Writing for Yahoo! Associated Content

Yahoo! Associated Content is another paying site for online writers. I joined them about a month ago so I thought I'd give some information and my opinions about them for others who are looking for credible places to write and hoping to earn a living.

Most sites for writers are either pay upfront or performance pay sites. Yahoo! Associated Content does both. You can submit your article for review to possibly receive an offer of a payment. Then you also gain revenue based on the number of visits your article gets. The upfront payment is very small, most people say between $3 and $5, but I've only gotten around $2+ for my articles. I'm okay with that price though because I submit it for non-exclusive content, which means I can publish it somewhere else online.

The site takes about a week to review your article but you can continue to submit more articles during that time. They will make you an offer which you can accept or decline. If they reject your article, you can revise it and resubmit or submit it for performance pay only.

I usually submit my article there and once it is accepted, I will then submit the article on Constant Content for usage rights. This way, I'm writing one article for two payments.

One thing I like about Yahoo! Associated Content is the fact that you can become a Featured Contributor. You choose an area such as travel or health to specialize in and apply. If chosen, you receive higher payments for your articles and more assignments that pay. You can be a Featured Contributor for more than one subject, but the qualifications differ. Some topics only require some background experience in that area, while others require a formal education.

It's recommended that you publish 10-15 articles in the subject you are interested in applying for before you attempt to be a Featured Contributor. I haven't reached that number yet, but I should get there within the next month. I'll post what happens in the comment section to give you an update. But even as just a regular contributor, I'm making some money and learning more about online writing.

If you decide to write for Yahoo! Associated Content, become active in their forums. Their forums are similar to those found here at Hubpages in that everyone is helpful to the newbie writer. You can ask questions and have your articles critiqued by those more experienced. And it will help you to get more views to your articles.

The greatest criticism I've received from the editors is for picking subjects that are too general. They usually say something like "this subject is too general to be found by search engines". The key to getting accepted and offered an upfront payment is to pick narrow topics. If you find a subject you want to write about, try to pick just one small aspect of it and expand on it. For instance, I like to write about toddlers, so I wrote an article about how to be effective in using the word "no". With a narrow focus like that, I will never run out of topics to write about in that subject.

I've only been on the site for a month, but so far I like what I see. The payments are sent directly to your paypal account so you don't have to wait for a once a month payment. I enjoy writing for them and I like the fact that my articles earn upfront and have the potential to earn in the future, too.