Decide What You Want to Be Known For
When people start creating content online, they often struggle to figure out what they should focus on. I faced the same challenge at the beginning, writing about a mix of topics to see what resonated.
Over time, based on my stats and growing audience interest, I chose the self-improvement niche and stuck to it for two years. Gradually, I expanded into sub-niches such as:
- Productivity
- Books and reading
- Becoming a better writer
- Side hustling and building an online business
I derived article ideas from my daily experiences. Documenting my self-improvement journey allowed me to write about my experiments—what worked, what didn’t, and what I learned along the way.
This approach enabled me to produce authentic, unique content while ensuring I never ran out of ideas. It was my first step toward earning money online.
How You Can Do It
At the start of your writing career, decide who you want to be known as and stick to it. Write about topics you already know and focus on your “unfair advantages”—the unique experiences or skills that set you apart.
Decide How You Want to Make Money
Online writers have multiple ways to monetize their skills, including:
- Selling courses and products
- Offering consultation calls
- Freelance writing
- Writing on platforms that pay
Among these, selling courses is an incredible way to earn because there’s no cap on your income potential. You can create a course once, continue selling it, and generate passive income indefinitely.
But selling isn’t always easy—it can be exhausting. Launching a product or course takes significant time and effort. If a launch fails, it can take a toll on your mental health.
I learned this the hard way with my first course. While it was a success and earned over $2,000, I realized that hard selling wasn’t for me. Constantly marketing to your audience can drain your energy and even harm your credibility if overdone.
Instead, I chose soft selling:
- Create a product in a niche I specialize in (freelancing).
- Build a portfolio of work that supports this niche.
- Add a link to my course or product at the end of relevant articles.
This method allows me to make sales without actively pushing my audience, keeping the process more organic and less stressful.
How You Can Do It
- Decide how you want to make money—consider choosing more than one method.
- Determine how much time you can dedicate to each.
- Market your product or service without annoying your audience or compromising your credibility.
- Build social proof by collecting testimonials from people you’ve helped.
Pro Tip: Pack your content with value, offering 99% of it for free. When your audience sees how much they’re gaining at no cost, they’ll trust your paid offerings for the 1% of extra value they won’t find anywhere else.
Write to Help, Not for Fulfillment
If your goal is personal or artistic satisfaction, write what your heart tells you to. However, if you want to earn money, write for your audience—solve their problems and provide value.
“You can write for yourself or you can write for an audience, but you can’t do both.” — Josh Spector
My online content is designed to help people. It’s not about my personal fulfillment.
To understand your audience’s needs, do this:
- After publishing 100 articles, sort them by performance stats.
- Analyze your top 20 pieces to identify common themes—this is your niche.
- Learn about your audience: their age, interests, pain points, and what keeps them awake at night.
- Use this information to tailor your content and offer practical solutions.
When you know your audience deeply, your content becomes more impactful, helping you build trust and earn well.
The Balance Between Art and Business
Some might argue that turning writing into a formula strips away its artistry, making it just a business. Personally, I’m fine with that. I use my journal for self-expression. When I write online, my goal is to help my audience—people who trust me with their time and money.
In today’s digital world, your competition isn’t just other writers. You’re up against videos, podcasts, and instantly gratifying social media posts. To monetize your skills effectively, you can’t focus solely on protecting your “inner artist.”
Here’s what works:
- Be specific about what you want to be known for.
- Choose a method to generate income—courses, products, consultations, or services.
- Prioritize value-driven content that solves your audience’s problems.
This balance between creativity and data-driven insights will help you consistently deliver value, build a strong personal brand, and earn your audience’s trust.
Final Words
The choice is yours.
If you’re ready to take your writing to the next level, I invite you to check out Freelance Trauma To Hope www.traumatohope.com —a training program designed for writers who want to earn online without leaving their jobs, attract gigs outside platforms like Upwork or Fiverr, and become irreplaceable in their niche.
Get started today, and take the first step toward building your dream writing career!
