[ad#Google Adsense]Social bookmarking combined with pay based on Adsense revenue share – I had high hopes for Xomba when I first decided to try it out. Unfortunately, we all know what happens to high hopes.

How Does Xomba Work?

Users post either short, 150 word articles called Xombytes or, even shorter, 50-word Xomblurbs promoting a link or website.

Each post is monetized with Google Adsense advertisements. Half of the advertisements on the posts belong to the user, the other half belong to Xomba. In short, if someone clicks on your ad, you get paid to your Adsense account.

Xomba also offers a referral program that pays the referrer 10 percent of the earnings raised from posts added to the site by new users. These earnings come from Xomba’s cut.

The Downside with Xomba – The Pay

I’ve only been posting on Xomba for a little more than a week now. At this point, I have 15 Xomblurbs (the super-short social bookmarks) and 4 Xombytes (the longer posts). Additionally, I have had several posts listed on the front page of Xomba’s Writing Tips and Tricks page. And, how much have I earned? Nada. Nothing, Zilch. Zero.

While I’m sure that the site admin would tell me that I need to give Xomba more time and effort to yield results, I don’t agree. When it comes to residual pay sites, in gauging a new opportunity, I find that the following simple approach very insightful: Add 3 or 4 posts and wait a week. Once I see how the site performs in terms of traffic and revenue, I compare it to past experiences.

I am reasonable, and I do acknowledge that it does take time to build residual earnings with any website, but in my first week, with that much exposure and that much content, I would expect to see something that makes sense to the traffic.

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Technical Difficulties A-Plenty

Since signing on with the site, I’ve noticed quite a number of mistakes and run-time errors that leave me a bit concerned. For example the number of “reads” that my articles generate never matches up between what Xomba says and what my AdSense account details.

Additionally, there have been times when I’ve visited the site’s main page and was unable to navigate past it.

A Bright Spot

Despite the lack of pay, I do have to say that Xomba has been an effective promotion tool. Xomba has referred several visitors to both The Freelance Experience and several of my articles on Suite101.

In terms of a place to house backlinks, I feel that Xomba has been a good investment. As new as The Freelance Experience is, I’ve only been able to develop backlinks on 3 sites, Xomba, myLot and BlogEngage, and in the first 5 days that this blog was live, I found it showing up in the first 5 Google search results consistently with short-tailed search terms.

My Plans for Xomba

In the short-term, I’m going to give Xomba a month before I make a real judgment on its pay potential. On the other hand, it’s pushing a decent amount of content to my pieces, both on The Freelance Experience and on other websites.

Over the next month, I’ll continue to index each of my blog posts and articles with Xomba and track each one with Google AdSense channels, link by link. Next month I’ll publish my results on the blog and reevaluate steps forward.

What’s your 2 cents on Xomba? If you have any experiences with Xomba, we’d love to hear them by way of the comment box!

Photo courtesy of Image*After

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[ad#Google Adsense]Billing itself as a resource for readers hungry for introductory information on every topic under the sun, from business to chemistry to the Kabbalah, Suite101 pays freelance writers to publish content. As a passive income source, Suite is a staple in the portfolio of many serious online freelancers.

How Does Suite101 Work?

It’s fairly simple. Writers publish articles on their topics of choice. Once published, the section editors peruse the articles to ensure that they meet Suite’s quality standards. Articles not making the cut are flagged for edits or disabled.

Unlike sites like Bukisa or Associated Content that work on page views, success on Suite101 relies heavily on AdSense conversion. The more a writer’s content performs, the more he gets paid.

Why Do Freelancers Write for Suite101?

Suite101 offers skilled writers a unique opportunity to publish quality content and earn cash within a supportive and professional community. Because the editorial standards are high, many writers feel that working with Suite rubs off on their reputations.

Other writers also use Suite to strengthen their credentials. Like some other websites, Suite has a couple of tiers for their writers, “Contributing Writers” and “Feature Writers.” FWs on Suite enjoy a higher revenue share contribution, site credentials, a blog on the site and priority placement of their articles.

Also, many freelance writers make decent pay with Suite despite its revenue share model. The key here, as with any website offering residuals for pay, is quantity. The more articles you have on the site, the higher the page views, the higher the probability that someone will click on an AdSense advertisement while reading your articles.

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What’s the Downside?

