SEO, Art, Money or Passion: Why Do You Write Online? (2024)

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I have been writing online since 2012, and since then have studied SEO, marketing and keyword research to drive traffic to my work.

I started writing web articles back in April of 2012. The common advice to Internet writers, since I started this endeavor, has always been, "write what you know, write about your passion"; et cetera and so on.

Does the advice hold water? In four words, for me, the answer to that question is: No..it..does..not.

At some point, you have to decide why you write online: For fun, for art, for money.

You have to decide if you want to devote significant time and energy to something that might not garner any returns. Or, you might ponder whether your time is better spent doing something that keeps some food on the table.

When I started writing online, wittingly or not, I followed that old (and, to me, outdated) advice about writing about what you know, writing about your passions. Guess what? That brought me no traffic to my articles.

One subject I am most knowledgeable about is martial arts. I originally began training in martial arts when I was young and have acquired a lot of knowledge about it. Turns out, nobody is hopping on the Internet looking for subjects about martial arts.

I had to really think about that. I wrote in-depth and well-organized, decent, articles about martial arts and they attracted very little traffic.

Then I realized something. All of the time I trained in martial arts, I was into actually doing martial arts, not reading about it online. No doubt every other martial artist out there is basically like me. He or she does martial arts, doesn't surf the Net to read about it.

My suspicions were confirmed after doing some actual (took me awhile) keyword research and doubly confirmed when I read this article on CopyBlogger. Guess what? Writing about my "passion" and "knowledge" will get me no traffic. Unless I get really passionate about sparring gear, which I'm not.

So, lesson learned is: You can profit from your passion if your passion is popular. Otherwise, no. Writing about your passion will allow you to build a huge volume of web articles that gather dust and die in Internet obscurity.

Sorry, folks, those are the facts.

Another topic which I'm even more passionate about is philosophy. Not standard philosophy like you study in college; not Kant or Nietzsche or Schopenhauer. I am interested in human consciousness, how our minds actually operate and its effect on the world; in a certain way that requires depth of understanding but not academic regimentation.

Talk about not getting traffic. Who in the world would search for something like that on the Net?

I'm into Hip Hop music. Entertainment is notorious for getting not much in return on the Internet. So, that's also out.

So, I had to decide what it was I wanted to do.

I really can't remember where I read it, but I read a blog written by a guy who makes money on the Internet. He said he'd long ago discarded that philosophy about writing about your passions and decided to write about his interests. His rationale was that as soon as you write about your passions on the Net, you start to ruin your passion because it becomes work. I agree with that. But there's another more significant reason why you might want to flip from passions to interests when considering subject matter to write about on the Net.

That reason is that your interests might be more popular than your passions. In my case, that is certainly true. The best I could do with martial arts would be to write product reviews for martial arts products. Which is an option. Many experienced Internet writers agree that the main way to make money online is through affiliate marketing. This is an option I'm considering for my martial arts blog. Writing in-depth informative articles for it is becoming counter-productive, though. I mean, all that time and energy writing those articles, which mostly get no traffic, could be spent writing on subjects that people search for online.

So, this means you have to start with keyword research. This is an SEO basic and is necessary if you want to get noticed online. I suppose you can just write "for yourself" but you can do that with a notepad and pen. If you must put your writings that are "for yourself" online, have at it. But I don't see the point.

Or maybe you're charismatic and develop quite the following online. I guess that works. But I'm not into it. I don't want to be anyone's guru nor do I think it's cool to collect fans. Seems like a lot of work and catering, when keyword research would garner at least as much traffic that is easier to sustain in the long haul. I'm not an economist, but it seems to fly in the face of the law of diminishing returns, to just constantly work for the attention of your following; putting more into it, getting less out of it. Which is my main point. It's like the job that goes nowhere, after awhile you're working to sustain yourself and never getting ahead. Who wants to live like that?

Why do you write online?

I'm not sure anyone is passionate about how to tie a ponytail or the coolest martial arts shoes. Maybe you are. Then it is possible writing about your passions makes sense. The Internet is run by search engines and search engines are designed to provide people with a service; to help them find information that they are looking for. There are only certain kinds of information people look for on the Internet. They are either trying to figure something out, resolve (as minor as it might be) a challenge or maybe they want to buy something. If you are interested in the practical matter of getting traffic and so not working yourself into the ground for nothing, then you will end up having to explore subject matter that is simply getting searched for and/or exploring your affiliate marketing options for what will sell on the Web.

And those are the facts.