English: Screen Capture of article of front page of Yahoo! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m going to tell you how I get paid for the articles I write and publish. The purpose of this blog post is not to tell you how I get paid. Even though I do that. The purpose of this post is to let you know that you have more control over online content than you think!

How can you exert control over online content?

If you’re like me, you’ve signed up to receive notices in your email inbox or RSS feed when your favorite online authors publish new articles on such sites as Mashable, Huffington Post Arts, Yahoo! Movies, and many others.

You may wonder how authors are paid for their ideas and time researching and writing these articles. The answer may surprise you!

As contributing writer for both Yahoo! and Technorati News I am paid a dollar amount each time someone clicks on a link within my published articles. Those clicks represent my click-through rate.

Who pays me?

Yahoo! pays based on click-through-rate on links within my Yahoo! articles. I also receive a much lesser amount based on the total number of reader views that my article receives. Yahoo! deposits payments into my PayPal account. Yahoo! also provides extensive analytics so I can track my readership and earnings, and via those stats I can easily see what articles and article topics are the most popular and what links receive the most clicks. (Of course I want to get paid for my work, so I consider these stats when planning future articles).

Technorati news has a similar set-up. Since they are closely linked to Google–with all Technorati news articles feeding into Google news–Google pays me. Google pays varying amounts for each click on links within my published Technorati news articles. I track those clicks, readership numbers, and payment amounts per article via my Google AdSense account. (Again, the more success an article brings the more l will want to write on that topic in future articles and promote those articles enthusiastically).

So you are probably thinking that for each article authors must receive hundreds or even thousands of dollars in total clicks–but that is just not the case!

While hundreds or even thousands of readers may read any given article online, the number of clicks on links within an article is generally quite low. This is frustrating to all authors of online articles–even top authors! “We all have that problem,” one top author told me when I asked about improving click-through rates.

Why do hundreds of people read online articles without clicking on those internal links? This phenomenon is something that many experts have analyzed and written about in numerous articles on click-through-rates. This payment structure I have described is why you often see sensationalized,  rather silly or limited value content online—the authors are hoping to find a gimmick that will make their content a hit so that it will go viral and they will receive a large number of click-throughs and high total payment.

So what does this mean to you?

Think about it. Now you better understand the secret to exerting control over what gets published online!  

If you have favorite online authors you’d like to keep around and support, then thoroughly review their articles and click on those article links of interest to see where they go! Share the articles you like best with others via email. Use the share features to post articles to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and other social media site and include comments on why you like the article. You are exerting control over online content with each click and share. With each click you are paying those authors who provide the information you like and value. Your clicks bring attention to those articles, and attention both to the authors and the content subjects.  Remember, Google is watching and analyzing those stats you generate when you click. Google pays authors for each click, so you can be sure that they pay attention to where their money goes. It’s easy to let Google know what you like and value with each click.

You the reader have more control over online content than you think! If you want Google to place more value on art related content then support those authors who write on the arts by clicking on those internal article links and sharing those articles widely.

Want more online articles on your own artworks published?

Authors of articles value a well written press release that provides the full details and includes jpeg images. ( I am glad to receive these from artists.) Now that you know that most authors of online articles do not receive an hourly rate of pay, you understand how important it is for you to provide full details in your press releases and keep your website Newsroom up to date.

One artist, who didn’t even have a blog or website, once told me–“you can go around and search the web for information about me”, when I asked him for a press release.  WRONG! If you don’t have time to write a press release, I don’t have free time to do that for you, and neither do other authors of online content. If you want to become the subject of more online articles, get more exposure and visibility for your art, then it is up to you to organize,  present and provide your information.

Artists and Arts Organizations may send their press releases to me, Marie Kazalia, via email, at: MarieKazalia@gmail.com

SAMPLE ARTICLE: Here is the link to one of my recently published Technorati articles containing artist news.