Whether you are an established writer in the offline world or just discovering the world of writing for money there are many services you should absolutely be familiar with.

Two top contenders that you will see in your research (You are researching right?) are Hubpages and the Examiner.

Both sites can offer you a great part time income if you put the correct effort in but they have a very distinct pay structure and system. You you should be familiar with the differences so you can formulate your attack and maximize your income.

HubPages.com offers income via an impression sharing system. In exchange for using their high profile publishing platform you give up 40% of you page views to their advertising codes.

Believe it or not this is a good deal.

Sign up for HubPages now

Examiner.com is more akin to being a syndicated columnist, you are writing to a theme or region and you are paid directly by the company for impressions to your work

Sign up for the Examiner now

If your plan is to create an income for yourself via writing, I can wholeheartedly suggest that Hubpages should be your first step.

Why Hubpages?

For starters their is no application process, unlike most writing platforms you do not have to provide past writing examples, resumes etc.

So once you sign up, you can jump right into learning the publishing format and getting your work out their.

Unlike most writing platforms, Hubpages has a thriving peer generated support forum. People are happy to assist their fellow hubbers in the process of gaining traffic, writing quality hubs and learning the ins and outs of keyword research.

A huge plus, one that you may not comprehend at this point, is the association and reputation of the site will allow you to gain quicker access into affiliate programs, these affiliate programs are in fact how you are paid as an HubPages writer.

You can write on any topic you desire with zero limitations outside of the standard no pornography or hate speech.

By being a Hubpages author with a dozen or so published articles you are virtually assured of becoming accepted by the adsense, ebay affiliate, amazon affiliate and kontera programs.

You can later use these affiliate resources to build your own websites

More about affiliate programs

Post Hubpages: Make money from affiliate marketing

The single most important reason to become an Examiner writer is credibility. Examiner writers have been scooped up by head hunters for some very well paying gigs.

Examiner is resume material. HubPages as its open to all, is not quite so much of a draw. Although, of course if you are writing quality material you can certainly use your Hub portfolio as your writing examples.

Which goes into why you should apply for your Hubpages account and write as soon as possible. Get some experience in online writing and build up a writing portfolio than use you Hub profile to apply for other writing opportunities.

If you are already an active online writer and you have a portfolio, apply for the examiner now, the pay structure is based on impressions generated, Its not openly stated, but from my research and experience I estimate 1-2 cents per page view. This is not a bad rate, if you have experience you probably realize that your very high traffic article usually are also in topics with very low value clicks.

So with the Examiner you can cover hot trends and obvious high traffic terms and know that you will earn a definite income. The value of the backlinks to your own articles shouldnt be discounted either. The Examiner payout level is only 25.00 usd, so its a welcome change from the standard 100.00 from most programs.

There are style guidelines and editors to report to as an Examiner.

A quick review of my top recommendations

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