Freelance SEO Writer

Is It Really Almost Over?

2011-12-22T08:42:00.000-08:00

This has been a tremendous year for my business. I almost hate to see it end, if it weren't for the promise of what is still coming 'round the bend. Looking at what is making this swell happen, I come back again and again to what Google is doing to small businesses. As they turn the screws and make it harder for smaller businesses to compete, more of these smaller businesses come to people like me for assistance.
So go, Google, go. Add more filters, make it harder and harder. Regardless of the quality of the SERPs these days, the appeal to be in them is only intensifying, making my work in demand, again.
Still.
I know people argue about whether or not Content is King or not, and I think that is silly. Well supported content is the undeniable king of online marketing - always has been. The only argument is typically that links are more powerful - and I have seen that links are indeed very powerful. But if you are linking to soft cat crap content, you are going to do less than you could.
As the economy goes all over the place, I have found that it is pretty easy to stay busy writing as much as you want for a living. I have great clients, so I do well - but finding new clients is not going to be difficult as long as the SERPs remain elusive and complicated. So this year may be screaming to a halt, but the fun is far from over.

Writing for Real People

2011-11-17T17:16:00.000-08:00

If you are a freelance seo writer, you are going to spend a lot of time figuring out how to write things to successfully appear in the search engine result pages. But what if it were easier than that - what if you could simply write good material and have it work? I am going to encourage you to try this tactic.

One thing I have seen in my ten plus years on the interwebs, is that more and more people pile in to the game every year. They are all trying hard to make the search engines pay attention, so they are trying different ideas - links, anchor text, keyword density, whatever else is the flavor of the month - to find that something extra.

I would think that at this point of the web's development, manipulating your content like this is a bit passe - it is thin, it is obvious, and it doesn't really work too well for too long. So one way to get your content to stand out from the crowd, is to ignore most SEO tactics completely. Not all of them, mind you, just most of them, and those you do approach, you should do so with a reason.

Thin out your keywords, and bring up the meaning and depth. Illustrate with concrete examples, and let the thin, effervescent stuff of 2006 fall into the trash bin. Write with heart - and you might be amazed to see that it is still very possible to attract an audience the old fashioned way.

So if you want your work to float above the rest, write it for real people. The search engines will find you too, I promise. :)

Charging for Freelance SEO Writing

2011-08-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

I get asked about my rates a lot - both by writers and by prospective clients. So what does an SEO writer charge these days?

Sorry-there is no blanket answer here. Even with a single provider, in my experience it is going to vary a bit depending on the project you are doing and who it is for. So as the provider, you have to be aware of what your skills are worth, and why. For example, if you have a couple years of dedicated experience in code, it can translate into something billable to augment what you write - you might write something and then render it for the client using html, php, asp, or a specific language compatible with their website. You may be able to find and add images to your posts/work, and have an extra to present to the client. The point is, it is not always simply SEO copywriting for me, and so it gets harder to pull this out as a single service. Not that I can't; just that most of my clients hire me for a wider range of services than just the writing part - so the cost of the writing is affected by the project scope.

Most often, the cost of seo-driven writing will be dictated by the expected returns. If it is a simple link campaign where you are article or blogpost-spewing, the cost will typically be in line with the targeted sites. This means if it a place where anyone can post, you can pay anything at all to post there - there is almost no bottom to the market cost if you shop for labor worldwide. Pennies spent, but the writing is usually commensurate with what you pay.

If you are targeting better sites for the work (say in guest posts or something like that), the cost for the writing to get there is also going to scale. Unlike the cheap efforts, there is going to be a market price here, and right now, I see it at around $40-80 for a solidly written post somewhere with a bit of strategy and thought behind it. This is on the lower cost side, and would normally be tied into a bulk pricing...but not always. I think most people could spend this on a piece of written collateral (like a keyword-specific blog post or article) and be happy with it.

To get more than that as an seo writer, you typically have to be bringing something stronger to the bargaining table...like experts quoted, a following (you bring your audience with you), a spin unique to the niche, audience built-in somewhere to be tapped, viral support, social media or something like that. Not that a strong piece on its own merits can't fetch a stronger price tag - just that today's buyers have more competitive options than in years past, so the expectations and demand for work that WORKS in a tangible way is becoming much more common.

If you are a specialist in some field, it can mean a better fee. Generalist copywriters will tend to think more about hourly rates - maybe setting fees on how much they can do in a given day. Once you have more experience in different methods of writing, you'll know that there are different fees that are going to apply, because there are different levels of thought and mechanical application involved in everything you do.

Personally, I use a sliding scale. I have fee ranges for the different types of stuff I do - and a couple of hourly-with-retainer rates, based mostly on the time a client has been with me and the type of work they usually need. I haven't taken on too many new clients since about the middle of last year, because my roster is pretty full with the great folks I have...so my "normal" rates are affected a lot by the discounts I give to repeat clients.

Charging a competitive, yet affordable rate for the seo writing services you offer is a big part of staying alive as an seo copywriter. Base it on your experiences, pro-rating it on the types of work you have done in the past and the successes you have claimed. The more you can point to something that has been proven effective, and say "I did that" the more you can usually charge (be careful!) to do it again for someone else. Like I said at the start of this, there is no blanket to crawl under here, and make all your pricing dreams come true. But if you (as a copywriter offering seo) are aware of how your skills can be used effectively in a larger project, it will help you to set realistic price points where you are compensated for your time, your talents, and related prior experiences.

What's in Your Portfolio?

