Truth 47. The virtual world offers self-publishing power

Today, we all have the power to be publishers, which presents an extraordinary set of opportunities. If you’re a businessperson, consultant, or entrepreneur, posting articles on your own Web site or blog is one of the most effective ways ever imagined to build a reputation, position yourself as an authority, and support the marketing of a service or product.

To search engines, an article with useful information is “original content” that moves your site up the rankings in its category. This means it will be found early on the list that comes up when a search term is entered. (Ideally, you want it to come up on the first page because few people look farther.) Many Internet gurus feel that detailed, well-done articles on specialized subjects do much more to accomplish business goals than random blog posts that comment on the issue of the moment (or, typically, argue about it).

Also, an article you put on your own site can be recycled endlessly, just like one that is printed in a traditional publication. You can e-mail the link to customers and prospects, and enclose printouts in mailings. You can use printouts as conference and trade show handouts. You can add the link to your signature on e-mails, like savvy nonprofits do with positive press coverage, and to any promotional material you produce. You can draw attention to your article via your social media of choice.

Your writing strategy for e-media is essentially the same as for print media. However, generally speaking, you need to write tighter and take online reading habits into account: the dive-for-information mindset, the reluctance to scroll, and so on. Especially if you want to interest the “general public,” it’s best to write short pieces based on a single idea.

But if you are targeting a knowledgeable audience, such as other specialists or aficionados in your field, it works better to deliver a detailed, comprehensive treatment of a subject that is of true value to those readers. Even for detailed material, though, build with short words, sentences, and paragraphs. Formatting devices will promote readability—subheads, bold lead-ins, graphics, color hyperlinks, bulleted lists if applicable, white space, and the like.

Get to the point

Online articles do need headlines and leads that get to the point quickly. They should also be “searchable,” meaning that Google and the other search engines can identify the subject matter with the opening words. While a print-media audience needs to be captured with interesting heads and leads, this doesn’t much apply online: A virtual audience already knows what it’s interested in, and is actively looking for it; people just want to locate it as fast as possible. So it pays to think about how your target audience would look for your material and build in the searchwords, just as for a Web site.

For example, an online version of the new tax law article explored in Truth 46 might begin:

Tax Law Change Affects Small Businesses

Regulation 44, the new tax law for small business, radically changes the way expenses must be recorded and filed.

This matter-of-factness should be reflected in the body of the article as well. You’re delivering useful information to people who want it, comprehensively but concisely. Examples work especially well online, because they are reader friendly. Of course, ideas and opinions are also perfectly legitimate subjects to write about. When that’s what you’re doing, be sure to detail your reasoning, the relevant facts, and whatever else is appropriate to make your case. Let’s try a product-related example.

Suppose your company, or you yourself, developed new software to foil hackers and you want to get the word out. If you’re aiming to get published in a print magazine on technology, you’d try for an intriguing lead, such as a rhetorical question:

What common threat plagues almost every company in the world today, from the biggest international corporation on down?

In a word, security: safeguarding critical computer systems from hackers. Now BBA is introducing a new product that can solve the problem.

It’s called Hacker Tracker…

But online, this would work better:

Computer hacking in the corporate world is a huge threat and a constant fear. A new product called Hacker Tracker offers a solution.

Organize your virtual article very clearly, section by section. Don’t spend a lot of time summing things up; a brief ending will do the job. Make sure to include your real name, contact information, and a brief statement of your credentials and position. Do proof and edit carefully: Challenging language, grammatical errors, and misspellings always undermine your credibility. Eliminate every trace of empty rhetoric and hype—you’re making a real contribution to your subject here, and overt selling should be totally low-key or missing. An apparent absence of self-interest is much more convincing.

Advice on how to write effective headlines is covered in Truth 48, “Good headlines help your writing work—a lot.”

Writing articles can be an extremely useful career-booster, and if you take it step by step, you may find it a lot easier than you think.

Can you write a book?

Why not? If you don’t find a publisher or prefer not to try, self-publishing in the digital age is amazingly fast and inexpensive. It has also become eminently respectable. If you work in a consulting or service capacity, a book—even a short, practical how-to—can give you a powerful marketing tool. Just think of it as a really big writing project.