Thanks to the internet anyone can become a well-paid writer.
And many people are itching to launch or expand their writing careers.
But before you jump into this vast marketplace, it's important to understand the basic differences between traditional print writing and writing for an online audience.
Embedding these simple concepts onto your brain will make you far more successful with your online writing career.
Writing and publishing for online readers is different from traditional methods in three important ways: 1.
Audience 2.
Format 3.
Lifespan Consider each difference while writing for your online market and you'll fare better than most writers who don't recognize these significant differences.
Your audience is a crucial consideration in any medium.
Successful writers understand that their audience is their number one concern.
Without interested readers and plenty of them, you cannot succeed long term.
Understand that a traditional print publication has a slight advantage with a somewhat captive audience.
Any reader, who has actually picked up or purchased a newspaper or magazine, is going to give it a fair shake.
This means they will at least read a few pages before deciding to move on.
But in the online world, things are different.
Any reader can flee as quickly as the click of a mouse.
So your writing needs to be tightly focused and on target.
There's just no room for a warm-up, or wandering off in another direction.
If you miss the mark and fail to the precise information readers want, they will simply move on.
You don't have to worry about catering to everyone - just your most targeted readers.
This means that you need to understand your audience completely so you can provide the kind of information that audience wants and needs.
Online readers are scanners.
It's an information buffet of unlimited selections.
So you need to be aware the online readers scan material at a glance before committing to reading in more detail.
So you need to communicate quickly and clearly.
Use powerful and punchy headlines and subheads to make concise, appealing statements.
Opening and closing segments are also important to scanning readers.
Online content may appear to replicate print documents, though there are several significant differences.
Most important is the point of entry of your reader.
Search engines can send readers to various points within a content page or online document.
If it's a coherent and cohesive piece of writing, those readers are more likely to go back to read more of your content.
It's best to break up larger documents into multiple components.
These stand-alone pieces can work together as a whole or as separate content pages too.
One more important difference between print publications and the online world is lifespan.
While the apparent lifespan of many electronic documents appears to be fleeting, in most cases, that is simply not the case.
Newspaper and magazines articles have a shorter lifespan.
Newspapers are only current that day and then it's old news.
But content on the web is easily archived, making it available for years.
It's important for writers to serve up fresh, current information.
But keep in mind that readers may access your words at some point down the road.