Today, many talented people are turning to the Internet to make money, many of these
people are thinking about writing; and there is a terrific opportunity right now for those
who have a passion for writing and are thinking about writing online to make money, it's called
SEO writing. In today's video, I'll give you an overview of how to become an SEO writer
and get paid. A lot of people still think that SEO writing means cheap, poor, low-quality
or even bad treatment, this is not true; yes, there are a few bad SEO writing clients, just
like for any industry, but I've been running my own SEO content writing agency full-time
since 2011, we've had the honor of working with some amazing SEO writing clients.
What many don't see is the opportunity that exists in SEO writing, once you learn the
skill, the sky is the limit on who you can serve, this is a real money-making skillset.
In today's video, I'm going to teach you SEO writing techniques that you can apply to any
client in any industry; ready, let's get started. First, what is a SEO-writing, if you're completely
new to this, SEO stands for search engine optimized. SEO writing is the process of writing,
putting together a piece of content that can be easily indexed and ranked in Google and
found by a real human searching Google. So, for example, a keyword that an SEO writer
could get might look like how to find a labradoodle groomer in Austin Texas. This is what is known
as a longtail keyword, longtail keyword are great, because the search intent is usually
pretty specific; aka the person searching might be ready to buy and there's lower competition
for longtail keyword. So, the keyword we just mentioned is a lot
better than dog groomer, you're more specific with your audience and there's less competition.
So, an SEO writer getting this keyword from a client could turn this into a blog topic,
the ultimate guide on how to find new Labradoodle groomer in Austin Texas, you can even add
another list in there to create a great headline and then, they would write and create an amazing,
fun, awesome blog post for Labradoodle owners, they could feature a list of local groomers
and maybe the client is one of those groomers, so you could position the client in that list.
SEO content for this piece should be fun, heartwarming, engaging, it should pull in
dog owners and share interesting valuable tips for a labradoodle pet owner. The SEO
writer should be researching; a Labradoodle owner, they should know their interest and
speak to that in the article and the entire piece must be optimized for the focus keyword.
That's just one example of SEO writing, there are hundreds upon thousands of keywords blog
topics, that an SEO writer could create content for, for their client.
So, how is SEO writing different from all the other types of writing, ad copy, email
copy etc. Now, in this video, we're talking about good SEO writing, good SEO writing is
valuable, helpful creative, fun, engaging; bad SEO writing is none of those things and
the sad truth is, you'll find a lot of bad SEO writing out there and the good really
sticks out, which means there's even more of an opportunity, because not all SEO writers
aren't doing it right. So, here's how SEO writing differs from all the other types of
writing; number one, SEO writing is usually created around one focus keyword, that keyword
becomes the topic; and that SEO piece, that article, that blog, the web page needs to
go in-depth around that topic. so, the focus keyword is pretty much your topic.
As an SEO writer, getting keywords from a client, do you build relevant content, you
need to create content that's naturally optimized around that focus keyword and then, incorporates
natural synonymous keywords. You can easily get these synonymous keywords by dropping
the focus keywords in google and scrolling down and looking at the searches related to
it. These phrases can be used to work as your sub-headers, which are also known as your
H2s, your H3s; your sub-headers are like sub-topics that guide the reader down along content piece.
Now, a decade to go, you could get away with writing any old keyword stuffed content on
the topic; today, not so much, Google's algorithm favors quality expertise authoritativeness
when it comes to content. So, an SEO writer must do research right with expertise on that
topic and it needs to address the keyword from a thorough comprehensive level. So, if
you're still scratching your head and you're like, Joy what do you mean by content focused
around a keyword, that then becomes a topic, scroll with me through some Google results
and I'll show you what this looks like in action.
Ok, so I have computer with me, I'm going to research this term; how to become constant
marketing writer, one of the best things you can do as an SEO content writer is to look
at what's in google for the keyword you're writing and how can you do content that's
actually better, this is called a featured snippet. Whatever is ranking in the featured
snippet, is a great model and what we always want to ask is how can we create content that's
better than what's in Google? So, this right away, you can look at the date,
that's outdated, so there's room to possibly create something that's more relevant, that
is several years old; so we can create something that's potentially a lot more relevant, but
this is a good standard of something that's ranking in the top of Google for this keyword,
eight steps to make money as a content marketing writer. So, here are all the steps, learn
about content marketing; what's interesting is all of these things link out to more contents,
so that's actually pretty unique, you don't normally see that in Google and sometimes
I wonder why did this manage to rank in the top of Google, when it's not the page that
has all the content, but Google looks at this as thorough comprehensive, even if she structured
it that each topic opens up in a new tab, whereas I would probably put all the content
on one page, but still she created a ton of in-depth content.
