Where I've Been Writing: Content Sites

Just because I haven't been posting much on this blog lately doesn't mean that I haven't been writing. I've had a number of different places where I've invested my time and words, so I decided to share them with you this week.

Xomba

I discovered Xomba.com a year and a half ago. This content site seemed friendlier than most, and I enjoyed the freedom to write about almost anything. Sites like eHow and Bukisa had either more restrictions or were more difficult to use.

I posted to the site a lot in fall 2009, but gradually stopped using it. In fall 2010, I noticed my earnings had increased dramatically. It took me a while to realize they were from my Xomba referrals. Seeing the earning potential, I came back to the site, just in time for them to discontinue their referral program.

They've changed a lot of rules lately - increasing word counts and banning promotional material. Their new goal is to become more of a writing community. I'm unsure what the changes will bring as far as people actually reading articles on the site, but it's still my default location for posting new articles.

The articles I've written vary widely, as you can see for yourself:

How to Become a Book Reviewer

The Value of a Backup

How to Get Ready for Last-Minute Guests

Just Dance Overview


WebAnswers

I've dabbled occasionally on question and answer sites like Yahoo! Answers and Mahalo, but I never found one where I wanted to stick around like I do with WebAnswers.com. Most Q&A sites penalize or restrict asking questions, while rewarding answers. WebAnswers rewards both, and on top of that, rewards users who regularly give high-quality answers with additional impressions.

There is a huge breadth of categories of questions to ask and answer. While the freedom the site offers does allow for a few spammy questions to crop up (10 slightly different questions about Facebook mobile asked in the same hour, for instance), they soon disappear as hundreds of new questions to answer arrive every day.

I've answered a few as varied as:

What's a Bronx cheer?

What characters are in all six Star Wars movies?

Why does my Adsense RPM go down?

Question about Book Publishing


Next time, I'll tell you about the one place where I've focused most of my writing efforts over the past six months.