Internet Writers Walk a Fine Line

As all of my readers know, I love the idea of making money with my internet writing. I've been a professional writer for over 20 years and that is what I do. I also love helping other internet writers make money with their internet writing. It is my way of "giving back" to those who helped me get where I am today. However, there are certain causes and issues that are close to my heart. As a "niche-less gut writer," I write about those causes and issues. I make money off the internet article I write about them.

"How do you justify taking advantage and exploiting of the victims of the Westboro Baptist Church by writing about them and making money off them?" an email I received recently asked.

Excellent question. I am writing about their horrible encounters with the Westboro Baptist Church. I am making money off those encounters. How can I justify that? It is a fine line that internet writers (and all writers) walk. The purpose of writing is to educate, inform and entertain. And, of course, to make money - for those of us who write professionally.

That question has made me pause and consider my true motives for writing about the Westboro Baptist Church as well as other issues and causes that make up my writing portfolio. Is making money off the pain and suffering of others my main objective when I write about the causes and issues I feel strongly about? If it isn't my main objective, how heavily does the money weigh in my decision to write about them? Thankfully, I didn't have to ponder those questions too long. I know my heart and I know my motives.

Truth be told, I made a huge mistake in writing about the Westboro Baptist Church. I never really considered the money I would be making. I got mad. I thought about what they were doing and I got even madder. My anger at those "failed humans" completely overrode the business side of my brain. I knew I would page views. I knew that people would be reading my articles, but that is where it ended. I wanted the truth to be told and so I wrote.

I am going to continue to make mistakes when I write about the Westboro Baptist Church. I'm going with my gut and with my heart. I won't go back and tweak the keywords which is what a good internet writer would do. Whatever travels from my brain down through my arms and fingers onto the screen is what will be published.

That, too, is a fine line I must walk. I know that when I write straight from the heart that is shows on the screen (or page) and there is nothing I can do about that. Those "straight from the heart articles" usually do better than my others. I call that "accidental and unintentional money."

I suppose I could stop writing about things I feel passionately about to maintain some sense of integrity as a writer. If I did that, I would no longer write about politics, animals, my family, the elderly, my faith...The list would be never ending. I would become a "fluff writer" without any substance. That is when I feel I would lose all sense of integrity as a writer. I make no apologies for writing about those topics. Whether money is made off those internet articles is not the reason I write about them. I write about them because I'd go (even more) insane if I didn't. 

This blog has been about making money as an internet writer. I am also ashamed to say that. Not once have I addressed the emotional side of writing. It has been all about writing for money. I truly apologize for that. I have left out the real reason that real writers write. That real reason is because we have a thought or a feeling we can't get out until we put it into words.

Despite the fine line between writing from the heart and making money off those causes and issues, that is what we must do as internet writers. Writing fluff is fine; there are reasons to write internet articles like that. Writing those heartfelt internet articles and making money off of them is also fine. We must each find our own moral compass and go where it leads.

The Secret Formula for Internet Writers

"...I am just about desperate here....I have been reading and re-reading your blog. I have been writing online (feverishly) for over 2 years. I get that residual pay takes time. What I don't get is what I am doing wrong....I try writing about timely/popular subjects...excuse me for mostly writing from my heart but that is what I do. Can I not expect to earn money unless I figure out the "secret" formula for success?"

The above is a message I received yesterday from a fellow internet writer. My heart went out to this writer. I've been there, frantically looking for "the secret formula for success."  The one thing I have learned from years of internet writing is that there is not one secret formula. There are several formulas, none of them secret, that must be mixed and matched with each other to fit each individual internet writer and their internet articles. These are just a few of those formulas I've discovered:

• Write Every Day - Internet writers must write every day. Whether it is published or not, we must produce new content every single day. This is part of honing our craft - improving our work. As internet writers write each day, we must see improvement. Internet writers must learn from their mistakes and not repeat them.