Revenue share does not pay in the short-term. If you’re looking to make a check quickly or if you’re less than adept at SEO, you won’t be happy writing for the site.

Also, one of the most common complaints of the site is the contract which requires writers to give Suite first-time electronic rights for one year following publication and obligates Contributing Writers to publish at least 10 articles with the site every 3 months in order to remain active.

Another not-so-pleasant part of writing with Suite101 is the amount of time that it takes to craft an article to publish on the site. Because it’s based on a revenue share model, the cost-benefit ratio of the time investment to the financial return does not always seem to make sense. Between the very strict editorial guidelines, finding the obligatory photo and working within their format, it takes much longer to write a Suite article than it does to write an article for Bukisa or AC.

What Do I Think of Suite101?

I’m fairly new to Suite and to passive income opportunities in general, but with what I’ve seen, I plan continue to write for the site for at least the next 3-6 months to see how it develops.

The negative side of what I’ve experienced with Suite so far:

• Sometimes I find myself frustrated with the editorial guidelines.
• I don’t particularly like the idea of not having the right to redistribute the content.
• I hate not having the power to remove content that I’ve added to Suite101
  At times, I question the return on investment for the amount of effort.

The positive side of my experience with Suite so far:

• My articles are getting great traffic with many of them showing up in the first 5 results on Google searches for a variety of keyword combinations
• My earnings are still small but building faster than they are most other revenue share sites that I write on, second only to eHow.
• The support from the editorial staff and other Suite writers has been phenomenal!

Going forward, putting the editorial support to my advantage, I plan to utilize Suite101 more to house a portfolio of pieces more relevant to my career than to rely on for passive income. As one of the few sites where I publish content under my real name, Suite offers the kind of reputation that I can use to build my professional name.

I’ll keep you posted on my experience with Suite101 as it unfolds. In the meantime, if you work with Suite, I’d love to hear about your experiences by way of the comment box!

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[ad#Google Adsense]Of the revenue share opportunities available on the web, Bukisa offers an opportunity for writers to post their work and be compensated based on the number of page views that their content generates. It is a low-end site, with a questionable reputation, but it offers significantly more per page view than its competition, and, in contrast to many other sites, Bukisa does not penalize or reject content published elsewhere on the web.

How Does Bukisa Work?

You create an account, choose your content and publish choosing one of three options for rights. The site accepts not only articles but also video and slide shows.

Pay is determined per “qualified” page view against the “Bukisa Index”, which is essentially the amount of money the website is willing to pay per 1000 page views. This number changes from month to month. In January 2010, the Bukisa Index was $3.49.

Why Do Writers Publish on Bukisa?

It’s easy. The site has very little oversight on the quality or ethical nature of the content. There are no real editorial guidelines and the minimum word count for any submission is only 250 words.

Bukisa also allows duplicate content, work that has been posted on other websites. This allows writers who have previously  published on sites like Associated Content, who have retained their rights, to republish the same work in another venue and make revenue from an extra source.

Another interesting feature of the rights and licensing options on Bukisa is that the publisher can choose to make their content available to others on the web to republish. Some writers take advantage of this opportunity to embed links or information about their own products and services within the content.

Bukisa also offers a useful statistics tool for the content published on the site that allows you to see and analyze where your page views are coming from, which search engine queries and keywords brought visitors to your content and how much each work is earning.

Another bonus that Bukisa offers is their referral program. Unlike AC and Suite101, if you refer new members to the site, you receive a bonus for the page views that the new member drives to Bukisa.

What’s the Downside?

It’s too easy. There is so little oversight on Bukisa that low quality content and plagiarized work is all over the site.

Additionally, Bukisa does not pull anywhere near the amount of traffic that many other revenue share sites do. While Bukisa promises more money per page view, the traffic generating those page views is much less than its direct competition, Associated Content.

What Do I Think of Bukisa?

I use Bukisa primarily to see how my content responds. Search engine traffic is very hard to track on many other sites, but Bukisa makes that information very readily available which makes it easier for me to hone into what content to post to other websites.

I also use Bukisa as a repository for content that I’ve either already sold or posted to other sites or for content that I want to distribute. While Bukisa is not a big earner, every penny counts in my book.

Because Bukisa is loaded with stolen content and low-quality work, I don’t use my real name or any content previously published under my real name when working with that site.

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