At this point, if you doubt that it’s possible to earn income on the Internet, then you probably aren’t very familiar with the Internet. Whether you’re a writer, graphic designer, web designer, antique collector, teacher, photographer or anything else - it is certainly possible to earn significant income on the Internet.

In this post update, I’d like to cover a dilemma that many online writers face early on - the concept of writing for royalties.

Writing for Royalties

There are blogs and websites throughout the Internet that understand they need to pay writers in order to produce quality content that performs well in the search engines. Google is getting a lot better at identifying high-quality, relevant content, so only the best sites with the best information will end out on top.

This creates a high demand for good writers. If you’re a writer, that’s great! But understand that there are still websites out there that have not come to terms with the reality that good writing has very real value, and you get what you pay for.

Currently there are two popular payment scenarios for online writers - per article or royalties.

When you write an article for a website that pays out a portion of ad royalties to writers, you will receive a monthly payout from that website depending how many unique visitors your article drew each month.

Keep in mind that the rates depend heavily upon what portion of ad revenue are shared with authors, and what algorithm is used. Some websites, like AssociatedContent.com, places “preferred” authors on certain parts of the site that encourage more traffic, and are paid out at higher rates depending on the number of articles you’ve submitted and user rating.

Even worse, Helium.com pays out a portion of revenue that your articles earn, but only if you spend a substantial amount of time “rating” articles on the Helium website. If you stop rating (because maybe you actually have a life), Helium stops paying you and keeps all of the revenue for itself. Helium is, by far, one of the biggest royalty-based payment scams online, which attempts to obscure its scam with a confusing and convoluted payment system.

One of the best websites to write for is Ehow, which recently got bought out by Demand Studios. Ever since the buyout, I noticed a very strong surge in royalty payments. When I investigated my account, I learned that my articles were achieving much more traffic sincet he buyout, and Demand Studios honors a fair and equitable royalty payment system. If you write for Demand Studio’s royalty based system, you are guaranteed to get a fair deal, and you’re guaranteed to get paid.

Earning Writing Income Per Article

On the flip side, you could go with the websites and blogs that pay per article. Demand Studios actually also afters a per-article payment system, but currently the most they pay for articles is $15. For a high-quality 500 to 800 word article, this borders on being a ripoff. However, you are better off sticking with the royalty system for Demand Studios. At an average of $1 an article each month, you’ll make the $15 in just over a year. Then, it’s all gravy so long as Demand Studios doesn’t fold and honors their contracted obligations to pay you royalties for your work.

If you want to advance your pay even further and pay your bills every month with your writing skills alone, you’ll need to try to earn a minimum of $20 per article and up. You can do this on most blogs that pay writers (there’s really no sense in wasting your talent anywhere that doesn’t pay).

Believe it or not, there are loads of blogs that pay per article rates. They pay well if you are an excellent writer and can prove that you know how to write good articles. Check out the Jobs Board at Problogger for an excellent blogger job board. Also, sift through Craigslist for each state and search for “writer.” You’ll find countless online writing opportunities that pay $20 per article and upwards of $100 per article or more.

Keep in mind that the articles that pay more typically require a lot more research, expertise or other additional work (well, you didn’t expect to get paid for nothing did you??)

Final Words

So, it is possible to earn a great income through online writing, but you need to be willing to put in the time and effort - and you need to be a high-quality writer. If you are, there are countless opportunities - certainly more than you’ll ever have time to finish. So choose your work wisely.

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Ryan is a technology writer and investigative blogger. He has been working as an online writer for numerous clients for over 5 years, and now consults webmasters and blog owners about effective SEO optimization. Ryan has 52 post(s) at Free Writing Center