Blog Writing: Basic SEO Strategies for Freelance Writers
6 basic SEO strategies new SEO content writers must know
As a content writer, having kickass writing skills is important but knowing how to optimize your content for search engines is even more important.
And guess what? There is a huge number of SEO blog writing job opportunities out there mostly because businesses that hire freelance writers need someone with basic SEO knowledge.
How am I so sure?
Well, I reviewed over 100 recent blog writing ads on 4 job boards — Problogger, Glassdoor, Indeed, and Peakfreelancer. From my review, 72% of the ads required basic SEO knowledge, 24% didn’t, and 4% promised to provide basic SEO training to successful applicants.
So, what does this mean?
If you’re looking to find more work as a freelance blog writer, (even if you have badass writing skills) you have to know basic SEO! And no, you don’t have to be an SEO whiz.
Writing blog content for SEO is not as difficult as it sounds. You only need a basic understanding of SEO and SEO best practices.
In my early days of writing, I used to scratch my head and close that browser tab whenever a job ad says “SEO knowledge required”.
You don’t have to go through that.
I’ll show you the basic SEO strategies you should know so you can apply for those writing gigs.
First Off, Why Do People Love SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means using strategies to create web content to improve a site’s organic ranking on a search engine results page (SERP).
Businesses want to rank their content higher on search engines (like Google) to drive “free” organic traffic to their site — usually to create brand awareness, generate leads, or make more sales.
Since 75% of people don’t scroll past the first page of search results, (I’d like to know the 25% of people that do) the goal of writing for SEO is to rank on the first page of Google, preferably in the top 3 spots.
I mean, think about it.
When you search on Google, do you ever get past the first page?
Yeah, me neither.
SEO Blog Writing: Overview
Writing SEO blog posts means creating blog content with SEO strategies to rank higher in search results. The idea is to give search engines the impression that your blog post is the perfect answer to a particular search query.
This shouldn’t alter the need for content that’s valuable to your audience. As an SEO writer, you have to create content that is relevant to both humans and search engines.
SEO blog writing isn’t just using keywords several times and counting how many times they appear in your article.
There are lots of blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels that give helpful guides and tips on how to write SEO-friendly blog posts.
But, where do you start?
The Basic SEO Strategies to Learn
1. Keyword Research
If your client’s site doesn’t have the potential to rank for a particular keyword, or if people aren’t even searching for that keyword, how would people find your content?
That’s why you have to research your keywords. This is the first step in writing SEO content.
Some clients will do their keyword research themselves. But if you’re new to freelance writing, it might be a hassle getting clients that do — or even know how to!
For new freelance writers, SEO tools might be a bit pricey. But there are free keyword research tools to get you started. You don’t have to sell your inheritance and kidney to get one!
The best ones I’ve used so far are: Answer The Public, Google trends, Ubersuggest, Moz keyword explorer, and Ahrefs keyword generator tool.
2. Keyword Density Vs. Stuffing
Keyword density is the number of times a main keyword appears in a piece of content in relation to the word count, usually calculated in percentage.
Some SEO experts claim you should maintain a keyword density of 1-2%. This means that in a blog post of 1,500 words, your keyword should appear 15–30 times throughout that post. But Google reveals that there’s no “ideal” number.
If you don’t include your keywords at all in your article, it becomes difficult for that article to rank high on Google. But if you include a keyword too many times (intentionally or not), Google bots will think you’re keyword stuffing.
If you go overboard with your keywords just to hit a density mark, it will only do your site more harm than good.
In fact, Google’s former head of webspam, Matt Cutts, confirms in a YouTube video that we shouldn’t obsess over keyword density.
Watch the full video below.
Your keyword should appear a few times in your blog post, but having a specific density percentage doesn’t cut it.
So, what does?
3. Keyword Usage
Knowing how and where to use your keywords is key to creating killer search engine optimized blog posts.
Ideally, your main keywords should appear:
- In your headline or title tag (the one that comes up in search results)
- In your H1 tag
- In an H2 tag
- Once, in the first 100–150 words of your article
- A few more times, naturally, throughout the post
- Once, in your conclusion
- In your URL
- In image alt texts and file names.
You should also include related or secondary keyword, that is, search terms that are similar to your main keyword.
For instance, if your main keyword is “DIY samosa wraps”, you might want to include related keywords like “DIY pastries at home”, “spring rolls”, “small chops”, or other terms that people would search for when searching for samosa recipes.
4. Proper Blog Post Formatting
You have to know how to properly format blog posts if you want to land SEO blog writing gigs.
The reason your clients hire you is to make their job easier, you shouldn’t make it harder by submitting lumps of texts. People wouldn’t even take a look at your content if it’s too clustered.
Take a look at this:
Now, look at this:
See the difference?
Using white spaces, header tags, and visuals (where necessary) encourages readability. Apart from encouraging readability, proper formatting has great SEO benefits.
Google’s John Mueller confirms that header tags and visuals help Google understand your content.
5. Uploading Blog Posts
There are different kinds of writing clients, and depending on the one you meet, you might not be the one to upload the posts. But some clients have so much work to do, so they assign tasks like this to freelance writers.
Uploading blog posts is pretty easy. If you write here on Medium, you already have an idea.
Use these SEO tips before uploading a blog post:
- Include your main keyword in image alt texts.
- Customize file names. Let's say your main keyword is "making lemonades". Instead of IMG_125670.PNG, rename your file as "young lady making lemonade". Or whatever accurately describes the file + main keyword.
- Include your main keywords in your URL slug.
- Write a meta description. Even though they don't directly impact SEO, they impact click-through rate (CTR), which is a key ranking factor.
You don’t have to include keywords in your meta description. Just make sure it’s short and compelling. Ideally, a meta description should not exceed 155 characters.
6. Linking
Building links the right way in your blog content is a key ranking factor.
There are 3 main types of links for SEO:
- Internal links: Links that lead to another page on the same domain
- External links: Links leading to another site on a different domain
- Backlinks: Links from a different website leading to your website
As a freelance writer, you should only worry about internal and external links. When linking internally, link to your client’s content (or product) that is related to the topic you’re writing on. When creating external links, link to external websites to cite sources and for additional information.
You should also only link to credible sites with high domain authority (DA) not some spammy blog that was last updated in 2007.
Conclusion
Easy-peasy, isn’t it?
Like it or not, basic SEO knowledge is a big plus when applying for content writing jobs.
And to be clear, this is by no means everything your client should be doing to rank their website higher in search results.
Your client’s entire SEO strategy shouldn’t be your business — unless you want it to be. You’re just a writer, not an SEO expert!
Now that you know the SEO skills to be qualified for those SEO blog writing gigs, go on and get to work!
LEARN. PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE.
The more you practice writing for search engines, the better you get at it.
I know you're probably thinking: "Oh, I need writing jobs to gain experience, but I also need experience to get those jobs."
Well, you don’t have to wait for clients to come to you. Be your own client and practice with your blog. LinkedIn Publisher and Medium are free to use. Just get started!
Now, I’d love to hear from you. Did you find this post helpful? Let me know in the comments!
