Associated Content.review

Associated content was one of the first sites I ever started working for after I decided to become a freelance writer. I signed up for the site a couple years ago along with Hubpages when I started writing as a hobby. Well, after I started to get serious about writing for a living, I remembered signing up for an account on the site. I decided some time ago to revisit it and see it has something to offer.

Upfront payments with Associated Content.

One of the best things about the site is that it offers a gracious upfront payment system. However, after the panda update with Google, Associated Content seems to not pay as much for upfront payment. It has been said that the site to a hard hit for Google rankings. It is true that the quality of an article does not need to be superb to be accepted on the site. Therefore, there is a lot of substandard content on the site. I'm assuming that because of this, Associated Content cannot pay as much for upfront payments as they used to. Upfront
payment with the site used to average about $5 for a decent sized article--roughly about .01 cent per word.

Residual payment with Associated Content.

Photo Credit: bowena

Along with upfront payments, Associated Content offers residual payments for every article that is published. It will pay about $1.50 for every thousand page views. This may not seem like much, but if you get at least one thousand views per article a month times three hundred articles that is a decent extra income. In today's economy, every little bit of money helps. Make sure that each one of your articles is unique and SEO optimized for best results. I will admit; I have plenty of articles that have yet to make it past 30 views. Then again, I have other articles that have 10 times as many views.

It's important to note that Associated Content does not pay upfront for news articles, opinion articles, religious articles, humor articles and poetry articles. Many of these kinds of articles do not gain many views, and Associated Content makes its money from advertisements on the articles. News articles will get a surge of page views at first, but as the news gets old, views will stop coming. However, News articles are a quick way to gain some exposure and popularity.

In all, Associated Content is a great site for beginning freelance writers to start. It will help them get idea of what to publish and how to publish. If you get writer's block, there are assignments that you can claim to write. Some of them pay and others do not. Writing for this site sets the stage for the next phase of a freelancer's career.

Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death - fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.  ~Edna Ferber, A Kind of Magic, 1963