The Art and Business of Online Writing: How to Beat the Game of Capturing and Keeping Attention

by Nicolas Cole

Worst case scenario, I’d spend a year practicing my writing. Best case, I’d build an audience and jumpstart my career.

Notoriously, human beings spend an awful lot of time imagining the big achievement we want for ourselves at the end of the journey, but struggle tremendously getting through the beginning—where we suck. Gamers, on the other hand, know that you have to play Level 1 over and over again in order to reach Level 2. And then you have to play Level 2 over and over again before you can reach Level 3. And if you can just keep on keeping on your journey, learning and mastering each level, you will eventually climb all the way to the top of the ladder. That’s how you “beat the game.”

By writing online, you elevate yourself. And when you elevate yourself, you open new doors of opportunity.

It took me a long time to realize that writing online isn’t just for writers.

By investing in yourself, and using writing to share your insights, perspectives, and stories with the world, you will end up accelerating your professional career (and personal growth) in ways you couldn’t have achieved elsewhere. And by mastering “the game” of online writing, you will ultimately reach more people, expand your network, and become an influential voice and leader in your industry.

Whenever someone tells me they want to start writing online, their first assumption is they should start a blog. When they use this word, blog, a very particular image comes to mind: their own website, with their own look and feel, presenting their own thoughts, linearly, post by post. The way most people imagine writing online is still rooted in 1995. They think the best path forward is to begin a “web log.”

The truth is, blogging, having your own website, and writing online are three completely different things. You can blog without having your own website. You can have your own website without ever blogging. And you can write things online that millions upon millions of people read without having your own website or your own blog.

Today, starting a blog is a lot closer to starting a business. The entire purpose of starting a blog, and having people come to your own site, is for two reasons and two reasons only—and both are inspired by money. First, you either plan on monetizing your website via ads (which is why it’s so crucial that people read your material on your site, which you own), or second, you plan on using your blog to attract a certain type of customer to your website in order to capture their email address and/or sell them a product, service, etc.

Now, most people hear the above and think, “Well, of course my goal is to make money from my writing.” But making money from your writing is not the same thing as 1) starting a website monetized through ads (which is a media business) or 2) starting a website that sells a product or service (which could be anything from a physical product to an information product like an online course), which are all different variations of an e-commerce business. Either way, when you start a “blog,” you aren’t really in the business of writing. You’re in the business of ads, products, or services.

Which is why, unless you are an internet entrepreneur looking to build a media business (monetize through ads) or focus 100% of your efforts on selling a product (monetize through e-commerce), I wholeheartedly believe starting a blog is a waste of time.

The way I define Online Writing is based on one variable and one variable only: Sharing thoughts, stories, opinions, and insights on a platform that already has an active audience.

If you are writing on your own platform hoping an audience will come to you, that’s Blogging. And if you are bringing your voice to a platform where an audience already exists, that’s Online Writing.

The reason I am so wholeheartedly against blogging as a writing strategy is because starting a blog means starting a new website, and starting a new website means starting with zero traffic.

If you are a company with the resources to build and scale your website into an industry publication, you should start a blog. And if you are a solopreneur who wants to “own” a category or niche by creating a directory of knowledge, you should start a blog. But if you don’t fit within either of these two categories, then blogging is not your best path forward.

Again, the difference here comes down to what you want to get out of your writing. Do you want to build a company and brand, making money selling ads, products, and/or services? Then a website and “blog” makes sense. But if you enjoy writing and want to build a personal brand, position yourself as an authentic voice in your industry, and share your thoughts, stories, opinions, and insights at scale, then do not start a blog. The Online Writing approach was made for you.

There are 2 types of writers today: those who use data to inform and improve their writing, and those who fail.

why would a writer wait until the moment they were ready to publish their product to start building their audience? The more logical path forward would be to start writing online, build an audience, learn what people actually wanted from you, and THEN launch your product.

The new way to think about being a writer in the digital age is to turn your writing into a data mining machine.

This is why I tell everyone—whether you’re an aspiring author or the CEO of a public company—that before you do anything, before you write your book, before you launch your product, before you think about “positioning yourself,” you need to write online. Why? Writing online, first, reduces your risk: You will learn what people like and don’t like much faster, for free. Writing online, first, helps you find your voice: If you start paying attention to data, the way you write today will not be the way you write tomorrow. Writing online, first, builds your audience from day one: Instead of waiting until your bigger projects are ready to be shared, you will set yourself up for success from the very beginning. Writing online, first, will give you insight into what people want: This is what Mark Manson did that was so brilliant. He used the data from his blog to inform the title, structure, and concept for his book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck.

The sooner you start receiving feedback on your writing, the faster you will grow as a writer. The more data you can gather, the more insight you’ll have into what people want; the more your writing will resonate; the more people you will reach, and so on.