• The Devil is in the Details - Yes, it is true that the devil is in the details. No one is writing "War and Peace" or "Gone With the Wind" for the internet - it is all short snippets that will fit into our hectic lives and crazy schedules. Despite this, internet writers must weigh the details that will fill their "snippets" and make their concise and clear internet articles even more concise and clear.

• Original Only - Internet writers must produce original internet articles. We can't being writing duplicate or "almost the same" content as others. With millions of internet writers out there, we must put our unique spin on everything we write. The personality and spirit of the individual internet writer must shine through. The only way I know to do this is to write from the heart. If you aren't writing from the heart, you are missing the boat and the potential of a profitable career of an internet writer.

• Trial and Error - All writing, especially internet writing, is trial and error. My "writing philosophy" is quite simple: Throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. What works for one internet writer may not work for another internet writer. Yes, there are rules all internet writers should follow. Think of the old Air Supply song..."I know all the rules and I know how to break them and I always know the name of the game." The name of the game is "Making Money" and, as internet writers, we must break some rules to win that game.

• SEO - Always have SEO on your mind. I have Post-It notes on my edges of my computer screen, reminding me of SEO. Internet writers can't forget that SEO is what gets their internet articles indexed by search engines and increases your page rank. Without both, you will struggle with earning a living as an internet writer.

• Keywords - As with SEO, internet writers must be mindful of keywords. Use them and use them wisely. Use the keyword tools available to internet writers online. Pay attention to the specific keywords you use and their ratio in your internet articles. Avoid using too many different keywords in individual internet articles. Use trial and error to find the mix that works best for you.

• Branding - Internet writers must brand themselves and their work. This is key; an internet writer must be remembered by their readers. Develop your specific brand and stick with it. Use that brand to increase your readership. As your readership increases, so will your earnings.

• Promotion -Internet writers must promote their work! Never count on getting indexed on the first page of major search engines. This does happen and it happens often, but you must promote your work to help the search engines pick up your internet articles. Use Twitter, Facebook, Digg and other forms of social networking sites to increase your page views. The more page views you have, the more like you are to make money.

If I had "the secret formula," I would have it in bottles on shelves everywhere and the internet would be saturated with this formula. The formula would have a pretty bow on it and a nice price tag. I don't formula. Personally, I don't think it exists. You will see so-called formulas all over the place. Many of them will have giant price tags on them. Please don't fall for it. The internet is always evolving and changing; our internet writing should do the same. Because of that, those secret formulas are often outdated and obsolete. What what last year or last week may not work today, tomorrow or in six months. As internet writers, we must learn to adapt and change. We must hone and craft, constantly "putting it out there" for the world to read.

Limiting Your Keywords

For internet writers, it is all about keywords. We need them to survive. Without keywords, search engines would not index our internet articles. We would not be able to have a great page rank. The SEO would sink. Internet writers would be writing for themselves - with few readers and little revenue. Despite the need for internet writers to use keywords, those keywords need to be limited. No, I'm not talking about keyword density. I am talking about too many keywords in an internet article.

An internet friend of mine recently asked, "How do we get 'win no fee,' 'Coffee AM,' and 'wrongful death attorney Los Angeles' in one article?" For the record, as of the date publication, the CPC for "win no fee" is $241.35; the CPC for Coffee AM is $127.73 and the CPC for "wrongful death attorney Los Angeles" is $73.73. She was joking, of course, but it did bring up an interesting topic - limiting the individual keywords in an internet article.

How do you do it? Well, you don't. Unless you are writing a schizophrenic internet article that is "all over the place." Instead, you would write three different internet articles. Each on of those articles would concentrate on of those keywords. Even though you could mix "win no fee" with "wrongful death attorney Los Anglees," your internet article would do better only one keyword.

I'm sure your thinking "But this blog post has lots of keywords in it." It has a few - keywords, internet writer and internet articles. However, my goal with my blog is to have it indexed according to several keywords. I am not particularly concerned with this one post being indexed. That is a luxury a blog has as opposed to one internet article.