2011-06-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

Had a couple new writers asking me some things about how to best present themselves to potential new clients. In these cases, much like in the past, I tend to say the same thing: Work begets work. You need SAMPLES!

So how do you get samples if there is no one knocking at the door?
Simple answer: you start knocking yourself.

I tend not to wait for clients to come to me - I find people whose work or ideas I respect, and I find ways I can make myself attractive to them. I am pitching me, but it is not about me - it is about what I can do for them.

Because I have been doing this freelance seo writing thing for so long, I can usually convince clients (or leads) in a quick conversation that I do know what I am talking about, and that I have done this before. But a new writer doesn't have this luxury - they really do have to earn it in the boardroom every time they enter.

So one way to do this well, is by carefully selecting samples of work that represent what the client is trying to achieve. If you are pitching to do a sales letter, you want to show something similar. Bringing in an ad you worked on is maybe OK for showing off your tone or ability to be concise or something - but it is a different medium, a different approach entirely than a long-form sales letter.

Blending the two ideas then, pick someone you'd like to work for, and create a piece of work that is an example of the type of work you'd like to be doing. If your power is blog posts, write a few for a blog you admire, and see if you can get them published as a guest post. If you are all about ad copy, create a few mock-ups, and show how you would spin a campaign. Even if the client you target is not interested, you may create a workable piece of collateral that can be "reconditioned" somewhere else and still put to good use.

Ultimately, go back to this simple mantra: Work begets work.
If you want to work as a freelance seo writer and are brand new and don't know where to begin, just start writing and don't stop. Everything else will usually follow accordingly.

Buying Bedbug Dogs

2011-04-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

Stay with me here...it'll be fun.

Ok, if you are like most people, you may be asking "What the heck is a bedbug dog?"
Fear not, my little invisible reader - I have created a post for you that talks all about these wonderful canines, and their amazing ability to work. It's conveniently linked up right here:
Buy a Bed Bug Dog
I have seen these dogs do their stuff, and it is really impressive. Better still, when I talked to ACES Master Trainer Joe Nic, he gave me some pointers on how to better handle my own dog. Zoey isn't used to sniff-out anything but trouble around here - but Joe's advice was spot-on, and she responded to me wonderfully. If he can do that for me and my Craig's List mystery pooch in about 10 minutes (without ever seeing her, mind you), just think what he can do with a dog he trains for a few months or more.

Which Avatar Would Jesus Use?

2011-03-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

It's a hypothetical question of course, but it does make me wonder.
I can't see Jesus using anything obscure or clever as his avatar. It would be something simple, but beautiful. Something that made you appreciate seeing it and not just because it meant you were reading a comment by Jesus.
He definitely wouldn't have a product or anything - it would seem wrong to endorse. I don't think he'd use a headshot either, because he never struck me as being that ego-centric. But maybe a nice shot of him in a field, or healing someone. I could see Jesus using a shot of himself, if he is downplayed in it. Or maybe a picture of him skiing, or on vacation somewhere.
For a while, I wondered if Jesus would use a picture of a dog, or a kitten as his avatar. It doesn't seem likely though, as he probably thinks all the animals are pretty awesome, and wouldn't know how to pick out one.
Maybe Jesus would change his avatar a whole bunch, so you never really knew what to expect. Every day, you'd go online and look forward to seeing what Jesus decided it would be. He'd surprise and delight you with his choices no doubt. Or better still, maybe because he's Jesus, his avatar looks different to everyone who sees it. It works like a prism, and refracts something it pulls out of your own personality and amplifies it back to you through the avatar of Jesus. That would be pretty cool - and he could do it, too - he is Jesus.

I know I should be working, but I couldn't help wondering.

Same as it Ever Was - but Different

2011-02-28T16:26:00.000-08:00

Same as it ever was.
Google is changing everything.
Panic. Chaos. Turtles flying everywhere.
And still, you are expected to know best, right? Someone is going to come to you, as an SEO copywriter, and expect you to know the answers that no one else is providing.
OK - make a choice. Tell them what they want to hear, or learn what is best. Either way, people just like you have made bundles of money at it.
I choose to learn more about what is happening, rather than just fanning expectations. Lip service is easy to find most anywhere, and I would prefer people who need that kind of coddle find it from people who are better at its delivery. I am too blunt.
I am better at digging through some data, looking at some numbers worth crunching and extrapolating inferences from it. Sometimes the numbers aren't worth crunching, for sure - but without numbers, most of it is conjecture anyway, so you can say anything you want. I'd rather wait for the data to roll in.
And now Google changes the algo in a huge way, and it is once again time to run for the hills. It is time once again, to change absolutely everything about how you create and promote something on the web. Google has spoken - and so I, like you, am ready to kneel.
Or not.
You decide - I have.
It's a big bad Internet out there.

Gift of the Magi

2011-01-01T15:53:00.000-08:00

I rewrote The Gift of the Magi as if it were penned, or revised by (se)O Henry.
I kill me sometimes.
It is the first day of a new year - great things in store for sure. I'll come back for a recap of last year in a couple days.
But The Gift of the Magi was my belated Christmas gift to the anonymous whatever. I encourage you to read it, as it will likely change you into a better person, more willing to stop and help ease the suffering of your fellow man. I can't promise that of course, but I can believe.
Have an SEO-filled year!

Stuff and nonsense

2010-11-27T15:03:00.000-08:00

Hey - you want to be a writer for a living. Cool. We all do.
Build some depth to your repertoire.
Work for nothing.
Work for insight.
Work for shiny things.
But for God's sake, get working.
I hear so many tales of wishes - so few of traveled paths that didn't lead somewhere.

