By BookBaby author Nicholas Rubright
From setting expectations to understanding SEO, there are things you can do as a writer to launch and succeed in a career writing for digital publications.
Digital publications come in the form of online magazines, blogs, newsletters, and articles on various websites around the Internet. Getting published, or just knowing where to start, can be daunting for writers who are trying to break in to the industry.
Whether you are writing content for your own blog or other digital publications, whether you focus on a particular niche or craft content on a wide range of topics, these tips can help you craft your content, understand the industry, and make productive use of your time.
1. Make your work easy to read
Reading from a screen is a lot different than reading from a book. The glare can make it difficult to focus and large blocks of text can become difficult to read.
One way to make your content easier to read is to break it into bite-sized chunks. Keep your paragraphs short, no more than four to six lines, and use headings frequently. Bullet points are another great way to make your content easy to absorb, especially when reading on a computer monitor or mobile phone.
If you’re launching your own digital publication, resist the temptation to use fancy-looking fonts, which can be difficult to read. You can use bold and italics to highlight important words and phrases, but don’t overdo it.
2. Keep the language simple
When writing for digital publications, you’ll often be speaking to a very broad audience, so keep the language simple. This is good for readability and comprehension. Even if it’s a complex topic, keep a wide audience in mind.
Of course, you never want to give the impression that you’re talking down to your audience. Your writing voice should sound like an informed, amiable, but slightly formal friend.
As with any writing, focus on solid sentence structure and good habits like using active voice, and make sure your spelling and grammar are spotless. Online grammar-check tools and editing software can help you find typos and other easy-to-miss errors.
Your headline is also very important and should act as a hook to draw readers in. A good headline will spark interest while letting the reader know what the content is about. It’s OK to be creative with your headlines, but not at the expense of clarity.
3. Stay on brand
If you’re writing for a variety of publications, make sure you’re writing with each brand in mind. Different publications will have specific audiences, with one client needing fun, upbeat content and the next needing something more academic. Check the content brief before you get started and read other articles and posts on the site before you start writing.
4. Optimize for SEO
One of the major differences between writing for digital publications versus print is how people find the content. In print, people buy the publication knowing what to expect. For online publications, many of their readers will come from keyword searches.
Search engine optimization (SEO) helps to make content rank high in the search engine result pages (SERPs), i.e., appear on the first page of a Google search. If more people see your content when they search for relevant keywords, more people will read your article or blog post. For the publication owner, this tends to mean more revenue from online ads, sales, or other sources, making SEO essential for their business.
SEO can be complex, but as a writer you only need to be concerned about optimizing the content you write, and it’s quite straightforward. One of the most important things to remember when writing with SEO in mind is to break the content up and use subheadings. Just as this makes it easier for people to read your writing, it also makes it easier for Google to determine the content of your page.
Use online tools to conduct keyword research to help ensure the right people find you, and learn how to place keywords for the best effect — titles and headings are strategically important.
5. Client management
You’re likely to be writing for more than one client at a time, and you will often need to draw on soft skills to help you manage them as best you can. If you’re not skilled at managing your clients, you may find yourself overpromising and unable to deliver.
Communicate with the publication team or editor before you get started to establish deadlines and other expectations. Good client management sometime means being firm and saying “no” if the client is too demanding. Watch out for “scope creep,” which is where the client expands the parameters of a project beyond what was initially agreed upon.
If they suddenly increase the requested word count or expect you to do countless revisions, it’s up to you to determine whether it’s worth doing the extra work or if you need to put your foot down. It’s good policy to establish your parameters firmly but politely early on so everyone knows what to expect.
6. Avoid lazy days
If you have a light workload with relatively distant deadlines, it can be very tempting to take it easy, thinking you have plenty of time. However, if you take this approach, there’s a good chance you will end up regretting it.
There’s often no way to know how long things will remain quiet. New content requests are like city buses: you can wait around for ages with nothing in sight, only for three to turn up at once.
If you do have content to write during an otherwise quiet period, write as though you’re busy, because you may be very busy by the end of the week. If you finish and nothing else comes in, you get to take it easy — or spend that time looking for new clients.
As important as avoiding lazy days is, you should also make sure you get enough downtime to avoid burnout. Set your own boundaries regarding when it’s time to work and when it isn’t and stick to them.
7. Know the best places to find work
Finding online work is easier than ever before, and platforms like Upwork help many freelancers launch their writing careers.
Upwork is far from the only portal, but it is the biggest. Others include Fiverr, iwriter, Blogging Pro, and Guru. Each platform will have its own way of doing things, with different writers feeling more comfortable with different platforms, and you can also use more than one platform at the same time.
8. Avoid lowballers
If you’re getting started and looking to write for digital publications, avoid clients who pay low rates. At first, it might make sense to accept low rates or even offer free work to gain experience and build a profile, but such a strategy can do more harm than good for skilled writers.
Low paying clients should be avoided, not just for financial reasons but, as many experienced writers will tell you, they often tend to be the most demanding.
If you are a talented writer, create your own portfolio to show clients. Have confidence in your ability rather than trying to undercut the competition. If you’re on a site like Upwork and are struggling to land your first gig, it may be wise to drop your prices a little, but avoid setting out with a game plan of using low prices to win work.
9. Make a comfortable workspace
This final tip doesn’t apply to writing for digital publications alone but still deserves mention. If you’re working from home, create a comfortable working area. It should ideally be quiet, with few distractions, and have whatever amenities you need to feel at ease.
If you need to splurge on a luxury chair, go for it — you might spend a lot of time sitting there.
Having the right equipment can also make a big difference. For example, a dual monitor set-up can be a godsend for writers because you can have your word processor open on one screen and a browser open for research on the other.
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This BookBaby blog article Writing for Digital Publications: 9 Tips To Get You Started appeared first on and was stolen from BookBaby Blog .