Helium Front Page Results

Last week, as my regular readers know, I made the front page on Helium. It is not the first time that I have made the front page; I have done it twice before. Once with my review of the TV show “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader,” and once with a humor piece about me ignoring my wife’s hints that the house needs to be cleaned.

I have always heard (read) on the community boards on Helium that making the front page is good for some extra earnings. Past experience on my end has resulted in just a couple of extra pennies, and a rush of competing articles that demoted my own article rank inside of its respective titles.

Until last week, that is. My article on “How the FICO 08 will affect your credit score” was the first time that I saw that making the front page does make a difference in one’s earnings. Before this point, making the front page was merely for my “ego department” as Eddie Izzard would describe it.

When I logged in that day, I was surprised by the spike in my earnings. I had looked at my Helium earnings late the night before because I was approaching one of those magical markers, and I was three cents short of it. So there was no doubt in my mind that I had an earning spike.

I didn’t immediately realize why. I had looked at the front page with a plate of eggs in one hand, and a cat crawling onto my lap trying to get them. It wasn’t until I checked my email that I learned that I had a front page article.

So what did I learn from this front page earning spike? That writing on Helium, like everywhere else, is all about Content, Content, Content.