How to Write Profitable Articles Online

I don't have a clue how to write profitable articles for print magazines and paper-based uses, and the following isn't about selling articles. Selling your writing can be a fun way to make money, but it is a difficult field to get into. The other problem is that your income will always be limited by the time you have to write and the number of jobs you can get.

Consider how much a new writer makes for a 600-word print article. I looked at what various magazines pay for such short articles, and it ranged from a few free copies of the magazine up to about $100 or so. Certainly longer articles can be sold for more, but those require quite a bit more work, and sometimes a fair amount of research as well.

On the other hand, look at what you can do with a 600-word article if you have a website or blog. If your site is about body building, for example, maybe you make money referring people to various affiliate products for which you are paid a commission, or you get paid per-click for ads on your site. If the site is based on an interest of yours (that always helps), you can probably write an article titled "Six Top Body Building Tips" in thirty minutes just from your own experience and knowledge.

Once you distribute that article to a dozen or more free article directories, the links back to your site in the "about the author" section will help your ranking in search engines. That will cause your page to have better placement ion the search results, so more people will find it. Those who read the article in the directories can click through to your site as well. Owners of other sites and blogs will use your article, providing you you with more exposure and links (they are required to leave the link active).

Done right, you generate additional traffic. Perhaps the traffic boost from one article results in only a few dollars per month in additional revenue, but that's okay. It can add up to more than a hundred dollars over the years, which is decent pay for your hour spent writing and distributing your advice.

This is how to write profitable articles for online use. The process creates residual income, meaning it will continue to come in automatically long after your initial effort is done. Here are three rules to make sure that you get the best results:

1. Choose good keywords.

Most of the time readers find your article through search engines, so it's important that you target the words they search. Do some research at any of the free sources of keyword traffic information. These will supply you with a list of phrases that are searched, and tell you how often. For example, the keyword phrase, "how to write profitable articles," which I target in this piece, is a relatively poor one, with only about 200 people per month searching it. On the other hand, it contains "how to write," and "profitable articles," both of which have additional search traffic, plus it's easy for me to write about this topic

Target keywords with sufficient traffic, but stay away from those that are hyper-competitive. For example, too many internet marketers are targeting "make money," and "lose weight," but you might compete on ones like "weird ways to make money," or "vegan diet tips."

2. Be sure to properly keyword optimize.

Keyword optimization doesn't have to get too complicated. Include your targeted keyword phrase in the title, the first paragraph, once or twice more in the middle of the piece, and near the end of the article. That is usually sufficient to allow search engines to find it, so searchers can see it in the results.

3. Make the "author's resource box" compelling.

At the end of each article there is usually a paragraph called the "about the author" box or "author's resource box." Don't make it about the author, though. Have one sentence about yourself, and use the rest to tell the reader why he or she should visit your site or blog.

Getting back to the body building example, you might say, "For the single best (and virtually unknown) way to add a pound of muscle this week, visit..." A free "how to" ebook or report offered to the reader can get those clicks as well. Finally, to write profitable articles you not only need to provide good information, but you also need to get the reader to visit your site or blog, so test that link to make sure it functions.

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