Helium is a paid writing website which offers up-front payments, residual income and a great place to write additional topics which may not be completely at home on your blog or website.
If you’re serious about making money online through your online writing and using Helium as your platform, don’t miss these tips and tricks to get the best out of it.
Go with what you know
We all have subjects which we know extensively about. For example, here on Murlu I talk a wide range of topics such as small business, blogging, marketing and freelance writing. On your own blog, you may have chosen a niche which not only interests you but has become part of your daily routine to learn more and write about it.
On Helium, take this passion for a subject and drive home with it. Write about what you already know.
Helium breaks down into various categories and will often have many titles (or suggest your own) related to your niche.
Because you already have a great understanding of the topic you will be able to easily write articles based on your prior knowledge and experience.
Go with a trifecta approach
Helium provides three great options for writing articles:
- Write for existing titles
- Write your own titles and articles
- Go for the marketplace
It’s important to keep a variety with your writing. Think of it like diversifying your portfolio.
When you write for existing titles, you’re up against steep competition but because so many are going after the title, it will already be in a competitive market, driving up traffic and leading to increase in revenue for you.
When you write your own topics, you will not only be able to be the first but Helium also pays you an additional bonus for starting a topic which becomes competitive. This up-front payment goes up over time as your star rating does which leads to additional revenue for topics you’re already considering to write.
Finally, the marketplace will often have articles which you can write for a direct, up-front payment. These articles can fetch you a pretty penny but will be very competitive since the high payment.
The trick to taking a trifecta approach is to:
- Suggest a few titles on your own to gain up-front payments
- Go after competitive titles, build authority and drive up residual income
- Shoot for the marketplace to earn the big dollars
There are a few additional ways to make money through contests but in terms of having reliable ways to make money on Helium, the three presented in this section are the best.
Break your comfort zone
Perhaps one of the best ways to make money on Helium is to go after topics and titles which you normally wouldn’t touch.
For example, I write a lot on business during my time at Helium which does have decent amounts of traffic but other topics such as relationships, dog training and many other niches which are very popular online will bring in some really big bucks.
You can earn quite a lot of money if you can reach high rankings within these highly sought after titles.
The only downside is that you’re going out of your comfort zone on topics you may not entirely understand. Luckily, thanks to Google, you can always learn more about the subject and turn around a great article in the end.
Treat your articles like a blog post
We all understand the importance of interlinking on your blog. Interlinking helps readers find additional information related to the topic, drives up page views and potential revenue.
When writing on Helium, take this same approach.
If you write extensively in one topic, go through and find previous articles which can fit neatly within your newest.
As a bonus tip: Create an excel spreadsheet of all of your articles and tag them accordingly. This spreadsheet will allow you to quickly scan through and find other articles to interlink.
Through proper interlinking, you’ll be able to drive up views on your articles which directly translates to additional passive income.
Join a mastermind group
A mastermind group can come in many different forms:
- BUZZ GROUP. These groups helps share your articles with the web. In return for sharing others content, there will be an equal trade of promotion between members of the group.
- TACTICS GROUP. These types of groups regularly discuss new and exciting tactics to gain the best outcomes for your goals. Everyone in the group is expected to present new tactics to help drive traffic, increase sales or accomplish any number of goals the group requires
- SUPPORT GROUP. Support groups are fantastic to keep inspired and productive during a large project. These groups will often be presented to help improve your writing, give you new ideas and support you along your quest to gain passive income.
Mastermind groups are fairly easy to create. Google Groups allows you to quickly create a mastermind group which only the members can join and discuss topics.
Treat it like an extension of your blog or website
Chances are, when writing on Helium, you’ll be talking about subject you already cover on your blog or website.
The one mindset you should develop is that Helium now becomes an extension of your blog: share these articles with your community!
You’ve taken the time to write about topics people love reading about on your blog so go ahead and share it as if it were actually part of your blog. This will not only give additional information to your community but members will help share your articles thus driving up your passive income.
Additionally, you should treat your articles on Helium as you would with your blog posts. After each article has been written, bookmark them on social sites, retweet them and craft backlinks. With each new backlink and traffic you send to your article the greater chances you’ll be able to build a steady stream of traffic which converts to passive income.
