Bylines to SEO: The Pros and Cons of Writing for Websites vs. Print

There has been a seismic shift in the media landscape over the last three decades, driven by the exponential expansion of websites. The print magazine industry has experienced a substantial decline in mass-market circulation, as more readers shift to digital platforms. Why purchase monthly magazines when you can read so much regularly on websites? Although pixels have not entirely replaced printed words, websites have fundamentally altered the speed, convenience, and global reach of publishing. 

The print-digital publishing schism is now a fundamental division within the media industry that can split freelance writers. Choosing where to pitch and submit articles, be it for print or digital media, is now a strategic decision. To better navigate this landscape, we must consider the advantages and disadvantages of writing for websites rather than print magazines. These are the pros and cons of writing for websites over print magazines. 

One of the biggest advantages of writing articles for websites is shorter lead times. The lead time is the period between submitting an article and its appearing in a print or digital publication. Monthly magazines typically operate on lead times between three and six months. However, it can sometimes take years for submitted articles to appear in magazines with longer lead times. I had to wait four years for one of my submitted articles to be published in a magazine with a slow queue. Furthermore, most magazines operate on a pay-on-publication basis, which is frustrating. 

(An Honest Review of the Medium Publishing Platform Article Market.) 

However, digital media largely dismantles lead times because most websites operate on more rapid, continuous publishing cycles. You won’t usually have to wait long for an article to appear on a site after submitting it. The lead time for Writer’s Digest website article submissions typically falls within one month. Writer’s Digest also operates on a more pay-on-acceptance model with invoice scheduling. 

Of course, there are different types of websites, and lead times for more open content platforms are largely irrelevant. Articles submitted to open platform sites like Medium immediately appear. If you submitan article to a Medium publication, however, you might need to wait a few days for the editors to review it. 

The internet is global, with an almost unlimited audience reach for website articles, barring language barriers and regional restrictions. In theory, billions (or at least millions) of people can read your website articles. Thus, the earning possibilities on open content platforms like Medium and Vocal.media, which offer remuneration based on readership, can potentially be quite substantial. For example, a small minority of Medium members report that their Partner Program articles have generated thousands of dollars monthly. 

In comparison, most printed magazines are restricted to national geography. Magazines need to be printed and distributed, which typically restricts them to a single country's audience. Although big circulation magazines can still have big readerships, their audiences are generally national rather than international. 

Another advantage of writing articles for websites is that you can integrate multimedia elements into them. Adding video clips to website articles is one way you can bring them to life. Website articles can also include polls, interactive charts, photo galleries, and embedded audio. 

Hyperlinks are a part of website multimedia integration when linking to audio, images, and video. Articles on websites can include images and/or video clips with hyperlinks embedded within them. The general flexibility of linking is one of the biggest advantages of website writing, enabling us to intricately interlink variable pages and multimedia elements within articles. 

Articles in print magazines can include images and charts, but that’s about it. They are also constrained by physical page counts. Nor can you cross-reference magazine pages with hyperlinks. Thus, it’salways better to submit articles to websites for dynamic multimedia content integration. 

When an article is published in a printed magazine, there’s no way back so far as updates and editing corrections go. If a magazine piece includes a few typos or inaccurate details that went unnoticed beforehand, they will always remain a blemish comparable to a permanent carpet stain. So, it’s all the more essential to thoroughly check through articles submitted to magazines. 

In contrast, typos in website articles are easy to fix when spotted. Even if you don’t have direct editing access to an article on a website, you can always ask the editor to fix something after an article has gone up on a site. Or you can apply updates to any website article content when necessary. 

A pitfall of submitting articles to print magazines is that publication isn’t always guaranteed. That’s especially the case when you submit a first article to a magazine you haven’t previously collaborated with. Few magazines offer kill fees (partial remuneration) for rejected article content. Nor do magazine editorials always give people a fair chance to edit declined articles. 

Websites typically offer more guaranteed publication, especially when you submit articles to them on a recruited contributor basis. If you join a site as a recruited contributor, via an application process, that website will probably include all (or most) articles you submit to it, albeit with occasional edit requests. Open content platforms like Medium offer guaranteed publication for articles submitted. As websites aren’t restricted to fitting and scheduling content into issues, the volume of articles you can submit to them can also be much larger. 

Note that there are also open submission sites that don’t always recruit regular contributors, such as Writer’s Digest. Such sites operate on a similar editorial pitch approval basis to print magazines. Publication on open-to-submission sites is not necessarily more guaranteed than print magazines, but I have found them to be slightly fairer alternatives. 

In my experience, websites generally offer lower remuneration (pay) for articles than print magazines. That’s especially the case for content sites and websites that recruit contributors. Some websites offer remuneration based on article pageviews, readership, and even ad revenue share, which is very punitive on articles that generate little traffic. Many sites that offer more fixed remuneration for articles do so at a much lower average rate than magazines. Magazine article rates can vary as follows: 

This means volume efficiency can be more important for web writers. To overcome lower pay rates, writers must submit a larger volume of articles. Thus, the emphasis can be on submitting shorter, sharper blog-style articles to websites that offer low remuneration. 

When you submit articles directly to websites with text editors, you need to take care of their formatting. Having collaborated with numerous sites myself, I have sometimes been bogged down by style guidelines demanding subheadings, bold text, images, hyperlinks, and more article formatting besides. In some cases, formatting requirements laid by some website editors can be quite excessive. 

(How to Write Effective Software Articles for Websites and Blogs.) 

Editors take care of formatting articles submitted to magazines. Some magazines might ask contributors to provide images for inclusion, but nothing more. Thus, submitting articles to magazines is usually more straightforward without formatting requirements. 

The increasing search engine optimization obsession for website articles can be considered a disadvantage of digital media. Today, digital media is almost governed by SEO competition for article visibility. Some websites insist that contributors integrate keywords, ALT text, images, and subheadings into their articles for the sake of enhancing search engine rank. Thus, website writers often have to balance their own expression with mathematical SEO optimization to satisfy editors. 

(7 Search Engine Optimization Tips for Website and Blog Articles.) 

Search engines are completely irrelevant for magazine articles. There are never any kind of SEO briefs for magazine articles. So, you don’t need to be at all SEO savvy for drafting magazine articles. 

Magazine articles still carry a higher prestige value than website alternatives despite the relative decline of print media. This is perhaps because there is a bit more editorial selectivity for magazine articles when print space is limited. The premium production value of more tangible paper magazines is another reason why printed articles have higher prestige. To have your name in printed ink carries a little more cultural prestige in an era when digital publishing is becoming increasingly prevalent. 

The choice of writing for websites or magazines is not necessarily a matter of declaring one better than the other, as both have advantages and disadvantages when directly compared. It’s more important to appreciate the differences and trade-offs between writing for websites and magazines, as outlined above. Remember that you don’t have to choose between them because freelancers can embrace both digital and printed media. I have collaborated with websites and magazines, but generally favor submitting articles to sites because of their shorter lead times and global audiences.