3 Content Mills I’ve Worked On
And which one’s the best
I want to share with you three content mills I’ve worked on (and which one’s the best). Included, I’ll be talking about:
Payments
How to get on the platforms
Positives and negatives of each
So, let’s get to it and see if one of them is for you.
The HOTH
The HOTH is my number one content mill (in my experience). The pay is $0.03 per word which is pretty decent by most content mills standards.
You have to complete a writing sample of 500 words to get accepted to The HOTH. But bear in mind, it’s an SEO platform so it can be quite difficult to pass especially if you’ve had no experience with SEO writing before. A word of advice: just stick to the guidelines and do the best you can.
Before writing for The HOTH, I had no experience writing SEO. But like anything, once you get into it, you’ll get the swing of it.
You get to write on a range of topics (there’s a job board to choose from). If a client likes your work, they can send you articles directly to write.
I mostly found myself writing about health and fitness, solar energy, dentistry, painting contractors, and pest control companies. But for you, it might be different. Choose what you like and you’re best suited to.
One negative is they currently aren’t looking for writers as the job pool has gone low. But do keep an eye out on The HOTH’s career page for openings for writers. If you can snag the job, you’ll learn a lot about writing (and not get bad pay too).
iWriter
In the beginning, iWriter was pretty fun to write for. The jobs were pretty easy and you’ll fit into one of the following writer levels (tiers):
Premium
Elite
Elite Plus
Once you pass the writing sample, you’ll most likely get pinned into the Premium tier. There, pay is around $0.012 per word. When you graduate to Elite, you’ll be getting paid around $0.02 per word. Elite Plus is about $0.04 per word but it’s very hard to make it there (I’ve got a 4.9 out of 5 average rating over more than 280 articles and I’m still an Elite writer).
The good thing about iWriter is that you can write faster than on the HOTH and when I was in the Elite level I could almost make the same amount of money. The jobs are fun and don’t generally require a lot of requirements such as keywords like you get with SEO writing.
The downside is that iWriter has taken a dip lately and there are hardly any jobs available. I don’t know what the future holds for iWriter in terms of job availability but right now the job board’s scarce.
However, that being said, I’d still go for it and get a little experience outside of Medium where you have to write what’s being asked of you rather than what you want. It can take you out of your comfort zone.
You can apply here.
Crowd Content
Crowd Content was my introduction to content mills and getting paid to write outside of Medium (where I used to write consistently).
If you pass the writing sample and get on board, I’d sign up for emails so that you get sent when jobs become available. At that time, you had to get in quick which is what I’d advise or you could end up going that day without writing on the platform at all. Complete a few jobs, get your hand at the ready, and you could grab 5 for the day though. But… be quick!
Well anyway, that’s my experience with Crowd Content. I don’t write there anymore so I’m not sure what the job availability’s like at the moment. But hopefully, it’s better than before. If it’s the same, it’s not that bad of a place to get your introduction to paid writing which starts at $0.012 per word and then when you reach the next level it’s $0.02 per word. You can (but I didn’t) make it up to the 4th tier which is around $0.66 per word.
The HOTH might be the best of the bunch but go where you can apply right now — iWriter or Crowd Content. Find your feet in the world of content mills then progress on to freelance work.