Writing for the Web: Be Creative With Useful and Unique Content
If you’re writing for the web, you’ve got lots of competition. It’s a challenge to stand out. However, if you ensure that your content is both useful and unique, you will stand out, and the content you write will get traffic.
Content is king. Good content is what makes or breaks your blog or website. Good content will get visitors and subscribers, bad content or content that is exactly the same as everyone else’s will drive people away. What people want to see is that your content is useful and unique.
Ensure That Your Content Is Useful
Ask yourself what would be useful for the reader.
Let’s say you have been assigned to write about home automation for a home improvement store. Ask yourself what the store’s customers want to know. Do they want to know what types of home automation there are? Do they want to know how to install it? Do they want to know how to upgrade it? Do they want to know how home automation can cut their utility bills? Answer questions like these for your particular audience.
Depending on the assignment useful content can also mean that it is newsworthy, informative or just plain entertaining. How often do you click on a link or continue reading beyond a headline just because it sounds like it goes someplace fun or because it promises to tell you an interesting fact?
Promise to entertain and/ or be useful and your readers will follow you anywhere. Just be sure to leave out the flowery language and run-on sentences. When writing for the web to be useful is to be short and sweet.
Ensure That Your Content Is Unique
Your content is unique because YOU wrote it. No two people will write the same thing the same way.
For example, if you are young housewife assigned to write those home automation articles above, why not write the articles from your own experience. Write as if you are a young housewife who has managed to cut her utilities by having that home automation gizmo installed.
Pretend you are telling a friend about it and write it in the same conversational way. Of course, you’ll use all the technical specifications the client wants (perhaps in a sidebar article or chart) but you can present it in a way that will entertain the reader and keep him or her coming back to the site.
Being unique — in other words, being yourself — is critically important.
Most writers know that it is vital that your work is original and not copied from anyone else. Plagiarism is unethical and when it is discovered, it tends to cast a long shadow over the writer’s entire work. You may well get sued.
By using your own experiences, you can present useful information in an entirely new way.
Keep this in mind when writing for the web or anywhere else. Your clients will love how you keep their visitors coming back for more, thus improving their bottom line, and yours.
Build your writing career, step by step
SYWON190×85″
Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) web writing training gives you highly marketable skills which will build your writing career for a lifetime.
You discover how to:
* Make great money writing simple Web articles
* Develop sites and blogs (using easy, free tools) which you can sell for 12 times their monthly earnings. (For example, if you create a small site which makes you $500 a month, you can sell it for $6,000 and more)
* Create ebooks which bring you in a passive income for years to come
* Develop a successful writing services practice — charge $250 an hour for your writing services
* and much, much more.
Start your new writing life today.
Get Started Writing Online
Online writing is an excellent opportunity for anyone who has wanted to write but didn’t quite know how. It’s never been easier to get a writing career going. Forget the stereotypical starving artist shivering in a garret somewhere; use these tips to get started.
1. Consider what kind of writing you want to do: Do you want to write fiction or non-fiction? Do you want to write short stories, a novel, articles, a book? Do you want to work for yourself or to write for clients?
2. What experience do you already have? If you haven’t written anything since high school, don’t despair: There are plenty of opportunities for you to brush up your writing skills. You may want to take an online writing class, but there are plenty of them available, many of them for free.
3. What subjects do you like to write about? For example, if you are a nurse, you may enjoy writing accounts of day-to-day life at the hospital. (You will probably need to fictionalize some details for patient confidentiality.) Or you may want to write about health-care developments. Likewise, if technology fascinates you, you can write about your experience with the latest digital camera.
4. Once you’ve given these questions some thought, search for online writing opportunities. There are many websites for all sorts of writers. If you write fiction (or want to), there are some sites that give you ideas to write about and that also allow you to post your efforts online (either privately or for review by others).
5. If you write nonfiction, the sky’s the limit: There are article banks that allow you to write articles on any subject (they can provide the topic or you can submit whatever you like). These articles are purchased by clients who use them on their websites. Who gets the money from the purchase? You do, along with the website. How much you get paid depends on the website and the subject (some topics are more popular than others), but this is a great way to get your “brand” established as a writer.
Another option for nonfiction online writing can be found in freelance job sites. Writers can read project proposals (for articles, e-books, website creation etc.) and submit bids indicating how much they would charge to do the project and how long it would take to do it. Working these sites can be tricky because many clients simply choose the lowest bid, but with a little know-how, you can get a lot of interesting, well-paying work.
Still another option is to advertise your services: Set up a website that tells about yourself, the online writing services you offer and some samples of your work. Post ads on Craigslist, internet marketing forums, social networking sites, etc. Don’t forget to tell your friends and co-workers (word of mouth will always be the best advertising).
