What Do I Do With Deleted eHow Articles?

Since the news of the eHow shutdown two days ago (in terms of new content via the site anyway) and than an aggressive sweep where many articles are being deleted, many eHow writers are feeling lost. Some are trying out Demand Studios. Some writers are looking for homes for their recently swept articles. Other writers are pulling their remaining articles and some are just looking for a good place to put up craft articles with lots of photos.

About a dozen eHow writers have contacted me today through various channels asking what they should do with content they want to move or that was removed. I’ve considered all the alternatives I am aware of and this is my conclusion – and what I am doing myself with the 5 articles I lost today to the sweep.

We learned that Demand Studios does not allow writer submitted photos, requiring that writers use their own photo bank, for copyright reasons. So this solution allows my crafty friends to post well written articles with original photos with no fear of being deleted or having the photos lost.

Be sure to read How to Save eHow Articles. You might as well save your work for reuse if it gets deleted.

Let me introduce you to Xomba, a writing site based in Jacksonville Florida.

Responsive and Honest: Nick Veneris the Xomba “CEO” heads a small but extremely responsive team. They have a forum, a blog and a contact form you can use. Basically you can chat with CEO, the Moderator, or the Programing guy any time you want to. They recently put in a suggestion forum with issues and requests. You can vote for your top issues there and the team actually updates everyone on the progress.

Nick the Xomba Owner/CEO

Transparent Earnings: Xomba is a 50% Google Adsense Sharing Site. Currently they flip a virtual coin when a viewer comes along and 50% of the time the site displays an ad with your id and 50% it displays an ad with the site Adsense code. If you get a click when your ad is up, you get paid by Google. No secret sauce, quality, usefulness, we can’t tell you anything story at Xomba. Further I understand they are updating to a Google Adsense API model soon. That should have no over all effect on the writer but it will split all the Adsense earnings 50/50. The writer would earn half of every click instead of 100% of 50% of the clicks. Either way there are no secrets.  For help signing up with Adsense see the Xomba HELP article (linked off the main page) on exactly how to get an Adsense Publisher Number and add it to your Xomba profile (you can add it later after you sign up).

Good Page Rank: With a PR5 Xomba quickly indexes articles high in the SERPs. Use a good searchable title and you should do well.  Search Engine Optimize as much as you want when you publish and afterward.  The article URLs include the main words in your title which helps Google find your work.

Related Articles: The site generates a related article list and a list of your latest articles on every page. This help the SERPs, helps the ads get on target, and encourages readers to continue reading other articles that look interesting.  Even if your article does not rank well you will get a little traffic from other articles on site.

Photos: Adding photos is easy. Just use the photo button and upload the photos. You can link photos in or upload and store them in Xomba as separate searchable files that link back to your article. Position the photos where you want, as often as you like and in any size that makes sense. You can turn your photos into clickable links elsewhere. Total freedom.

Links: Add links to what you want, where you want. No separate resource box. Link with an Amazon Affiliate link, link to your blog, link to other articles, whatever you want within reasonable site rules (no links to illegal or dangerous content).   If you are writing a craft article for example why not link to supplies on Amazon and hopefully make some money?  Like a book? Review it and link to it.  Here is an example of a page I wrote around affiliate links: Copper Sink Guide.

No Publishing Issues – Edit When You Want: To date I’ve never had any issues publishing other than a short timewhen the whole site went down for a scheduled software upgrade.   No mechanics on Xomba.

There is no draft mode – you just submit.  You can easily update, add links and photos or add more content anytime you want.

Freedom of Format: You can write what you want and in the format you want. You can add bolding, colors, photos and illustrations, videos, and pretty much do what you want (within the TOS).

Moderation: Friendly Moderation by Kristen Malmed. She will check your very first post to be sure you are not a spammer, and she keeps the site spam free.  So far, with over 500 points, I have yet to see a spammer.  I’ve only got one spam message from a “user” who wanted to marry me so far.

Kristen will likely friend you and she is really there to help the users.

Friends: You can accumulate friends and send Private Messages or Wall Posts back and forth.  You can also rate up (but not down) good articles.

Views: There is a good list of articles with a total views and a 24 hour views count you can see when you are logged in.

Points System: You earn points (no value other than fun) by posting Articles (5 points) Bookmarks (3 Points) and Comments (1 point).  The points are a way of seeing roughly ho much content you placed on the site.

Linking Value:  You get the opportunity to place several inks on your profile page.  You can put an anchored  link in your signature so that every comment you leave includes a link to where you choose. My signature points to this blog and it has been good for traffic.  If you comment, the article owner gets an email.  Most respond with a comment back.  They are likely to follow your link to reciprocate the favor too especially if you say something intelligent.

The Bookmark type of article on Xomba is a great way to build quality links to other content you own.

Help Guides: Clear help guides are available under the HELP tab.

Example eHow Article: If you want to see what an ehow can look like on Xomba check this article on Sanibel Island out.  I put up the exact same text as was on eHow before they swept this decent earner.  It immediately took the same spot on Google for the search How to Get to Sanibel Island as its ehow predecessor had.

Later I plan to dress the article up a bit, add some nice photos, and add extra text, but you get the idea.  For now I just threw it up quick so I could show it as an example for this blog post.    I did add an Amazon Affiliate link that was not in eHow as a demonstration for you.

I like how clean the page looks without the million distractions on the eHow site.

Referral Program: Yes passive income questers, there is a new user referral program.  Your referrer (me in this case) gets 10% of the Adsense Earnings from the Xomba 1/2 of the earnings. That helps pay for my research and writing time.  You get 50% either way, so do me a favor and sign up through this referral link.  I’ll provide any assistance I can to get you going as a writer on Xomba.

Join Xomba here now.

Tagged as: ehow, freelance writing, Passive Income Opportunities, Xomba