Writing in the modern world is always an uphill battle. You have to compete with thousands of others just to get those online readers to look at your articles. Use these tips and tricks to gain some readership and to gain some earnings.

Online readers rely on specific writing style, immediacy, and imagery/visual appeal to become interested in what they are reading. When writing articles on the Web, writers must be specific in writing themes, titles, and must make their stories visually appealing by using images and by using text to appeal to their readers’ interests. For example if you are writing a sport article then you are not going to have images of something else or have tags of something else. Use the tags column to pull in your readers and use images to make your articles more visually appealing on the subject you are writing about.

1.  Online readers demand to know immediately what online articles are about. The writer should be careful to cover the “Five Ws” within the first section of the article.

1. Who
2. What
3. When
4. Where
5. Why

Using the Five Ws hooks readers’ interest, and lets them know what the article truly entails – most importantly, the first paragraph usually lets the readers know if the article contains information they would like to know about the topic. Always be specific in getting the article’s general themes across.

2. Titles of articles should be as specific as possible. A title such as “Music Blogs: How to Make Them” is not specific enough; be advised there are millions of online articles with the exact same title. A title such as “Constructing Music Blogs: Making Blogs for fans of Electronic Music” would be more specific, and would yield more hits on search engines. More hits on search engines means the article would be read by a larger audience.

3. While letting the readers know the most important aspects of the story is an essential skill, an article must be visually appealing to the reader as well. Linking an image to the article further attracts the readers’ interest, and connects the text to an image. The text, in turn, becomes more memorable to readers. Be sure to contact any private photographers or agencies before using their images for copyright purposes.

4.  If someone makes a good point about something that you say, or they ask a question about one of your posts, take the time to respond to them. Also take constructive criticism on board will not only help get you more readers but it will help you be a better writer.

5. If you are a personality that makes people want to read, then simply being yourself will keep people coming back for more. Once these blog readers have a general idea of who you are and what you are all about, they will continue to come around as long as you remain true to yourself.

These 5 tips will get you a long way to getting new readers and keeping them.