How to Get Freelance SEO Writing Jobs

Freelance sites such as Elance and Freelancer.com can be a good place to get your feet wet and learn what sort of freelance SEO writing jobs are available and learn the ropes, but they are not a good place for an experienced SEO writer. Because of the competitive atmosphere created on any bidding site, prices tend to be driven down to the point where most US-based writers can't even make enough to live on. These sites are often overrun by writers from third-world countries who have broken English, so clients who want quality content often find the experience frustrating as well.

The next level of pay for freelance SEO writers is often found at sites such as Textbroker, Constant Content, and The Content Authority, but these sites have their drawbacks as well. The pay is still less than desirable at some of these sites, and at Constant Content, the articles you write may or may not ever sell.

So what is the answer for freelancers who want to make more money from their SEO writing skills? The solution is to find your own clients—clients who appreciate and value quality SEO writing.

There are many Internet marketing forums out there. The most well-known are probably the Warrior Forum and DigitalPoint Forums. There are a lot of Internet marketers hanging out on these sites, and they all need web content for their sites.

That doesn't mean you should just start spamming the forums. You'll find that your posts will get deleted quickly if you do, and you'll only make yourself look bad. Before you start advertising your services, even in your forum signature, read the rules for the forum and find out what the requirements are. Most forums will let you put a link to your site in your signature, but you'll probably have to pay to advertise elsewhere on the forum.

Deciding whether to pay for advertising and where to advertise can be hard, especially if the cost is high and funds are tight. I've placed ads that have gotten no response, and I have placed others that paid for themselves within hours. Unfortunately, the only way to figure out what works is to try it.

I'd recommend starting with low-cost ads. If you spend all you can spare on a single ad and get no response, it's going to hurt. Start small, and don't spend more than you can afford to lose on advertising. Until you have more experience, advertising can be a bit like gambling—you never know if you are going to strike it rich or lose every penny you put into it.

It's best if you spend some time on the forum before you place your ad and get involved in the conversations. That way, when you place your ad, your name will already be familiar to some of your potential customers.

Using your website to attract customers allows you to take advantage of the very skills you are selling—your SEO writing skills. Unfortunately, if your experience is limited to writing articles for others, you may not have a full understanding of what it takes to rank well in the search engines. It takes more than just good SEO writing skills.

To get free traffic from the search engines, you need to be able to find the right keywords, write great SEO content targeting those keywords (you know you can do that!), optimize other on-page factors such as the meta tags, and get SEO backlinks to your site using the correct anchor text.

I could probably write an entire book on optimizing your site for SEO, but for now just click here to read my top ten SEO writing tips. These ten tips will give you a solid foundation and you should start getting some organic search traffic. Don't worry too much if traffic is slow at first. It can take a few months to start getting a decent amount of traffic to a new website. Once your site ages a bit, it will be more trusted by the search engines and your traffic should pick up.

Having your own website gives you credibility, especially if you are ranking well for SEO-related keywords, and you'll be able to charge more because your clients can see that what you are doing is really working.