- how much money you can earn
- the quality of the content
- the future prospects for the site.
Having said that, I'm going to lay out everything I've discovered about Helium.com, what it is and what it could be for you as a writer.
Earnings
I currently have 56 articles written and earning money at Helium.com. After about a month, most of my articles are doing well in the ranking system, a bunch are number one or close to it, and a few are at the bottom of the pack because they stink.
My biggest earner is an article on insulating your home; it has earned $1.19 in one month, 50 cents of which came in one 24 hour period because it was "featured" on the Helium home page.
In time, these earnings could go up, especially as more people visit the site. But realistically, you're never going to make very much money on Helium. With a 25 dollar minimum balance required in order to request payout, it can be very discouraging to watch the pennies slowly roll in, even after amassing a good amount of quality articles.
Now, some people on the site have written a thousand articles, and I'm sure they're doing significantly better. Some of the most prolific writers at Helium could earn "tens of dollars a month" according to the CEO. But those kinds of numbers will take a long time to build, and honestly, I think your time would be better spent maintaining a blog of your own.
You can post your articles to both Helium and your blog without restriction
So some might say, why not? You'll make a little extra money by posting your blog content on Helium, and by posting your blog's address on your Helium profile you might even get some extra traffic.
But consider that for every view of your Helium article, Helium.com is making the real money while you earn a few cents every few days (if you're lucky). And for what? So you can be grouped with a massive collection of other "writers" who either cannot compose in proper English or simply don't care to?
My final assessment of Helium is that you don't need 'em: not for traffic, not for prestige, and certainly not for money.
The True Value of Helium.com
Helium.com does have it's place in the world of a budding Internet Publisher. It can be a great place to cure your writer's block. Surf around Helium, and when you see a topic that you could have written better, write it!
But maybe you should just post it to your own blog, enriching your blog's content and your bank account, and not Helium.com's.
Helium can be fun when you see your article move closer to the number 1 spot in the ranking system, but it can be frustrating and annoying when you see your article drop 5 spots below other articles that are clearly inferior to yours. And when I say "clearly inferior," I'm being kind. Some of these "articles" are literally a single word answer to some unasked question, not an article by any stretch of the imagination.
The ranking system really doesn't give you much of an idea as to how good your writing is. If some of the contributors to Helium.com rank as carelessly as they write, then the ranking system is meaningless, or worse, a tool by which the masses can anonymously attack better writing when they see it. Not that I'D have to worry about that, but you get the point.
The Future of Helium.com
I don't know whether Helium will flourish in the long term. If their success depends upon becoming a source for actual knowledge, a go-to source that people will turn to when they want information, then I can safely say that Helium.com is a sinking ship.
I wouldn't go there for instructions on tying shoes, or even hitting the broad side of a barn. I have read articles there that say chocolate isn't so bad for dogs, when really, it'll kill them. I mean, it's just plain wrong, and it wasn't even fun to read.
Helium has no real way of filtering content, ensuring quality and accuracy in their articles, or retaining good writers. Helium will never be a reliable source of useful information or good writing, and so will attract only aspiring writers, NOT information seekers. And for the sake of any information seeker who stumbles upon a Helium article, there should be a huge disclaimer: These People Don't Necessarily Have Any Clue What They're Talking About.
Use Helium as a source of inspiration for your own blog posts, by all means, but be aware that Helium won't pay much of anything and won't give you useful feedback on your writing.
