Art Of Money

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I’ve figured it out…the biggest oversight online.

Do you know that if you Google “SEO” it returns 151 million results. In a nutshell it is the art of trying to present the exact magic website formula to the search engines to rank highly on the results pages. Many companies charge thousands of dollars a month to “optimize” websites.

SEO is the Magic Pill of making money online right?

Wrong.

Well, according to common wisdom it is. Common wisdom is wrong too. The really magic ingredient to success on the web is the ability to write effectively. Sorry, not nearly as sexy as “Search Engine Optimization” and that’s the reason why writing skills are riding in the trunk on the information superhighway and “SEO” is sitting like a king in the back of the limo.

Which one is more important? Let me give you an example. If you were an effective and persuasive writer you could take a product, become an affiliate, put up a one page sales letter, purchase AdWords to drive traffic to the site, squeeze the visitors for their email address and if you didn’t sell them with your writing the first time, you’d have many more chances but sending them regular emails.

You have an entire business from the skill of being an effective writer. Not only do you not need SEO, you don’t even need a search engine! Try that with SEO.

What Does it Mean to Be An Effective Writer?

That’s a big question. But in a nutshell it means to be able to climb inside the fabric of your reader’s being and to lead them through a story. Just like when your parents read you a story at bedtime, we love stories even if its purpose is to sell you something, or better put, to persuade you to purchase something.

Isn’t Selling Yucky?

No, selling, if done correctly, is a great service. What’s yucky is when someone tries to impose their agendas on to you.

Yucky is trying to get someone to buy something with full knowledge that it isn’t right for them, just so you can make a couple bucks.

Selling is the art of helping a person locate a product or service which serves their need or want at a price that they can afford. A couple weeks ago I purchased an iPod and the salesman suggested that I might want to take a look at the protective cases that they had on sale a the moment. I bought a case too. It hadn’t occurred to me, but of course it was a good idea, that music player goes through hell the way I use it. That’s good selling, he really helped me out…my iPod could have been ruined by now.

Writing Takes Practice

It also takes empathy, intention and clarity. Lately I’ve been seeing an improvement in my writing skills as I have done more and more of it.

The biggest thing is the wonderful whispers that come and tap me on the shoulder and say, “your reader will be wondering about this now.” At which point you can answer their silent query or, when skills are evolved, tickle it a bit, to create suspense and the desire to read on.

There is an old saying, “the first casualty of war is the truth” and it could be that the first casualty of the Internet is the ability to write, which is very ironic given the primarily textual nature of websites.

Really SEO is the one who keeps writing in the trunk of the limo. Writers on the web are trying to tickle the interest of the search engines more than their reader’s imaginations. Sad but true.

No I’m not going to call for a revolt, I’m just going to continue to love my new found delight of writing for people and not writing for search engine spiders.

Learn About Persuasive Writing

I have two places where I have learned the most about persuasion and how to make money on the web through effective writing. You can check out:

Sean D’Souza’s Site PsychoTactics.com

Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg’s GrokDotCom.com

Both sites have excellent newsletters that I subscribe to.