Read Online KaChing: How to Run an Online Business that Pays and Pays by Mark Victor Hansen, Joel Comm - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mark Victor Hansen, Joel Comm
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shelves. You still have to fill it with stock. On the Web, that stock means content—and usually, that content means writing.
There are few shortcuts here. There is free content available that you can put on a web site—things like old books that are past their copyright and now in the public domain, and even old photographs and movies. But such content isn’t original, and you’ll be competing with all of the other sites offering exactly the same product. You might be able to make a little money with public domain works, but they’re rarely the foundation of a successful, ongoing Internet business.
That demands original content ... and that, in turn, requires original writing.
For people who have never written anything longer than a shopping list, that can sound terrifying. If the thing you hated most at school was writing essays and compositions, if you never got more than a D any time you had to put words on a page and give them to a teacher, I can understand that you’re not going to like the idea of putting words on a web site for millions of people to read.
The good news is that writing for the Web is not like writing for school. It’s not like writing for college, and it’s not even like writing for work.
It’s like writing for you.
That’s crucial. Obviously, if you’re a great wit and can crack jokes and tell killer stories, then you’ll have it easy. But you don’t have to do any of that. All you have to do is transfer the knowledge that’s in your head to the heads of your readers.
So don’t try to impress anyone with your writing skills. Don’t go flowery or use long words to show that you know how to use a thesaurus. There are no bonus points for pretty writing. There are, however, extra users and additional income available for clear writing—and that comes down to two things: information and style.
Of those two, information is the more important, so know what you’re going to say before you say it. On Twitter, you can write whatever’s going through your head at that particular moment, but when you’re writing an article or a blog post, you need to have a plan. That will ensure that every sentence communicates something important and that every word has a use. You won’t wander all over the page until you stumble over a good point.
The plan doesn’t have to be anything too detailed. It’s unlikely you’re going to be writing more than 1,000 words—attention spans on the Web are fairly short, and very long posts can put people off—so you won’t have to worry about creating long lists of subsections. But you should have an introduction, approximately three points that you want to discuss, and a conclusion.
That’s all there is to it. If you aim for each of those three points to run around 300 words, with another 100 or so for the introduction and conclusion, you’ll have your article.
If you wanted to write an article for a gardening blog about the right way to choose a bonsai tree, your plan might look like this:
There are lots of bonsai trees available, so here are some principles to guide your buying choices:
Climate—There’s no point in buying a tree that’s going to die in your garden.
Shape and size—What look suits your garden best?
Care—Do you want to prune and train the tree yourself, or do you want one off the shelf?
Keep these points in mind, and you’ll make the right choice.
Now, I don’t know whether those points really are important factors to consider when buying bonsai trees. But I do know that this structure is the simplest way to plan effective content on the Web: an introduction, three main points, and a conclusion.
Make the introduction hard-hitting. In RSS feeds and on blog home pages, users will see only the first few lines of the article, and they’ll use those lines to decide whether to continue reading. Your opening should be powerful and
There are few shortcuts here. There is free content available that you can put on a web site—things like old books that are past their copyright and now in the public domain, and even old photographs and movies. But such content isn’t original, and you’ll be competing with all of the other sites offering exactly the same product. You might be able to make a little money with public domain works, but they’re rarely the foundation of a successful, ongoing Internet business.
That demands original content ... and that, in turn, requires original writing.
For people who have never written anything longer than a shopping list, that can sound terrifying. If the thing you hated most at school was writing essays and compositions, if you never got more than a D any time you had to put words on a page and give them to a teacher, I can understand that you’re not going to like the idea of putting words on a web site for millions of people to read.
The good news is that writing for the Web is not like writing for school. It’s not like writing for college, and it’s not even like writing for work.
It’s like writing for you.
That’s crucial. Obviously, if you’re a great wit and can crack jokes and tell killer stories, then you’ll have it easy. But you don’t have to do any of that. All you have to do is transfer the knowledge that’s in your head to the heads of your readers.
So don’t try to impress anyone with your writing skills. Don’t go flowery or use long words to show that you know how to use a thesaurus. There are no bonus points for pretty writing. There are, however, extra users and additional income available for clear writing—and that comes down to two things: information and style.
Of those two, information is the more important, so know what you’re going to say before you say it. On Twitter, you can write whatever’s going through your head at that particular moment, but when you’re writing an article or a blog post, you need to have a plan. That will ensure that every sentence communicates something important and that every word has a use. You won’t wander all over the page until you stumble over a good point.
The plan doesn’t have to be anything too detailed. It’s unlikely you’re going to be writing more than 1,000 words—attention spans on the Web are fairly short, and very long posts can put people off—so you won’t have to worry about creating long lists of subsections. But you should have an introduction, approximately three points that you want to discuss, and a conclusion.
That’s all there is to it. If you aim for each of those three points to run around 300 words, with another 100 or so for the introduction and conclusion, you’ll have your article.
If you wanted to write an article for a gardening blog about the right way to choose a bonsai tree, your plan might look like this:
There are lots of bonsai trees available, so here are some principles to guide your buying choices:
Climate—There’s no point in buying a tree that’s going to die in your garden.
Shape and size—What look suits your garden best?
Care—Do you want to prune and train the tree yourself, or do you want one off the shelf?
Keep these points in mind, and you’ll make the right choice.
Now, I don’t know whether those points really are important factors to consider when buying bonsai trees. But I do know that this structure is the simplest way to plan effective content on the Web: an introduction, three main points, and a conclusion.
Make the introduction hard-hitting. In RSS feeds and on blog home pages, users will see only the first few lines of the article, and they’ll use those lines to decide whether to continue reading. Your opening should be powerful and
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