by Linda L Kinyon

Created on: July 01, 2009   Last Updated: July 05, 2009

In this day and age of a failing economy many are turning to the Internet to add to their income. As a writer there are many ways to make a living on the Internet. Yet there is also a very high amount of competition.

To be a successful Internet writer one must be very competitive. One should select writing sites that are in his or her field of expertise and one should seek out opportunities to expand upon that.

If you are writing for a site that already has titles set up for you, such as Helium, select titles that you are familiar with. Remember also that you will make more money in the top five to ten titles than you will below that range. Considering that information, it might behoove you to select titles with less than ten articles in them to write to. If you are in competition with one hundred other articles and you are just starting out you may well find yourself below the top ten mark.

Consider your marketing techniques also. Are you advertising your articles? Do you have a blog about your writing? Do you use any social networking sites? If you are not taking advantage of at least one of these free advertising sites, you are again selling yourself short. The more page views your articles get, the more money you earn. Use one or all of the above mentioned ways to increase your free advertising.

In order to keep your articles in the top ten of any given set, you need to keep several things in mind. Check your grammar and check it again. You may even consider having a good friend or family member go over it for you for grammatical errors. Often a misplaced comma or quotation mark can change an entire sentence.

Check your spelling and again, check it twice. Use the spell check feature in your word processing program and also in the submit box of Helium. Watch for proper usage. Use the correct forms of "to and too and two". There are many easy ways to change the meaning of a sentence, if you are not sure about the proper spelling or usage of a specific word, consult a dictionary and double check the word. If you misuse the forms of words, your articles will often rank much lower in the rankings.

Keeping yourself up to date on specifics of a subject is another way to improve your articles over that of your competition. If you are unsure of any facts, look them up and double check them for accuracy. Don't let updated information pass you by and take away from your article.

Once you get a good following on your article writing, people will want to read more of what you write. Encourage people to add you as a favorite writer and come back and read other articles you have written. Make an article a two part article and refer to "part two" in your first article and "part one" in your second article. This encourages people to seek out your other articles.

Staying competitive in this day and age can be a challenge, but it is not impossible. Remember, there are thousands upon thousands of writers out there competing with you. Make your article stand out amongst the crowd by being creative, using proper grammar and spelling and staying in competitive titles.

Don't hesitate to leap frog an article to improve your ratings. Leap frog can be a valuable tool to use in keeping your articles competitive.

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