Peter Nisbet asked:


If you know how to write articles effectively, so that they do the job you want them to do, then any time you have the need you will be able to write an article to achieve your objective. Article writing skills are learned, and how quickly you learn depends upon your teacher.

People write articles for a large number of reasons and those that do it well will generally achieve what they set out to achieve. In the world of internet marketing this will normally be to market or advertise a website or product. However, it is the ‘doing it well’ that is the problem for most people, and no matter how hard you try or how good a writer you believe yourself to be, internet article writing is more than simply putting a few words together in a sensible way.

However, before you think of using articles to promote or try to sell your products, or even attract visitors to your websites, you will have to stand back a bit and consider what it is you are doing, and what the purpose of the article is. Before you start writing you need a clear idea in your head of your objective. If you are writing an article for submission to article directories and ezines, you will not generally be permitted to promote any specific product, or provide a link to your website in the body of the article.

Your success, therefore, depends upon your ability to persuade readers to visit the website for which you provide a link in the ‘author’s resource’ that generally appears at the end of your article. Nobody will click on that link unless they believe that:

a) You really know what you are talking about and can help them with their problems or answer their questions, or

b) They believe that your website is going to give them the extra information they are seeking.

Like any other skill, knowing how to write articles effectively has to be learned – it doesn’t ‘come naturally’, and even the best novelists have no idea what is needed. Writing articles in the world of internet marketing is a totally different skill to writing professionally for public consumption. The use of language is different, and the semantic approach to content is totally divorced from the type of writing of which Tom Clancy or Agatha Christie were masters.

That is what you have to learn: article writing skills, and how to write articles effectively for submission to article directories and for content on your own website. In fact, your article could end up as content on somebody else’s website, and how cool is that! If you don’t understand what I mean by that, then you still have a lot to learn about writing articles to ensure your online success.

It is well beyond the scope of this article to teach how to write articles to meet Google’s needs, and to enable them to act as adverts for your websites, products and services. I mention Google specifically since it is by far the largest search engine on the internet, and most of the others use Google’s standards and methods of assessing web pages for publication in its listings.

In fact, Google have taken a very positive attitude to articles that are well written and used both as website content and published on article directories. Even duplicate content between a number of article directories appears to take a long time to be noticed by Google.

Once you have learned how to write articles effectively, and have the article writing skills needed for effective internet and article marketing, then you will have a tool in your hands that you will be able to use again and again to force your websites up the listings, attract masses of traffic and provide you with results that no other form of advertising could approach with the results you will achieve.

Ruth Barringham asked:


One thing that every writer wants to know is how to earn more money from writing. This is because being a writer can be a fickle business sometimes and so you need to have as many sources of income as possible.

You also need to use your time wisely to be able to write as much as you can and be as productive as you can. You need to use the phrase “Don’t Get It Right, Get It Written” as often as possible to get you off the starting blocks and writing as much as you can, instead of trying edit your work and be as perfect as possible as you go along. It’s so much easier to just start writing and don’t stop till you’ve finished and THEN go back and edit your work later. Remember that writing and editing and two different jobs and should never be done together.

But what you really want to know is how to earn more money from writing. And below are 10 easy ways for you increase your writing income.

1. Write more. I know it sounds obvious that writers should be writing but you’d be surprised at how many people call themselves writers yet they hardly ever write. To improve your writing, get a book of an author you like (or a writer whose style you admire) and copy their work. Just sit and copy out their writing word-for-word. This will give you a really good understanding of their writing style and how you can incorporate it into your own writing.

2. Read more. Successful writers are avid readers as well as being prolific writers. Reading improves you knowledge, exposes you to different writing styles, and can also help you to come up with great ideas for your own writing.

3. Find more freelance markets. If you want to make more money you need to sell more writing. So spend a bit of time every week surfing online and browsing through magazines looking for new writing markets. You can also sign up for regular writers ezines that contain current writing markets. Always be on the look out for new writing opportunities.

4. Submit more queries. Once you’ve found new markets you then need to make sure that you do actually get your writing published. So make a definite decision to send out at least 5 queries or short stories to different writing markets every week. And then make sure you do it, even if you have to get up early or stay up late.

5. Try different writing projects. Instead of sticking to the same kind of things you write, try branching out into something new. For instance, if you mostly write articles for women’s magazines, trying writing jokes, verse, puzzles or children’s stories and find new places to submit them.

6. Write and publish eBooks. EBooks are a great way to earn a passive income. You can write an eBook in as little as 24 hours and publish it online in only a few minutes. And because there’s no cost involved in selling eBooks you can write as many as you want for as long as you want.

7. Write and publish books. There’s nothing more wonderful for a writer than to feel the first copy of your book in your own hands. It’s so easy now to publish your own books that there’s nothing to stop you from becoming a prolific author and publish several books a year.

8. Learn new writing. There may be areas of writing that you don’t feel proficient in. Maybe you’ve never really tried writing fiction, or, like me, you want to learn copywriting or SEO writing. Choose a area of writing that you’ve never tried before but would like to learn, and then learn to do it.

9. Invest in your writing. Don’t be afraid to spend money to further your writing career. Splash out on some really fancy notebooks and expensive pens or treat yourself to a new computer. Or how about taking a seminar or a writing course or maybe there’s a book about writing that you’ve been thinking about buying. Just open your wallet and buy whatever it takes to help you write more and earn more.

10. Write more. Now you probably notice that this is the same advice in step number one. But it is so important that it needs mentioning more than once. To be a great writer you need to be great at writing and the more you write, the more natural writing will be for you and so the better a writer you’ll become. As you write more and more your words will flow onto the paper (or computer monitor) more easily and so your writing will sound more natural. Never stop writing.

The bottom line is that writers write. They always write. When a writer is not writing, they are thinking about writing. And when they’re not writing nor thinking about writing, they are reading about writing. So if you want to be a writer, be the very best you can and start writing now.