How to Write Poetry That Attracts Readers Online

Poets often struggle with getting readers because poems are written for reader enjoyment and do not provide answers to online search queries. Here is a solution.

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The Challenge of Attracting Readers to Your Poetry

Poets usually struggle with getting readers because poems are written for reader enjoyment and do not provide solutions to online search queries. But if you want to monetize your poems with ad revenue, you need to learn how to write poetry that attracts Google traffic.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital to increase reader traffic from people seeking information. But how would one achieve that with poetic expression?

A solution I experimented with is writing poems with an educational and informative value. That would increase the readership and the ad revenue poetry writers hope to achieve.

Why It’s Difficult to Make Money With Poetry

If you write poems online and feel that you need to improve at promoting your work, it’s crucial to understand why you’re having trouble.

It isn’t easy to attract readers to poetry through search engines for two reasons:

1. Poems tend to be void of keyword phrases that would attract organic search. It’s a common problem for all poetry. When people search for things online, nothing matches poetry.

2. Poems mainly serve the purpose of entertainment. They don’t necessarily provide answers to queries, which is why they don’t usually appear in search results.

To increase the success of poetry that you publish online, read on as I discuss my solution in detail.

Poetry That Attracts Google Traffic

I appreciate poems that tell a good story and entice the reader to feel they are involved in the imagery. However, some writers express the discontent that their poetry falls on few ears.

For that reason, I decided to examine writing educational content in poetic form that could attract a new audience that never related to poetry before.

I have always liked rhyming verse in poetry and grew up thinking that poems were meant to rhyme. But I later learned there is a natural beauty to all forms of poetic verse, such as limericks, sonnets, haiku, tanka, senryu, and cinquain.

However, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, as the saying goes. I feel my best when writing poems that rhyme. I’m no expert on the subject, but I think poems need to be reader-friendly, especially when we consider writing for organic traffic with educational content in a poem.

Complex forms of poetry could quickly lose a reader who came to it for its educational content. So, for that reason, I feel rhyming poetry is best for this purpose.

I feel rhythm helps deliver information. And putting educational content into other types of poetry may not work as well. Remember, our focus is on attracting organic traffic.

Finding the right words to make my point while keeping a rhythm doesn’t always come easily. But considering the other complex forms of poetry, I think using a rhyme is one of the easiest to achieve.

There are many ways to achieve brilliance with creative poetry, so I wouldn’t rule out using other forms when writing for organic traffic as long as the educational content is comprehensible.

Emotion in Poetry

Emotion is undoubtedly an essential part of poetry. But that doesn’t attract search traffic. Instead, those who appreciate the creativity of including emotional stances in poetry will seek it out based on known authors they follow.

However, when an unknown author hopes to find an audience on the Internet, something else needs to be provided in the content of their poems — something people search for online.

Therefore, poetry need not include emotion for the purpose of writing for organic traffic. It could just as well involve instructive and informative information providing knowledge for learning and studying, as long as its meaning is clear.

The Importance of Using Searchable Poem Titles

Many people who post poetry online don’t consider the SEO aspect of having a search-friendly title.

I see many poems with titles related to the poem but lack the vital details for SEO success. That could be because poets use catchy titles. But if you want to attract search engine traffic, think in terms of what people might want to find online.

It’s crucial to have keywords in your poem’s title that match online search queries to make it possible for your poetry to appear in search results (SERPs). Your poem will rank well for that specific search phrase when you do that.

An important point to consider:

If someone who doesn’t like poetry stumbles upon your educational poem, they will click away quickly. Unfortunately, that short duration could cause search engines to lower the ranking of your poem.

Therefore, it’s a good idea to include the word “poem” or “poetry” in the title for transparency so that readers know what to expect.

Get Title Ideas for Poetry From Google’s Auto-Suggest

Try using Google’s suggestions to find what people are searching for that could work well with your poetry.

To do that, begin by entering “poetry on” or “poetry about” and see how Google completes the sentence. You can also get more specific.

Here’s what I got when I did this:

• Poetry on love and marriage
• Poetry on the loss of a friend
• Poetry on grief and healing
• Poetry about perfection and excellence
• Poetry about friendship
• Poetry about learning to read
• Children’s poetry about nature
• Children’s poetry about animals
• Children’s poetry about gratitude

Those Google suggestions are helpful for ideas to write about in poetic form. In addition, Google includes additional hints under “People Also Ask” in the search results.

Finally, when creating the title, ask yourself if you’d click that when you see it in a search listing. That’s essential SEO for any web content, and it’s necessary to get poetry noticed too.

Make Your Poetry Reader-Friendly

Poets don’t usually think of this. But it’s crucial to get Google to rank your poem well. So make it pleasurable to read your poetry.

Read Your Poem Out Loud

That is a standard rule for any author to achieve a well-written piece, no matter what it is. And it helps with poems too. I proofread my poems often before I consider them finished. And each time I do, I rework them a little.

In addition, reading out loud is crucial for poems that are meant to rhyme. When you write rhyming poetry, you won’t know for sure you are rhyming unless you read it out loud. So, give that a try and be willing to make changes when necessary.

Not all poetry is meant to rhyme, as I mentioned earlier. So, if your forte is one of the other types of poetry, reading out loud is still necessary to hear how it sounds.

Key Takeaway

The idea I discussed is to write poems that answer questions people search for online. If written content provides answers to questions, people will find it in their search results (SERPs).

It will rank higher if it is of excellent quality with unique information that is better than competing content. And that should work with poetry too!

As you can see, the problem with poems is not that they lack quality or are poorly written. The issue is that they need to provide answers to queries.

People usually search the web for solutions to their problems. So, if you write a poem that helps people find the answers they are searching for, it will have more value for their intent and their queries would match better with the content of your poetry.

As a result, you gain more readers and could increase the revenue received for ads placed with your online poetry.

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