Xomba's Traffic Converts

Xomba Profits Increasing

Here's the newest update on my Xomba writing adventures. I've had a couple more weeks to watch the traffic from my featured travel articles trickle in, and in the last few weeks I've also been doing a ton of keyword research and SERPs checking to see how many of my other articles and websites were ranking. Along the way, I found several pieces I've written for Xomba that have managed some pretty respectable rankings, especially considering that I have never really marketed any of my Xomba writings at all or worked on getting them backlinks.

My conclusion is a stronger affirmation of what some of my earlier blog posts have hinted at: Xomba is gaining in authority and this is good for any Xomba writer who wants to make more money writing online. The new professional look of the website is also increasing click through rates, which is always fantastic.

While I can't reveal exact numbers due to needing to stay on the good side of Google's TOS, I can say that every time one of my featured articles is posted, my AdSense jumps for 2-3 days (the average amount of time that my article is one of the top two) and then while my earnings decline a little bit, they're still above average for another 2-3 days (the average amount of time I'm on the front page, period) before falling back into the normal range.

This is very exciting news for me, but it's not only because of luck or being featured. So my friends, take some notes because I'm about to tell you some of my freelance writing secrets that I use in order to keep my earnings higher.

#1: Boring photos not allowed. This should be obvious, but I'm amazed how often a good feature article has a really boring photo. A good photograph is a way to grab a reader's attention and drag them into your words. They can't click on the AdSense if they don't even bother to give you a look.

#2: Writers should have interesting titles for their articles. This is a HUGE reason why I think I experience only a minimal drop in income from being one of the two main featured articles to being listed underneath. "Frozen Outhouses in Fairbanks Alaska" and "Relishing the Sound of Silence in Isolated Alaska" are titles that get a lot of attention. They sound interesting, most people are intrigued by Alaska, and because of that I get a lot of attention.

#3: Write about an AdSense friendly topic. This is huge. If you're writing on topics where your cut is only 15-20 cents (even before splitting 50/50 with Xomba), then you're going to be hard pressed to make any money no matter how much traffic you get. Alaska keywords aren't the end all be all of AdSense, but I know from experience that my cut would be about $0.65-$1.00, so I'm getting at least some good value coming back to me from the ads that are going to be displayed around my travel articles.

#4: Try to write one featured article every week. The reason for this should be obvious. You might only be required to write one every two weeks, but if you write one every week, then the majority of the time one of your featured articles is always going to be on the front page. This keeps the AdSense writing income at a higher level.

Those are my Xomba writing tips for now. I hope you find these helpful. My next post, if all goes well, is going to be heart felt as I have to say that one of my mentors passed away recently, and I'd like to have some type of a tribute to him. Until then, keep on writing, don't give up, and if you haven't even started, SIGN UP FOR XOMBA NOW so you can start working towards your dreams. Each article written is one closer to your end goal.

Xomba's Getting Traffic

Featured Travel Article #2

I'm really digging the new design of the Xomba website, and I noticed a major jump in traffic and AdSense earnings the first couple days my first travel article was on the front page. Although you lose the picture once you're no longer one of the two most recent featured articles, the title still remains as long as yours is one of the most recent six featured articles. The very day that I saw my previous travel writing for Xomba was off the first page, I began my second Xomba featured travel article.

My second featured travel article: Relishing the Sound of Silence in Isolated Alaska, didn't have quite as catchy a title as the first article (I mean really, how do you top frozen outhouses?) but it still did very well, and Xomba will show you the total number of views the article received. Even better for me, I watched my AdSense account and sure enough, having a featured article on page one has been worth several dollars a day more, and has funneled traffic to my other sites, as well.

So once again, if you're looking to write for Xomba, I strongly recommend you look at filling a featured author spot. They're getting enough traffic to make being a featured author very much worth your time.

1st Featured Xomba Travel Article

It's Good to Be a Featured Xomba Writer

Well hello again, all, and welcome to this Tuesday installment of my Xomba writing adventures. Folks, if I repeat myself a little bit I do apologize, but it has especially been "one of those months" during an entire year that takes the cake as far as "let's never have one of those again." But there is some really positive news coming from Xomba, so I want to make sure to cover all the main points as I'm flying through.

First of all, Xomba is definitely gaining strength as an authority site. It's not on the same level as HubPages or eHow yet, but it is definitely growing day by day and that is good news for everyone who writes on the Xomba site. This doesn't mean you shouldn't learn SEO or article marketing, but it means that getting your Xomba articles to rank high in the search engines will be a lot easier now than it was a year ago. More visitors = more readers & more $$$.

