Earning money as an online content writer is not as easy as many people think. Anybody can get started and earn something, which makes many people think that it may be a viable new income for them, but very few of those people will ever earn a significant amount of money. There is a lot of competition from other writers, including many in countries with a low cost of living or who have other incomes, and also many who write for fun and to pursue their passion with financial compensation as only a secondary concern. At the same time as this, very few people are willing to pay for written content on the internet and advertising revenues are very, very low per reader.

But it is still possible. I have earned enough to live off in the UK in the past, and I am currently earning a nice second income from writing. Here are my top tips to earn more:

Be patient

Building up a good income from writing can take a long time: perhaps several years. If you start off and just make a few pennies in your first week or maybe a dollar or two in your first month, don’t assume that you’ve failed.

Of course you need to learn your craft and over time you will have a better understanding of what works and more skills to draw on. But it is more than just this which makes me say you should be patient. I have articles I wrote more than 2 years ago which are still making me a passive income from readers reaching them through search engines or links from other sites. As you build up your portfolio of published work you will build your income.

Write for a variety of sources

It is unlikely that you will be able to make a living writing for a single website or app. Some people can, but most can’t. Writing for a variety of sources increases our chance of success. You can also repurpose articles and topics. While directly republishing the same article in multiple places is often not allowed (and usually not a great idea even if it is allowed) you can use the same research and knowledge to write several articles on the same topic.

Reference yourself

Using your newer articles to link to other work you have already published is essential if you want to build up your readership.

Create capstone pages

Capstone pages are a great way to gain readers. Once you have a good amount of content on a topic you can create a much broader article and link to several of your other articles from the same place. For example, I could write 5 or 6 articles about being an online writer, then create a page with a topic like “A Beginner’s guide to earning money as an online writer” and link to all of my other work on the subject.

Learn to type fast, and use spellcheck

Unfortunately very few of your articles will earn a lot of money even if you are very good. It is almost certain that if you want to earn good money you will have to produce a lot of articles. If you aren’t a very fast typist (and I mean very, very fast) then it will probably pay to spend some time learning to type faster. Make sure the quality of your work doesn’t suffer though: use spellcheck. This also leads me on to my final point….

Be interested in a lot of different things

You will run out of things to write about eventually. This is perhaps the hardest thing, because you need to keep going for a long time and write a lot of articles to build up your income, but most people have a limited set of topics they know enough about. Making an effort to get interested in a lot of different things and find new interests on a regular basis really helps with this.