When Yahoo bought out Associated Content, they quickly renamed and re-branded it to Yahoo Contributor Network or (YCN). This instantly made Yahoo one of the largest content producers on the Internet. Using the Yahoo Contributor Network, anyone can freely publish just about anything with the click of a mouse. This can include submitting your articles, videos or photos to Associated Content or any one of Yahoo’s partner sites. And the best part is, you get paid for it. This opens new and exciting opportunities if you are a freelance writer, or a business looking to promote yourself by finding new audiences, while earning revenue.
So How Does YCN Work – Getting Started
The ‘Sign Up’ application process is pretty much standard, asking you for your profile details. Make sure you include all of your current online websites, your Twitter and Facebook profiles (including all other relevant networks.) Also make sure you give accurate detailed personal information as well as your exact areas of expertise. YCN will then use that information to determine which contributors you will be assigned to, as well as which assignments are available based on your profile. They can include local assignments such as neighborhood business reviews or community/social reports. Linking to blogs and websites and online profiles will help extend your network both inside and outside of YCN’s community, helping you further succeed.
Submitting Your Content
Your content can be submitted immediately after the registration process. When you are submitting, make sure you optimize: the title, the description, use relevant tags, photos and other pertinent information in your article, including links etc. Like any website or article intended for SEO, you should be optimizing how your content will be displayed and indexed in the search engines.
Steps To Optimizing Your Content
Make sure that your content has the best chance of survival, which determines the number of page views you receive, which dictates your earnings.
• Choose your keywords and phrases carefully in the title, description, tags and the content itself. The easiest would be using Google’s External Keyword Tool, to select the keywords with the highest search volumes for your topic.
• Images are allowed, however, YCN is rather specific in their guidelines when it comes to using images. If you use Yahoo’s own public gallery, it should be instantly approved, but anything other than that, unless they are your own personal images, the process will be delayed. So as time is of essence with YCN, consider skipping images.
YCN’s editors will manually read and review your first three content submissions that you want published. Depending on the type of payment option you’ve selected, this can take up to 2 weeks, so be patient. After they are approved, then any content after that will be published immediately.
Getting Paid For Your Content
You will get paid by YCN in two different ways:
• Up-front Payments and
• Performance Payments, both via PayPal.
Up-front Payments
When you select Up-front Payments as the option when you submit your content, the review process by YCN can take anywhere from 10 to 14 days. The payment amount will also vary. An “offer” is made ranging anywhere from $2 to $15. Once it’s accepted, the content is then published and will be eligible for performance payments.
Performance Payments
Performance payments are paid based on every 1,000 ‘legitimate’ page views that your content receives. The amount of payment will range depending on where Yahoo decides to publish your content. Associated Content itself pays out the highest at $1.50 for every 1,000 views, while Yahoo Sports at this time pays the lowest at $1.10 per 1000 views.
Each publishing contributor will also have their own “Clout” score, that will increase as you publish more articles and the page views increase. More “Clout’ will result in higher payments.
When it comes to your content being distributed, you as a publishers will also have several options to choose from.
• Exclusive refers to Yahoo owning the rights to your content once it’s published. The content you submit must be unique and cannot been published previously, it also cannot be republished by you once it’s submitted to YCN.
The ‘Exclusive’ option offers the best chance for the highest payout, as well as receiving better distribution, which should lead to higher performance payouts.
• Non-Exclusive means that you as the content publisher, are free to publish your content anywhere. Non-Exclusive content is however eligible for lower up-front payments, as well as a lower performance payout.
• Display-Only Content is content that may have been published previously, or you can republished it or remove it from Yahoo’s Content Network at any time. This content isn’t eligible for up-front payments as well as having the lowest performance payments.
YCN For Your Business
What can YCN do for you if you own a business? Although it will vary from business to business, there are a few universal opportunities that may be beneficial to you.
Your unique content should be viewed as a commodity on the Internet. So if it’s shared across the Web, then you should be able to benefit from it by you embedding your product, brand or business into the content. When writing your article, consider addressing a news issue or concern regarding your particular industry or niche as your content. Then include your businesses ‘link’ in the article as a reference for a potential solution.
Should the content you submit to YCN go viral, you will obviously increase the visibility of your business or product exponentially. It can potentially reach thousands upon thousands of readers who were not previously aware of your company, product or service. Also, depending on where YCN decides to publish your article, you should also gain some credibility in the process as well.
Think Local Or Go Global
YCN is lately focusing on local content. They are sending out offers from their ‘Assignment Desk’ requesting for content on: local business reviews, local areas on interest, or how tasty locally baked goods are. This opens up a tremendous opportunity for local businesses and services.
Yahoo has gone as far as recruiting neighborhood journalists and local bloggers.
For Example: One YCN content publisher, after submitting just a few basic articles, shortly received around four or five offers at around $10 each to cover or review local businesses and topics.
So if you’re a local business owner or a service provider, YCN gives you a reason, as well as an opportunity to share your expertise, knowledge or review directly to your community.