Yipes - I still have time

2010-08-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

Every day, you have the opportunity to do a variety of different things that might steer you in a particular direction.

Being a freelance seo writer, you need to adapt your strategies.

Google is changing a lot in 2010. The playing field is being shuffled right now, and it is not terribly clear who the victors will be. Will it be the spam doctors, or the specialists? Will anyone outside the SEO sphere give a hoot?

The end result is going to be the same thing that has been happening now for years. There is a change in Google, and people start acting like the Pope is pooping in Times Square.

Look, it is easy, and always has been easy. Build a good site. Mean it. If you struggle to express yourself, hire someone like me. But get your individual message across. You still have time to be brilliant.

There has never been a more exciting time than now. Capture that essence for someone who hires you, and being an SEO freelancer makes a lot more sense.

Some great things in store

2010-06-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

I have been having an amazing year.
My professional network has reached some great people, and I am doing work I am very proud to do. The only unfortunate thing, is it means blogposts, new ideas for marketing, and other things I do to promote my business are get pushed to the back-burner for a while.
Not a terrible thing - because really, it is a matter of simply realigning my strategies and receptiveness to new opportunities.

However, it has left this blog untended for a while. If there were readers here, I would apologize. Heck, I'd probably just invite them over for some BBQ and cold beer, letting bygones get swallowed along with Sweet Baby Ray's Raspberry Chipoltle BBQ Sauce and some Anchor Steam.

So if you are around and want some pork butt, ket me know. It's the least I could do for leaving you hanging here.

New SEO Copywriting Tip on Writing Titles for SEO

2010-05-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

I just wrote a new little tip on the Articulayers site about how to write better SEO titles and flow your keywords into your content. It could help you do better in the engines I think, but it depends on how much you want to push it. We're not all Mahalo.

Freelance Mohawk

2010-03-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

I am pretty infamous in my little circles for my mohawk when I was 17 years old.
Share in the love of Marty's Mohawk in all of its roaring glory.

Don't have time to read my three paragraph post?

You can feel free to worship Martys Mohawk in the comfort of your own home. Print this image, and mail me $5. Carve a statue of me from lunch meat, or your favorite cake. Lick your windows for me.

Freelance SEO writing should be so much fun.

New Tip on Pitching SEO Copywriting

2010-03-10T00:56:00.000-08:00

Just a little head's-up about a new post I added to the articulayers site recently.
It is an Freelance SEO Copywriting Tip based on knowing some simple do's-and-dont's regarding pitching potential SEO clients.
Just as an aside: it was based on the mistakes I was seeing young writers making that were new to this field...some mistakes that I believe are pretty easy to avoid with a little effort.
Go give it a look, and let me know what you think.

New Articulayers Site

2010-02-13T22:20:00.000-08:00

The new Articulayers site has a blog built in. There are some pretty good posts accumulating in there - like the one I did today on Bringing Value to SEO Copywriting.

Just so you know where to go for more SEO copywriting tips.

Better Barter Bison

2010-01-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

When I got home the other day, sitting on my porch was huge white Styrofoam box the UPS guy dropped off. Before I even got to it, I could feel my excitement build: I was getting paid for some work I did - in bison.

One of my clients owns a bison farm up in Wisconsin. He is a really solid guy, and an emergency vet with a huge heart for critters. His sites needed some light work (a couple hours or so), so in exchange, I swapped him for some of the bison he processed.

He got some of the web advice and work he needed. I got summer sausages, buffalo bacon (smoked right on the farm!), and jerky - in addition to 2 beautiful T-bones. A great trade for me - meatastic in every way. I trust he feels it was a meaty trade as well.

Even nicer, is the added bonus that we both left the project feeling great, both totally willing to keep our relationship solid.

Go Ahead - Trade!
I have talked about it before in here, but bartering is a perk of this profession I have always enjoyed. The bison is just one of many examples -

I have used writing and web skills, or some SEO copywriting to get pizzas, desserts, outdoor lights on my home, massages, interior and exterior home repairs, tile work, landscaping, computer service, counseling, web development, paintings, tickets, dinners, and so much more. I am a complete whore with my verbs.

I look at it like this: bartering often helps businesspeople who genuinely want to get ahead, but lack the capital to afford me. That's OK - if I have less bison to buy, I am earning in a way that is fine by me. Paying me from their own pool means they are not really spending much, you know? Time for time.

Balance, Grasshopper, Balance
The bottom line is something I take very seriously. Money is what drives my stability and I focus very directly on growing my year-over-year annual earnings.

However, money means taxes, paperwork, tracking, bank accounts and all kinds of attention to things that don't really float my boat. By offering an alternative like bartering for some projects, I can reduce my headaches and still come out ahead.

Depending on the year and the cash flow, sometimes I tend to lean much more heavily toward barter - the beauty, is I do it when it feels right only. One harsh reality of corporate communications is that I get paid for things I believe in a lot less!

If you want to see what barter can do for you, ask. Many small business owners will love the idea. I have been denied tons of times, but I also have connected in many places where I wasn't really consciously looking for work.

The benefits are clear: You can stay busier during slow times, or do things where your heart and soul are treated with a little more respect. You can acquire things, services, or experiences that are meaningful to you. Many times, there can be serious tax advantages to consider as well.

I would talk about this more, but I have some bison to devour.

