How Is Online Writing Different?

The first time I tried online writing - less than two years ago - I did almost everything wrong. I had no keywords in the headline, a poor resource box, spelling errors and other mistakes. I wondered if it was all a waste of time, but a couple weeks later I started to see traffic coming into my website from the directory where I posted the article.

Then my articles were taken and used by others. I stared to find them on other websites all over the internet. I saw traffic from those sites in my website reports.

Even better, that traffic was starting to make me money from advertising clicks. I had never even considered writing for print magazines, but this was easy and fun. Within seven months I was making a living writing about things that interested me.

Differences Of Online Writing

It is important to understand that the goal of online writing is not the same as that of writing for print magazines. A magazine article is to entertain, inform, and keep a reader interested in the magazine, where the advertising is. Online article writing is meant to get readers to leave the "ezines" or websites where they are reading your article, by way of the link to your website.

It is a crucial distinction. You want to entertain, inform or otherwise give value to readers, but all for the purpose of getting them to click through to your site. A poorly written article that gets more clicks is more successful than a well-written article which doesn't entice the reader to click through.

Attention spans are shorter online. You need to get right to the point in fewer words. The ideal online article length is somewhere between 400 and 700 words. Some article directories won't accept articles that are more than 1100 words. (Don't worry - all these rules and guidelines will all be summarized later in the course.)

Online writing is for "your" readers. Magazine articles have to start by pleasing the editor, and for this they have to be on popular topics. With online articles you can target a few thousand people who share your common interest in rock collecting or whatever. You can then publish your article, get the readers to visit your site, make money from them - all with no rejection letters or anyone to tell you that your topic isn't commercial enough.

Online articles need to have the right "keywords." Writing to target the right keywords is something you'll get used to. You may love to write about "angling" for bass, but if people are typing "bass fishing tips" into the search engines, you better have those words in your article - and in the right places! This isn't as difficult as it seems, but it sometimes makes for awkward writing. More on this in an upcoming lesson.

Online writing results in residual income. It can be tough to get a magazine to buy your articles, and then you get paid just once. An online article might deliver enough traffic to your site to generate just a few dollars per month - but it can keep doing that for many years.

Maybe you see the advantages of online writing, but aren't sure you can write interesting articles. This is a topic for another article, but I can assure you that writing articles is easier than most people think.