3 Things All My Top Earning Articles Have In Common
No, they’re NOT clickbait.
I took writing on this platform seriously in October 2020.
I have written 180+ articles in various categories.
January was the most successful month in my writing career. I made more money in January than I did in my entire writing career of 8 years and with 2 published books.
The power of compounding combined with the lessons I learned over the years made it possible.
However, when I analyzed my top-performing articles, I found striking similarities in them.
They are not clickbaity nor do they don’t have any controversial headline.
But they have these things common in them 👇🏻
They Are First-Hand Experiences
They don’t promise to change your life.
They don’t promise to make you rich.
They only share my first-hand experience and how it impacted me.
These are the top-performing articles I wrote last year and they’re still the top-performing ones.
If you notice, you’ll see how I am talking about my life and not promising anything that’s not mentioned in the headline.
In I Stopped Consuming Content When I Learnt This, I talked about my genuine concern with information overload and the self-help world.
In 5 Books I Have Recommended Over 100 Times, I listed the books I have been endlessly recommending to my friends and readers.
No sugarcoating. No over-promising.
People like genuine new anecdotes from someone else’s life to learn new things and tap into a different perspective. That’s what I keep trying to practice in my writing.
Write about your life. Your learnings. People are tired of reading about Elon Musk and Warren Buffet.They All Have Empathy
If you’ve spent enough time reading blogs, you’d have noticed how most articles promise to change your life without knowing anything about you.
They ignore the fact that the reader might not have the pedigree they’re born with.
The writers do not put themselves in people's shoes and blatantly promise how their service or product will solve their problem.
Our words are powerful. They can change someone’s life for the better and for the worse. Unfortunately, some of our readers take them by heart; hence it becomes our responsibility to write what we know and sprinkle some empathy over it.
In this article on the new technology, Web 3.0 Giving Us a Chance to Live Our Childhood Dreams, I could have said Live Your Dreams With Web 3.0 or something more controversial and intriguing, and that wouldn’t hold right for so many people.
There are always some caveats. And empathy makes us keep them in mind.
If we are genuine about what we’re giving in a piece, the readers will trust us and come back for more even if they skip one piece.
Learning about empathy from books and leaders has given my words a new voice, and my content has improved significantly.
Offering A Different Perspective
When everyone is saying the same thing, why would people listen to you?
That’s what happens online. Everyone is asking you to listen to this podcast or read this book. Having contrarian views allows you to stand out in the sea of identical content.
In 5 AM Club is Everything Wrong with the Self-Help World, I talked about something that I was facing while going through self-help content. It was something nobody was talking about and I believe that made this article widely successful.
Your different experiments, philosophies that are different from the norms would give you a chance to show a different side to your readers.
Saying what everyone is saying is not going to make you heard unless you’re Jay Shetty.
Offer different views and don’t be afraid to speak your truth.Parting Thoughts
I write to think better.
I feel invincible when I write about ideas that have never been spoken about. The best part this analysis revealed was these were the ideas my readers enjoyed the most.
After all, who doesn't like novelty?
So, next time you write a new piece, remember to
- Write about your life. First-hand experiences are so much better than borrowed principles.
- Be empathic if you’re providing guidance.
- Don’t be afraid to write about views that are not socially accepted.
I hope these tips take to your next bunch of thriving blogposts!
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