Year in Review - 2009 into 2010

2010-01-08T17:46:00.000-08:00

At the end of last year, I listed the following ten things:

Schedule more time for my own stuff.
Keep the flow of projects steady, so one ends as another begins (reduce overlap).
Participate in more online discussions of interest.
Attend more conferences (try to hit 2 per year).
It's all about backlinks (today, anyway).
Bartering rocks.
Smaller businesses are typically more of a hassle, but can be extremely rewarding.
Communicating SEO in numbers is the best possible way to get more work.
Old clients can surprise you with new requests any time.
It's all about the relationships you make, maintain, and build upon.

I wanted to take a post to reflect, and see where it went.

Schedule more time for my own stuff. OK, I did start my new site. Am working new stuff - nothing scheduled yet, thank the Lord.
Keep the flow of projects steady, so one ends as another begins (reduce overlap). I actually did pretty well with this one...I hand-picked my clients well this past year. My projects were challenging and rewarding, and only rarely over whelming. There was a near melt-down in the early Fall, and the usual holiday hi jinks, but the year finished strong, and the projects speak for themselves.
Participate in more online discussions of interest. Yep, I am a forum nerd now. But only one, really...I have about a half dozen community voices I check on regularly, and learned to speak-up a little more in one.
Attend more conferences (try to hit 2 per year). Zero success here, beyond online training. Nothing beyond the cube.
It's all about backlinks (today, anyway). Duh.
Bartering rocks. Yep - did some great swaps again this year. Looking for more, always.
Smaller businesses are typically more of a hassle, but can be extremely rewarding. Duh again. Not sure what this frustration was all about, but OK.
Communicating SEO in numbers is the best possible way to get more work. Yeah, still believe this to be essentially true for cold calls, but I did more thru referrals in the last 12 months than otherwise.
Old clients can surprise you with new requests any time. Um, yeah. This year, I had almost an entirely new roster of clients. A couple long-termers, but most of my focus was on new people asking me new questions.
It's all about the relationships you make, maintain, and build upon. Duh.

So here, I will lob out more of the same to see what difference another year makes.

In 2009, the 10 things that made a difference in my business as an SEO freelance copywriter and will guide me into 2010:

Relationships uber alles.
Better clients, better company.
Fun is subjective.
Less coding - more writing.
Family time first.
Charge handsomely for every minute spent supporting someone else's dream.
Trust my own skills, and take the leap...again.
Borrowing brilliance is only a mistake when it lacks honesty. Building on it well is flattery.
Money is spoiling everything...collapse is certain.
High maintenance people are low paying investments. Mental health is non-negotiable.

That comes off more acidic than it feels. 2009 rocked. 2010 will be even better, I can feel it.

Year-end Hustle

2009-12-28T14:02:00.000-08:00

With less than a week left in it, 2009 looks to close out very well for me.
But with a couple days left here, I am going to see what I can get done.
Will report back.
I wish everyone a great holiday season, and better New Year.
Cheers.

Online Reputation Management - Local Style!

2009-11-28T09:46:00.001-08:00

I have a client right now who is suffering from some bad reviews appearing online. The problem is that when you search on his company, the bad reviews are forefront - and this is not good for his board of directors to see.

Unfortunately, I am not sure how much I can really do to help.

The problem is, if there are no legal issues, having a bad review removed from a site is pretty difficult. Google believes that this gives a clear picture of the business and helps the consumer make an informed decision. Conceptually they are right, while in practice it is usually much more messy. Why? Because angry people take vengeance, and can do so with their power to review.

So how do you manage your online reputation?

Get Listed
Local search listings tend to pull their information from data centers. If you cover the major data centers, your listings are often well represented on many different sites.

I by no means am a local search expert, but I know enough to submit to the following data centers when needed: Yelp, Superpages.com, insiderpages and infoUSA. These are 4 of the most trusted data centers (as far as I know anyway), and they distribute their data to many other, smaller players. The result can be lots of listings for less effort.

In addition to getting in the data centers, you want to get mentioned on other sites where your business is named in conjunction with uniquely identifiable information about your company.

These listings are often referred to as "citations." While conceptually, they are easy to understand, I found this definition by Bill Slawski that does a good job of explaining what you aim for:
"A local document - one associated with particular geographic area, which can be associated with a location, by one of the following means:
* A document may mention a business at the location,
* The address of the business, and/or;
* A telephone number associated with a business."
So this means, in local listings, you don't really have to have a link back to your site...the mention, with the included specific information about your business helps strengthen your power.

Optimize It!
Before you go to the data centers, you want to make sure that you are taking advantage of what you can do with the listings. Most won't let you do much with the name of the company (don't try to spam it), but in your descriptions, you can use keywords that give power to your site. Make sure that you provide all of the information you can...it depends on the specific listing, but some allow you fatten up the profile pretty nicely.

Back to Our Story
So how does this get back to my client with the bad reviews? Because like I said, you really can't do much about bad reviews...but you can make them harder to find. My plan to help my client is to go thru the basics first (noted above: I will make sure he is represented and optimized as much as possible). Then I will get more positive press out there for him to try to force the bad crap beyond anyone's searching patience. Will it work? Hope so - this business deserves it.

It underscores that managing your online reputation is not necessarily difficult, but it does warrant some serious focus and attention. You might not be able to stop bad press, but you can make it a smaller part of what people find about you online.

New Ideas

2009-11-14T20:08:00.000-08:00

I have been developing some new ideas with a couple guys located on the other side of the world. The cool thing to me, is our ability to communicate in real time on the specs...them being in London and me being in Atlanta makes no difference.