The tip of the day is to limit your internet articles to one keyword and limit your blog to several similar keywords. This will help get indexed by major search engines, increase your page rank and the internet article's SEO. Please don't think of it as more work; think of it as helping with the quantity and quality of your work.

SEO - On-The-Page Help

One of the ways that search engines decide how to rank your internet articles is by what they find in your internet article. Improving your page rank can be as simple as editing your internet article to improve it's SEO. These are just a few ideas that will help you increase the SEO value of your internet article:

• Keywords - Remember to always use keywords in internet articles. It is best to plan your internet article ahead of time so you know which keywords you will be using. Use these keywords as "tags" or "labels." This will help the search engine "spiders" to find and index your internet article and increase the SEO value of your internet article.

• First 50 Words -Search engines love the beginning of your internet article. In fact, many search engines pay more attention to the first 50 words your work than the rest of it. It is important that you include your keywords at least once in the first 50 words of your internet article. Those first 50 words not include the the title or the header of internet article.

• Keyword Density - Keyword should be between three and six percent. That means you should use your keywords three to six times in every 100 words. Check your keyword density to ensure that you are getting the best SEO available. I wrote more about this topic in a previous post entitled Keyword Density-Finding the Right Mix for Your Online Article . I also wrote about using Keyword Analysis Live in this earlier post.

• Internal Links -As you can see from my previous paragraph, I used the keywords of this blog post in the actual hyperlink. This will increase your SEO. Instead of the typical "click here" hyperlink, I used my keywords to direct my readers back to a previous post. Search engines will notice that and it will increase the chances of my posts being indexed by search engines and the page rank of my entire blog.

• Original Content - The best way you can take advantage of SEO is to use original and quality content in your internet articles. Search engines work hard to "weed out" duplicate content. Despite what you might have heard, there aren't really penalties for duplicate content - other than not getting indexed and lower page rank. With all of the internet articles it can be difficult to create completely unique copy. When you write for a writing site where the articles often have the same titles, use synonyms as often as possible. Move your paragraphs around to make your internet article as different as possible. Whenever possible, change the title as much as possible.

These SEO tips may seem quite basic, but many internet writers forget to use them. I am guiltiest of not using my keywords as my hyperlinks. So, we all have specific areas that need a little work. Use these tips increase your SEO and see how much it will help you get your internet articles indexed by search engines. Then, watch as your page rank increase.

Curve Your Competitive Nature

Writers are a competitive group of people, especially internet writers. As internet writers, we all want the "good keywords" that are the most "searchable" and that will attract the highest paying ads. We want our internet articles to listed first on search engines and have the highest page rank. I have a little news flash for you...The internet is big place and there is enough room for all writers. Writers, yes; hacks, no. There is not enough room for hacks anywhere in the writing world, but that is completely different topic. With the limitless possibilities of topic we can write about, we should learn to curve our competitive natures and do all we can to help to help other internet writers.

I love sharing what I have learned along the way of my writing career with other writers. I also love it when other writers share their thoughts, tips and tidbits of advice with me. I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have in the writing world, especially the world of internet writing, if not for the help I received along the way.

I am writing this in response to an email I received. I was asked why I share my writing secrets with the world and if I thought that could damage my future as a writer. I share because it is the right thing to do, a sort of "pay it forward" for all the help I've gotten in the past. And, to make money, of course. You didn't think those Google ads and links to Amazon products just showed up on their own, did you? I'm not kind and wonderful! As for damaging my future as a writer, I have done the best I can to brand myself and my work. I have a unique voice. I am not a niche writer so no one can push me out of a particular "slot" in the writing world.

As internet writers, we need do all we can to perfect our craft and to help other internet writers do the same. The better we all look, the better the world of internet writing will look. That is a win/win situation for everyone. Instead of hoarding the information we have that will improve our internet writing, we need to pass it on to any and every internet writer that will listen and learn from it.

