People think that becoming a writer is easy. In some ways, it is. All you need is a pen and paper or a computer, an idea, and the determination to write. Voila, you’re a writer now. Writing is easy; becoming serious about your writing is a whole lot harder and more complex. However, why should it be? Writers should be helping each other navigate this crazy world whenever possible.
So, if you’re reading this right now, then that means you’re looking for help. Well, help you shall receive. Here are a few important lessons every beginner writer should know.
Success Takes Time
Something that I learned as a writer is that overnight success is extremely rare. It is far more common to write an article and have it sit with only a couple of dozen views (if that) for a while. It’s only after a month or two that it really starts taking off.
For example, I wrote this Batman article that I really enjoyed. The problem was that it seemed that the algorithm gods didn’t. It was stuck with 20ish views for the longest time; I’m talking about months. But as more and more time went on, the more the views slowly but surely started creeping up. Now, it’s sitting at over 6,100 views. Not bad for an article I originally wrote off.
Chasing The Latest News is a Full-Time Job
As a beginner writer, I know that one of your first ideas is to write about the latest news in whatever field interests you the most. People searching for breaking news are bound to find your article, right? However, it’s not as foolproof as you might think.
Chasing after the latest news doesn’t equal massive views. Here’s why. There are publications worldwide that have people on their payroll whose sole purpose is covering breaking news. That’s their full-time job. As soon as a CEO steps down or a new product is announced, they already have an article up a few minutes later.
For example, today, on February 20, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer announced he’s retiring. Here’s what Google looks like after a few hours.
So long story short, your article will get lost in the shuffle from all these bigger and quicker publications. Now, that’s not to say that you won’t get any views at all. But the key is to be quick and consistent. The more timely news you deliver, and the more you continue to do it, the higher your articles will rank in search engine results.
But it’s a full-time job, and sometimes, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
If You Don’t Know About SEO, You Should Learn
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s something that I didn’t know about until about a year into my writing career. I went to school for journalism and mass communication, and never once was it brought up by any of my professors. However, it’s extremely important if you want your articles to reach people. Having good SEO means getting a better ranking in search engine pages, which signals more traffic and views to your articles.
There are multiple ways to improve your SEO ranking. The quickest and easiest way is to target keywords and to make sure to sprinkle them throughout your article. For example, I’m targeting the keyword “beginner writer.” I already put the keyword in the title, the meta description, and this story’s tags, and have used it throughout this article. So hopefully, next time you search the term beginner writer, you will see this article on the first or second page of Google.
There are plenty of other SEO methods you can try out. Here’s where you can learn more about them.
Write About Stuff You Care About
This is such a cliche, but it’s honestly true. You will find more success and happiness if you write about topics you are passionate about. People can sense when you’re writing about a topic you truly care about versus when you’re writing about something that doesn’t really matter to you.
When you write about something that you care about, it makes for better articles. Better articles lead to more views. Every single one of my best-performing articles have been about topics that I myself enjoy and would want to read. Even articles that I really had no expectations for have done really well when I’ve written about topics that I find interesting.
For example, I wrote this Ace Attorney article just because I had recently played the games and loved them so much. I never could’ve imagined that this article would gain over 4,600 views.
Conclusion
Writing is both simple and complicated. However, there’s no need to simplify the complicated stuff and no need to complicate the simple stuff. But hopefully, these lessons will allow you and your writing career to flourish even more.
Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash
