Increase Earnings in 2020

Writing Strategies for 2020 and Beyond That Will Get You Read and Increase Your Earnings

The world of online writing has changed and the strategies needed to earn a living in this career have also changed. Learn what you need to know for 2020 and beyond.

With each passing year, online writing has become more competitive and 2020 looks like it will be no different. While there are a lot of suggestions regarding strategies to make your writing successful, it can be difficult to separate the chaff from the wheat. This has led many writers to ignore much of the content that has been produced about this topic, in an effort to not waste a lot of time on fluff pieces or clickbait. It can be difficult to tell which are just basic ideas someone is putting forth and which are methods that have been tested or which have analytics behind them.

The strategies presented here are only those that evidence obtained from analytics have been shown to be effective at increasing your readers. At the same time that doesn’t mean that each one will work for everyone. You need to determine which work best for you and add them to your toolbox of writing methods that you create as you discover new ways of increasing your audience, your fanbase and your earnings.

The most important thing to keep in mind as we move into the new year and onward is that there are tons of online writers producing content, many of them doing so daily. While we also regularly gain new online readers, they are becoming increasingly savvy and expect what they read to be high quality.

They quickly evaluate the articles they intend to read in just a few seconds and have no qualms about just as quickly clicking off to find something they feel is more worth their time. This means that some strategies we may have used in the past, are now not useful and may even be detrimental to our brand.

Don’t Copy the Competition

This is something I am seeing more and more of in regards to online writing, including writing on Medium. In years past, how to write copy that resulted in a decent earnings was clearer, provided you kept up with the information released about algorithm updates and what readers were looking for. This applied to writing on Medium as well.

Writers who kept up to date and worked regularly and consistently could count on their earning being relatively stable. They perhaps weren’t making as much as they’d like (and really, who is these days?) but at least they didn’t get surprised from month to month regarding their metrics and income.

Now however, with algorithms changing more frequently, it is harder to discern what components in an article and what style of writing are most likely to result in a growing audience and high earnings. A big problem is it doesn’t seem to be as consistent as it once was. One week, one article we write seems to take off and the next week something similar falls completely flat or vice versa.

Since it can be difficult for writers to tell what is most likely to earn them the most, many are taking to rewriting other people’s work that is extremely popular. But as we are each unique individuals, which strategies are most effective will differ for each of us and our work will speak to different audiences.

It’s not about finding what others write that is most popular. It’s about finding what we write that is most popular for us. Trying to write in a similar style or on similar topics as others might earn you some readers on occasion.

Ultimately when you write something that is too similar to other articles, especially those that have been rewritten by different people countless times, you will end up contributing to them being cannibalized, watering down the readership for all of them including your own. Just because something seems popular based on how many different people have written it up doesn’t mean it will help you grow your audience or earnings.

Be your own writer and come up with unique ways of putting information together adding a personal touch. This is far more likely to get you new readers than rewriting even the most popular articles on the internet when countless others have or will be doing the same thing.

If you sound like every other writer out there, you can’t be original and produce value as a unique voice in a field that is filled with endless noise.

Don’t Publish on an Off Day

This is one that I am sometimes guilty of. When we begin to think of writing as our full time job, we feel that we should be producing on a full time schedule. And while it might make sense to work on a full time schedule, that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to publish several times a day.

The fact is those of us who work in creative fields aren’t always “on” in terms of producing in whatever our area is. I think that we get into a mindset where we feel that to be a writer is to publish as much as possible and minimally at least once a day. But coming up with quality content is not something that we can do by formula and while we might be able to produce something everyday, that doesn’t mean that everyday we produce something worth publishing.

But once we are in the frame of mind that we must publish daily no matter what, there are days when we will have to force something out of us because either a worthwhile topic hasn’t presented itself or we are just having one of those days when it seems we can’t put two good sentences together.

Even though we know sometimes a piece isn’t up to our regular quality standards there are days we can’t come up with a better article and so we publish the piece anyway. We tell ourselves that everyone has an off day and that it’s normal every so often that something we write won’t be quite up to snuff. It’s okay, most of our stuff is the best we can do, and we’ll bounce back tomorrow.

While both of these things may be true, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. There are more writers than ever online, with new ones being added to our ranks daily. This means an almost ridiculous amount of content available to readers, meaning that when something isn’t high quality or engaging, there is an endless supply of other material they can go to that is.

