Content Mills and You
Everyone wants an easy way to make money, and in hard economic times people are looking in all directions for revenue streams to combat a weakened economy, international outsourcing and a rising cost of living. One of the many different streams you can choose from in the modern era, content mills have arisen as the content brokers of the 21st century, providing citizen journalists, bloggers and others the opportunity to pick up the banner of writer and make a paycheck.
Content writing for content mills isn’t the writing of yesteryear. While in the past you needed to query a publisher with an idea and then sit around and wait weeks or month for an editor to determine if your idea was worthy or not, these days you can walk in with little to no experience beyond the ability to construct simple sentences. As long as you can use a search engine, research content online and write grade-school level English you can make money online writing.
Writing online content for content farms isn’t the same as writing journalism or creative writing or even writing copy. At the basic level you are going to be filling web pages with random information based upon the needs of various clients who have hired the mill to write the content. You, as the writer, are working for the company to fill the needs of the clients they have. You can consider the content company to be a type of agent, brokering your abilities as a writer and funneling you customized work that suits your particular interests and skills. You could be writing on a wide variety of subjects, all of them fine-tuned to the Internet medium, which means short 400-500 word articles using every-day, simple English that everyone can understand. Keep it simple, stupid is the rule when writing for content mills.
Writing can be a lucrative opportunity if you treat it like a business and work hard. If you enjoy writing about everyday topics ranging across the board and don’t mind doing general research in a search engine you will find content brokers to be a great place to include in your freelance repertoire. Many writers are able to walk into these mills and make the equivalent of $50 to $60 per hour, although it does require some streamlining in terms of technique. Basically, as long as you can put two sentences together and have a passion for writing on anything and everything you can do the same.
Everyone wants to make money for their time, and while you might be nervous about writing for a content mill for the first time understand that when you can make a minimum of $50 per hour writing content for content mills you have a salary that is far beyond what most college graduates have the opportunity to make even after decades on the job. And yet you don’t need any special skills beyond the ability to write basic English and utilize a search engine to research topics on the Internet. Regardless of your background you can learn how to write for content mills within a matter of hours and once you build up your routine and streamline your process you will watch the money roll in.
