I told you all the other day about how I made a bunch of money writing just a couple of hours a day over at Helium. While I’m not going to go into all of the ways I made my money writing at Helium until the free report comes out, I do want to tease you all a little bit today.
One of the ways I made money writing at Helium was in the weekly contests. Every week, Helium features contests in 10 different content areas. Contest topics range from Roleplaying Games to Visiting Canada (I’m not making this up. A contest is ending tonight on “Visiting Canada.”) Within each topic there are 25 different article titles. Helium members compete by writing to any number of these titles.
Contests run from Thursday through Wednesday.You don’t have to write to all of the titles, and you are awarded points based on how your articles are rated after the fact. First Place in each content area gets $75, Second Place gets $25, Third gets $10, and three Fourth Place winners each get $5.
I know you’ve got questions. What is the ratings system at Helium? What about plagiarism? Is there a way to cheat? Is it a level playing field? Here again, I’ll cover these questions as time goes on. Suffice it to say for today that I’m confident in the ratings system.
So, how can you make $750 in a week writing at Helium? Win every one of the contests, of course.
What’s that? You have other work to do? You can’t write 250 articles in a week and still maintain a high degree of quality? You’re not willing to risk your income on the chance that you’ll win every contest?
And you call yourself a writer.
No, it’s not likely that you’ll enter and win all 10 contests in a given week. I get that. I’ve not done it. I do believe it could be done. I’ve thought about blocking out 20 hours in a single week to devote to Helium to test the theory, and I may do it in time. Maybe one of you will beat me to it, though. If you do, just remember who pointed you in that direction.
So to get you started toward your $750 week writing part time, here’s what I’ve learned about winning the writing contests at Helium:
- It takes 7-12 articles in a category to score enough points to win. Fewer articles makes it less likely that you’ll place, as does writing more articles. If you can get your Helium rate down to 15 minutes apiece, you can write these articles in 20 hours or so.
- Bullet-point list-style articles (using asterisks because Helium doesn’t allow HTML) will almost always get rated higher than articles that don’t have bullet points.
- An interesting opening paragraph and a solid concluding one will push your ratings higher.
- There are often plagiarists in the contests. Check the top three or four writers in the contest on Tuesday. Spend 15 minutes or so googling random phrases from their articles. This doesn’t take long, and it’s almost always worth it. Don’t let that scare you off, by the way. Helium deals with these folks quickly and harshly – again, more on that later.
- Article ratings will often sit steadily until after a contest closes. You might have the lowest-rated article on Wednesday and it will be the highest on Friday when winners are announced.
- Use the leapfrog tool late in the contest for low-rated articles in topics with a large number of articles. This will often give you a boost going into the final stretch.
- Even the best and most prolific writers at Helium, who often win contests, can be beaten. I know, because I’ve done it on more than one occasion.
Now, I’ll be honest with you. There are other things I can tell you about how to win contests at Helium. Com back on May 12 to download my free report, which will contain those contest-winning tactics as well as other strategies you can use to make money writing on Helium.
21 comments ↓
You’re going to make us wait until May 12th? You’re such a tease
I have an account over at Helium, but I’ve never really done anything with it. Now I’ll have to give it another look.
Alright…now I’m interested. Good thing this report is free!
I always heard bad things about Helium. If I can really make money there, then it may be worth a shot. Thanks for the ongoing advice!
Trisha Bartles last blog post..Blog Launch: Makeup Files
@ Colleen – Heh heh heh. Not trying to tease, just to build antici…
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pation.
@ Trisha – You’re welcome. I really enjoy the look of your makeup blog, by the way. Visually, it’s pleasing, which is especially appropriate for a makeup blog, I think.
Thanks Bob! It took forever to find a look I was alright with. Isn’t that always the way?
Trisha Bartles last blog post..Blog Launch: Makeup Files
[...] but really, you want the $75, right? I’ve got tips on winning those contests over at The Writing Journey. Good luck, [...]
Hmmm, ok, I’ll give this a go. You’ve made it look interesting.
Sylvias last blog post..Sylvia’s Sentence
Thanks, Bob. I have wondered about Helium as a venue for writing, and up until now I thought it was kind of scammy. I now see that I was wrong. I will give it a try.
