Best Way to Make Money as an Online Writer

Online writers are always asking me what I think is the best way to make money writing online. I have to go with blogging. Of course, if the question was about the fastest way to make money writing online, my answer would be completely different. However, there are many reasons I feel blogging is best the best way for online writers to make money with their online articles:

• Content Control - As a blogger, the online writer has complete control over the content of their blog. Online writers chose their topic and write. There are no editors to fuss with. No substandard online articles mixed with your online work.

• No Profit Sharing - As a blogger, you do not have to share your ad revenue with a writing website. Of course, the ad company you chose will take their cut, but a large portion of what you earn isn't given to another writing site.

• Total Responsibility - As a blogger, you are the only person responsible for the success or the failure of your blog. You can't blame others for rating your online articles poorly. You can't say that the website isn't promoting themselves properly. As an online writer, when you blog, it is up to you and no one else.

• Monetizing Options - As a blogger, you decide how you want to monetize your blog. You are not locked into the ad program that a writing site chooses for you. You look search for the ad and affiliate programs that work best for you and your online articles. You place the ads where you want them.

Blogging isn't the fastest way to make money as an online writer, but I feel it is the best way - when you are looking toward the future. When considering the long term, it is hard to beat the income you can earn with your online articles when you publish them on your blog.

Tips for Using Live Keyword Analysis

I couldn't be happier when I use LiveKeywordAnalysis. It is the easiest and fastest way that I have found to tweak my keyword density. This is just a little information about this great tool that is such a big help to me. I find it to be a must for online writers. The purpose of LiveKeywordAnalysis is to figure out your keyword density. It will tell you the exact ratio of the keywords in your online article. Knowing your keyword density is essential for SEO. Too many keywords and search engines will consider your online article to be spam. Not enough keywords and your online article will be indexed incorrectly, if it is even indexed by search engines.

What I love most about LiveKeywordAnalysis is the fact is it is so easy to use. I simply type my online article on a Word document, which I do anyway, and then copy/paste it to LiveKeywordAnalysis. I then type in the keyword I need to the ratio information about and VIOLA! it is done. If my keyword density is too low or too , I add or delete the keyword directly on the page. Once I have the ratio I want, I simply replace the old online article with the new one on the Word document and publish when I am ready.

Another thing about about LiveKeywordAnalysis is that isn't muddled with all sorts of other options and gadgets I do not want. It doesn't tell me how many times I've used the world "the" or the number of sentences are in my online article. I don't use that sort of information for my online work and I don't want to spend time sifting through it to get to the information I want.

Give LiveKeywordAnalysis a try and see how it works for you. I know you will love it as well. It makes SEO much easier and easier it always better, especially when it comes to online writing and making money with your online writing. It will help you get the ratio of keywords exactly where you want it and you will see the difference in where you find your online articles on search engines, your traffic and your earnings.

Online Writing and Taxes

Yippie! You are an online writer making money. Not so yippie is the fact you have to pay taxes on the money you are making from your online articles. Seeing freelance writers are thought of as contractors and taxes are not taken out of our pay, we must take care of this ourselves. As much as everyone hates the thought of dealing with taxes, it is a part of life that we all must deal with. These are just a few tips that can help you deal with paying taxes on your online earnings. [To get all the legalities out of the way, here is the disclaimer - I am not a tax professional or an attorney. You should always contact a tax professional or attorney for your specific questions and needs.]

• Not DIY - Taxes is not a do it yourself endeavor. Speak with a CPA or tax attorney when it comes time to deal with your taxes. Tax laws are always changing and you must stay current. One minor mistake with your taxes and it can cost you thousands of dollars. Leave your taxes to the tax professionals.

• Tax Write-Offs - Take advantage of all the tax write-offs you can. As an online writer, you are using the internet and electricity. Portions of these expenses can usually be deducted from you taxes. If you write from home, measure the amount of "office space" you use. This can usually be deducted from your taxes as well.

• Start an SEP Plan - An SEP Plan is a "Simplified Employer Pension." They are fairly easy to set up. Contributions to your SEP plan are tax deductible and usually exceed the deductions of an IRA. An SEP plan will allow you to save for your retirement.

• Miscellaneous Expenses - Remember to deduct miscellaneous expenses from your taxes. Save your receipts for paper, pens, paper clips and the like. Any additional computer programs or computer equipment you purchase to help with your online writing may also be tax deductible. Gas back and forth to the library and to pick up additional supplies may also be tax deductible.

