The skill sets of teachers are ideal for Internet business. One surprise for new online business people is how much of the Internet business world relies upon writing. Effective article marketing is essential for getting traffic to a website and for improving the search engine rankings of that site. For some new, would-be Internet marketers, writing is an insurmountable obstacle; for professors (or former professors) it is almost like being greeted by an old friend.

University professors spend a great deal of their time writing. College professors, for example, have built their careers by publishing articles or lengthy monographs about their specialties. Any academic who is not proficient in contributing to the available knowledge in her or his field through publication, is not going to present a serious bid for tenure at most institutions of higher learning.

Furthermore, all teachers serve as mentors for our undergraduate and graduate students in the development of their writing skills, so teachers become good editors as well. As a tenured college professor of any years, I could not even estimate the number of hours I have spent with seemingly good students recommending different essay structure options or brainstorming with them to find clearer ways to express their ideas.

Granted, most writing for the Internet is very different from academic writing. A 1000 word article is considered enormous by most standards, whereas in academic writing it would be considered a brief introduction. Still, academics have learned to synthesize material succinctly in their presentations at conferences, in their abstracts to their articles and in their lectures to students. They have also learned to be very specific, which is what most Internet writing entails, since the online world is really a collection of very narrow niches.

Some Internet marketers do all of their own writing until they have grown their business to the point that they can begin to hire employees. For these people writing skills are invaluable, so former professors have a genuine advantage in this aspect of the business.

Other Internet entrepreneurs choose to outsource much of their article writing. They might use an article writing service. However the quality of these services vary widely. Hence, the skill of an editor is needed. That is the skill that college teachers have honed very well while poring over assignments submitted by students and while polishing their own articles and books.

All the writing that comes from starting a new ecommerce business is confounding to most people, it is a task to which former teachers bring a great deal of confidence and talent. Indeed, some professors may wish to specialize in writing for other online marketers.