Web Content Development: The New Writing Career

The Rise of Content Development

It isn’t surprising that the Internet is proving to be a boon for writers. Despite all the flashy pictures, downloaded music, and stock reports, the focus of most web pages is the written word.

The early need for web content resulted in a deluge of poorly written and badly planned sites. Businesses, from U.S. Steel to Coca-Cola to the corner flower shop rushed to put something, anything, on the web. In doing this, they often turned to their programmers and gurus, allowing any employee or vendor who could learn HTML to set up their site. Usually, this was done by either hastily translating their existing advertising and marketing materials, or creating something totally new and often useless. That was the first wave. Thankfully, it has mostly subsided.

Now, we are at the crest of the second wave. The idea of the Internet as a medium has begun to assert itself. Foremost in this wave has been the idea of the portal. A portal is a spot people will bookmark, add to their list of favorites, or even set as a home page. It features extensive, varied content designed to appeal to a large number of diverse people. Web sites such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Netscape, Excite.com, and Snap.com provide news articles, weather reports, horoscopes, stock tickers, and have begun to produce content of their own. The concept of web content has moved from an afterthought to a primary consideration. Even corporate sites such as IBM, Lands End, and Home Depot go out of their way to provide value-added content.

Magazines, from early web pioneer Wired and Salon to established print giants such as US News and World Reports, do more than simply reprint their magazine on the web, they add web-only content. Freed from the limitations of the printing process, they can now add articles almost instantaneously, and they can feature articles that are either too long or too specialized for a massive print run. Moreover, they can add more features and information to articles that also appear in the print versions of their publications, from specialized links to added graphics and online polls.

Writers were among the first to embrace the Internet and the World Wide Web. They began with newsgroups, exchanging information and research. Then, realizing that the power of publishing was now cheap and accessible, they began to create their own e-zines (web-only or web-accessible magazines) with themes from the literary, to the political, to the controversial. The beauty of the e-zine is that one copy can reach hundreds and now thousands of readers. This has opened up many smaller markets for writers.

The third wave of Internet content should prove to be the best yet for writers. This will be a wave in which web sites begin to provide content as a means to profit. Sites such as Ask.com, Learn2.com, About.com, and Suite101.com are beginning to prove that you can make money through content-based sites. These aren’t magazines, or even e-zines, but a new species of publication altogether. Sites like Ask.com and Learn2.com are generating advertising revenues by providing information. Ask.com works as a supercharged search service, one that tries to give you the answer to any question you ask. What separates Ask.com from search engines such as Lycos and AltaVista, is that Ask.com doesn’t limit itself to searching the web. Ask.com has created internal content that it looks for first, then if it uses all of the other search engines on the web to try to provide answers it doesn’t have. Learn2.com provides a similar service, but without the search engine basis. The concept of Learn2.com is that it functions as a powerful how-to guide, answering questions from how to cure the hiccups to how to tie a tie.

About.com and Suite101.com are taking a different approach, but are still concentrating on answering questions. These sites work by creating online communities. They strive to have an internal web page, with articles and links and advertisements, to cover hundreds, even thousands of topics. They provide the general format, but they rely on a writer/webmaster to maintain the content of each page. That person, who has expertise on the topic, writes and solicits articles and maintains fresh links to outside sites. The idea of these sites is to create more specialized portals. Fishing Enthusiasts might bookmark or even make a home page out of the fishing site, while mystery enthusiasts might choose to make a home page out of that site. The thought is that while each of these sites may not generate sufficient business to attract a great deal of revenue on their own, when banded together under one central roof, they make for a powerful coalition.

On the business side, web sites began as PR devices, with advertising information, some product information, and maybe a list of press releases if the company site was particularly ambitious. At this point, web sites are a corporate necessity. Not only is a company obliged to have content such as advertising, product information, customer service and technical information, it needs to attract an audience.

