Suite 101 or How to do things websites

[Elise]

Anyone have experience writing for these online editions? Just wondering as I am seeing new ones pop up almost everyday with promises like, the pay is well, we cannot say, it really depends...am I wasting my time to even consider these folks?

Or, don't blog on your website, blog on ours and make more money. How does that work? I know, they get more traffic. So, how can we get more traffic on our sites?

[Durant Imboden]

If you scroll back in the forum, you'll find any number of threads about Suite101.com.

[Elise]

I did read some threads, but, maybe I will go back...didn't seem conclusive to me...perhaps it's bc I think the pay stinks, regardless of what the post had to say. I am a skeptic!

[Durant Imboden]

You won't find a conclusive answer because different people have different needs, aspirations, and standards.

I'm an advocate of the do-it-yourself publishing approach myself, but for people who want editorial or technical guidance, who are looking for a sense of "writing community," and who regard online writing as a sideline to their freelance careers or day jobs (as opposed to a major source of income), sites like Suite 101 may serve a useful purpose.

As for the question of traffic, it's worth noting that a lot of traffic on a corporate-owned site doesn't necessarily translate into a lot of traffic for the individual article or even the individual writer. A site like Suite101.com or About.com might get millions of page views per day, but those page views are being divided among hundreds of thousands or even millions of pages.

How can a writer get more traffic on his or her own site? There's no magic solution, but the principles are simple enough:

- Write about topics that interest prospective readers.

- Create pages that search-engine crawlers can understand (e.g., if you're writing an article about doughnuts, have the word "doughnuts" in the page title and headline and save obscure pet phrases like "succulent Saturnian rings of pastry" for subheads or body text).

- Build a "critical mass" of content. (A site with 500 pages of useful information about a topic is more likely to get noticed than a site with five, 10, or 20 pages.)

- Be patient. It takes time to build a successful and profitable business (but it takes no time at all to give up prematurely and fail, as most people do).

[Elise]

Bowing down, to the almighty one.
Wow, that was very much on target, makes so much sense! Thanks, man!

And, I love the last point about being patient and how quickly we can quit and give it all up. It does take time to build a business.
Measuring ROI is a bit tricky these days. But this helps.
And, yes, the lure to join the day job mass and its regular pay is always in my face, as others too, I am sure.

[Durant Imboden]

>>And, yes, the lure to join the day job mass and its regular pay is always in my face, as others too, I am sure.<<

Over the years, I've had several day jobs that disappeared, so the choice between having multiple revenue sources (self-employment) and a single revenue source (a day job) looks pretty easy. :-)

[Donna Desmarais]

Hi,


I write for Suite 101--in Travel and other areas. In fact I am now in Maui for 2 weeks and have written several articles for S101. S101 takes time but eventually it may pay off. I think it is one of the better sites--there are good editors and PVs are good.

If you are a Feature Writer and have 100 plus articles up., you get a 30% Feature Writer bonus on top of the ad click rate. It is a good way to learn the skills that you need to know to start your own site.

Good luck!

mdp

[Mike Gerrard]

I echo what Durant and Marilyn said, including the comment about being self-employed! People on staff used to ask me if I didn't feel vulnerable, not having a job, and in the first year or two I did. But then I saw people I knew lose their staff jobs and flounder around trying to find another one. Today the phrase 'job security' seems almost medieval.

I write for Suite but I also have my own websites, which I'm developing, largely because of some of the things Durant has said here in the past few years. He's right (again, damn him) in that people have different reasons and expectations. I started with Suite because it was, in one way, an education course in writing for the web, which I paid for not in cash but with some of my spare time. I now enjoy writing for Suite, and while the money is not great, it's certainly enough to have to declare it to the taxman. There are other benefits too - being able to write in other areas, publicising smaller companies, thanking hosts with extra articles, that kind of thing.

And only a few weeks ago I learned something on their forum about an aspect of using Google AdWords that I didn't know about, and which was enormously useful for increasing the earnings of all my web writing.

[Elise]

Two things-I am thinking about trying S101, just to know what it is about and take your path of learning how to write for this market called the internet, AKA, wave of future...
Second, you mention google ad words, oh, a topic I REALLy need to learn about and have some on my own website. Any tips? Oh, lemme guess, wait....I should google, google adwords, right? ;)

You all make great points about being self-employed. I left my day job in Aug. 2008, so the income I make is well...what I make and I am hoping to make a decent living doing freelance.

[Durant Imboden]

>>I am thinking about trying S101, just to know what it is about and take your path of learning how to write for this market called the internet, AKA, wave of future...<<

Suite101.com and About.com both date back to late 1996, so the model they represent isn't exactly state-of-the-art. They were based on the concept of "We'll do the technical and business stuff so that you can focus on writing and editing," but they take an awfully big cut of the revenues for what they offer. There isn't anything you can learn from them that you couldn't learn just as easily with a bit of research and do-it-yourself experience.