Can You Make Money Online Without Compromising Quality?

A published hard copy author, who had talent, wrote a short piece and posted it on one of the on line writing sites.

He got very few hits.

He was told about Networking. As a 'learning experience' spent a day 'self -spamming' [as it is called when one promotes their own work] on various sites.

He got very few hits despite this effort.

Frustrated, he took a look at the most 'popular' items. They were poorly written, empty, meaningless. They were all in the same voice, with the same words. and he wondered if these items had been written by a computer.

After two weeks of ignominy, he deleted his item from the online site and sent
it along to a mainstream magazine where it was accepted and paid for, and
appeared in print a few months later.

It was very well received, quoted, he got many letters from readers saying
how much they enjoyed his work.

Computer programs operate in a limited parameter of yes/no, 1/0. A few have some fuzzy logic so that they can see that Eastonia might be an error and the seeker meant Estonia. But a program that searches for information can't go too far beyond the narrow parameters.

Titling an article; "The Least Religious Place in the World." which attracts human eyes, will not attract A.I.

A.I. will sooner push an item; "Estonia focusing on the lack of religion." which sounds extremely boring

On the Front Page of writing sites will be items which have "Estonia" in the title.

They may be badly written, they may have very little information, but the Search Engine will rate them higher than an interesting piece which is entertaining and educational than one which has the kind of title that would catch a human eye.

You take a look at something written by one of those persons who makes that kind of money.

As a writer you see nothing in it that is not ordinary. The sentence structure, the words, the trite terms.

You check and find that almost every sentence is built around 'key words' and SEO terms, and when you finish you have learned absolutely nothing.

You have a feeling you read it before; and you have.

"Many people have taken up jogging for health."
"Many people are switching to Olive Oil for their heath."
"Many people are riding bicycles for health."

The formula is one known and loved by Search Engines.
The writer knows this.
Hence every article is going to be more of a "Find & Replace" then original prose.

Money is the purpose, not creativity, not self-expression.
Money.

If you want to write online because you want to write, and each article is crafted by you to express how you feel, with those clever metaphors that you create, and a unique manner of presentation, the only hits you will get will be accidental.

Those brilliant Titles will do nothing to 'sell' your work and those intricately crafted sentences will be incomprehensible to the Search Engine.

To demonstrate, "Gone With The Wind" wouldn't get a handful of hits, but "Romance during Civil War of the United States of America," would attract those searching for "Civil War".

So you have to readjust your mind to writing for a computer, not a human being.

Many of the top ranking articles are 'How Tos'. Others are Lists of the Top this or the Worst That. Hot Topics are this moment's interest, often with a short but active shelf life.

Not much for the writer to developed a passion for.

Quality articles are rarely found in the money makers. The majority of people turn on the computer, enter a search term and look at the front page. They get the info they want and move on.

They don't know who wrote it, might not even glance at where it was posted. They don't care about the writing. They care about the information. They may go to Wikipedia, then look at other sites.

Hence the online writer has to set their prose to fit the Search.

Years ago there was a site called Helium where you were unable to Write about
what you wanted but had to write what The Admin wanted.

You would see a topic and have to write on that Topic.
What you write will be subject to peer review,

One thing you have to get clear, if you wrote for Helium you had to review a
whole heap of other writer's work to be allowed to survive.

The site has closed, labeled a 'Content Farm' and shunned by Google.

Many of such sites, which did not have human moderators have closed. Google, noting the kind of rubbish that was published on many writing sites, slapped them with negative points so that they would be at the bottom of a search.

As most writing sites were used by those who constructed patterns to grab the focus of Search Engines, those sites have closed.

They have closed because most hits come from Google and if Google doesn't mention anything on the site, the site collapses.

As there is no current writing site with any level of quality, often people create their own blogs or ebook so as to get their ideas out there.

In lucky cases a writer might luck into an online publication, i.e. a newspaper, and get some eyes. In most cases, writing on line is more an exercise than a money maker.