Online Writing Tips

Here are a few online writing tips. Even if you were a writer before starting a website, you will have to learn a few new things. Writing articles for online publication is not quite the same as other writing. Mostly these differences have to do with formatting and linking and the short attention span of online readers, but there is one important difference in how you actually use words in online articles.

More About Keywords

When you first start writing articles online, you have to get used to including keywords. I know that we covered this already in a previous lesson, but it needs repeating. There are those who will tell you that you should just write without worrying about optimizing. I disagree.

It is true that the writing sometimes suffers a little from keyword inclusion. How do you put the great keyword "internet marketing article" into an article three or four times and still have it "flow?" The answer is simply that you do your best.

The longer answer is that you try to include the exact keyword at least once, even if it is a bit awkward: "I assume you are reading this internet marketing article because..." Then you include the "parts" of it a few times: "Internet marketing can be in the form of a good article, a series of forum posts..."

Why is this so important? I'll repeat myself again: Nobody will read your article if they have no way to find it. Suppose you have an article about writing short fiction, and it is essentially about how to get ideas for the stories. If you don't have the words "creative writing ideas," in the title and article, those who search that keyword won't find it.

Why would a search engine display your article in the results when many other relevant pages that have those exact words in them? Google analyzes what it finds using complicated but essentially unintelligent algorithms. They’re not smart enough (yet) to know that even though your article has none of the words the searcher used, it is exactly what she is looking for.

Am I saying you should let the writing suffer? Yes, sometimes, but just a little. This is the tough, because we all want to write the best article we can, but the "best" in this case has to mean including keywords that make it possible to find the article. If this was an article, I would have said:

This is one of the toughest online writing tips to put out there, because we all want to write the best article...

I would have done this to better optimize the article for "online writing tips," assuming that was my primary keyword. It is a bit awkward, but it would still read okay, right? (It's almost always a bit awkward to use keywords with "tips" in them, but there are a lot of searches done for these.)

With practice you'll find that you get smoother and smoother at working in those keywords. Need a refresher on how many times to include them and where? Here it is - Put the primary keyword:

- In the title.

- In the description.

- In the first sentence (or at least the first paragraph).

- In a sub-heading - if you have any.

- Three or four times in the article body.

- Near the end of the article.

Other keywords can be scattered throughout the article. You don't really have to think about these if you don't want to. The primary one is the important one.

Use Lists

A list like the one made with dashes above, a numbered list, or any kind of list, makes an article easier on the eyes, and more interesting. On a web page, you can do even better, using side bars, colored headlines and more. You are limited in what you can do with an article, but at least do what you can to keep it readable and interesting.

Continues here... More Tips for Writing

Note: This is part of the book, You Can Make Money Writing. There are links to all the all the lessons/chapters on the home page.

Writing Tips
Sell E-Books
Writing for Money
Writing an Article
Get Paid to Blog
How to Write Articles
Article Writing Software
How to Write Articles

Writer's Block?

What do you do when you just can't seem to get that article started? Start it anyhow!

It doesn't matter if the words won't come out right. To write a good article, start by writing a bad article. Then rewrite it. The process of writing anything at all will get your mind back into the writing mode.

Let me put it another way. Suppose you are sitting there staring at the screen, not knowing what to write. You should already have a topic and keyword. Now just write, "I want to write about... and write whatever comes to mind. Write, "What I know about this topic is..." and complete that sentence. Use any little "tricks" you can to start writing anything. Then, once you are writing, start over if you have to, and write it right.