• Health Insurance - Health insurance and other medical expenses may also be tax deductible. Chances are that as an online writer are paying for your health insurance out of your own pocket, not part of a group plan, and you should do all you can to deduct a portion of that from your taxes.

• Saving for Taxes - Online writers should should save a portion of their earnings to pay their taxes. Depending on your tax bracket, the specific percentage will vary greatly. I recommend saving 35 to 40% of all your earnings to pay taxes. That should cover federal, state and local taxes as well as Social Security and self-employment taxes. Hopefully, that percentage will be higher than your actual taxes. Saving that much money is not always easy, but it certainly isn't as hard as scrambling for the money to pay your taxes when they are due.

Online writers should also consider becoming an actual business. One of the simplest ways to do that is to become an LLC, limited-liability company. Speak with an attorney to see what would be best for you and your circumstances.

As much fun as being an online writer is and getting paid for it, you have to deal with the not-so-fun business of taxes. Speak with a tax professional or tax attorney before you make any type of decisions or try to get deductions. Tax laws vary and are constantly changing and you do not want any trouble with the IRS. It can not be stressed enough - SPEAK WITH A TAX PROFESSIONAL OR TAX ATTORNEY!

Where to Promote Your Online Articles

Promoting your online articles is key to being a successful online writer. Promoting your work serves two purposes - immediate results and long-term results. The immediate results is the "instant" readers your online articles will have. The long-term results are how those page views will increase the chances your online articles will be indexed by search engines. These are just a few different places where online writers can promote their online articles.

• Search Engines - Add you online articles individually to search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and MSN. To add your online article's URL to Google, simply click here and then follow the directions. For the other search engines, simply search "add my URL to" the specific site to find out how to go about adding your online articles. You can also use several different free services that will add will add your online articles to several different search engines. My personal favorite is Jayde. Simply sign up for their free service and start adding the URLs to your online articles. Ping is another free service you can use. They offer a paid membership as well. With the freebie from Ping, unlike Jayde which is limitless, you can only add up to five URLs per day. You will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you see a difference in your page views and, eventually, your earnings.

• Social Networking Sites -  Take advantage of all the social networking websites available. These include Twitter and Facebook. Follow or "befriend" anyone and everyone and post the links to your online articles in your Twitter stream and on your Facebook wall. Remember to interact with others on the social networking sites. Not only will this help you increase your following, it will always help you find topics to write about - topics others will want to read.

• Bookmarking Sites - Use the different bookmarking sites to help you get indexed on search engines and increase the page views of your online articles. Mixx, Delicious, Digg, and Reddit are just a few I use. I also use StumbleUpon, but be careful not to add URLs from the same writing site; they will consider this spam and ban your from using their site. I also use Google Bookmarks and find it to be quite effective. RedGage is a different type of bookmarking site. Not only can online writers add the links to their online articles, you can earn money doing it. It isn't a lot of money, but you might as well make some extra cash when you promote your online articles.

My personal favorite bookmarking site is IMAutomator. As with everything I do online, it is free to use. I can add 10 URLs per day for each account I have with them. All you need for multiple accounts is multiple email accounts - just a hint, one online writer to another. You can purchase the "Pro Version," if you like. My results from this bookmarking site have been so great, I am considering purchasing the upgrade. It is easy to use and lets you decide how quickly your want your online articles to be added. I always go with the 15 days option, unless my online article is seasonal and must be bookmarked quickly. If that is the case, then I go with the one day option. When you submit your online article's URL, it will pull the title, description and tags from that URL automatically. Talk about easy! I love it and love the results - my page views and earnings have dramatically and drastically increased since I started using it. My online articles I have added to IMAutomator are on the first page of search engines, including Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Promoting each and every one of your online articles takes time and effort. It has been my experience that the results are well worth it. Once you set up a routine for promoting your online articles, it gets much faster. Online writers who promote their online articles can go from making pennies each day to making dollars every day. I know because I have done it. Unless you don't want to make money with your online articles, there is no reason not to promote it as much as possible.

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.

Quantity vs. Quality

It seems obvious that for an online writer to be successful, they would need to publish  often. It stands to reason that the more online articles available to readers, the more page views the writer should be able to have. That can cause lots of problems. When writing a large quantity of online articles, it is quite common for the quality of those articles to begin to slip. Just another fine line we online writers must walk. We have to get our work out there and still maintain the highest level of quality possible. Online writers can't just "throw everything against the wall" to see what sticks. We must carefully plan our work.

