Articles by Glenn Stok
Some people make writing a full-time job to earn a living. But if you do it part-time, you still need to consider it as a business. If you don’t do that, then you only have a hobby and you’re limiting your success.
If you are serious about writing, you most likely want to earn revenue from it. It’s good to be rewarded for the hard work you do with your research and the effort you put into your writing, proofreading, and editing. So let’s get started.
You’ll want to show that you are an authority figure on any subject you write. That will build trust so your readers will appreciate the value of your content. That also makes search engines rank your content higher.
It will help if you put effort into consistently making all your articles stellar quality, with no grammar or spelling errors. More importantly, it means you did your research to ensure the accuracy of your content.
I always include a list of references at the bottom of my articles that required extensive research. The format of those references should be in proper APA Citation Style.
Publish only your best material. I write much more than the world will ever see. I try to be my own worst critic. If I don’t feel absolutely sure of the material I wrote, I leave it in my archives.
Nothing is wasted. Sometimes I will bring something out from my archives for another purpose where it’s worth something to the reader. I always ask myself that question — does it have value?
When I do decide to publish an article, I spend more time cleaning it up than I had spent writing it. That’s the business aspect of the work. Imagine you have a boss, and they throw your script back at you and say, “It’s not good enough. You need to develop the conclusion better. Your point wasn’t clear. You ran into too much rhetoric.”
The point I’m making is that you need to proofread more than once, rework your content, so the logic flows as intended, and do research to offer the best content possible.
Part of the business is working at keeping old articles up to date. Always take the time to review your previously written material and keep it fresh. Google likes fresh content. You’ll do better with search engine ranking when your articles are always accurate with changes that match current situations.
I’ve written many tutorials that needed maintenance because the features I wrote about had changed. I keep a record of those things, so I know when I need to pull out an old published article and update it.
That’s part of the business. If readers stumble upon something I wrote a long time ago that’s not accurate, I will lose that reader entirely once they realize they wasted time reading obsolete material.
If you lose enough readers that way, Google will catch up to you and drop your ranking so low that your material just won’t appear in the SERPs anymore.
It would be best if you made your article better than other authors have written on the same topic. To accomplish that, search for your topic. Then read all the results on the first page of the SERPs.
Add more researched content that can improve on those that are your competition. Once you do all that, you’ll have a better chance of getting to the top of the search results.
EAT stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.” Google uses that term in its Search Quality Guidelines.
To be ranked well with Google, you need to make sure you covere all three of these items.
If you write articles that are purely your opinion on a particular subject, make that clear right up front. Don’t let your reader think you’re a journalist when you’re merely writing your opinion.
You can be an authority on an opinion piece. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s called Op-Ed, which means a personal opinion opposite the editorial page.
I sometimes see articles where people make the mistake of posting images they found in a Google image search without checking the copyright status. It seems these people don’t realize that those might be copyright protected.
One has to visit the site Google links to and search for copyright permission statements. Most people just say the images are from Google images. They think stating where they found the image is sufficient, but the images are not from Google just because Google displays them. They are from another site that Google merely references.
If you use those images, you might be infringing on their copyright, giving the copyright holder the right to request your entire page to be taken down under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Keep a log journal of the time you devote to each subject matter as you write. That includes the research you put into it as well as the time you’re actually writing.
If you keep good logs frequently, you can review them to see where you are wasting your time. For example, I discovered that certain subjects I’ve written about did not pay as well as others after considering the time spent with the creative process.
That analysis helped me focus on the subjects that work best to attract an audience.
I use TurboTax to file my taxes every year, but even if you’d rather hire an accountant, you need to keep good records. That includes all income from all sources and all deductible expenses.
When you buy paper or ink for your printer or purchase books as learning aides for your writing career, enter the information into a journal. Include the date, the cost, the store, the item, and the purpose.
I never deduct items that I use personally. Only what pertains to the writing business is tax-deductible. If you buy things you use for your writing and personally, it’s best not to deduct its cost at all, in my opinion.
My reason is that if you ever get audited, you won’t have any disputes with the IRS. However, it’s best to review your situation with a professional accountant.
If you do decide to split personal and business items, make sure you have an excellent explanation describing the reasoning behind the split. I just prefer not to write off my computer. I find it much easier to absorb the cost myself.
If you do want to deduct your computer, keep in mind that you need to show how you came up with the ratio of personal and business. You can see how that can get complicated and difficult to prove. That’s why I chose not to deduct it. But that’s your choice.
