Hi everybody,

Today, I’m going to talk about writing Xombytes and earning money. There are two types of content that you can post on Xomba (not counting images); Xomblurbs and Xombytes.

Xomblurbs are reserved for those people who like to find interesting articles/websites on the internet and share them with the rest of us. This is the definition of social bookmarking. You write a title, you paste a link, you write a summary of what the link is about. Xomblurbs are a way of saying “Hey you, check this out”. Unlike Xomblurbs, Xombytes take a little more effort and writing skill.

What is a Xombyte?

A Xombyte is an article usually consisting of multiple paragraphs that contain an intro, supporting body and a closing. Xombytes require a tad more research than Xomblurbs, but usually have a much bigger payout (I’ll get to this later) in the long run.

How long does a Xombyte have to be?

Most Xombytes should be a few well written paragraphs. I’m not saying you have to write a book, but think about the articles you read on a daily basis. Whether you are reading about the war in Iraq or a new review of your favorite author’s book it is important to keep in mind that your readers care more about what they read than how long your article is.
Let’s say you pick a topic like “Touring Paris in the summer” your best bet is to figure out what you want the reader to take away from your Xombyte. You decide to narrow your topic down to the top 5 hot spots in Paris (make sure you do your research) and then compose your Xombyte based on those 5 hot spots. For example you could write a short 3-5 sentence paragraph on each “hot spot” maybe even doing it in a numbered list format (readers love lists). Start your Xombyte with an intro then number the hot spots 1,2,3,4,5 and then type out a nice simple close.

The main thing is content not length. Valuable content attracts a fan base. Think about how you search Google or Yahoo for topics. Would you rather read 10 paragraphs of fluff or 5 paragraphs of straight to the point facts. Obviously, this is subjective, but hopefully it gives you more of an idea. Remember content is king.

Writing for a niche and planning a strategy

Ok, so what on Earth are you going to write about? Many writers find this to be the hardest step in the writing process and when you are writing for money it can get even more complicated. Well ladies and gentlemen take a deep breath and relax I have some solutions. The most successful writers on Xomba are going to be ones who keep a little strategy in mind when writing. Some people are going to just grab topics out of thin air and start researching and cranking them out. After a few weeks they are going to run out of topics and feel like they keep researching and researching and researching.

THIS IS NOT A STRATEGY. Sure, it will work for some writers, but it doesn’t sound very fun.

To write with strategy one must think about a) What interests you have b) How you can make it interesting for your readers c) and can you make this a series of related Xombytes. Notice I didn’t make one mention about the ads relating to the topic and if they pay well or will the search term be popular on Google. The 1st rule of working is to have fun with what you do. If you enjoy what you write about then your readers will probably enjoy it more too and they will keep coming back. Of course my friends and I have little competitions and experiments on here, but overall we concentrate on what interests us.

If you have your topic picked out then try to think of a niche, a small group, that you can target. Let’s say you love to travel. So you think about writing about traveling to France. Better yet, you narrow it down more to traveling in France for wine connoisseurs. Talk about a niche… Now you plan out that you’ll write 5 Xombytes about being a traveling wine connoisseur touring French vineyards.

That’s it. Now you can start planning out your first Xombyte. You love traveling, your target market (for your first series) is people who love to travel and drink wine, and you’ve developed a strategy by targeting that market with 5 Xombytes.

So how do Xombytes make money?

Xombytes can pay quite hefty. Assuming you have a topic picked out let’s go visit Google Trends at www.google.com/trends .

Google Trends is a tool that helps you analyze certain keywords and their use on the Google search engine. Try typing in French wine or France wine notice how the volume of search is pretty high.

Let’s take a look at a better tool Google offers for free called the Adwords Tool. Check it out at www.adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Enter the keyword phrase French wineries and then click the get more keywords button. This tool lets us see search volume (how many searches are being done) and advertiser competition (how many advertisers are bidding for this keyword). The higher advertiser competition the better because that means advertisers are bidding more for this keyword or phrase. We can take a look at other related suggested keywords and see how they are doing. This tool is excellent for predicting how well your topic will do. However, keep in mind content is king always remember to write for your reader and not for the keywords. That’s about all you can do with this tool since it’s primarily for advertisers not publishers.

Ready…Set…Write
Now that you have your topic and your Xombytes planned out, not to mention you have a feel for how well they might do on search engines and adsense ads, what else is there to keep in mind?

1. This is not an exact science. It can take time to develop a winning strategy, just don’t give up.

2. Make sure at the bottom of all your Xombytes you add a line like the following: You can read all my articles by clicking www.xomba.com/xombyte/(your username). This will let readers know where to find other things you have written.

3. Do not plagiarize. We will ban you. You could lose your adsense account and google will just send your posts to the bottom of the search results.

4. If you get stumped or need advice make sure you contact us!!!

Can you prove this works?

Absolutely, we give thousands away every month to users. We only make money if you make money, so if we’re in business then it is safe to say people are making money.
Here let me give you some better examples.

My friend and I just started writing a new blog for Christmas toys as the user Toygenius. We’re using his adsense number so he’s getting half and Xomba is getting half. We posted our first Xombyte http://www.xomba.com/hot_toys_for_christmas_2007 August 22, last Wednesday. It currently has over 900 reads mostly from Google. My half has made almost $12 dollars so far!!! It took us about 30 minutes to write that one Xombyte and it isn’t even close to Xmas yet. That’s pretty exciting. We didn’t do anything special with this Xombyte and I even forgot to include the link to our other Xombytes which I should add today.

Now let’s look at a Xombyte that was posted last September http://www.xomba.com/how_to_make_money_recycling_scrap_metal/
It has almost 15,000 reads all from Google Search. It has made $35 this month!!! For an all time $172.00. It makes more money each month! This is because the bigger Xomba gets the better our search rankings.

Pretty amazing eh? Now, like I said it isn’t a science, but if you take time and follow our instructions you’ll be making money in no time. We now have at least two users who are making over $1,000 a month and lots making hundreds. The most important thing though is that you have fun on our site.

Keep writing,

Nick
Xomba Admin