I'm a "quality girl." I will always believe that one well-written online article will do better than 10 poorly written articles. Unfortunately, the numbers do not support my theory. Many writers do not care if their name is associated with poor writing. They are making money off those substandard online articles and not much else matters to them. My name is my brand (that is another topic all together; for more information click here) and I don't want my readers to see me as a poor online writer.

Truth be told, most readers do not notice the "little mistakes" that online writers make. Because of the informal style of most online writing, the rules of grammar can be bent some. (I think that actually physically hurt me to admit.) Of course, the "screaming mistakes" do get noticed. What is the difference in little mistakes and screaming mistakes? Not a clue; they all scream to me.

Will mistakes, of any kind, drive your readers away? Depends on the specific reader. Some do not mind. Others will be reading something else as soon as they spot the first mistake. It also depends on the type of online writing you are doing. When you are coming across as an expert in a specific area, mistakes will not help you appear to be an expert. If your are writing a "fun read," mistakes may not matter that much. (I felt another pain.)

So, which do you worry the most about - quantity or quality? Both. You must produce the highest quantity of articles that are of the highest quality. The fewer mistakes the better. Of course, all the information must be accurate. For me, it isn't worth the chance. I'd rather write few online articles than to have a reader refuse to read my work because of my mistakes.

Keyword of the Day - Walmart Shopping

The keyword of the day for January 9th is "Walmart shopping." As of this date, Walmart shopping has a CPC of  $93.41. That is a nice chunk of change for a keyword that easy to write about.

I've used this keyword in two different online articles and it is working well for me. One article was about all the things I love about Walmart shopping after midnight. and the other one was about things I do not want to see when I do my Walmart shopping. Those were easy online articles to write and the page views are fairly high. Not only did I find a keyword with a high CPC, but it is something that people are doing and interested in. That is always a plus.

Something you need to remember when using keywords is that they need to be exactly what is listed, but do not need to be in the same sentence. Using "Walmart shopping" as an example, this is one way to pull that off. "I love Walmart. Shopping there is so convenient." Notice how Walmart shopping are together, yet in different sentences? This is one way you can use your keywords creatively. Play with the words and see how you can use Walmart shopping in your online writing.

Who Are You to Give Advice?

I received an email today from a fellow online writer who asked the question, "Who are you to give advice to online writers?" This writer was much more polite than that, but it did bring up an obvious issue. Who am I? How am I qualified to offer anyone any type advice on writing? This is a little background information about me.

I graduated from Smith College with two degrees, one B.A. in English and another B.A. in Public Relations. I began writing professionally in high school. I was "stringer" for a local newspaper. I had several articles published in national magazines before I started college.

After graduation, I officially started my freelance writing business. I wrote anything and everything someone would pay me to write. As a struggling freelancer, I didn't always make the money I needed to survive, so I started doing fund raising and event planning on the side. Because of this, I fell into working as a home stager as well. As my freelancing career began to take off, I concentrated on it and soon my other jobs were practically non-existent.

Well, DUH! That certainly doesn't qualify me to give any advice to online writers. When I graduated from college, the internet was fairly new and I didn't know a thing about it. Nothing about writing in "the real world" or planning events and home staging has anything to do with writing online. This is where there is an odd twist in the road...

My health began to fail and keeping up with clients, deadlines and the everyday grind of owning a business became impossible. I gave it up and concentrated on getting better. I accidentally found a writing website and knew I had to write. I missed it too much. I could write in my pajamas at two in the morning if I wanted and didn't have to worry about anything. It never occurred to me I could make money writing online. That was early in 2008.

Pennies trickled in. Then nickles and dimes. Eventually, it was up to dollars. I got to thinking that this might be a way to support my family. I had met other writers at this website and they were willing to share what they knew about online writing. I asked questions and picked their brains. I learned about all sorts of other writing sites. And, this really cool thing called "blogs." My online writing career was born.

Still don't see how this qualifies me to give advice about online writing? Well, I do it every day. I pay the bills writing online. I've made more mistakes than I can remember or care to remember. Better yet, I learned from those mistakes. I still have a lot to learn, like everyone else. The things that I feel qualifies me to give advice about online writing is the fact that I do it, I am constantly learning more about online writing and, after all the mistakes I've made, I'm more than qualified to suggest to other online writers what not to do. That last one is about half the battle.