What do you think of Constant Content?
Ellen Wilsons last blog post..Smoking Weeds
I’m sorry Bob. I see that you have answered my question elsewhere on your site. Thanks
Ellen Wilsons last blog post..Smoking Weeds
@ Sylvia – Good luck! Make sure to stop back by and let me know how things are going, or if I can help.
@ Ellen – Hi, and welcome! I have less experience with Constant Content than I do Associated Content (or Helium, for that matter). I’d love to hear your experiences, though! And no apologies necessary. I don’t mind hitting on topics multiple times, it’s not always the easiest thing to find everything someone’s written on a blog!
So, I know you’ve talked about how much time you spend daily writing on Helium, but what about rating? Now that they’re tying pay into rating activity, that’s a time factor consideration for every writer.
Kamerons last blog post..Angels, epic destinies and mutliclassing
@ Kam – I spend about 10 to 15 minutes rating on Helium. That lets me keep my ratings stars up with my writing stars.
I know rating was a factor in pay during the Reward-athon, but I haven’t seen where it matters for regular performance payments yet. Did I miss an announcement or something?
Two issues that have come up…
1) You mention googling for plagiarists but as the pieces are non-exclusive, the submitter might well be the author. Also, I assume the money is coming from people paying for the content they need, so by definition a decent article will show up elsewhere on the web. Or have I misunderstood the model?
2) The way the challenges are set up, it seems like rather than strike out on my own, I should create a “joint” account with other writers, so that there’s a good spread across the articles. If me and my friend do it together, we can write half a dozen articles each without spending a huge amount of time and have a strong chance of ending up on top. No?
Sylvias last blog post..Sylvia’s Sentence
[...] How to Make $750 a Week Writing Part Time at Helium [...]
@ Sylvia – In terms of plagiarism, Helium will double-check any time something appears in two places, as long as a user catches it. In other words, they’ll email the original content holder to verify whether it is theirs or not. About 75% of the plagiarists I’ve found, however, are from Wikipedia. The material has to be yours, which means it can’t be public domain or PLR or whatever.
The money comes from contextual ads. Only marketplace articles are bought and published elsewhere.
In terms of the contests, you could certainly do it however you’d want to. The main thing is that the owner of the content has to submit it. I’m not sure if a “joint” account would violate Helium user agreement, though. You’d have to look into that one.
Great questions, ask anytime!
I don’t have the email any longer, but it sounded like rating stars would be the determinant of “participation” (i.e., being an active member), which is the basis for receiving any distribution of the revenue-sharing pool.
Call yourself a writer? You sound more like a second hand car salesmen. Get a life
[...] How to Make $750 a Week Writing Part Time at Helium [...]
So I’ve been having a go at this – and there’s someone that’s popped in with a lot of high quality articles which have turned up elsewhere. I don’t see how I flag someone unless I am in the rating window – and obviously I can’t rate challenges that I am in .
Have I missed something simple?
Sylvias last blog post..50 words-a-day
(Oh and while I’m asking questions – what happens when there is only one article for a subject. It seems like one shouldn’t waste time with those until someone else submits, as they don’t help your scoring?)
Sylvias last blog post..50 words-a-day
I learned a lot by reading this article.I added your webpage to my favorites and i will make sure i never miss any of your post. I would love to tell you that I am also an owner of a blog, I have sarted it 3 months ago and it is doing well. You may see it at http://anddjournal.blog.co.in/ and give me your comments about that. Thankx for this great content.
I checked my helium earnings this mourning and found out that i won $30.00 in a contest about boxing, i really didnt think i would win, why? because There was a total of 15 articles in the contest, and I only wrote 4 articles, yes that is right 4 articles, and i place 2nd. How i did it, i have no clue, but i ‘m not complaining. The reason why i only did 4 because the contest was almost over and i had to hurry,and couldn’t get all of them in. But this is true guys, I have been a member of helium since 2006, and i really neglected it to actually this year, when i got bored and started writing, i ‘ve written only 5 articles, and entered 1 contest , and i have made 35.00 . not bad just doing this free. Also to point out, i have no rating stars, and i still won, so stars don’t necessarily play a role in winning.
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