Second, the new site is now offically, OFFICALLY launched. This is really cool, and I like the far majority of improvements they've made to the site. In addition, it's good to know they're not resting on their laurels, but are continuing to work to improve the quality of the entire site. They mentioned that in testing the AdSense income was definitely taking off, and I can say as an online freelance writer that I've already started seeing the benefit of this.

As another note, it turn out my Canton Football Hall of Fame article wasn't my first article as a featured travel writer on Xomba, because I jumped the gun a little. Still, it's a good article and I stand by it. So this means that my most recent article:

Frozen Outhouses and Other Alaska Winter Adventures

Was officially my first article as a travel writer on Xomba. I included two pictures, one of the inside of my frozen outhouse. The best part about being a featured author is that my article has been on the front page for two days and counting...and the title is definitely getting me a lot of traffic. Right now this is my second most read Xomba article of all time, and I've seen a pretty impressive two day jump in AdSense earnings that I can attribute directly to the Xomba traffic I've received from being on the front page.

The requirement is one article every two weeks...but if my article is off the front page in a few days, you can bet your butt I'll be writing another one right then and there.

If you've been writing on Xomba, look around to see if there is a category you'd enjoy that needs a featured writer. Last time I checked the site, there still were plenty of openings that you could apply for. The contract of one article every two weeks (minimum) will force you to write, while the extra exposure of being on the front page is definitely going to boost the traffic stats. This is easy money for the good writers, so don't be shy. Find an open topic and get featured!

$5 extra in two days (and counting since this day is FAR from over) for a single 20 minute article is all the AdSense proof I need. So good luck, and if you haven't started writing from Xomba I invite you to check out the rest of my blog posts and SIGN UP HERE!

I'm Back and the New Xomba is Here!

Xomba Adventures Blog Update

I know I've been gone for a while, and for that I apologize - while I don't intend for my writing blogs to be daily things, I do very much want to post a minimum of once a week, and generally more than that. In the beginning of July I had a huge family emergency, one that appears to be something that is going to be ongoing for quite some time. Obviously family comes first in times of trouble, and my energy and time had to be spent there and not on my online projects. August is going to be my recovery month as I strive for some degree of normality again.

A few things have happened on Xomba. I did not place in the summer contest, but seeing the winning entries made me realize what the judges were looking for, and gives me a much better chance of writing a quality article more appropriate to what they're looking for when the next contest comes up.

The other major event at Xomba: the new site is up and running. While there are still some bugs being worked out, the new site looks great and apparently the income being generated is more than with the old design, which is good news for everyone involved. I'm a featured writer for Xomba now, as one of their two featured travel writers. This is exciting for me as I love travel writing, and travel writing can be a very hard racket to break into, so having solid credentials as a travel writer aside from my own freelance attempts is absolutely nothing to sneeze at.

In fact, I've already written my first travel article for Xomba as a featured writer:

Visiting Canton Ohio and the Pro Football Hall of Fame

The next one will probably be about frozen outhouses in Fairbanks, Alaska, so stay tuned :)

There was one more comment I DEFINITELY wanted to make about Xomba before ending this post: Xomba is definitely starting to show some authority. It's no Ezinearticles (then again, no one is) but I've seen some of my Xomba articles start getting some very good 2nd and 3rd page Google rankings without any additional SEO at all. This is pretty darn good, and means that with a little bit of link building and article marketing, you could make some pretty decent AdSense money getting Xomba articles onto the front pages of the search engine rankings.

I'm not sure how strong Xomba was considered when I just got started - but they're a LOT stronger now, so this is a very good thing for the future prospects of this site for both the owners and for the writers.

If you haven't started writing for Xomba, I think they definitely have a place in an online freelance writer's portfolio. Go ahead and SIGN UP HERE, look around, and get started on your writing future today.

Summer Writing Contest: Last Call!

Xomba Writing Contest: Last Call

For those of you who are writing or Xomba, or who have just found this today, the 2009 Xomba Summer Writing Contest ends on July 6th. There are great cash prizes of $350 for first place, $200 for second place, and $150 for third place, so it's a great time to jump in and start writing for Xomba. Just remember that each entry needs to have a picture, and the words "Xomba Summer Contest" in the tags. I've entered two entries, and I'm thinking about entering one more before deadline. I'm very happy with the second one especially, and think there's a chance it could do pretty well.

If you haven't even joined Xomba yet, you can JOIN HERE and start writing for a 50/50 split of all AdSense earned on your articles. A contenst is always a nice little way to potentially get some good publishing credentials as well as make a little extra cash, so why not give it a shot?