And if he were to count up the content in all of these pieces, you know this might be
a 10,000-word guide easily, so that's something in Google that's at the top for that topic.
Another one, it's actually from yours truly contenthacker.com; this is the piece I wrote,
it's a little bit more recent, these stats are current right, so we're looking at current
statistics and this entire piece is about 3500 words. So, this is a really top guide,
we start with a case study, we have sub-headers, these are your h2s right here, we've in-depth
sub-headers and then up here, we have a table of contents that actually does not open a
new tab, it shoots you down to the place in the article where I'm talking about that,
so we have five steps to become this type of writer; a case study, why content marketing
strategy matters, five types of content writers, who hires these writers, seven types of content
you need to know and are these the writers of the future.
So, this is good, great SEO content and it's proven, because it's in the top of Google
right; if Google thinks it's great, if your readers love it, that is what great SEO content
is. It must be engaging, like you can even see we used emojis, this is not essay style,
this is broken up, it's engaging copy; images matter, so you want a lot of images in a long-form
blog like this, you going to include images, so this is a really good example of something
that's ranking in the top of Google, that is comprehensive.
Let's look at something else ranking in the top of Google, this is from DigitalMarketingInstitute.com,
become a serious content marketer, seven serious skills to conquer. Content marketing is one
of the most in-demand skills of the year, a great way to open that blog; statistics
again however, that one is not super relevant 2015. So, you know if I saw this at Google,
that would give me the idea; oh I could create something that's more relevant, so you want
to look for opportunities when you're scrolling these pieces, these are good sub headers,
those are H2s, so we have a list of seven here, odd numbers often do better in headlines,
it's a psychological trigger for some reason, we like odd numbers.
So, that's a good example of content that; yeah, while it is a little outdated, those
seven skills are probably pretty timeless. So, a few takeaways from the concept pieces
we looked at; number one, keyword usage must be natural, Google actually reads stock words
now, so if your keyword looks like dog grooming Austin Texas, you don't actually have to use
that grammatically incorrect keyword, you can add a word like dog grooming in Austin
Texas, that makes it a phrase that is perfectly acceptable in a sentence.
You can do that with keywords and Google will still read the keyword, recognize the content
piece and rank it, as long as the rest of your content is factual, topical, in-depth,
well researched, all that good stuff. The second takeaway is that most of the content
at the top of Google for the keyword is pretty thorough and thorough usually means long-form,
a thousand words or more and that's why I'm always preaching long-form content. Even on
my blog, my average minimum is 2,000 words per blog, since google favors content that
is in-depth on that topic, well you really can't write in-depth content and stop with
just 500 words, the reader is probably going to have more questions on that topic; so to
truly be in depth, you have to go long form to answer all of those questions and make
it a truly comprehensive piece that can earn a top three ranking in Google.
The second main point you need to know about SEO writing, if you're looking to break into
this, learn it as a skill set is that on top of being optimized for a keyword, it is engaging,
it's formatted well, it's broken up with headers, sub headers, so the content is readable and
it's never stuffy or essay style, that's one of the biggest turn offs in online content;
fluff, repetitive copy, essay style writing, your reader is going to be lost. You basically
have to unlearn essay writing if you want to learn good SEO writing, take a look with
me at some of the content that John Mauro and his team have written; John Mauro owns
smartwander.com, is arguably one of the best bloggers in the world, he has actually created
some of the most read blogs ever online, so he's a great model when it comes to engaging
SEO writing and his blogs often ranked in the top of Google for their keyword.
So, as we're scrolling through these blog topics, you can tell right away these are
ultimate style guides and that positioning, if you write from that angle, that often does
really well in Google for SEO high ranking results. So, look at this a list of 800 power
words and the engagement was amazing, he had almost 300comments, here's an ultimate guide
on how to write a blog post in 2020; let's actually click on it and look at it, so what's
important to SEO writing is breaking up your content, in fact look what they did, they
put a cliffhanger here, this is not a period, that's not what we learned in AP English in
our college English classes, but that is engaging to an online reader.
Here's the thing, what's the thing right; I'm interested, there are many tutorials that
can teach you how to write a blog post, they can educate you on the mechanics of blogging,
what to do and what not to do, read through them and you can learn how to craft a perfectly
serviceable blog post, that's an interesting word; heck, you might even write something
that winds you an adoring fan or two, but if you dream bigger, if you want to know how
to write a blog post that cuts through the noise and when wins legions of fans, you need
something better than a run-of-the-mill tutorial, you need an ultimate guide.