How does a site attract an audience? It attracts an audience by giving the readers more than just the minimum. For example, Michael’s, a chain of stores the specializes in craft supplies, does not just give a list of what you can buy, it also provides an ever-growing list of craft projects, complete with patterns, instructions, and pictures of the finished product. Michael’s adds as many as twenty new projects a month. Not only are the customers provided with dozens of craft ideas, they’re also given a reason to come back, because they never know what is going to show up next. More and more web-sites are being challenged to improve their content, and they are beginning to realize that their HTML guru is not necessarily the best person to provide it. This has resulted in the rise of the Web Writer/Editor.

Web Writing as a Career

Much like the rest of the writing world, there are two distinctly different career paths available to web writers: the staff web writer and the freelance web writer. The differences are much the same as they are in the rest of the writing world. A staff writer works for one company, though not necessarily a traditional publisher.

The staff web writer position can have many different titles. Some are called technical writers, but that is getting to be rarer as more companies outside the computer industry have begun to enter the web. Web content writer and web content editor are more common titles now. Web reporter, interactive media writer, online writer and online editor are other common titles. Whatever the title, the positions are generally the same. Companies are looking for writers who have expertise in a topic they require, and who are web literate. The ability to use HTML or XML is not always a requirement, but it often is. This is because, even if the writers don’t put up the page themselves, which they often do, they are expected to provide links, graphics, and all of the other necessary content to make for an attractive-looking web page.

Freelance writers often have more flexibility in this matter. Freelance writers work in much the same manner as traditional freelance writers. This generally means e-mail submissions in which text is often good enough. The test is then edited and formatted by the publisher so that it fits their theme and design. Still, lists of companion links are often a good idea.

The position of staff writer can now be found in many technology companies, and is growing to areas outside of technology. Beyond working for a single corporate entity, you may also find yourself working for advertising or PR agencies that are looking for web-savvy writers. The other major contributor is established newspapers and magazines that are looking to beef up their web content.

Freelance writers make their living in much the same way as they have in the past, by querying publications with story ideas or existing articles. Unlike print publications submissions, however, online querying and submission is the rule rather than the exception, and the time from query to publication can often be a matter of hours rather than weeks or months. Freelancers should be very careful in editing their submissions however. Online publications often tend to edit articles much less strenuously than their print counterparts, which means that any errors on the writers part are much more likely to end up in the finished product.

Finding Work

If you are interested in employment as a web writer, you should be ready to demonstrate writing, editing, and web-development skills. Editing skills are especially important, because of the faster nature of web publication.

Web Development skills can vary. The most prized web skills are the higher-end skills such as manual HTML and XML coding, plus knowledge of JavaScript, Java, VBscript, Perl/CGI, and Dynamic HTML. That’s a long list of things to know though, and too long a list for most people who consider themselves to be writers primarily. For the most part, employers will want you to be able to use a web-page development package such as Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe PageMill, or HomeSite. Some companies may desire knowledge of Robohelp HTML if their content is more technically oriented.

Your writing skills may be widely varied of course. Some companies want people with a technical writing background, while others are looking for people with a reporting or advertising background. Knowledge of a site’s topic is probably the most valued skill of all. If a company is looking for an expert in rock climbing, and you are a writer who writes about rock climbing, then your chances are pretty good, just as in the rest of the writing world.

Finding the right employer is a challenge, but there are ways to make the challenge easier. There are jobs all over the country, but the highest concentration of them can be found in technologically modern urban settings. The Bay area is the leader in web content development, with New York, Chicago, Phoenix, and Los Angeles being other prominent centers. Any large city is likely provide some work however, and because of the online nature of web writing, telecommuting is sometimes a possibility. There seems to be about a 50/50 split between contract and permanent employment opportunities. Online employment sites such as HotJobs.com, Job.com, 4entertainmentjobs.com, Newsjobs, CollegeJobBoard.com, and Freelance Work Exchange and are great places to look. You might also want to check out their e-zine Contentious. My writing employment center at poewar.com also lists jobs in web content development.