Work-at-Home SEO Writing Jobs

It is not difficult at all to find freelance SEO writing jobs that allow you to work from home if you are willing to work for peanuts. Finding a job that pays a decent income is much more difficult. Either way, most work-at-home SEO writing jobs are not jobs at all—at least not technically.

Most of the SEO work you will find involves clients or companies that contract writers to write articles for them. This is not like a regular job where your employer pays you an hourly wage and deducts taxes from your paycheck. Instead, you will be self-employed and, in most cases, you will be paid either by the word or by the article.

If the idea of starting your own writing business scares you, you'll be relieved to find out that there's really nothing to it. Although it's always a good idea to double-check the laws in your area, in most places, freelancing as a writer does not require any special licenses or permits as long as you are doing business under your own legal name, not a business name.

We don't really have room to discuss all of the legal and tax ramifications of owning your own business in this article (maybe I'll cover that later), so let's get on with talking about where you can find work.

There are quite a few companies that offer SEO writing services to their clients and also make it really easy for writers to sign up and get work through their sites. My favorite of these is Constant Content.

One thing I love about Constant Content is that you can write about anything you want. Another thing I like is that you can set your own prices. This allows you to make much more per hour writing for Constant Content than you would through other sites.

The downside of Constant Content is that you never know which articles will sell. In addition, the company takes a 35% commission. This is huge, but as long as you set your prices so that 65% of the cost gives you what you want, it comes out just fine.

Constant Content does have a system where customers can request articles on specific topics, but even if you write for a request, you are still not guaranteed to get the job. Any writer who wants to submit an article for a request can do so, but the customer is not obligated to buy any of them. If you submit an article for a request and the requester does not purchase it within a few days, it is put up for sale on the site so other customers can see it.

You need to have strong writing skills to be accepted by Constant Content, but if you get approved, it can provide a good income for SEO article writers.

Textbroker is another service that offers work-at-home SEO writing jobs. On this site, you do not get to choose what to write about. Instead, you'll have to choose from the orders that are submitted by their clients. Some of these orders are simple, but others are ridiculously complicated.

The trick to making a decent amount of money on Textbroker is to choose the easy orders. If you can write about subjects you have a lot of knowledge about, you will be able to write the articles quickly with little or no research. I have made over $20 per hour on some of the articles I've written for this site by carefully selecting the topics and keywords that I choose to write about.

Of course, if you choose the wrong assignments, the pay can be pretty pitiful. Some clients expect too much for the amount you are being paid for the article. For the most part, you can usually determine this just by taking a look at the instructions for the assignment. Avoid the ones that ask for too much if you want to keep your hourly rate high.

If you accept an assignment and then realize that it is going to take too long to write to really be worth it for you, you can release it back into the pool without penalty. There is no limit to how many times you can do this.

The real value in Textbroker comes from direct orders. If you are a good writer, you can land some profitable writing assignments through this feature. After writing an article that is particularly profitable or enjoyable, I will often send the client a message letting him or her know that I am available for direct orders. I have gotten quite a few jobs this way, and direct orders usually pay better than regular open orders.

The Content Authority is another service that sells SEO articles to website owners. It works similarly to the way Textbroker works, but The Content Authority also has a section for article rewrites. The pay on these is much lower, but there is never any research required so they can be written very quickly.

I have never been able to make $20 per hour working for The Content Authority, so I usually don't check this site unless I need money within a week (they pay weekly) and can't find any assignments that appeal to me on Textbroker.

Exceptional writers can make more by writing for Constant Content or finding their own clients. If you are not quite there yet, you can still make a decent income writing for Textbroker and The Content Authority.

If you need money right away, you'll be glad to know that both Textbroker and The Content Authority pay weekly. Constant Content pays twice per month, around the 1st and the 15th.

These aren't the highest-paying writing gigs out there, but they are a good way to get started if you are new to the writing business.