So it makes me think a little more concretely about deadlines and such like.

And it makes me sure now, that I need to rebuild my site, because it is an embarrassment. I actually have started to do so - but it has taken me years.

With the new site, I am going in a new direction. New ideas are everywhere - just trying to see which ones fit.

Balancing Writing and Webwork

2009-10-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

In the last week, I have been shifting from a mostly writing perspective to a mostly building one. It is the desires of my clients - I am simply going where there is a need.

This brought to mind a question from one of the Emory students a couple weeks ago, when I was up there mingling with them at a mixer. She asked, "Do you think you have stayed busy because you have more than writing to offer clients?"

I had answered yes, because I do think it is my ability to do more than just write that creates this little niche of mine. I could, probably, focus more concretely on writing and turn the tide, but I don't know that I ever would.

One of the reasons I like doing more than writing, is that I like doing more than writing. I know people who don't, and they focus much more solidly on writing gigs. To me, there is a lot you can do if you know what to do with the writing and the end result, because it helps you close the gap. Instead of me handing my content to someone else to develop, I finish it off. In many cases for me, it allows me to offer way more to the client for less.

So while this week is more building than writing, I do know that is only this week so far. For the last 3 months, I have not built as much as I wrote. Yin/Yang. Balance.

How Did I Get Started as a Freelance Seo Writer?

2009-10-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the most common question I am asked, especially by college students, is how I got started as a freelance seo writer. This was again the situation in my last couple visits to local Atlanta colleges like Emory and Kennesaw State.

Let me answer that by giving you a short scenario. The writer will be played by me, the cold faced marketing director will be played by a Vietnamese dwarf named Miss Gengy, who has a peg leg, false teeth and a horrible disposition.

Scene: fade-in to an eager young writer, briefcase (new) stuffed to the brim with fake collateral from pretend gigs. See sweat on brow, and fidget in chair as another marketing director sees through the BS, and is perturbed at spending time in this meeting.

Writer: {clearing throat to speak} ...um...

Cold Faced Marketing Director: (Rising to leave) I think we're done here.

Writer clumsily gathers crap pile and stumbles blindly from office, a sadness in his heart but a stern look of determination on his face. Zero in his pocket. Rocky theme begins, and writer opens door, stepping into a world of uncertainty, more stupid than brave, more willing than not...

I make jokes, I laugh and kid, but I seriously went into meetings I was totally unqualified to be in, waving my arms like a monkey to try to get noticed. I was aggressive, and I was unstoppable. That is how I started as a freelance SEO writer - by my unwillingness to be anything else.

Sometimes, it can be that simple.
It was for me.

Thanks, Emory

2009-10-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

Had a good time last week speaking at Emory University at a little career mixer.
The Career Services Center out there put it on, and it seemed like a rousing success. I was one of about 20-30 writers, all covering a variety of niches.
We mixed around with a bunch of students, and just talked.
I met a lot of really nice people, all in different stages of needing help, or mixing it up professionally.
I had a good time talking to them, and offering whatever I thought might help.
I told them I had work if they wanted it - I have not yet had someone hit it up. But I have connected with about 8 of the writers/students I met, and am offering a little help, if I can.

So thanks Emory, and Paul and the staff over at the career Services Center. It was a good time, and I will add a few posts in the future based on the questions I was being asked.

Personal and Professional Balance

2009-09-20T19:54:00.001-07:00

I write a lot in here about the balancing of freelance seo writing and your personal life. This last week, I was again faced with this situation...but this time in a much more negative way.

I had a family crisis, and it pulled me out of commission for 4 days. It ended today, and now I am way behind.

A personal crisis can pull anyone out of a routine, but as a freelancer, this can be deadly. Gig-smashing. It is too early to tell if I did any damage, be it temporary or permanent. To the gigs I mean - the family is fine.

Priorities Depend on Circumstances
One thing I am finding more often this year, is that priorities are really dependent on the surrounding circumstances. Last week, my family was the most important thing in my schedule. This, sadly, is not always the case. More often, they know I need to keep working, and don't have near the time I would prefer to simply hang out. They're good that way.

But when the priorities shift a bit, it is important to take the time to really identify why it is you do what you do. Keeping control is sometimes as easy as articulating your direction.

I stay true to my business ideals, which is why most of my clients last for a long time...many times, moving from job-to-job themselves. My priorities are therefore handed to me, based on serving my ideals in being a freelance seo writer. And these ideals are pretty simple:

Offer creative, solid work with a focus on the ROI
Be honest, and lead with respect
Don't miss deadlines
Communicate
Don't miss deadlines

So you can see how this last week is wrenching with my own business ideals - by concentrating on family, I missed a bunch of deadlines. A shift in priorities.

Balancing the Personal and the Professional
For me, much of the lure of freelance seo copywriting is an ability to allow shifts in priorities. My family always comes first - they are why I work. But some gigs don't allow you enough time to be with your family as much as you might like. For me, freelancing must do it.

While it is true, this is a cool perk of freelancing, it also makes it less stable than other options, like a day gig. So you want to know whether or not you are cut out for this,what your personal thresholds are.

Ultimately, balancing personal and professional efforts is an ongoing dance. On a tightrope. With greasy slippers. Juggling weights and french fries.

Be prepared.