While it may take a little time to get your online writing career going full steam, if you work at it consistently, you can start making some real money in a very short amount of time. But it will only happen if you get started now.
Are you scared because you’re BROKE? You need cash, fast… Discover how you can sell your services online for cold hard cash, in just 7 days, even if you’re a total newbie
You can get money into your PayPal account anytime you want. Just seven short days from now, you’ll be able to treat the Internet as your very own just-in-time cash machine.
Making consistent money online is a lot easier than you think. I promise you that if you follow the instructions in my “Your Just-In-Time Cash Machine: Sell Your Services Online In Seven Days”
guide, you’ll be making money within seven days. From then on, you can use this just-in-time money-making system whenever you wish.
You’ll feel much more confident, when you know you can make it rain money at any time.
Web Writing: Make Money Now With the Content Bonanza
Want to make money writing web content? There’s a huge demand online for expert content writers, so let’s look at how you can build your business fast, in three steps.
1. Understand Your Buyers: Use Your Creativity
Firstly, think about your buyers.
If you’re just starting out in Web writing, you won’t have any experience to call on, so developing that experience is essential.
Go to the outsourcing sites and get as many jobs as you can. Spend at least two months on this. You’re earning while you’re learning. You’ll learn what buyers want, how they want it delivered, and the kinds of content which are in demand.
In addition to using the outsourcing sites, use your creativity to get Web writing jobs. Jobs are everywhere, and some of them are in your home town.
You can get as many jobs as you want — just pick up the phone and call businesses in your local area.
In the first couple of months, take on as much writing work as you can. You’ll find that each buyer is different, and you’ll be learning with each project you get.
2. A Retainer Is Good for You, and for Your Client
Let’s talk about retainers. A retainer is an up-front payment before you begin the project. Professional writers demand a deposit, and so should you.
As a web writer, you’re selling your time and your writing skills. When someone pays you a retainer, you know they’re committed to the project. Without a retainer, they have no stake in the content you’re providing.
3. Look Beyond Articles: Think of Yourself As a “Full Service” Web Writer
If you start your career by writing articles, as many writers do, leave that behind as soon as possible. Web articles are a commodity, because there’s little skill required, and the market place is overcrowded.
You’ll make more money if you write content for complete websites, so keep learning and developing your skills until you have the skills you need to do this.
Subscribe to Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) – it’s a complete training in making money online
Want to make money online? You can, with Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) training.
Join me, and develop your own home-based business, writing and making money on the Web.
Writing for the Web: Three Tips You Can Use Today
Do you want to write for the web? There are skills you need to acquire: web writing is very different from writing for print. It’s essential that you make your web content easy-to-read and that it produces the results you want.
Let’s look at three tips you can use today.
1. Write Short Sentences and Short Paragraphs
People don’t read on the web. They skim content looking for what they need. This means that if your content is unappealing, without punctuation and with long paragraphs, visitors will quickly click away from your page. Did you know that most web surfers spend just three seconds on each page?
When you write with short sentences and short paragraphs and make your writing easy to understand, it increases the likelihood that people arriving at your web page will actually stay to read it.
But what do we really mean when we say “write short sentences and write short paragraphs”? Basically we mean that you should write as you speak. Don’t waffle, and avoid jargon. In essence: be clear.
2. Realize that Page Titles and Page Descriptions Are Free Advertising
People will arrive at your content via the search engines. They search using keywords. If you don’t include your keywords in your article or other web content, you won’t be found.
However, there’s more to writing web content than using keywords. Your page titles and page descriptions are vitally important. Page titles and page descriptions form part of the code of a web page.
I like to include page titles and page descriptions as part of the material I deliver when I write for someone else; when I write for myself I automatically put them into the code.
When someone searches using a keyword, a page of search results is returned. The page title and the page description are a small, free ad for your content. Don’t omit them, they’re vital.
3. Ensure Your Graphics Are Relevant
Should you include graphics with your web content?
If graphics are vital to the content, then yes you should. For example if you’re selling a product, you need to include plentiful graphics because the reader can’t see and handle the product.
However, be careful if your graphics are merely ornamental. Remember the three second rule — searchers will click away from your content if they can’t find what they need almost instantaneously. If they’re not looking for pretty graphics, and are looking for information, your ornamental graphics ensure that they will quickly click away from your page.
Angela Booth’s writing guides have been created to help you to make money from your writing every day. Join the thousands of writers who are making great money with their writing skills.
Discover the world of Web writing – make a great income writing from home, or from anywhere
Sell Your Writing Online NOWThere’s great money in Web writing. Some Web writers are making $20,000 a month by blogging for a stable of sites. Others are writing articles or ebooks.
Join the Web writing gold rush with Angela Booth’s comprehensive training: “Sell Your Writing Online Now”.
Info Product Maestro: Make $500 a Day with Your Information Products
