How to Interest Readers in Your Articles

Tweet

"It's boring." I hear this from online writers of social sites who think that what others say isn't often very interesting. Can we bring back something that we have lost? Several years ago, I wrote for one of the first online writing sites called eHow. For those of you who do not know, it was a writing site like this one, but the writer had to start off the article with a title of, "How to......." This could be, "How to Staple Fabric to a Wall" or, "How to Keep Your Rain Gutters Clear." It could be anything that you know about, or have researched. The article must explain clearly how to do what the title says. The eHow site paid very well, and went on for some time. It was taken over by Demand Studios, who owned it, and they paid off their writers in exchange for their content. They paid me over $800 when eHow was closed down to new content. That was for a lot of articles, I assure you. One can still find eHow articles online, still generating revenue for Demand Studios. It was a win-win situation. We all have knowledge or the capacity to learn something that we can turn into an interesting article. As my title suggests, the content must have something in it that will engage and teach the reader. There is a comments section as well, and others are invited to add their own information about the topic, such as, "Using red mulch in addition to the green will help add contrast and interest. We did that in our front yard, and it really is stunning. Here is a picture." The picture on this article is an example of what you might see. People used to put a whole series of pictures up if needed, to show the steps. When sites began appearing to pay writers for basically saying nothing, revenue took a nosedive. We are still experiencing this now. New writing sites are no Facebook. All have fallen short, and the expectation that people would flock to a site just because they like to talk, has been incorrect, and this has been reflected in many failures. There are still "How to" sites around, but not many. Some have been badly managed, and are visually uninspiring, like Firehow, who tried to mimic eHow's success. I joined them, but lack of interesting graphics and other management problems kept that site on a back burner. So much so, that most people never even heard of it. They still pay, and are reliable, but the site is visually awful. I would like to see a resurgence of the "How to" format, with quality content. I think it would give writers another chance at success, on a site on which people want to visit and socialize. Even on MyLot we can do this, as it is not forbidden, and I believe readership would improve with this technique. Let's put out a couple, and see what happens! Are you game?