Important Writing Tips Learned from My First Month at Associated Content

I have reached the end of my first full month at Associated Content, and looking back it has been a fantastic experience. I have greatly enjoyed having a forum to pursue my writing, and to have a place here where other Associated Content producers can help me grow in my abilities.

When I came to Associated Content, it was after a nearly three-year hiatus from real writing altogether. My degree was in composition but my profession did not use that degree to the utmost, and as a result my pen had become rusty.

Writing is in my blood, however, and I was very pleased to find in Associated Content a place for me to reconnect to that passion and start to move forward once again. Now I am happy to have nearly 50 pieces of content under my Clout 5 belt, and 6500 views to start my first month. I have also been approached by two separate websites which have asked me to begin writing for them as well (at a much higher rate per article, I am happy to say), and I feel as though I am well on my way to re-embracing my writing fully.

The process of reclaiming my writing strength and jumping back into the wordy grind has proven difficult for me, and there are a number of things that I have learned in just this past month that I wish I had known before running headlong into the syntactical fray.

For all of you who are newly stepping into this great community of writers and trying your pen-hand at writing for Associated Content, I would like to offer up these tips for writing with Associated Content:

Write about what you know
One of the biggest traps I fell into when I started writing for Associated Content was trying to get into a habit of researching into things that I did not already know about in an attempt to write articles about things that others would read about.

While it is important to write on popular topics in order to bring in page views, writing outside your expertise wastes your time, and has the potential to waste the time of your readers. No one wants to listen to someone ramble on about topics they know nothing about, and should someone see through you to find that your articles for Associated Content are no better than the meandering blogs of a person who is truly ignorant about their subject your readers are much more likely to never give any of your other work a second thought.

Before you start writing, determine what you actually know something about. Even if the topics you are good at are for more of a niche market, you can establish a loyal following of people who trust your expertise and will subscribe to become a part of your fanbase.

Also, it is important to remember that you are marketing yourself on Associated Content. Sub-par articles about subjects you know nothing about will show through as the work of an amateur, and your public face will reflect that. Future employers want to see that you can speak with authority and strength, and that your readers can trust you to not try to pull the wool over their eyes.

Use your unique voice
Associated Content was my first foray into webwriting, and anyone who chooses to read my first few articles will be able to vicariously feel the sensation of a first-time driver trying to learn how to drive a manual transmission. Not only did I jerk and stop violently as I attempted to learn SEO (Search Engine Optimation for you newbies) and apply it to what I have already established was very rusty writing skills, I am fairly sure I killed the car a few times, and at least once I left the transmission laying on the road behind me.

You may be tempted to toss everything you've learned at the start of your Associated Content journey in favor of jumping headlong into SEO, keywords, and density, but you may just leave your readers behind as well. Instead, think of your task at Associated Content as a learning process that will take some time, and try to work SEO in gradually.

Once you get the hang of the nuances, you can eventually decide to give your SEO skills some gas, and see what happens. More than anything, listen to the feedback you get. If someone responds negatively, take her advice seriously. For many webwriting will be unfamiliar territory, and it will take the good advice of both readers and those more experienced people who know what works and what doesn't to become more successful.

Write about the things you want to know
Remember that old adage, "There is no such thing as a bad question?" The concept remains true here at Associated Content. If you want to know the answer to a question, the odds are in your favor that someone else does as well. If it interests you, it will interest someone else.

The inverse is also true. If you are just writing about something to have something to write about, but you wouldn't care to know it one way or another, you probably won't get many page views on it. There are certain topics that, quite frankly, no one really gives a care about.

You will know these topics when you start to write about them, and hopefully before. Don't write something just to prove you know something about it; write to inform, and to give someone what they need. Always write with a purpose that has someone else in mind. Your audience is your thermostat, if your topic is too cold, they will turn off, but if your topic is hot, you will see them generate the cool air you need to keep going.

