How to write online: my tips on writing for the web

1. Choose your theme. This seems obvious, but I still see writers who just don't know what to write about. So they write just about everything and get nothing back for their investment (time and money). If you look at people who earn money on the web, you'll notice they are all kind of experts on something. They have a niche (or more niches). Find something you are interested in and believe you can write interesting articles about.

If you are passionate collector of toy cars, you are probably able to write several articles on the subject. I am passionate about fairy tales and I am certainly able to write hundreds of articles about them and related stuff. I am also willing to invest additional time in exploring, what leads to next tips.

2. Research your theme. Let's say you decided to write about Red Riding Hood. It should be no brainer to read this fairy tale before you write about it. If you spend more than half an hour on research (I spend dozens of hours on average), you'll probably find there are hundreds of versions, from very bloody to really sterile ones available. This opens hundreds of possible interpretations and views from which your article can be presented.

I am talking about Google keyword tool, where you can find how many people are searching for exact phrase (string typed in search window) related with your chosen theme. For instance, you will find every month:

'little red riding hood' has 74.000 exact searches
'red riding hood' has 90.500 exact searches
'little red cap' 1.300 has exact searches
'red cap' has 5.400 exact searches

Despite my limited knowledge about keyword research I could be writing for hours about just this step, but this is just too much for this article. Let me tell you only one simple fact: If your theme has zero searches, it is probably not worth writing about.

4. Check your competition. Everything is possible in the wild world of web but one thing is certain - sooner or later somebody will try to beat your article for the chosen keyword. Some articles on your theme are actually very likely already published, so some competition is probably already visible.

With proper use of search parameters you can estimate your competition and decide what to do. You'll for instance find there are already:

19.400,000 pages related with 'Little Red Riding Hood'
30.300,00 pages related with 'Red Riding Hood'
110.000,000 pages related with 'Little Red Cap'
265.000,000 pages related with 'Red Cap'

With some parameters you can estimate 'only':

352.000 pages compete for 'Little Red Riding Hood'
777.000 pages compete for 'Red Riding Hood'
117.000 pages compete for 'Little Red Cap'
9.360 pages compete for 'Red Cap'

Of course this is only an estimation and it doesn't mean much, if you are not sure you can get with your article on first page and possibly on first spot of search results. I should probably write full article about competition research but this will wait for better days if any.

I mostly use public domain and royalty free images because in this case I am not obligated to put more than necessary amount of links on the page.

Talking about links - you should always include some of them in your article. Something like "More on this subject..." or "Check the price of this product here...", "Here is an example of..." and so on. Don't forget multimedia (YouTube maybe?) if it is appropriate. It is cool to include some kind of interactivity too. People like polls, guestbooks, duels and similar additions to plain articles.

Interaction on your page can be important indicator for search engines. If something is happening on your page, they can assume visitors have found something interesting. So they will probably send you more visitors.

6. Write content. Now you can actually start writing. Make sure to include your targeted keywords in title and possibly somewhere else in the text. Don't exaggerate because you can be accused of so called keyword stuffing. Don't be too restrained either. If you decide to write about Red Cap, search engines and readers expect you to use string 'Red Cap' in your article at least few times.

There are some rules on article lengths and keyword density. I don't believe them. Concentrate on quality content and think about technical issues later. You are the author and you should be the only authority on deciding if something is too long or some words are too often repeated.

7. When your article is published, you should promote it. There is a lot of buzz about social bookmarkings, twitting, sharing and so on and all these actions can bring you initial traffic, but if you don't convince search engines your content is better than others', they will not rank you on the top.

I personally use social media only right after publishing. For long term results you need best possible content and all possible suport, what brings us to next, last phase of your writing online tasks.

8. Check your stats. This is probably the most valuable tip on writing online you can get. Search engines will never tell how their algorithms work but you can find out on what subject you are getting authority. Maybe you don't have a chance with Red Riding Hood, but for some reason they trust you on 'color red symbolism'.

If this search string is already giving you traffic, you are probably on page one of results. And if you are not in first position, you should do something to get there.

9. Tweaking. Until you get number one position you can always do something about your article. Maybe you can rephrase some sentences? There is significant difference between:

importance of fairy tales with 73 exact searches
advantages of reading fairy tales with less than 10 exact searches

In this particular case my clear goal would be to rank my article especially for 'importance of fairy tales', where I already have authority at Bing and Yahoo but not at Google with the most searches. Sometimes rephrasing is enough, sometimes we need a link or two (or three thousands) and sometimes we just have to give up and write something new.