If you are just getting started, you might be wondering what’s different about writing online compared to the offline world. First of all, the most important thing to realize is that the main goal for writing an article online is usually not the same as when you write one for print in newspapers or magazines. The most basic difference is that the article in the magazine or newspaper is used to entertain and inform the reader so that they stick with the magazine, where the advertising is. With online writing, you’re goal is typically to get your readers to leave the article and link to another area or website in order to see your advertising (affiliate promotion).

In this case, the resource box at the end of your article is just as crucial as the article body itself. Often, you will see a poorly written article with a great call to action in the resource box get way more traffic than a perfectly written article with a bad resource box.

An important point to remember is that the attention span of an online reader is much shorter than those offline. You need to hook your reader in fewer words to get them to stay.

For the same reason, online articles are also usually much shorter than the average print article. Online articles range somewhere between 350-700 words on average.

Online writing is usually based on keywords. What this means is that the article is based on keyword phrases that are searched often in the search engines. So, unlike print articles, there are techniques and guidelines to follow in order to have your article picked up and ranked highly in Google and other search engines. For instance, a keyword phrase is to be used in the title, as well as approximately 2-5% of the time throughout the article to maximize your search engine ranking results.

Another important difference in online writing, and one you’ll love, is that it your articles can produce residual income. Writing one article on the right topic and keywords can often pick up enough traffic to generate a small amount monthly income. If  you write articles daily, you can quickly build up a passive income that keeps coming in for a long time to come.

Writing an article is simple, but writing an effective article that is successful and makes you money is not quite as easy. However, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to knock one out of the park the majority of the time. All you need is a good guideline to follow and remember to fine tune every article to connect with your target audience. Doing so will drastically increase your article’s potential every time.

First, you need to know the basics of writing and article online:

Obviously you will find your own voice and have your own style of writing, but regardless of what type of writer you are, there are still a few general rules to follow in order to create a successful article.

First of all if the title. The title is very important because with gazillion of articles to choose from, you want to have a title that hooks the reader in to wanting more. Curiosity is your best friend when it comes to article titles. If you can create a line that peaks the reader’s interest enough that he HAS to know the rest, then you’ve done a great job.

The rules of online writing are a bit different in some aspects, depending on the purpose of the article. Unlike the rules you learned in high school English class, the body is preferably broken  into short paragraphs, regardless of whether or not you are breaking a “rule”. This is because with the short attention span of online readers, you want to make it easy for them to scan the article quickly and also make it easy on their eyes when they’re reading the whole thing from top to bottom.

It’s often a really good idea (wherever appropriate) to use bullet points and numbered lists.

Step by step, how-to articles and product reviews are extremely popular and a great choice when starting out. It’s also easy to promote products with these types of articles.

You might have always thought that writing would be something you wanted to get into. Maybe you’re already a writer that wants to make the transition to writing online? Whatever the reason you’re reading this article, you’ll be happy to know that basically anyone can get started writing online for money if they have the will and determination to learn some basics.

The first thing you need to determine is what you will write about. That’s probably the biggest stumbling block that new online writers come across when they’re getting started.

There’s one simple answer that will get you on the fast track to online writing:
Write what you already know.

If you’re looking to write for a living, then you’ll want to give yourself the best chance possible whenever you’re starting out, and writing about familiar topics is a spectacular first step. If you have absolutely no interest in a topic, then researching and writing about it is going to be brutal. In addition to the headache you’ll be putting yourself through, it’s likely that you’re writing won’t have as good of a flow as it could have if you were at least somewhat passionate about the subject.

There are a couple huge advantages to writing on one or more subjects that you are already familiar with:

Expert status
You can quickly establish yourself as an expert in your field and gain credibility that will lead to future writing jobs in the same field.

Increase income
If you have a website, you can gain increased traffic and sales from consistently generating informative articles on your topic(s). It will also benefit your promotions as an affiliate (if you choose to do affiliate marketing) because you will be a lot more convincing promoting products or services in a niche that you are passionate about.