Learn SEO, but don't abuse SEO
If you've been around on very many of the CP pages, you have seen those people who litter their articles with keyword after keyword after keyword. Reading some of those articles is like going over a rocky African back road in an old fiat: in no way is it comfortable, your back starts to hurt, and the whole thing smells like a moldy banana.

Avoid SEO for the sake of SEO. Search Engine Optimization is a tool for you to use to get your content read by the public; it is not your god. You do not have to serve the SEO, you do not have to sacrifice your unborn child to the SEO, you are the SEO's master. You choose when to use your keywords, and you choose when it is important to highlight your writing skills versus the demand of the almighty Google.

Instead, choose to be a master craftsman. Hide your SEO keywords among your text, and always make sure that your articles belong to you and reflect the mental processes that make you who you are. Be faithful to your craft, not to Google, and your readers will trust you to be a source of information and not just some robot spouting forth the unintelligible language of keywords and prophesying their inevitable future density.

Do not write alone
The beauty of a community such as Associated Content is in the body of support that Associated Content affords new content producers.

To start, embrace the forums. Avoiding the forums was one of my biggest mistakes on the front end of my time here at Associated Content. There are so many wonderful people here who jump at the chance to help newbies like us become acclimated and really start to succeed. Take advantage (in the positive sense) of their goodness and their willingness to help, and you will start to really see yourself love your new home on the web.

Above all, do NOT view the other content producers here as your competition. This was my impression when I first came to Associated Content, much to my chagrin. I misunderstood the AC community as mere self-promoters and opportunists, and I have since learned just how wonderful these people are. To all of you in the Associated Content forums I offer my sincerest apologies and hope that I can have your forgiveness for being so short-sighted.

Lesson to be learned: talk with the people over in the forums. Ask questions, honor their work, create friends and colleagues, and stop being self-interested. Contribute to the community, and enjoy the company.

Promote
If you have happened upon this article, you may have already seen lots of input on this aspect of webwriting from other content producers. I only wish to add my experience to the wealth of input that other content producers have for all of us.

There are three sources in particular that have proven surprisingly useful in promoting my content. I am happy to say that Associated Content has already recognized the potential of these sources and made great strides in interfacing with them to make the process much easier.

The one source that stands above all others in calling others to come read my articles has been Facebook. I am not one of those people who adds random friends just for the sake of having a friend list the size of Texas; each person in my friend list on Facebook has a significant memory with me. Because all of the people who have access to my Facebook know me personally, when they see the articles that I am posting online they are intrigued and have been checking them out regularly.

To add to this, my Facebook friends have begun spreading the word on my articles, and I have seen a definite boost since. Be sure to use Facebook to your advantage if you are already involved in the Facebook community.

My Wordpress blog has also provided me some good traffic. I am often surprised to see how many people click through my blog posts on Wordpress and make it to my Associated Content page. One article in particular, Army Specialist Zachary Boyd Battles the Taliban in His Underwear, generated quite a bit of buzz from Wordpress, and subsequently generated traffic here.

The one truly surprising source of traffic to my Associated Content has been Twitter. I have been a part of Twitter Nay-Sayers Anonymous since its inception, and now that I have begun to see the purpose of Twitter, my tune is starting to match that of the cheerful bird on Twitter's homepage.

As a result of retweeting and auto-posting I now have over 80 followers, only 15 of which are actually friends. Those remaining 65 followers are all receiving my Associated Content tweets, and many are clicking through and commenting to me about my articles. As a result I have learned not to judge a bird by its tweeter, and to give Twitter a chance.

The verdict?
If you're new, work. Enjoy the community, learn from those around you, and write about what you know. This is a great place for you to stretch your writing fingers and really provide something useful to the world, so take it and run with it.

For more on how to succeed as a new content producer at Associated Content, I recommend reading Radell's Writing for Associated Content: For Newbie's Only. She was a great help to me, and I believe that she will be to you as well.

For more by this writer, check out the Dallas Pop Media Examiner, or the Dallas Generation Y Examiner.