Handling 301 redirects

2009-09-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a seo copywriter tip: understand what a 301 redirect is.
I just moved a pretty decently big site (250 pages), and had to make sure I did not slip in the search engines.
The site is a totally new way of presenting content to the world from this company, so I am tasked to make sure anyone who is used to coming here can still do so as they have been, and that new ones can find it as well. lots of new content, so lots of change and freshness to attract some attention - or at least, retain it.
Enter the 301 redirect.

Simple Explanation of 301 Redirects
If you don't already know, there are different codes that computers use for different types of commands and errors. Some of these commands are pretty universal across any computer, like a 404 error means a page can't be found, a 302 redirect is a temporary redirect to a different URL, and a 301 redirect is a permanent redirect of a URL.

You have a site, and want to move it. You want the old URLs to still find the new pages in the new place, so you push them forward with a little bit of code. The 301 redirect does this for you.

Conceptually, they are easy to understand.
Let's say, in the new site structure, what WAS a folder named "images" has had its content shifted to a new folder named "assets." Using a 301 redirect, you force requests for the old URL to find the new one. 301 simply means that permanently, this old URL will forever be this new one. The intent is that in time, the old URL will disappear, being replaced by the new one.

Your 301 might look something like this:
/images/my_image.jpg redirect /assets/my_image.jpg

You replace one url with the new one. In this example, I am using relative paths instead of absolute paths. It depends on how you deploy the 301 redirects as to which syntax is most appropriate for you - but whether it is best for the absolute or relative paths to be used, it is pretty easy to do this correctly.

The tricky thing about a 301 redirect, it the way that you handle it will depend on the server type and the kind of website you have built.

Lots of times, a simple solution is available. For example, on a Linux server, you can use what they call an ".htaccess" file to handle these commands for you, and very few things are easier to create that this file full of redirects. There is plenty of information on creating this file correctly out there. If you find you are using a Linux server and can use a .htaccess file, I strongly suggest getting to know this file, and what it can do for you.

Other times, like if you are using a Windows server or a technology that does not use a .htaccess file, you need to find what works within your situation. The variables you bring specifically will determine how you create and deploy this effort (one size will not necessarily fit all here).

In my case, once again I was not so lucky...this was not a Linux server. It was a Windows server, moving to another Windows server and a rather complex CMS/Portal solution. I had to find a different way to create my 301 redirects, and it was very important to get it right.

Research What Works
My best advice to an SEO writer to make the most of what a 301 can do, is know where to find answers for different situations you will encounter. Learn very specifically how a 301 works, and then learn how to code it in a couple different ways. Base your efforts on the ways that you usually code sites...be it in .php, .asp, .NET, or whatever. If you have a tendency to move sites to a specific type of web server, learn more about how to control and protect the information held by that server.

In my case, I asked the programmers what the server specs and site specs were, and found I could do my 301s most effectively using an XML file, which would be handled in a specific way by the CMS/portal we had in place. We tested a few urls, and created a snippet for me to work from.

I collected all known URLs, and connected them in a spread sheet to their new counterpoints. I wrote it in a syntax that would work for the CMS, creating the actual commands in the file using notepad, saving the final as an XML file...this was the researched and tested solution. The final 301 redirect sheet pushed more than 200 URLs to new locations.

In the end, I was able to protect my client's site through this very large-scale change.
I also created specific error page content to handle anything I did not repoint more specifically.
They were pleased the move went smoothly, and were glad I showed them all the links were working as we desired. It was all good.

Why is this important to a freelance SEO copywriter? Because the more you can offer to clients, the more valuable your services become to their projects. Show them continued, repeating value, and work then finds you. Cold calls will slow down as a necessity or even stop, and if you get lucky, you can get to hand-pick your clients.

I'd say that's worth it.

Please: Bring Me More Spam

2009-08-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

I have to laugh.
Maybe just to keep from crying, but I have to laugh nonetheless.

In the year or more that I have run this blog (very quietly), I have dealt with probably 80-90 spam attcks.

This blog has no juice.

It is an intentional silo - unlinked, and unloved.

But thanks to search engine magic, it gets spammed at least once a week.
Because blog comments count!

Idiot search engines.

Make blog comments count, and automated blog comments are completely your fault.

Make blogs in general count, and they too, will be automated.

Put a fraction of a penny somewhere in the mix, and let the games begin.

So I'd like to thank the search engines for bringing me countless worthless visits, from bots and little automated scripts written by kids too scared to leave their Mom's basement.

As a freelance seo copywriter, this is all I could ever hope for, and so much more.

Thank you.

It's Something Personal

2009-08-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

So in the past couple weeks, I have been really busy. But then I had some family members come into town, so I dropped everything and hung out for a while.

I have 4 live contracts right now, and one longer-term commitment. I have been writing and coding like a fiend - cranking out some of my best work ever.

So when these people came into town, I had to decide - stay on track, and keep slamming the deadlines, or take a few days off, go see some touristy things and spend some time with my family.

I opted for plan B here.

The Reason You Freelance
There might be many reasons for someone to get started in freelancing. For me, it was a way to build myself professionally while also retaining a sense of freedom in what I do, maintaining an ability to never stop enjoying life.

The past week had me at a fork in the road. I have been working like crazy lately - doing a ton of work for some great people. But my family doesn't make it to where I am too often, so I had to decide: do I risk my work flow, and possibly rock the relationships with my clients just to claim some "me" time?

Proud to say, the answer was yes. I was absolutely ready to risk what I was building for what I believed in. I felt this was a clear illustration of why I do what I do.

