Writing for the internet – a 5 point plan for success

So you’re hooked on this writing lark as well, are you? That makes two of us.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people want to write online. It seems like every other person you speak to wants to be an internet writer, and I can’t say I blame them either. There are a lot of rewards out there for people who know what they’re doing, and they don’t all come in monetary terms either. I’ve been writing for more than twenty years professionally. But it’s only since the internet came knocking that I have managed to turn my love of writing into a full time income.

I’ve been asked more than once how to get into writing for the internet successfully. Note the emphasis on the word successfully though – it’s easy enough to be an internet writer but most people want to earn something for their efforts as well. I don’t blame them. There are enough avenues online to head for if you want to earn money from paying writing jobs and also from sites like Hubpages, where you can earn money from Google Adsense as well as from Amazon and eBay affiliate commissions.

But in every single case I can think of a few things you need to have in place to be able to get the success you want. It doesn’t matter whether you want to write for clients, write for Hubpages, write a blog, or anything else for that matter. If you go through the five point plan I’m going to share with you now, you can expect to start seeing some success writing for the internet.

Let’s get started with step one.

By this I basically mean you need to decide how you are going to try and make money as an internet writer. There are more ways you can make money than you might think. Here are a few ideas:

• Become a blogger – create your own blog as well as writing blog posts for other people

• Write articles for various clients

• Write articles for sites like Hubpages so you can earn money through Adsense and affiliate commissions

• Write eBooks, either for clients or to sell yourself

• Write PLR (private label rights) content and sell it to marketers online

• Become a PR writer and create press releases for a variety of clients

I could go on but I’m sure you get the idea by now. You will know where your passions, strengths and weaknesses lie and it is a good idea to follow your passions and interests – at least to begin with.

For example I always wanted to write fiction. But when I did a writing course about twenty years ago it started off with article writing. I didn’t really want to do it – fiction sounded like a lot more fun – but now I write articles every day because that is where I make the money. Whether it’s writing articles for Hubpages or for my own clients, I know I am following my plan to write online for the best markets. The best markets for ME, that is. You need to figure out what will work best for you. It might take some trial and error but once you have the answer you will be glad you put the effort in.

This one is really essential. It’s amazing how many people want to write but claim they don’t have any time to do so. Let me say this – I used to have a job that ran from 7.30am to 5.45pm. I did it four days a week and every single one of those days I got up earlier and spent half an hour on the computer before I left for work. In addition I squeezed in an hour or two every one of those evenings to get some writing done.

I did it because I eventually wanted to earn some good money from my writing – a full time income. I do now, but if I hadn’t been prepared to put that effort in to begin with I’d probably still be in that job now. Believe me, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

You might have to find time on other days to get your writing done and put your plan into action. But if you want to write online it’s no good waiting for ‘the right time’ to do it. You just have to get on with it. It would have been easy to chill out for an hour in the evenings after a long day at work back then. But now I am glad I put the extra effort in because I have got to where I wanted to be. If you really want to be in the same position, you have to find space in your life to start writing NOW. Even if it means giving up your favourite programme for a while, if that’s what it takes and you want it enough, you’ll do it.

Of course giving up a certain portion of your time to writing for the internet is only half the equation. You also need to have a plan for that time – you need to know what you’re going to do with it.

• Are you going to search for paying writing jobs online so you can get some paying clients as quickly as possible?

• Are you going to devote your time to creating good strong hubs so you can earn a passive income from them in the future?

• Are you going to join one of the writers’ marketplaces – like Elance for example – and bid for writing jobs on there?

You need to make this a solid part of your plan to get the best out of it. When I began writing for the internet I decided to start searching for paying writing jobs. It took just a few days to get the first one, but I just kept applying for all kinds of jobs I thought I could do until I got lucky.

I also joined Hubpages and started adding some hubs to the site, although it is only now some three years later that I am really working to make this a bigger part of my focus to write online. Being an internet writer doesn’t mean you have to focus on just one thing you know – it’s possible to do more than one thing eventually. It just makes sense to focus on a single way of bringing in money to begin with.

If you need money and you want to work towards a career writing for the internet as quickly as possible, then I’d suggest working for other clients to start with. You can then start to build up more passive streams of income – such as those you can gain from Hubpages and elsewhere – a bit later on.

There’s one thing I want to warn you about here. It’s the nasty monster called Temptation and it will rear its ugly head over and over again until you get into the habit of constantly working diligently towards your goal.

It’s easy to say ‘oh but…’ and find a reason NOT to write. It’s easy to be tempted not to write today, ‘because there is always tomorrow’. I can remember plenty of times when I was tempted to do something else – anything else – and yet most of the time I knuckled down and kept going with my plan. It helps if you have the support of your family members but you have to be responsible for just getting your head down and getting on with things.

I always wanted to be a writer and when the internet came along and I finally realised just what it was offering, I knew I wanted to be an internet writer. It was just the niche I was looking for. I can’t imagine what I’d be doing now if the internet hadn’t been invented! Maybe I’d be a bestselling novelist (ha ha).

Anyway YES there were days when I didn’t want to write. There were even days when I didn’t write, but they were few and far between. My passion for writing always brought me back to the keyboard, no matter how much or how little I wanted to do it at the time.

You have to do this too. You have to keep going, even though there will be days when you wonder why you ever wanted to be an internet writer in the first place. There are some amazing rewards available when you write online, and I’m not just focusing on the cash either. You can meet new people, people who love to write. You can learn new things every day. You can write about all kinds of things. And when you finally get to go full time (yes it can happen if you want it to happen) you can have more freedom than you ever thought would be possible.

BUT… you have to keep going through both good days and bad, to get to your destination.

You know it is possible to focus so hard on your goal that you never look elsewhere. It might sound like I’m going against what I’ve already told you. But listen up, because there is a lesson in here you might benefit from.

Just because you start out writing for one market and achieving success in that market, it doesn’t mean you have to carry on writing for that market forevermore.

It’s like saying you’ve had a lot of success writing press releases and now you want to create Hubpages for Adsense income instead, but you can’t swap. Who says you can’t swap? This is one of the major benefits of writing for the internet. You can do what you like (within reason of course). If you have made a success of being an internet writer, creating articles and blogs for various clients, you might eventually arrive at a point where you want to do something else.

I know I have. I still love writing for clients but I want to spend a bit of time writing for me as well. So I now have my blog set up to cater for writers, and I also make some cash through a number of affiliate schemes. Then there’s Hubpages of course, but I am still in the early stages of this particular writing hobby.

What I’m getting at here is that you need to check back with yourself every now and then, to make sure you are still happy with what you are doing. If you aren’t happy writing articles for clients any more, you can change focus. If you were writing for affiliate income before but now you want to create blogs or something else entirely, go for it. Just make sure you create a new plan and put that into action following the five points above.

I hope I’ve made the journey a little easier for you. I hope you get to be an internet writer full time if that is really what you want to do. But even writing for the internet part time can be a lucrative second income, so find your path and follow it diligently and determinedly. It’ll soon get you to where you want to go.