Writing online, and the immediacy of the feedback, prompts a high amount of anxiety. It’s the same reason people are afraid to speak in front of a crowd—the feedback is immediate (you can see how people feel by the looks on their faces). But it’s this back-and-forth, this instant reveal that also makes the process so valuable. The faster you can gather feedback in the form of data, the faster you can make decisions to move yourself forward. Conversely, the more you delay this feedback, the longer it’s going to take you to figure out “what’s working” and what’s not. Which is why I believe it is so important to Practice In Public.

Practicing In Public is what separates aspiring writers from professional writers.

I believe the only way to overcome this fear is to run directly at it.

But at the end of the day, the reason a reader reads one piece of writing and doesn’t read another is because somewhere in their mind, they are making a choice. And in that choice is a decision to pick one writer’s work over another. Which means one writer wins, and the other writer loses. On the internet, especially, every single creator—whether you’re a writer, a podcaster, a video maker, a photographer—is competing for attention. Which means, as a writer, you aren’t just competing against other writers. You’re also competing against cat videos and viral memes and all the other types of content someone could consume in a day.

If you truly have no desire to be a professional writer, and exclusively see the craft as your own personal hobby, then please, feel free to write whatever it is you want to write about. Post it wherever your heart desires (your blog, for example). After all, life isn’t all about “winning”—the purpose of life is to play, learn, explore, and express. So again, if all you want is your art in your own corner of the web, by all means, throw this book in the trash and live your best life. But here’s the thing. If you say that’s what writing means to you, and only two people clap for what you wrote, then you aren’t allowed to complain. You can’t sit there and blame the internet or “the algorithm” or all the people on planet earth who “don’t know great writing.” You have to accept the fact that you’ve chosen to play the game unconsciously (that is to say, without any awareness or desire to pay attention to how readers react and respond to your work), which means you’re stuck in the two-clap club.

However, if your goal is to be better tomorrow than you are today, you have to play the game consciously. You have to start opening your eyes to the way the game is played, who your competition is, and what they’re doing that is capturing (and keeping) people’s attention—so that you can do the same. I’m not asking you to compromise your authentic writing voice for clickbait trash. I’m telling you that by playing the game with intention, and paying attention to the data, you will discover and amplify your most authentic writing voice ten times faster.

Categories are how we organize information in our minds. Know your category and you’ll know where readers “fit” you into their own minds.

The secret to creating a unique writing style is by doing what would be considered “unexpected” in your chosen category.

the one thing I can tell you is the internet does not always favor what’s “Good.” The internet favors what’s fast.

When people read online, they don’t actually “read.” What they do is skim. Browse. Scroll. They let their eyes gloss over the words, and if something compelling catches their eye in the first two, five, maybe ten seconds (a word, a subhead, a phrase), then they’ll stop skimming and start reading. But you better believe as soon as momentum in the writing starts to slow, they’re gone. They’ll swipe back to their social media feed and be neck deep in Memeville in a millisecond. When I was in college, one of my teachers used to say all the time, “If your story is reliant on the reader making it past the first few pages, then chances are, your story doesn’t need those pages.”

Ineffective writing is nothing more than writing that does not resonate. And the reason it doesn’t resonate is almost always a reflection of specificity—or lack thereof. Either the writer isn’t being specific enough about their category, or the content of their writing isn’t speaking specifically to their target reader.

From a category perspective, there is a big difference between broad, overarching categories, and niche categories. It’s one thing to say, “I write about life,” and it’s another to say, “I write about lifestyle habits for people in their 20s struggling to find their passion.” A lot of aspiring writers shy away from naming their writing that specifically, because they fear putting themselves in a box. But especially when you’re first starting out online, a box is exactly what you want. You want people to know where to put you on the bookshelf in their mind.

It’s this level of attention to detail that makes one writer “Better” than another. This is what I mean when I say “Good” and “Bad” are unproductive ways of looking at writing. The real question you should never stop asking yourself is, “Could this be more specific?” Because the more specific you can be, the more likely you are to resonate with your target reader MORE than your competition. Start within a niche, and then expand from there.

Remember, Specificity Is The Secret. The more specific you are, the more likely a reader is going to immediately assume they are in the right place, reading the right writer for them.

The moment you have even one signal of Earned Credibility, you should start leveraging it. If one of your articles gets 10,000 views, you should have a link in your bio saying, “Read my most-popular article with more than 10,000 views.” If something you write gets Tweeted by a prominent person in your industry, use that to your advantage: “Mark Cuban loved this article of mine—I think you will too.” If you’ve been writing online for five years straight, why isn’t that in your bio? “Writing every single day online since 2015. Read my most-popular articles here.”

I can’t tell you how many authors, business owners, and public speakers think “if only” they could write for a major publication, then they would be able to promote their business or their book and all would be right in the world. What they don’t take into consideration, however, is that people don’t wake up in the morning excited to read about your best interests.

Social platforms will always exceed major publications in terms of reach.

All you need to know is that the primary benefit of writing for a publication is the Perceived Credibility that comes with it—and many, if not all of these sites use this to their advantage. You write for free, and in exchange you get to leverage their logo for your own credibility. And while the other benefits, such as SEO, social exposure, and money can certainly be nice, there are far better ways to achieve those same ends without having to play the role of “opinion journalist” for a publication or industry website. Which is why I firmly believe the single best place to begin writing online is on some sort of social media platform.