That's all for the moment, although it sounds like beta testing for the new Xomba website will begin soon, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what the new site will look like and the increased funtionality that's been whispered about. That's it for now. Good writing!

First Submission to Xomba Summer Contest

Entering the Summer Writing Contest

I wrote a Xombyte the other day, my first in order to enter the Xomba Summer Time contest. The theme is pretty simple: write an article of at least 300 words, with a photograph, on what to do to banish the "Summer Time Blues." The rules for this contest are pretty easy to find on the Xomba website, and the best part is that you are allowed to place as many entries as you want. This is a great opportunity to write articles and have a serious shot and some pretty decent prize money.

My first article was about traveling to meet old friends, and the adventures that can come with it. It's not bad, but not great. I know I can do better and will be working to put forward some better submissions, and I encourage anyone reading to do the same.

Thanks for reading!

Freelance Writing Xomba Contests

The Summer Xomba Writing Contest

This is a quick post about one of the nice little perks of writing for Xomba that freelance writers on that site should definitely consider. While splitting AdSense earnings from published articles can be a long process to get the type of consistent results you want, an extra several hundred dollars all at once is nothing to sneeze at. It's definitely a nice bump!

Every so often Xomba holds writing contests, and this is one of those times. The summer writing competition information for Xomba's summer writing contest can be found here at this post:

http://www.xomba.com/contests#summer

This year the prizes are:

1st: $350
2nd: $200
3rd: $150

You can't argue with any of those prizes for a single article, and this can also help be used as motivation to prod you to posting more Xombytes, which will help you increase your summer AdSense earnings, as well.

That's the brief update for now. Everyone writing for Xomba has until July 6th, and all the submissions for the actual contest must have a photo submission with the article. If you're writing for Xomba, I strongly encourage you to participate in this contest, and if you haven't started writing for Xomba, then consider starting today by SIGNING UP HERE!

Brief Xomba Update Before Summer

How to Use Xomba?

As summer is coming up I find a ton on my plate, and wonder in the midst of everything how should I use Xomba as part of my writing income to get to the level of passive income I want? I believe in using multiple income streams, and because of that I have a ton of projects for this summer as I'm pushing myself really hard to get from freelancer who's getting by during recession to having enough residual income (or passive income, if you prefer that term) to not only live comfortably, but to have the security, stability, and freedom of life style that I've always desired, and which is heavily talked about by others like Tim Ferriss in his book: The 4 Hour Work Week (highly reccomended if you've never read it).

So how does Xomba fit into this picture? While Xomba counts as an income stream, the income comes from the use of AdSense or Affiliate Sales, and in the time I've been there, I've seen more success with building blogs for AdSense, and HubPages has been better for both AdSense and affiliate sales, while eHow has been better for affiliate sales and truly counts as another income stream since your share of advertising revenue comes from a split with eHow: not your own AdSense account.

Does this mean Xomba is not worth the time? Absolutely not. But I wonder what the best way for me to use Xomba is. The largest monthly income I've seen reported was $698 after one intense year of writing: not bad at all and nothing to sneeze at. Many people report several hundred dollars a month. There are several things I have noticed while writing for Xomba, some are concerns, some are just observations. Among these:

• While Xomba is somewhat of an authority site, it doesn't have the same level of authority as Squidoo, HubPages, or eHow (or Associated Content, for that matter)
• Links from Xomba articles appear to be "no follow," meaning they don't help with ranking high in Google, but they might still count for Yahoo!, MSN, and other search engines.
• Xomba articles are very easy and quick to write, and even if they are no-follow, they can get links, blogs, and sites indexed into Google - which is still useful
• Xomba does have a very good online community
• Personally I've had more success writing for other sites

That last point isn't blasting Xomba - different writers and different writing styles will do better with some sites than others. This is true of everyone. In my particular case, time spent on eHow and HubPages, as well as my own blogs monetized with AdSense, has shown more returns for the time than my writings on Xomba.

That said, I enjoy writing on Xomba because I can go on topics that interest me, but for which I have no campaign set up for, or I can do a Xomblurb that will help index each blog post on my other blogs with Google - which is huge in supporting my main AdSense income streams.

But I'm looking to move my residual income streams to the next level this summer, and aside from a huge workload that includes goals of:

1. 22 new AdSense niche sites
2. 10 new AdSense/Affiliate micro niche blog sites
3. 151 new hubs on HubPages
4. 310 new eHow articles
5. 10 Click Bank campaigns via Squidoo (think 50-70 lenses)
6. 60 new articles on Constant-Content
7. Write my first 3 e-books & set up sales via Click Bank
   
8. Getting my main writing blog to 100 visitors a day
9. Hours upon hours upon hours of article marketing and link building to gather links for all of these new pages and sites, as well as those already established

These goals are in addition to getting all my weekly freelance writing done, finding extra work on the side to help off set the costs of moving, and oh yeah, moving all the way across the country. There is that.