Besides, there was a Monet exhibition at the Atlanta High Museum, so I took my parents and we really had a time of things. I made big meals, we played cards and talked for a couple days in a row. It was wonderful, and I didn't even crack a laptop once the whole time.

Not Without Guilty Pangs
While I was enjoying time with my family, I didn't think much about work. But when I came back to it, I was pretty stressed. I had let my clients know that I had unexpected guests in an email to each of them. Two had responded pretty quickly and did not mind at all, but the other 2 were pretty quiet.

In fact, I didn't hear from them for 2 days.

What this did, was start the waves of guilt. I don't typically put my needs before the needs of my clients, so I was feeling a little guilty about doing it, even though I had tried to let them know. I was working on all 4 contracts again, but the fact that only 2 were acknowledging the fact I was a few days behind was messing with my head.

Then, on the third day, I heard from one more client, who was also fine with the delay. It so happened to be that he was out of town for a few days, and did not care at all that things were a few days later.

That left only one. And the buckets of self-loathing I was now sweating every day.

A Happy Ending
Glad to say, it all worked out fine. Better than fine, really...because I was reminded why I do what I do as a freelance seo writer - it's worth it helping good people.

As the week wore on, though I was working on 4 different projects, I dove particularly hard into the one client's contract. The guilt was now a sea, and I was far, far below the surface.

I was wondering if he was thinking of me as a guy who made excuses. I was wondering if he forgot that I had written many great pages for his website already. I even started wondering if he hated me, and thought I was not worth the efforts. (yes, it was pathetic)

But experience has shown me this is just in my head - and I need to simply relax, and let things work out how they will. I at least know now, not to do anything until I mellow out. It passes very quickly, and it is part of why I can do great work, because it matters to me, freelance seo writing is something I take very seriously. I take my work very personally.

And sure enough, in came his email.

The Pay-Off
This client reminded me why I hand-pick my clients now. He said, of course he understood, and he was glad I took the time off. He mentioned that my choice is the same one he would have made, and even though he wants his work done, he certainly wants me to be happy - so all was well.

The moral of all this, is I take what I do personally. This means some ups and downs, some anxieties and some celebrations. It means I am more than likely to occasionally demand some "me" time. Unfortunately, sometimes it means that I bring my personal baggage into the arena. I am working on making this not happen, but we are what we are, right?

And my clients are great folks. My folks are great folks.
And there is plenty of room in my life for all of them.

Freelance SEO Copywriter Tip: Blend Your Sources

2009-07-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

Had a couple things recently on the gig that made me remember that blending the sources of information can be a crucial safeguard to freaking-out.

The first was a client with a SERP fluctuation for one keyword. I reported the slip for this keyword the day I saw it, and we have been watching it do some weird things (mostly bad). It basically fell from page one to page three for no apparent reason, and was a keyword this client had been actively building on for more than a year.

The owner was a little bit freaked, seeing his most targeted keyword getting dinged in Google. This is a relatively new client - I have only been helping them for a couple weeks so far. But in that time, I have not known them to freak out unnecessarily.

But experience told me not to join in the panic, and to look deeper into what could be happening.

I looked at some recent changes we had done, and nothing leapt out as unusual. I looked at the analytics of the web traffic and saw some interesting things, the most important one being, that visits were not down, and nor were conversions. Read that part again - it was the meaty bit.

Referrals were actually continuing to rise, and so though there was definitely less traffic coming in on this keyword, it only seemed to affect a direct match to this keyword...the long tail stuff was all intact. And more importantly, it was only visible in Google. Yahoo was holding steady, and Bing was cruising on fire.

The point is, I blended the information from a couple different sources, and did not let the one bad indicator make me believe it was all in trouble. Now this is not to say that I won't try to fix it. I actually believe it could be improperly weighted anchor text, and am taking some steps and continuing to watch it.

But the tip here, is once I was able to see, and make the point that the business was not suffering - just changing - the client was calmed down, and we can continue to try to find the issue with a coooler head and therefore a more detailed and methodical approach.

Story Two: A Slanted Source
The other illustration I had recently was a client who was tracking his site's ranking using a pretty outdated methodology. The source he was using was understandable, as it is pretty visible, and some people seem to value it (or did a few years back). But once you know how it collects its information, you know that this is a very limited option.

So in this case, it was not that the information he was reviewing was incorrect - it was simply one still frame of a larger moving picture. Nonetheless, it was making him a little sad to see a competitor overtake him. I don't like it when good clients are sad, so I asked him how he came to understand this competitor was doing better than him. The answer was this outdated technology told him so.

The thing I did, was show the client the small print in the software he was using to show where some of the shortcomings were later identified by other sources I trust. I showed my client some newer versions of the one he was using, as well as additional ones he could strategically employ in his SEO evaluations - many were free, and others had fees equal to or less than what he was used to paying.

What it did, was show him that one source of information is not a holy edict. None of the tools I showed him would necessarily be the single answer he needs either - but by blending a bunch of the information from a variety of sources, he'll get a much more clear picture of what is happening out there.

And that seemed like a perfect thing to offer you here as an seo freelancer tip...find multiple sources of data that you can trust, and learn the value of using the information together.

Work Again Postpones Work

2009-07-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

Landed a couple of great copywriting gigs. One is pretty SEO-heavy - building out a catalog of really nice product descriptions. The other is more generalized - I am doing some press releases and content pages for a retailer.

But both gigs are the result of cold calls from the site. The site is old, and I was in the process of updating it...but now I am sidetracked again with other things to do.

