How to Increase Passive Writing Income Earnings: Tips and Advice

You're launched your freelance writing career. You have a little experience under your belt. You're comfortable sitting down and churning out 2,000-3,000 words or more every weekday. But you're not making the level of passive income that you would like. Don't despair. Keep in mind that it takes most writers months, if not years, to build up substantial monthly passive income. Even if you are happy with your current level of earning, there is always room for improvement and growth. Best of luck and happy writing!

I want to clarify that this article is not about either of the following topics:

• Getting started with a freelance writing career. This article is intended for people who already have a freelance writing career and are looking for ways to increase their earnings. It's not about breaking into the industry. If you're interested in starting a career, check out this article.
• Writing for clients and publications. Submitting articles to magazines, blogs, and clients for a one-time payment without any options to earn royalties or earn on ads is not passive income. This type of writing is a great source of freelance income. It simply is not a focus of this article.

Sometimes I feel like a broken record covering this point again and again, but it seems like I really can't ever stress it enough. In a world where high quality digital cameras are readily available and very affordable, it is not hard to take good pictures. We also live in a world with literally thousands of blogs and other opportunities for passive writing income. It's competitive. People simply are not going to bother with poor quality content when high quality content is available. Additionally, social media sharing relies heavily on stellar images. As social media is critical for getting high numbers of views, you must have articles with images that make people click.

I understand that: 1) not everyone writes articles that require a lot of images and 2) not everyone wants to put a lot of work into improving their photography skills. If you frequently write about topics like accounting that don't lend themselves naturally to photography, look for other engaging content to include in your articles, such as infographics, charts, and videos. If you don't want to put effort into your own photography, look for high quality image sources online that allow image sharing, such as Flickr's Creative Commons, morgueFile, and Wikimedia Commons.

Tip: Stay away from titles that are not searchable such as "My Grandma's Favorite Chili Recipe." Instead, give the article a searchable title such as "Slow Cooker White Bean Chicken Chili With Green Onion," and share a story about your grandma and the origin of this recipe in the introduction or conclusion of the article to give the recipe more character.

What is a long-tail keyword? A long-tail keyword is a targeted search phrase containing three or more words. Typically it contains a head term, which is a more generic one or two word search term. For example, you can flesh out the keyword "photography" into "outdoor portrait photography tips" or "wedding photographers wicker park Chicago."

But a large portion of my article traffic comes from Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. Why do I need to worry about long-tail keywords? Many people are weary about the continued emphasis on using long-tail keywords in an age where social sharing relies largely on images. It is common for people to share an article with a personal summary, pitch, or description that doesn't include the original title. Take a good look at your article statistics. What percentage of views are coming from search engines? Even if social media views are higher, search engine views are still very likely to be a significant percentage. Long-tail keywords matter for these searches.

Again, consider the above examples for photography long-tail keywords. Searching for "Chicago photographer" is going to yield pages and pages of results. The person completing this search is likely to meet with potential photographers for a specific purpose (i.e. wedding, senior portraits) in a specific area of the city (i.e. near west suburbs, north side). An article about wedding photographers in the north Chicago suburbs that uses long-tail keywords properly is much more likely to get meaningful, engaged traffic than a general article about Chicago photographers.

There is a reason that virtually every writing platform includes options for adding links and other content (i.e. photos, videos) and altering the text (i.e. bolding, multiple fonts, changing the font size). An article that consists solely of a large block of text is virtually unreadable. An article with paragraphs of text and headings is approachable. An article that also includes strategically placed photos, links, and other relevant content is much more engaging. Yes, these articles packed with relevant content take a lot of time and energy to put together. However, every bit of this effort is well worth it.

One of the biggest ways that you can increase passive writing earnings is to build on previous success. What topics have done really well for you? Do people click on articles with videos more than articles without videos? There is no single factor that is going to be the key to success for every writer. However, with time and experience, you will be able to determine what does work well for you. Maximize this potential.

For example, one of the first articles that I ever published on HubPages was about beadweaving. I put a piece together on a whim for someone who was interested in the topic. Later I decided to flesh out the content and publish it. I quickly learned that beadweaving was a largely unexplored niche with a lot of potential. While some of my beadweaving articles have done better for me than others, overall it has been a successful niche for me.

People are often quick to dismiss seasonal and holiday topics because of the limited amount of time that they are applicable each year. While a seasonal or holiday article will have a peak traffic period, you have to consider the following:

• These peaks can be huge. It is great to have articles that perform well year round, but there is nothing wrong with articles that do really well for a couple months out of the year.
• High quality seasonal and holiday articles often get decent traffic all year round. I might not have believed this if I hadn't experienced it myself, but people search for Valentine's Day card ideas and Christmas stocking patterns every single day. It won't be the same as the traffic during the peak period, but it's still notable.
• If you get enough seasonal and holiday articles in rotation, you'll have high traffic numbers across the board for multiple months in a row. There have been years that I started getting traffic for Halloween in early to mid October that didn't die down until the week after Easter. Having even a couple well-performing articles brings all of your numbers up for a given site (i.e. HubPages, a blog).
• While seasonal and holiday articles can have short runs, they are still applicable the next year. One of the best parts about any well-performing article is that you often have to do very little work to keep the views coming. As long as topics are still applicable from one year to the next, the peaks will return. For example, "Unique Handmade Christmas Tree Garland Ideas" will have a lot more general appeal the following year than "Make Christmas 2013 Great With These Decorating Tips."

It is extremely rare that someone gets lucky and has an article or post go viral when he or she has only published a handful of articles. Most people build to substantial passive writing income by publishing high quality content on a regular basis for months or even years. If you haven't hit earnings that you're happy with yet, don't give up. It takes time, patience, and discipline.

As you keep writing, work on improving your craft. Read high quality articles and learn everything that you can about writing online and making passive income. Consider taking workshops and classes. Set personal goals and challenges to keep yourself motivated.