So since time is DEFINITELY going to be an issue, what is the best way for me to use Xomba as part of my goals of getting to where I want to be by the end of August?

This is a fairly open question, but right now what I'm looking at is the Xomblurbs. Every new blog post, every new eHow article, every new Hub, every new website can get its own Xomblurb - helping rankings in Yahoo! and the other search engines, while also giving me a chance at some more AdSense income. I think this, more than anything else, will be where Xomba can really help me with my goals this summer.

Once the new Xomba site is up, I will also be one of the featured travel writers, which will help me keep my sanity and write some good travel articles (Xombytes). An occasional good Xombyte article on top of all this that can still be used for links and a truly good affiliate product (or maybe a few to help promote my e-books) and I think this is the best strategy for me using Xomba this summer.

More freelance writing with Xomba updates to come.

Introduction to Writing for Xomba.com

Writing for Adsense Clicks: Introduction to Xomba

If you've been looking around online for places to make money as an online freelance writer, then you have probably run into Xomba.com a few times. The first time I saw this website, I have to admit that the design of the website turned me off, and I couldn't decide whether or not this was a website that I wanted to work for. It didn't look overly fancy, and there were a LOT of ads on the pages of the articles. But the feedback I heard was good, so I decided to give it a shot. This is a decision I haven't regretted.

Part of what I've learned from reading quality blogs online and from experimenting with Adsense on my own blogs is that the big block method Xomba uses is used because it works. Having a large box at the bottom also works for good articles, the types that pull the reader all the way to the bottom, and then offer themselves as a possible place to go next.

If you're writing for Xomba, you're writing for Adsense clicks. Xomba splits all Adsense clicks 50/50 with the authors. This means if you write an article, and someone clicks on an ad that makes the site $2, you will get $1 and Xomba will keep $1. This can be a pretty good system for writers who don't want to take the time to learn SEO (though you should, anyway, as this is critical for any aspect of making money online), and freelance writing for Xomba allows pure writers to concentrate on writing. This can also be better than Hubpages, since the impressions split can work against you, although Hubpages do have better internal SEO, and are better for creating websites for display.

At Xomba you write articles and there is no up front payment, but you get half of the Adsense clicks your articles produce while the web pages are automatically optimized for maximum efficiency. Freelance writing for Adsense is difficult (if not impossible) if you don't know SEO, part of which writing for Xomba takes care of. Here and Hubpages are also great places to learn about how Adsense works as you learn. This is especially useful if you are a beginner, and the ability to edit articles and hubs will also allow you to build backlinks in the future - and this is critical if you're eventually going to make a lot of money online.

To get the most out of writing online, you need to learn SEO, but if you've already decided stubbornly not to, at least do this much to get the most out of freelance writing for Xomba: whenever you decide to write an article, Google the term to see if there are advertisers. If you're going to write an article on area rugs, then Google "area rugs" (without quotes) to see if Google has any advertisers. The more Google Ads you see, the better a topic that is.

If there are no ads, consider a different topic. You will make the most money out of articles that are based around terms or keywords that have a lot of advertisers competing on Google. Just doing this simple step, only freelance writing Xomba articles around keywords with Google advertisers, will put you way ahead of the game. This is how you get the most out of writing for Xomba, and even if you refuse to go beyond that, the basic idea of SEO is finding the keyword terms you can rank for that make money.

Writing Xomba articles that you know have ads that match the content is the best way to get making money online with Xomba.

Otherwise the basics of Xomba are simple, but note the difference between "Xombytes" & "Xomblurbs." Beyond that, enjoy writing for Xomba, and have fun when the Adsense clicks start rolling in!

Welcome to Freelance Writing Xomba Adventures

Freelance Writing @ Xomba

Welcome to my blog, entitled "Freelance Writing Xomba Adventures." I will post continually on this blog to keep readers up to date on my various writings with Xomba, my thoughts on writing for Xomba, and any other advice I have. Xomba pays its writers by splitting all Adsense clicks 50/50 with the author, which makes this a site where it may be possible to build the type of passive income that allows for true independence as a freelance writer.

If you're interested in checking out Xomba for yourself, following along, or competing with me, then SIGN UP HERE and begin your Xomba writing adventures, as well! Thanks for reading.

The Writing Man Drifter.