Do you Leap Frog in Helium?  

I didn't realize they take rating stars away. That stinks and it also explains a lot. I still only have one rating star. I must not agree with the majority either.LOL YEAH! I've never been one to follow the crowd. What does discourage me is the way the articles are rated. If someone doesn't want to read the article all they have to do is click on one of the articles and that is that. What if it was my article they weren't interested in and just clicked on the other one because it was on the left side. You never know if people are actually rating these things or not. I've had two people contact me from Helium when I wrote an article to the marketplace and the articles aren't even ranked yet. I wonder how they can read them. I'm glad to know I can keep re-writing though. I am trying to find out what people on there like. One article I wrote and it was ranked low so I re-wrote it to a format I hated. It was basically an article with one sentence at the top and then all numbers with toys ranked accordingly. Do you believe it did better than the other thought out, well written article? I just shake my head...

Rollo, where would I find that burn article?

I have been advised to rate as far better as opposed to slightly more or more but I confess it is sometimes hard to do that. The tips I have been given seem to be working though because I finally have a rating star. It may help that I have started posting more competitive titles.

I think leapfrogging might be beneficial for really old articles that you want to elaborate on further.

I have seen the opposite advice, to avoid using more or far better and to go for slightly more. Honestly, I don't think any advice works as far as rating goes.

I won't point out particular articles of others any more than I will point you to mine. Mylot is here and Helium is there, etc.

Your so sweet! What if out of 123 articles is ranked 80. LOL By the way if it's ranked 80 can someone send me some tissues and bandaids. The tissues for my crying the bandaids to put my computer back together. I will never touch a keypad again. Never touch a keypad again....

Oh hey, thanks for telling me about the constant content. They've already rejected me though. LOL Seriously and it was even an article that I got favorable comments on from my professional writer following so I was a little surprised.

Hi Mommaj, do not worry about low ranking.
From observing my articles ranking in Helium, apparently your article is ranked in the 50%, then rate against the article in 25%, once your article is rated as better, it will go up to 25%. It will take about 4 days for the rating to stabilise.
Actually it is much easier to get a high ranking for popular titles, because you can read the first few articles and learn the writing style.
The first few paragraphs are very important, must touch the heart of the readers, especially for those love and money articles.
Constant-Content is very strict on grammar. The grammar must be perfect, and you cannot use first person POV. Cannot have a single "I" in the article, cannot have a single "from my experience".
And there is a rule of 3 strikes and you are out. Please do not let them reject your articles 3 times. They will terminate your account.

I like to write to debate topics when I need a writing star ranking boost. I guess that I am very argumentative, so debates work well for me. And that is what it is really all about. You can have two articles, both well-written, but the one that has passion behind it will usually get higher.

On the whole, I agree with trying to avoid a first person POV in anything except testimonials, product reviews and memory-relating articles. It makes it hard to review them, for one thing... I hate to rank someone's personal experience as being less important that that of another person.

When you say reject article 3 times is it the same article or different articles. I may already be out and just don't know it because they rejected two of my articles one for formatting and one for commas which they spelled ocmmas. What made that funny besides their spelling was it was one that the sentences were long and didn't need commas as far as grammatical rules go.

Rollo1 - That's a great point about not being able to rate one person's experience over another. You just have to remember you aren't rating the experience you are rating the way it is written, and how it is communicated to you.

The first paragraph is the most important one because it determines whether or not someone will keep reading. It should summarize the entire article or at least tease the reader enough that they want to find out what happens.

I doubt that people read entire articles when rating on helium which is another reason your lead needs to be really good and set the tone for the rest of the piece.

I am still new to online writing but I have a number of offline bylines. I think it is important for an article to read like you are telling an interesting story but still have a slight formality. Online articles are being read by people all over the world so the language you choose is important.

It seems like some grammar rules have changed over time and not all editors know the difference between editing style versus content so rejections can't be taken personally.

Well, that's my two cents on this thread of the discussion for now.

LOL. WOW for your two cents I have added it to my collection on Mylot earnings and may reach the payout yet. LOL How do you know what grammar "rules" to use with what site? I might have lost my chance at writing for Constant content because they do use good grammar. They use what they think. Of course their typos are worse than mine. LOL

Wow Rollo, debate articles are the hardest of all. Helium doesn't pay for debate articles, so you must be really good to write and earn from ad revenue.
Please forgive me, Mommaj, I forget to tell you about the 3 strikes and you are out rule. Any 3 rejections and Constant-Content will kick you out. So funny to see that you are defeated by the small commas (those tiny little tadpoles).
Canellita, in fact you reveal my secret of rating. I do rate according to the first paragraph or first few paragraphs.
The question I ask myself is that "if this is a book selling in the bookshop, will I buy this book?"
When choosing a book to buy, I just read the front cover, the back cover, and the first page to get a feel of the writing skill. So I apply the same concept to rating, that's why I can rate very fast and maintain 5 rating stars every month.

For the most part the articles are rewritten articles from my other submissions on different websites. I just seem to need to leapfrog some of them because like you said after the ratings settle down for awhile your article might not be in the best of spots. I don't expect my articles to be in the top five on a 30 scale but they should be in the top 10 or 15. I want to get them better though so I think I will leapfrog them. Of course, that can always backfire and the rating will go down.

Sierras236 You're a helium rock star! Congrats on selling all those marketplace articles!

AHHH! so we have a true writer on here. You want to give us some hints? Especially marketplace writer!!! Man you guys are up on everything. lol

Thanks. The biggest tip when writing marketplace articles is to follow submission guidelines from the publisher exactly, even in the word count. Never write in the first person at least for marketplace. Finally, keep trying. Remember, it doesn't matter how well you do in the ratings for marketplace. The discussion is made strictly by the publisher. Good luck.

PS. This is why I love Helium so much. I sold my very first web article there. I haven't been as active lately because of other things so my stars have disappeared.

Glad to hear you can get a steady income from it. I haven't had much personal luck with it but as long as someone is...

Tinkering with old articles is just stalling the creative flow... That's a wonderful point but if you are on a site like Helium to earn money then you have to go back and tweak articles in order to get them on the rating radar. I can't seem to get a writing star but of course my concentration isn't helium at the moment. As far as Helium goes if you want to keep earning money you really need at least one writing star for the bigger payouts. Like you said about others rating it all depends on the mood they are in. They may not even be reading the articles. So who knows what type of position your article will have? That's the only reason I think you should tweak on Helium. I don't tweak on any other website. There is no reason to.

WOW. Good for you. LOL I can't even keep one writing star longer than a day. I'm going to print the page with my star next time I get it just to say I have a writing star. LOL It's okay though my concentration is another website. I just learned of all the changes taking place on that website so I will need to find another one soon. Two people have left that use to do a wonderful job and they won't be replaced. I would like to know where all the money is going because they have cut payments for upfront pay and they just got rid of two employees. What else? I am hoping to figure out Helium or one of the other websites just so I can make some money....