my eHow articles in about a week's time. If my Xomba experiment continues to go well I will probably work on some other things like including affiliate links and linking my Xomba articles together to see if I can bump the earnings even more.

Remember, Xomba also rewards you for referrals to the site with 10% of your referrals' earnings. The 10% comes out of Xomba's cut, not the writer's so you can feel good about generating residual income this way as well. The links in this blog post are my referral links. I hope you'll consider signing up for Xomba using one of m y referral links, but either way, please request me as a friend once you're there!

The Xomba Experiment: Backlinks and Earnings

During eHow's recent publishing issues I was looking around for another site on which to write. Like a lot of people I've dabbled a little with other sites, but this time I decided to be a little more focused and pick one site and stick with it for a while. My goal was to build backlinks to my eHow articles while earning some money for my efforts.

I decided to focus first on Xomba for the following reasons:

1. Xomba has something called Xomblurbs, which are basically just bookmarks of other online sites. With a Xomblurb you can link to an eHow article. It requires a 50 word description of the article you are linking to, which I found can be done in a minute or less.
2. Xomba is looking for Featured Authors in various categories and it's very easy to become one. I applied for the Business and Entrepreneurs Featured Author and was approved and on site within the day. In order to keep my position I need only write a new Xombyte (150 word articles) in my category once every two weeks.

So, here are the results of my Xomba experience about one week in:

I've written 2 Xombytes (full articles) and 70 Xomblurbs (50 word links to my eHow articles). My goal is to have Xomblurbs with links to all 200+ of my eHow articles within the next couple of week. Xomblurbs honestly take me just a minute or two to write and they're actually kind of fun to do. And the publishing with Xomba is reliable and seamless...a nice change from eHow! :-)

I'm sure you're wondering about earnings. In the last week I've earned $4.35 at Xomba. That really got my attention! All of this was done primarily by building links to my eHow articles and currently I have links to less than half. Imagine when all my articles are linked. Again, I've found it takes about a minute (as in 60 seconds) to write a Xomblurb linking to an eHow article.

Here are what I consider to be the pros and cons of Xomba:

Pros:

• Easy (and free) to sign up.
• Reliable publishing and good customer service.
• FAST indexing. It's not unusual to see my Xomba content in the search engines the same day. Many times my Xomba results is right there alongside my eHow result.
• Ability to use affiliate links in Xomba content. As you may know, eHow just set a policy prohibiting this. I read of one person online who is having good results just writing short reviews on Xomba and linking to Amazon products with affiliate links. I think this has a lot of potential.
• Ability to become a Featured Author.

Cons:

• 50/50 Adsense split is not the most generous out there. (Having said that, I've been happy with my Xomba earnings.)
• Links on Xomba are not 'do follow' links. 'Do Follow' links carry more juice as backlinks so this is a drawback.

I'll update you with my continuing Xomba experiment over the next few weeks. As I said, my goal is to get all of my eHow articles backlinked with Xomblurbs and to write at least enough in the way of Xombytes to keep my Featured Author status.

It might be worth it to you as an eHow writer to conduct your own Xomba experiment by creating Xomblurbs with links to your eHow articles. The time investment is not great so there's not much to lose. You can sign up with Xomba for free here. (You'll need a Google Adsense account to earn with Xomba. If you don't have one, there are easy instructions on how to get one under Xomba's help tab.)

Disclosure: The Xomba links in this post are referral links. That brings up another way to earn with Xomba: you earn 10% of your referrals' earnings and the amount comes from Xomba's cut, not the writer's cut. It's another good source of residual income. I feel that I should point out, however, that none of my earnings listed above came from referral income because I didn't have any referrals during that week. So it is possible to earn income at Xomba just from writing and linking.