Though there is also an increase in the number of online readers as well, these readers are becoming more discerning over time. It isn’t enough for a story to be just well written or just engaging anymore. Whereas you once had 8 seconds to hook a reader, the most recent estimates suggest that now you have 2–3 seconds. Publishing something that is less than your best effort will lose you readers not just that day but in many cases, permanently.

On off days, don’t focus on publishing. Develop topics and ideas, promote and market pieces already published, research what it is that readers want to know about, see what’s new in SEO and check on the newest search algorithm updates. And most importantly, since no matter what I say here, we will feel that our day was a complete loss no matter what else we accomplish, if we fail to publish, reach out to other writers for support and to connect to bolster your mood.

Don’t Try to Fool Readers With Shortcuts

This is something I have seem grow increasingly of late, especially on Medium and there are few things that are more likely to ensure that I won’t read the piece. This is when writers produce what I call, “cheap content.” These articles take something that is issued by a formal body like Medium or Amazon which everyone has seen and has access to such as an announcement about an earning update, and just summarizes it. When it is something that is official and comes from an official body, I can’t for the life of me, figure out why someone who doesn’t work directly for that body feels the need to just say the same thing over again while essentially holding out their hand and saying, “Pay me.”

Other articles that fall in this category are when someone writes an article that earns money somehow, that is just a means of getting people to go to their other articles. I don’t read, “My Ten Best Articles From the Month,” or worse yet, “Here Is An Easy List For You To Find All Of My Wonderful Articles in One Place.” Then there are those like, “My Ten Favorite Quotes About ABC” which list the quotes with a link below every one that says, “For my explanation of this quote, click here.”

So they try to earn from that article, while not providing any actual content there, and using it as a means to get readers to ten other articles where the actual content for this single article is published. Even when they don’t come with ads or other means of earning money, I often feel that they are just cheap tricks to get readers to their writing without working for it.

If you think I’m exaggerating how much this may annoy your reader, or how many readers you stand to lose, I have done quite a bit of research to see just how much this effects reader behavior.

This was clear in one survey of over 5000 readers which reported percentages of those that endorsed items that reflected their annoyance with these types of practices, as follows:

I refuse to read articles that are just summaries of the writers other articles or a list of links intending to get me to read all their other articles - 84%

When writers produce articles that have no new content at all I quickly click off of it - 89%

Writers that seem to want to get paid through ads or other means of earning income from their article but either regurgitate what they have already said elsewhere or what another writer has already said elsewhere, I am unlikely to read any more of their work in the future - 87%

I think this point is best summed up by one reader who wrote:

When you don’t bother to take the time to make me excited about your work, to make me feel something, to help me learn something, when you don’t bother to take the time to give me something new to read, when you don’t bother to take the time to do more than rehash what you’ve already written, I hear, “Don’t bother, move on.” These things tell me that you’re not worth earning anything from my wasted time reading your lazy work. That’s what a lazy article says to me. Hey there, jerkoff. I didn’t care enough to put any effort into a real article but expect to get paid for anyway. If that’s the case, then you and your lazy articles can piss off — while me and my money do, too. And don’t expect me to give you a second chance.

The Take Away

The world of online writing has changed quite a bit recently and will continue to do so in 2020 and beyond. Whereas it used to be about the writer with them being in control of their audience through specific and simple strategies including basic SEO techniques, there has been a shift to a much stronger focus on reader experience and opinion.

With the huge amount of content available, readers have become very discerning in what they are willing to spend more than a few seconds of their time on, before they click away. When practically every result on the search page says largely the same thing the one that looks different will be the one that catches the users attention even if it isn’t in the first five results listed.

Whereas, it was once better to publish every day in order to maximize visibility even if there was the occasional dip in quality, readers now appreciate consistently superior content far more than just a steady stream of mediocrity. And whereas once readers would forgive obvious efforts at getting new followers through using an article to push readers to other work the writer had already published, this is now seen as being lazy and can permanently turn readers off.

As we move through 2020 it will be important to keep a close eye on what it is that readers want from the content they consume and what turns them off for us to have the best shot at growing our audience as well as our income. In order to meet their expectations, we will need to focus more on the purpose of our writing rather than just producing reflections from our morning or something we saw along the way home in order to gain a reader’s attention.

Natalie Frank has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and often writes about how to create a more satisfying and successful writing life. She is an editor for The Partnered Pen, One1Infinity & One Table, One World and is Editor in Chief for Promposity & Mental Gecko, both of which she created. She is also the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications.

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