Focus Your Blog

So, you want to be a blogger? You've heard or read that blogging is a great way for an internet writer to make money and you are ready to get started. With all those ideas floating around in your head, along with the dollar signs, you feel as if you can do anything. Well, you can. Within reason. You've heard "too many cooks spoil the broth." The same holds true with being blogger. Too many ideas can ruin a great blog.  And, blogger. The key is to being a successful blog is to focus to your blog.

Focusing your blog is fairly easy. Think of all the topics you enjoy, have knowledge about and would want to write about until the end of time.  For me, obviously, that was writing. Use the Google Keyword Tool to find "searchable" and profitable keywords for those different topics. Create a blog centered around one of those topics and get started blogging. As searchable and profitable as all bloggers want their blog to be, it is more important to select a topic within your area of expertise and something you feel passionate about - passionate enough to write about it for many years.

Staying focused is a horse of a different color. One blog post leads to another and that one leads to another. One day you look at your blog that started out being about "gardening" and now you have a blog about how your children do not like to eat vegetables. How did that happen? You had focused your blog and it never should have happened. More than likely, you weren't disciplined enough to keep your blog focused or the topic you selected was too broad.

Gardening, at first glance may seem like a great topic for a focused blog. Then again, there are rose gardens, vegetables gardens, gardens that grow well in your area and your own garden. Remember flower gardens, rock gardens and tips about gardens. The possibilities of that one topic is not so narrow now. You should have a topic of your blog that is narrow enough not to become "cluttered" with other topics yet not narrow enough to limit yourself to a few posts a month or year.

Once you decide on the narrow yet limitless blog topic, you are almost ready to begin your career as a blogger. Stay tuned for information about creating your actual blog, ad placement and the like. There is a long to do list you must go through before you are ready to actually start blogging.

Google Keyword Tool - Just the Basics

I have mentioned the Google Keyword Tool in previous posts. I have gotten several emails about this. Many of my online readers have never heard of it and, if they have heard it, they don't know how to use it. Internet writers are missing a wonderful opportunity when they aren't using "the tool." This tool will help internet writers pick keywords to use in their online articles.  Sit back, take a deep breath; it isn't as hard as it might sound. These are just the basics to using the Google Keyword Tool.

Think of a topic you would like to create an online article about. It doesn't matter what it is. Concentrate on the words that you know you will repeat in the online article. For the purpose of this post, I will use "coffee" as the topic of the article. Pull up the Google Keyword Tool and type in "coffee," without the quotation marks.

On the far right of you computer screen you will see a rectangular box entitled "columns." Click on that box. You will see all sorts of options as how to customize your columns. I recommend that internet writers only click on "global monthly searches" and "estimated avg. CPC."  Remember that "CPC" stands for "cost per click." This is NOT the amount you will be paid when someone clicks on the ad. This is the amount that the advertiser pays Google when someone clicks on the ad.

To the left of the columns box you will find "sorted by." Click on the box next to it and check "estimated avg. CPC." This will allow the results for coffee (the topic of our pretend internet article) to be sorted from highest CPC to lowest CPC.

Now click the "search" box which is located beneath the "word or phrase" box. The results for the keyword coffee will pop up. At the time I am writing this, the results from the Google Keyword Tool list "coffee am," "green mountain coffee" and "green mountain coffee roasters" as the three words (phrases) with the highest CPC.  The highest CPC is $117.10 - for "coffee am." Scroll through the search results for coffee and find the keyword(s) that will best work with your internet article about coffee. Remember that at the bottom of the page you can also add more rows, up to 100.

Start thinking about the internet article you will be writing about coffee. How can you incorporate the keywords you found? Keep in mind that you want to use the keywords with the both the highest CPC and the highest global monthly searches. If you were going to write an internet article about where to buy coffee, "coffee am" is the the obvious choice.  Coffee AM is a website that sells coffee.

Not quite what you were wanting for your online article? It is time to brainstorm. Try "expresso," "caffeinated beverages" or "hot drinks." Keep brainstorming different options until you find something that will work for your internet article. You can even change the slant of your internet article to fit a more profitable and more "searchable" keyword.

