After writing articles online for more than two years, I realized there are at least three principles that instantly work. An aspiring online writer must abide by these principles in order to make a dent in writing online and earn a decent income. These are 1) knowledge of search optimization techniques (or simply SEO techniques), 2) writing style and 3) finding a niche in whatever writing site you choose to submit your articles online.

Knowledge of Search Optimization Techniques

Knowledge of search optimization technique is the foremost concern of an online writer because it is through search engines that a writer’s target audience is able to discover what has been written along their queries or subject of interest. You may have written a very important, well-researched article online that you want to share with others. But your article online will be put to naught unless people get to see it, click on it and of course get to know more about your topic by clicking on useful ads that provide the income you are hoping for.

How do you optimize your article online in such a way that people have a greater chance of reading it? Optimization is achieved by repeating your keywords many times in your article online, but not in a way that your article online is awkward to read, if not senseless. You can avoid this pitfall by limiting your keyword density within 1 to 5% of your article online. Use Textalyser, a keyword density analyzer. Tips on how to use it are described in How to Use Textalyser to Optimize Keyword Density.

Yes, keywords are crucial but what keywords should be used? Keywords that work are common words that people will likely type in the search box related to their topic of interest. And keywords are usually written in “phrases”, not just a plain single word. Besides, using a single word keyword will have lots of competition; millions of articles online use the same single keyword.

So what is the best approach in selecting the best keyword? The primary criterion for selecting the best keyword is to find a phrase using a free online keyword analysis tool. One of these free online keyword analysis tools is provided by Google, well-known as Google Adwords. Google Adwords provide information on words or phrases most commonly used by people searching for information online.

How do you use Google Adwords? This is outside the scope of this discussion but details are provided in How to Use Google Adwords in Online Writing: Selecting the Best Keywords.

Best Writing Style for Articles Online

The best writing style appears to be writing in third person, not recounting a story where you get to use a lot of personal pronouns like “I”, “we”, “our”, “my”, etc. Google, especially, tend to ignore articles online written in this way because the Google search engine is designed to provide factual information to the searcher.

Why is Google given particular mention? That’s because Google is one of the major search engines of the English language which online writers must conform their writing styles with in order that their articles online will be read. Besides, if you used Google Adwords in selecting your best keywords, the Google search engine must follow what it prescribes as the most searched keywords.

Since factual information has the nature of being reliable information, articles online that get written in such way get linked as reference or source by websites dealing with such particular topic. As more websites link to your articles online, your page rank increases and your chance of being read also increases because your article online gets displayed on those websites. An increase in page rank means that when people type your chosen keyword, your article online gets displayed at least on the first few pages of the browser. Getting to the top would be your best bat.

Another thing on writing style, articles online must be written in terse chunks, meaning, few-sentence paragraphs at a time. Headings that get repeated in the paragraph are optimized for search engines to notice and index. Repeated keywords confirm that an article online promise to deliver what it says because it repeats what is written in the headings. Notice that the heading in the series of paragraphs written here is “writing style” and the phrase gets repeated in the following paragraphs.

Finding a Niche in Writing Your Article Online

It is always best to write on something that you are very familiar with. Finding a niche of your specific interest and expertise will help you become a credible online writer where people get to read and reread your articles online. When people keep on reading your articles online by typing your name as a search query, your page rank increases because you are now getting direct traffic with your name as the specific keyword used. This gives you an edge against other online writers who have no specific niche or specialization so that they can write their best article online.

How do you find your niche? This does not necessarily mean that what you write relates to your regular work or real expertise. Your gauge in finding a niche is your articles online themselves. Whichever of these articles online get read most often will indicate which topic you should focus on. This also depends on the online writing site that you use. Find out which online writing site gets a lot of traffic on which kind of articles online. Make use of your online writing sites statistics and analysis pages; these are your cues.

In summary, knowledge of search optimization techniques, writing style and finding a niche are important ingredients to be successful as an online writer. These are the guidelines that I personally employed in my latest batch of articles. I am certain these approaches work as I get significantly more views. Many of my latest articles online land at the top of search engine queries on the keywords that I chose. The number of page views gained is a lot greater than the page views I used to have when I have just started writing online more than two years ago.

A final note: write quality articles online. Quality articles that get read and linked, still, are better than many articles online that tend to be ignored by readers.