SEO Article Writing: 4 Easy Tips to Help You Get Into the Hottest Niche in Freelance Writing

SEO article writing is one of the hottest niches for freelance writers. There are companies that understand the importance of using good SEO content to drive traffic to their websites and they are always looking for decent SEO article writers. Even in the current economic downturn, you can get SEO writing jobs if you market yourself as an SEO content writer.

What is SEO Article Writing?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site that you think your prospects will search on to find your website. These keywords determine how high your website ranks in the search engine results.

SEO article writers are hired to incorporate these keywords or keyword phrases into the body copy of an article. Good SEO article writers weave the appropriate keywords into the content so that they sound natural and not just “stuffed” into the article.

SEO Writing Jobs

Companies that look for SEO article writers look for candidates that have writing samples to show, can meet deadlines, and understand the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) and its use of keywords in SEO articles to help drive web traffic.

Yes, it’s true—some SEO writing gigs pay poverty-level wages and this can work for you if your primary motivation is to just build a portfolio of samples. Some of these jobs pay from $3 an article up to around $15 an article.

But…if you want to write SEO articles to make a living—there are companies that will pay decent wages for well-written content.

Here are 3 tips to help you land a job as a successful freelance SEO article writer:

1) Study and understand search engine optimization basics. I recommend reading Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. This is a resource guide that was published for webmasters, but it can help copywriters understand the importance of keywords from an overall perspective— from the back-end of a web page, to the front-end SEO content.
The Google SEO guide can be found at the following web address:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

2) Market yourself primarily as an SEO article writer. Don’t focus on other types of writing—present yourself as an SEO writer. Potential clients will view you as an expert. Companies prefer to hire writers that have SEO experience.

3) Write some sample SEO articles for your portfolio. If you don’t already have SEO writing samples, they are easy enough to write. Choose three to five topics that interest you and write articles that are anywhere from 300 to 500 words each using relative keywords. Make sure you understand SEO basics and do your keyword research first.

4) Build a list of possible clients. Start building a job lead list. Check for jobs on copywriter and freelance writer job boards. Do keyword searches for advertising agencies and seo content providers. Make a list of the companies you find and email your resume with samples.

Once you’ve studied the SEO basics and collect some SEO writing samples—you’re ready to get a gig in the hottest freelance writing niche!