Keep in mind as you use the Google Keyword Tool that you want to write a quality internet article! Internet writers should always write about what they feel passionately about and not what is most profitable. (Look at me! I'm writing about internet writing and internet writing. I feel passionately about it. If I was only "in it" for the money, I would have chosen a blog topic that is more "searchable" and more profitable.) Your passion will shine through and draw readers in. Also, you need to remember that Google is personalizing the ads - the subject of ads your readers have clicked in the past will follow them to your internet article no matter your topic. Internet articles will still have some content-based ads, but as many as before.

Now write your internet article. Remember to use Live Keyword Analysis to get the correct ratio. For more information about this, please read my previous post about using this great tool. Do not force the keywords. Let them flow naturally. You can always go back to the Google Keyword Tool to tweak the keywords you have used in your internet article.

Keyword Density - Find the Right Mix for Your Online Writing

I received an interesting email last night. It was simple, concise and to the point: "How much is too much?" I emails back, asking how much of what is too much. My answered arrived just moments later. Again, it was short and sweet, "Keywords." Ahh, I understand now. How many keywords are too many?

Excellent question. Not  enough keywords in your online articles and your don't get indexed properly by search engines and you won't get the ads your shooting for. Too many keywords in your online articles and the search engines consider your work to be "spam" and won't index them at all. There has to be some sort of middle ground, but where is it?

With all of my searching, I have yet to find the magic number - the perfect ratio that will send your online work to the first page of all the search engines and get the ads you want. When I first started learning about keywords, I thought "less is more." I was such a "real world/non-online writer" at the time. "Less is more" is the standard when writing "out there."

Boy, was I wrong. I wasn't getting indexed and I wasn't getting the ads I wanted - errr, needed. Seeing my error, just like a driver trying to avoid a car accident, I over-compensated. My online work was so "keyword heavy" it read awkwardly. No ads and no first page on the search engines. Like the over-compensating driver, I avoided one accident and created another one.

I wasn't pleased. My online work was scripted and cold. I wasn't making money. I was going no where fast. So, I did my research. I read everything I could about keyword density. That made everything as clear as mud. There were as many keyword ratios as there were experts giving advice about keywords. I read everything from one percent to 12 percent. Some said it didn't matter; others said keyword density was all that mattered.

I have since learned that a good ratio is somewhere between three and six percent. Although nothing in online writing is chiseled in stone, that is a good ratio to strive for. Personally, I like to keep my keywords between five and six percent, leaning to closer to six percent. My work is getting the ads I want and, more importantly, my email inbox always has Google Alerts in it - telling me Google has picked up another one of my online articles.

There is no magic number. Because of this, I've learned to "play with keywords" in my online writing. If I'm not getting indexed on search engines or I'm not getting the ads I need, I will add keywords when my ratio is under 5.5 percent. When my keyword ratio is over 5.5 percent, I edit out the keywords. I keep playing around with it until my online article has been indexed and I'm getting the ads I was striving for.

Dying to know an easy way to figure out your keyword density? That will be in a later post. I've found some great tools for that and I'm using them to see which one I like the best.

Keyword of the Day - Idiot Proof

The keyword of the day for January 10th is idiot proof. As of this date, the CPC for idiot proof is $105.62. That is a great CPC for something as versatile as idiot proof.

I could wax poetic for pages and pages about using idiot proof in your online articles. The ways you can use idiot proof are endless. Add idiot proof before almost anything and you have yourself a topic to write about. Here are a few ideas:

• Idiot Proof Writing Topics

• Idiot Proof Home Decorating Ideas

• Idiot Proof Valentines Day Gifts

• Idiot Proof Ways to Make Money

• Idiot Proof Diet Ideas

You can idiot proof almost anything. Get creative and have some fun as you use idiot proof. Remember to do a keyword search for the specific topic you are adding idiot proof to. Find keywords that will have a high CPC and global searches with little competition before you write your idiot proof online article.