Get More Page Views

With the Internet becoming more and more ubiquitous, and the world economy struggling to recover, more and more people are turning to the web as a means to increase, supplement or even replace their income. There are many ways to do this, such as selling goods or using affiliate systems, but possibly the most viable option to most of us is writing. Site like Associated Content allow would-be writers to publish their own work online, and will pay you to do so. The catch? For the majority of aspiring columnists, how-to writers and reviewers, the only real option is to be paid based on the amount of hits your articles get.

So how do you get more page views? Hopefully these pointers will help you pull in those readers, and up your page views.

1. Keywords - Keywords are important. Without keywords, search engines such as Google and Bing do not know a web page is about. Obviously there will be keywords in any written work you put online, however you should ensure that your work contains enough keywords to place your articles high up in the search rankings, and that the keywords that are picked up are relevant to your article as a whole. For example, if your article is about Wine, you shouldn't mention "Crackers" more than you mention "Wine." It is also important not to "stuff" your work with keywords. A page that has clearly had certain keywords inserted as much as possible with little thought to proper sentence structure or readability will not only discourage viewers from reading more of your work, but search engines will also treat the page with suspicion if too high a percentage of the content is a certain word or phrase.
2. Relevancy - In order to get more page views, you have to be providing content that people are looking for. This can readily be achieved by one of two means. Either write about current affairs, or write about a niche topic. Writing about the most recent and talked about events or news will guarantee you some page views, however you should bare in mind that, even with this sure fire hit, you will be competing with thousands of other writers who are thinking the same thing. The amount of page views you actually get could come down to how visible your work is (ie, how many sites link to it) as opposed to how well written it is. The alternative is to write about something very specific. Think about it, if you write about Britney Spears or Barack Obama, you will be lucky to get half a percent of the millions of people searching those topics. If you write about household cats named Jebidiah, there may be only four hundred or so people interested in what you're writing, but you're more likely to get most of them.
3. Visibility - People will not read your work if they don't know it's there. We have covered two major factors in writing about what people are looking for, and making your work more appealing to search engines, but why rely only on search engines to promote your work. If you have a Twitter account, post your latest work on there. Facebook? Couldn't hurt to mention it. The page views should improve if you advertise to people who are interested in what you're writing. Beware though, there is a fine line between letting friends know about your latest work, and spamming. If you post dozens of links a day, people will block you. And never email people about your work unless they have asked you to.

So there we have it, my three pointers to getting more page views to your article, blog or any other written work you wish to advertise. Remember not to get discouraged if the page views don't come flooding in; it can take time and practice to learn how to tell what people want to read, and how to write about it, but by following these three simple points, you will be well on the way.