Final thoughts
There are many ways to get the best out of Helium but it can only be accomplished if you break the mindset of “writing elsewhere”.
If you write frequently, build backlinks, write relevant topics and share your articles within your community you’ll quickly build authority, ranking and revenue through each new article.
I hope you found these tips helpful if you decide or have already started writing on Helium. If you have any other tips or tricks, please share them in the comments below.
Image by ronnie44052
Great post, Murray.
I hadn’t known about Helium until recently and this post really breaks down how it works. I’m going to start submitting some articles to Helium from a eBook that I never published. This is a great introduction for others into the world of article marketing. Thanks.
That’s a perfect way to go about things Kevin.
Since you already have articles written and just sitting around, Helium can be a great place to put them to great work!
Thanks Murray, helpful stuff! I really like the idea of putting work out there and creating both a passive stream of income while promoting yourself. I think Helium could also be helpful if you have an area of knowledge that doesn’t fit in your blog niche. That way you can still benefit from it even if you don’t want to start another blog.
Exactly Jennifer!
There’s always those topics that you’d love to write about but don’t really know where it will fit into your blog. With places like Helium you can still get all the information out there and not alienate your readers.
Thanks for the support!
You seemed missing the link the Helium? This is a great chance for freelancer
Woops, I went ahead and included links in the post now so if anyone needs
Good summary of Helium. Thanks. Great suggestion to treat it as an extension of your blog and interlink everything.
Hey Murray,
Overall, having an extension of your blog on other topics is absolutely fun to do. I’m just reading over the terms and getting myself familiar with the environment before I go all out. Love it!
Great explanations, I’m more aware of what I’m getting into. I liked that there’s a voting system and a hijacking possibility
Oh yeah, since this will be a lot of articles, do you know of any content management software that can store, track or even submit these articles for us much like those rewriting programs do. That would help out with the organizing part. I’ll be on the lookout but otherwise, I’ll use Excel as you’ve mentioned.
I’m not entirely sure about content management systems for writers – I think a lot of my organization has come from my music collection which has extended to articles haha. But, if I can track down this one program Tammi sent me I will be sure to pass it on. In fact, Tammi and I were talking a little bit about just that thing: a management system for freelance writers. I have a lot of it written down and would love to move forward with it over time; I’ll need to consult with a programmer
I’m glad you’re enjoying the experience overall Thu; the community is really helpful, I’ve received a lot of feedback on my writing which has helped to improve it. I’m sure you’ll experience this as well over time!
Great Post Murray. Some great advice there.
I never though of this.
Thanks for sharing this great Post.
And Congrats on winning the 2nd place on melvin blog contest;).
~Dev
Thanks for the congrats Dev and same to you – was unexpected and came at a perfect time
I have been part of Helium for a while but I never really tried them after my initial two articles were rejected for being too similar to work on my blog.
Might be time to give them another go.
Yeah Dean, it would definitely be worthwhile to look back into it now that you have your blog up and running. It really seems that just writing articles becomes even easier because when blogging you have so many different things to take care of; writing on Helium is just so straight forward which is a nice change of pace.
Hey murlu…
Very nice tips.
I didn’t know about helium till I read about it in your blog.
Looks like helium is something that is worth looking into.
Thanks again buddy.
Thanks Adam, already it’s been a great experience. The two official days since starting this project has already shown a dramatic rise in passive income and the starting of a great habit!
OK, It’s 1 oclock in the morning – but I just skimmed over this post after reading Thu’s latest and there is too much to take in now, but I’m pumped for you AND I am looking into it myself too – hence the quick hi, awesome post from what I skimmed and I WILL be back soon to continue this conversation.
How you going mr 1000 articles?
Thanks for swinging by Alex – the 1k project is chugging along (a little behind because I’ve been visiting my GF more often) but otherwise it’s really taking off! One recent article actually hit nearly top rankings for some highly competitive words but have since slipped back – I’ll have to step up link building to the highest earners over time (perhaps when the project is done).
I have a new post about the project coming up which should help everyone out – not just those participating
stay tuned!