In this post this ultimate step-by-step guide and then it goes on, so it's not stuffy, its
engaging and that's the thing about SEO writing, you don't want to create something that's
repetitive, you know you don't want to create something from a surface level; really dig
deep, use thesaurus, thesaurus.com, I always use it to come up with awesome words like
you know adoring, serviceable, legions of fans, those are interesting words and those
are great triggers to keep a reader's brain moving as they're going through your content
and then, the rest of this piece, it's a long guide, you can tell from this bar here, the
scroll bar right, there's a ton of content and look how formatted it is, so this is a
sub header and then they also have additional headers.
So, under a sub-header, there's tertiary headers, these are your H3s, they're still called sub-headers,
but they're a different type, they're below in the hierarchy of h2, h3 is below h2. There's
no paragraph that's long, everything is broken up and that's a proven tactic method the keeps
readers reading. So, you can safely say that none of John Mauro�s content over at smart
bloggers is essay style. So, that's a quick summary of what SEO writing looks like and
how to do it, I teach an SEO writing course that goes a lot more in-depth on this topic,
where you can get access to me and my help, you can check out that course at SEOwritingcourse.com,
you need more hands on guidance on this topic, we have over 300 graduates in this course,
it's definitely worth considering. Okay, so now that you have a general idea
of how to go about SEO writing, how do you get paid and get clients? One of the easiest
ways to get started, it's just to create your own freelance profile, you don't need a website,
you don't need a brand, you can literally sign up and get started, applying for gigs,
work immediately; you can go to upwork.com, this is a marketplace where you can sign up
as a writer and apply for gigs, there are literally thousands of SEO writing gigs.
Now, this is going to be cheaper work, but if you have no experience, this is a great
place to start; you can also look up SEO writing jobs on indeed.com, Questor.com, zip recruiter,
simply hired, freelancer.com and even LinkedIn; and my agency, Express writers, often hires
SEO writers, the caveat is that we do need experience and we look for that in our candidates,
but you can check to see if we're hiring by emailing me at HR@Expresswriters.com, remember
that the baseline pay rate is determined by the market in these places, it's also based
on your experience level, the average of a marketplace like Upwork can be four cents
a word, but you can earn double this with more experience.
Way back in 2011, I started writing articles on up work at five dollars each, I don't recommend
that even if you're inexperienced, that's just way too cheap, but it was excellent training
grounds for me. Last but not least, the second last way here that you can earn money as an
SEO writer is to consider building your own brand as a freelancer, solopreneur or even
create your own team. The best part of doing this is that you can build a long-term, trust
and positioning in the industry. Content marketing itself is worth over four hundred billion
dollars, so this is definitely a viable market and the number one most often outsource activity
in that industry is, you guessed it; its content writing; so, there's a lot of room for more
creators. If you build a brand, you can also niche down
and do just what you love and turn away the rest. Some of my students have done this too
massive success, for example Monique, over at proofmango.com; all she does is proofread
courses for a living, she's actually used my SEO writing course to learn how to create
SEO content, she publishes SEO blogs, which bring in her ideal traffic on autopilot. So,
the best thing about the skill of SEO writing is that you can actually use it to build your
own brand, on top of offering it as a skill to your clients.
And then, if you want to go deeper, think about learning content strategy and the inner
workings of content marketing, if you're kind of nerdy, you like data, you might really
enjoy that skill set too and content strategy consulting goes for a lot of money, you could
get paid double what an SEO writer could get paid. Marianna over at mariananorton.com has
used my content strategy and marketing course to go deeper and not just create content,
but consult her clients on the strategy behind it. I teach that in my kind of strategy marketing
course, if you're looking to go deeper and add that skill set.
Finally, remember practice makes perfect, this isn't a skill that you learn and get
great at overnight, it took me I would say at least five years of repetitive practice,
writing-writing-writing every day to get really good at SEO writing, that ranks in the top
of Google; never stop writing, learn all you can and this is definitely an achievable skill
set in a growing market. I hope that today's video helped, don't forget to hit that subscribe
button for more videos from yours truly, I am an author entrepreneur constant marketer,
so I have a lot of different areas that I love to teach and share real practical knowledge
on. Click like on this video, if you learn anything and let me know in the comments,
if you're doing SEO writing, if you're about to go do it and let's inspire each other to
rise higher and higher, let's get paid doing what we love. Thank you for watching and I'll
see you around.