What is eHow?

I have only been writing for eHow for about three months, but during that time I have learned a lot,
and continue to learn.
When I started I did not understand how you were going to get paid, or why you were paid in the first
place.

I understand a lot more now, and I would like to pass on what I have learned in the sincere hope that
a new writer can understand the process quicker, and get down to the most important part - writing!

How you are paid
Vistitors to ehow are looking for advice on how to do something. If you have written an article that
answers their question, they will click on your article to check it out. So far, you are not paid
for this. When you first wrote your article, ads were put with your article that pertains in some way
to that article's topic.
So, after the visitor reads your article, and it was helpful, hopefully they will look all around at
the various ads and links, and will click on them to get further information. Now you get paid!
It is a portion of a portion of what eHow is paid for listing the ad, but nevertheless, it does add
up. Especially if your article is found by visitors and what you have written has interested or helped
them. They may even check out some of your other articles, or if you have listed another of your
articles that pertain to the same subject, they may click on it as well.

But, in order for your article to even be listed, Google's search engines has to be able to easily
recognize what the article is about, and it does this in two ways. First with the title of the article.
The title needs to describe exactly what the subject is, in as few words as possible. And this brings
me to the second thing that the search engine is looking for - key words.
In your opening description box, you need to include the title's descriptive words here, and also
within the individual steps. But don't go overboard with this. The better your key words are the more
likely that the SE will figure out what the article is about, and place you in a good spot to be
found by visitors.

Photos in your article
Photos are important, and eHow awards more points for more photos, however, this does not make you
any more money, and neither does your amount of friends. However, in a less tangible way, these do help
in your popularity. The more popular your articles are the more the SE will notice. They also notice
the comments made, in the sense that a lot of comments is a good thing.

There are several places on the internet to find quality photos to add to your articles. The ones I am
listing are free; you just have to sign up with them.
My favorite is:
photobucket.com
I go there and type in the search box what I am looking for, let's say I am looking for towels; pages
and pages of photos come up that pertain to towels. You can type in a phrase as well, such as, I am
so happy, and bingo there are references to this!
You see the one you like, left click and it goes to a screen showing just the one you clicked on. The
easy way to do it for me, is to right click on the photo, a menu comes down and I click on "Save As"
which brings up the place on your computer that pictures are stored, or you can start a new place, by
clicking on new file. Anyway, there are several options, but let's just say you have the photo where
you want it, and you click "Save".
Now when you are writing your article, and see the place to add an image, click the browse, and your
photo place comes up, scroll to find the one you want, left click and it will be uploaded to your
article.
A few other places to find photos are:
dreamstime.com
freeFoto.com
freerangestock.com
freedigitalphotos.com

I will continue in another post. Follow me on the blog, and you will receive updates.
Hopefully, this has been helpful enough to get you started. There is still more to learn.