Lessons learned from a year writing on Triond

I first signed up with Triond in May of 2009 after researching many different online content publishing sites. Like many others who had come before me, I was hoping to be able to make money with Triond through my online writing. Initially I had hoped my 20 years of experience as a newspaper journalist would help me jump to the top of the pack of Triond writers, but while I've done okay, I wouldn't claim to be the best or even the most prolific writer on Triond.

My first lesson

 

What did I learn first on Triond? That getting views for one's articles is no easy task (and views are important because that's how you make money). Sure, I've signed up for plenty of social and linking networking sites such as StumbleUpon, Reddit, SheToldMe and others. Those sites do help, sometimes tremendously, but there's more work involved in gaining viewers than just adding a link to some site. For one thing, you have to spend time on those sites commenting on others' links, making friends, being social and hanging out; if you don't, you're not likely to get very many views.

It also doesn't hurt to utilize other writing sites, such as Bukisa or Gather or RedGage or other sites, because on most sites you can link back and forth between articles which can help drive traffic from one site to another. The key though is not to put a bunch of links in your articles, especially ones that are not appropriate, because this will look like spamming and will drive readers away. Two or three article links at the end of, or throughout, one of your articles is generally appropriate.

Quality isn't everything

 

When it comes to Triond, quality writing is not the key to success. I learned that very early. So what is the key to success? Quantity can help, but it's not a given having a bunch of articles on Triond will necessarily bring you a bunch of readers.

What draws readers are articles that are interesting to them. Sometimes such an article can be a simple how-to article, or a health article. Other times it can be an article that's tantalizing, the practically screams weirdness or unorthodoxy. It takes some experimentation here to find what works best for any given Triond writer; health articles and articles about writing tend to work pretty well for me, but I've also had good luck writing about movies, firearms and sometimes goofball stuff that just popped into my head one day.

Sorry, but I've seen no evidence that fiction or poetry does well at all on Triond. If you are using Triond in hopes of making money on your poems or short stories, it's probably not going to happen. Still, Triond can be a good place for beginning writers to get feedback on their writing.

AdSense

 

Thank all that's holy for AdSense. I have used Google's AdSense for my blogs, but my online earnings really took off a few months ago when Triond began allowing its writer to earn from AdSense in their Triond articles. I easily make three times more money using AdSense with Triond than I do with Triond alone.

I know some who report having bad experiences with AdSense or who don't like some of Google's rules, but so far I have no complaints. Each month my earnings on AdSense have been double what they were the month before. I hope that trend continues.

Focus

 

Since making money through Triond was and remains one of my goals, I've also learned that publishing steadily on Triond helps to increase my readership (and thus my money intake). While I said above that quantity isn't so important, I will backtrack a little and suggest publishing at least one article a day does help to increase viewership.

I've noticed that if I go several days without publishing on Triond, overall my general number of views will wilt. But every day when I publish at least one article, the viewership of my other articles tend to go up some. I'm not sure if this is because readers are checking out my other articles or if those who publish often on Triond are given some kind of deference. Either way, writing and publishing every day does seem to help.
But what doesn't help much, at least in my experience, is publishing ten articles a day. Yes, it helped early on when I was starting at Triond, but over time it seemed if I published a bunch of articles in one day, I would end up getting fewer viewers overall.

A goal, then, should be to keep focus, to try to write and publish at least one article every single day.

Writing for money

 

I want to add here that while I do write for money, I don't write ONLY for money. I write because I like to. And because I'm decent at it. I'm also experienced at writing and editing. As I've said elsewhere, my professional experience as a writing might not always shine through on Triond, but that's because I allow myself a huge amount of leeway on Triond that I wouldn't in other, more professional venues. Why? Because quality isn't everything on Triond. Remember?

In closing

 

These are just a few of things I've learned on Triond during the last year. I've learned plenty of other lessons, such as that the Triond forums are pretty much a waste of time unless you're just wanting to hang out and shoot the breeze with some folks; the forums will help you to make friends on Triond, but they're not usually going to net you a whole bunch of readers to your articles.

But as I said, I've learned other lessons. To go into detail about them all would triple the length of this article, and I don't want to put you, the reader, through that. But if you are another Triond writer who has a question, please feel free to send me an e-mail or private message and I'll answer the best I can. I don't consider myself a Triond expert, but I don't mind helping other writers, so much so I've even created this blog for online content writers.