online writers handbook

online writers handbook

The Ultimate Online Writer’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Mastering the Art of Writing in the Digital Age

1. Introduction to Online Writing

We can set aside some of the prejudices that labeled online writing as superficial or misinformed. How do we make use of the resources at our fingertips? How do we make the platforms work for us? Cyber technologies open up writing in ways that were not explored by our past knowledge of what arteries heart written expression. We look for whatever mode will best serve our communicative purposes. We look for ways to deliver our point of view with power, clarity, and panache.

We sent electronic messages cross-country, then across oceans. We, octogenarians and centenarians, feel for the earth’s body electric, wonder what the Earth is, and what it means. Why, so dismissive the truth is today. Of course, you are reading a digital offering. When you finish reading it, and it learns from your clicks and moves, it will return to storage files lying on some maid’s dressed for the electro-sun. The CHOIR, however, must eventually arrive there.

It is a truth we are all becoming aware of now: our time has an emerald horizon that is not the printed page but the digital one. As adults, we become involved in the frenzied games of playing catch up with our 20th-century inventions. It might serve us well to remind ourselves of the obvious: there is no huge brick building in heaven where Father Gutenberg dwells, and where wood pulp angels attend his every wish, and not a prayer is written in inkless language.

2. Crafting Compelling Content for the Web

The word “hyperlocal” is surprisingly not hyperlocal in its usage and definition. Instead, we have the news and events that take place in our very neighborhoods readily accessible to us in just a few clicks. Websites like have introduced local bloggers to countless communities across the United States. We also have an abundance of aggregators in the blogosphere, some of which are the best websites online when it comes to high-quality content. “The Daily Beast” and the “Huffington Post” could be said to have begun as blogs and are still essentially the same at their core. Blogging on the internet has taken many forms, and the commentary on various blogs allows for all ideas to coexist and thrive. Long-form writing still has a place in society even in the digital age. Some say the wave of the future is long-form writing that is not edited by any organization except for readers, who will quickly and furiously fact-check any errors in unmoderated areas. However, many willing and able websites still employ writers and editors to peer over articles before they are deemed ready for publishing. In fact, creating such a system is one of my goals for the time during and after TWiCollege. Writing is in as high of a demand as it’s ever been, whether it be through a news organization, a blog, or a website that focuses on the niche you know so much about.

In the vast and wild world of the internet, content is king, and this reign won’t be ending for the foreseeable future. Words rule, as they have since humankind first discovered the ability to inscribe thoughts and ideas. As print newspapers and magazines struggle to maintain supremacy in their own world of content, the digital age, not surprisingly, has taken writing to heights never before seen. Heavily involved in this explosion, for better or worse, are the millions and millions of blogs that exist on the World Wide Web. “Blog” originally came from the term “web log,” but these days, fewer and fewer bloggers manage actual logs of their lives. Instead, blogs today are stand-alone writes with a singular focus. I cannot emphasize enough that some of the best work online comes from blogs. Also, many websites tend to “blog” even if they don’t identify themselves as such. Websites like and, for example, are more than just blogs even though they began primarily as such. In our world of self-expression and oversharing, millions of blogs now share the vast space that is the internet, focusing on everything from politics to sports, food to parents, pop culture to knitting.

3. Optimizing Your Writing for SEO

1. Understand SEO SEO is a comprehensive strategy implemented by website administrators to increase a site’s SERP, or search engine results page. SEO has a few layers, which we won’t delve too deeply into for the purpose of your freelance writing research in Chapter 3. Instead, let’s cover the basics. First, there’s on-page SEO. Your on-page SEO encompasses all the website changes and content enhancement strategies you can implement to improve your SEO footing. These might be different keywords, better meta descriptions, and improved images or video content. Combining your on-page SEO with a refreshed off-page SEO strategy is the other essential piece of the SEO puzzle. This refers to elements away from your web page and site affecting your site’s relevancy or trustworthiness in the eyes of Google.

In Chapter 3, you learn how to understand SEO, build SEO connections, and improve your content quality. Start by understanding the many features of SEO, which refers to search engine optimization strategies that maximize exposure to the right people searching for your content.

4. Building a Strong Online Presence as a Writer

Given the importance of this phase, the first thing a writer ought to do is stake out a claim on one’s own name, if available, as a custom domain. This is a relatively easy task and a necessary one. Even if a person doesn’t have an immediate need for their own website, having the ability to snag when it comes time to take the next step is more or less priceless. Setting up a blog and contributing to other sites are also recommended for increasing credibility and visibility. When someone searches for your name online (yes, even you), a more active presence is more likely to pop up first, and you’ll want to make sure it’s you, and in the best light possible. Then there is the small matter of social media, which can either make you or break you.

Discoverability is everything in the digital age, remember? Or at least it’s extremely important. Since paid work opportunities are often found through networking and demonstrating one’s abilities, editors and readers rarely come to you. You need to make it as easy as possible for them to find you and decide to give you a shot. This can take many forms, but it all comes down to one simple principle: You need to be findable online.

5. Navigating Copyright and Plagiarism in the Digital World

For those who own copyrights, the age of electronic manifestation holds great promise, for digitized texts can be disseminated and reproduced with unprecedented ease and rapidity. Owners of copyright who are learned enough to exploit digital technology appreciate that “publishing” has been wholly transformed by the digital experience. Publication of a digitized text makes the text essentially instantaneously – and widely – available. The Web raises no barriers. You can upload a digitized text to your website for free, for the delight and edification of an audience otherwise unknown, and unknown to you. Already claims for computer infringements totaling six or seven figures in damages have been asserted in the recent past; the floodgates of Internet law opened. And how many more actions have been avoided only by fear and restriction?

Though copyright law has been with us since 1790, it enjoys the greatest public visibility today. The easy distribution of information made possible by digital technology has exploded into an affordability, mass access, and universality unprecedented throughout history. Written words cross borders instantaneously without regard to geographic boundaries; digitized texts can be downloaded, rendered, and exchanged around the world with little more difficulty than it may take to scan or type a short sequence of alphanumeric characters. Digitized works are subject to theft. The advent of the printing press simply does not compare to the infinite reach and accessibility achieved with access to the global village by connecting a microcomputer to the Internet or World Wide Web.