In order to do these three things as quickly as possible, it’s best to begin writing on a social media site that 1) already has a significant user base, 2) is relevant to your chosen category, and most importantly, 3) provides you with analytics into your target readers’ behaviors. This is where writing on your own blog, or even someone else’s website, falls short. The whole idea isn’t to just hit publish and then pat yourself on the back. The idea is to hit publish and start gathering data. What are people Liking? What are people Upvoting? What are people Commenting? What are people Sharing?

Pros of writing on a social platform: Readers can easily discover you (whereas with a blog you are responsible for bringing the readers yourself, and with a publication you are hoping people will discover you via SEO and/or paid media). You can “earn” credibility with metrics like Views, Shares, Comments, Badges, Who-Follows-Who, etc. You can interact and build meaningful relationships with other writers and readers. You can build an audience, faster, in an environment that allows you to reach them quickly and effectively. You still “own” all of your content. Unlike writing for a major publication, you can do whatever you want with your content—including copy/pasting the exact same material onto different platforms. You are perceived differently. When someone reads your writing on your blog, it feels biased and subjective. When someone reads your writing on a social site, it feels more objective and “out in the open.” Your content is more likely to be shared. Other websites and publications very rarely (if ever) syndicate or share content from someone’s personal blog or company website. But content published in social environments is considered “fair game” and far more likely to be shared. Social platforms also have exponentially larger audiences than websites and publications, so when a piece of writing “catches fire” on a social site, it goes further, faster.

Cons of writing on social platforms: Feedback is much more immediate. (This is actually a pro, but for a lot of people it’s seen as a con. They don’t like the idea of writing in an environment that objectively tells them only one person Liked their article.) Criticism is more direct. Aspiring writers and industry leaders will avoid partaking in the social world online because they don’t know how they’d handle a negative comment or someone disagreeing with what they wrote. “Anyone can write on social platforms.” This is a criticism I’ve heard from high-status people who feel they are above sharing their insight on the same platform as a “nobody.” These are the types of people who chase after contributing to major publications, almost exclusively because there is a barrier to entry and being allowed in makes them feel they are “where they should be.” My opinion is that all these cons are self-inflicted, and largely rooted in fear or insecurity.

Phase 1: New website or platform is invented—early audiences flock. This is going to be a crash course in entrepreneurship and early-stage investing. The overwhelming pro to “starting early” on an emerging platform is that as the platform grows, so do you. In fact, many early-stage websites and social platforms will go above and beyond to empower their early users and content creators, because without you the site ceases to hold value. People don’t spend time on platforms that don’t have content they want to consume. The con, however, is that you are banking on the platform’s success in order to remain relevant. The earlier a platform is in its life cycle, the riskier an investment it is (for investors, but also for content creators). You could invest a significant amount of time, energy, and resources in bringing your audience from one platform over to this new platform, only for the new platform to suddenly fail, go out of business, or get shut down. This is the argument 99% of people make for why you shouldn’t start writing on a social platform, and why you should start a blog instead.

Phase 2: Website or platform starts gaining traction—early users become “influencers.” The turning point for most emerging platforms is the point at which early users start becoming “internet celebrities” that represent the platform. This has happened on every single social platform in history. YouTube gave rise to “YouTubers.” Instagram power-users became “Instagram influencers.” Whenever a platform starts growing exponentially and popular content creators begin to separate themselves from the pack, the “game” is unveiled to the general public. Suddenly, anyone new to the platform realizes there is a hierarchy, a ladder they can climb—and if they are willing to “play the game,” they can build an audience for themselves too.

Phase 3: Website or platform is established and begins a decade-long journey to profitability. This was the phase Quora was in when I started writing on the platform in 2014. For context, Quora had raised its $50 million Series B two years prior, in 2012. Raising $50 million meant the platform was signing itself up for a decade-long journey to slowly convert its free platform and users into an advertising revenue generating machine. By the time I joined the platform, a small number of power-users had already been crowned as Top Writers, and the hierarchy had been established. It was also clear Quora wanted to continue rewarding these Top Writers, since they were responsible for engaging the platform’s community and writing high-quality content for the site. In hindsight, I joined Quora at the perfect time.

Phase 4: Advertising model is launched and user reach starts falling.

Phase 5: Business model is established, reach is throttled, and it’s time to find a new platform.

Deciding to start writing online is one thing. Not giving up is entirely another.

The unfortunate reality is that most of us suffer from “instant gratification syndrome.” As soon as we start something new, we want to know we’re amazing at it, that the world loves us, and all we could have ever desired is about to come barreling forth. The number of people who have said to me, “I just wrote my first article online, but I only got 37 views so I don’t know if it’s really working,” would shock you.

The truth is, nobody, not even the most talented writers on earth, show up to a brand-new platform, write one single article, and experience overnight success. There is no such thing as, “I wrote my first piece and received 10 million v...

If your goal is to be a successful writer, then social platforms are for publishing first, and consuming second.