Unfortunately, this is a trade I have had to make repeatedly over the last year or so....but I will get to my rebuild sooner than later. It is a personal goal more than anything else, because professionally this old site seems to do just fine for me.

Knowing Your Limits
So the SEO copywriting tip that best applies to my situation here, is to know your limits. For instance, I know, with the 2 newly signed clients, one other new one I have starting later this week, and the existing clients I serve regularly, I am pretty much at maximum capacity for the next 3 months. This is great - I look forward to the new work, and the money will be nice when it is all said and done.

But at this point, I need to be really careful in balancing my workload and managing my client's expectations. If I am not careful, being busy becomes being frantic, and that hurts the copy and that is never good. I know my limits, and I am about there right now - very comfortably busy, but not frantic or harried. I don't want it to go any further.

However, freelancing experience tells me that when it rains, it truly pours. So I expect more of this - more cold calls and existing relationships asking for favors and projects. And I'll need to determine when enough is enough.

Usually, I determine whether or not I can do more work based on the creative demands I have during any given day. To me, most site building and code maintenance is pretty easy to do on auto-pilot, while writing can be much more mentally demanding.

And there is a definite sway of the dollar to consider. If I have a client that I know pays well and is responsive, I am much more inclined to do all I can to keep them wanting more. If a client is a demanding, cheap, pain-in-the-butt (and believe it or not, there are a few) I feel no anguish in letting them find someone else.

I will end up picking the jobs I most want to do, and either delaying or passing completely on the rest. I do my best to be judicious in evaluating the demands of each experience, so I can feel like each is receiving my best. My clients are paying me to make sure of it, and I don't disappoint.

But I do so often get a little too happy with my commitments...Iwant to do everything for everybody all the time, so I might get a little overwhelmed if I am not careful. I will do my best to follow my own advice here.

And I will also take the problem of being too darn busy...it is a really nice problem to have.

Collecting those Cold Calls

2009-06-28T17:38:00.000-07:00

The past 2 weeks has been pretty busy fielding calls from new potential clients. While I typically get a few every month, just last week I had 4 which seemed a little on the busy side.

This tells me that people are probably looking for some relief from this economic crunch. Revising or building new stuff is a great way for them to improve their businesses.

The cool thing, is that of the cold calls I have received, only one has been from here in Atlanta. I can see by my web traffic analytics that I get people from all over the world looking at my stuff.

In the past 3 years, I have maintained almost 70% of my traffic from the organic search engines. And these recent inquiries prove it: I am hardly local.

Why It Matters
The fact that I get people from wherever calling me about business means that I want my message to reflect this. While I don't think it necessarily does at the moment, as I revise and rewrite my stuff I will need to keep this in mind. Much of what I do has no geographical specification, but I want to purposefully remain aware of what my message might mean, depending on who is reading it, where.

So for you, o' my aspiring freelance seo writer, this means a couple things:

NEVER underestimate the power of the Internet and a decent site on it. Remember: I am not reaching out to these potential clients, they continue to find me. And my site is old, pretty weakly written and was only halfway optimized over 4 years ago. But it still works!
Remember: you are likely talking to more people than you realize, and many messages you might think are short lived will actually find a way to stick around for years.
Start early with good habits regarding refreshing your own content. I am horrible about this, and so my site doesn't as accurately represent me as it could. So while I may be having some great calls lately - how many am I missing? How many more could I get?

Hopefully, a few of these calls turn into new relationships. I liked the people I have been speaking with - we'll have to see if I make the right fit for them.

In the meantime, I am starting to revise and reform my own messaging. And my new direction will assume that I can get people from all over the place to see it, and that it might live much longer online than perhaps it should.

2009-06-06T11:54:00.000-07:00

This week, I was wrapping up 3 clients websites, and realized I will finally have time to restructure my own site.

It's funny - I started this blog over a year ago, when I realized too much time was passing without me attending to my site. But time hasn't magically appeared - I have less of it than ever. So be it- work comes first for a freelance SEO writer.

But now I am back around to that starting point again - I am looking at rebuilding/redesigning my own site as soon as I can cut these other 3 loose. It is both daunting and exciting - I am looking forward to rebranding myself and my company.

How it has Changed
A lot has changed about the way I do business in the last 5 years. 5 years ago, I was very heavily a web copywriter. My gigs rarely strayed from me cranking out content that was put into other people's sites. Business was great, and I was fat and happy.

Then, as time wore on, my own interests ranged more toward the strategy and development sides of things. I was building more, involved more in the concepts and execution of larger initiatives, and stretched my wings a bit.

Creatively, this was great. While writing was still my strongest suit, being able to develop strategies and plans and technically execute them was becoming really attractive (and lucrative) for me.

Cut to now: In the past couple years, open source code is changing the way people develop websites. My ability to use various open source solutions, to modify and optimize a variety of solutions, is again changing what I offer my clients. So it is time to reflect this in my marketing, particularly in my website.

So in the next two-to-three weeks, I will be rebuilding the Articulayers site. I will be blending open source code with my own tweaks, and will build something that has modular growth as part of the design. I will be catering to aspiring SEO copywriters, as well as giving my clients a menu of related services that I can offer. I will have some advice, some case studies, and some freelance seo tips.

Great fun!

More Common than I'd Like to Admit

2009-05-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

Having a situation with a client that is a little more common than I like to admit.

The issue is that when money starts getting tight, THEN they want to know what we can do with the search engines. While there are certainly some strategies you can lube with a quick investment and get quick results, business owners in a panic do not understand (or choose to ignore) that search strategies (particularly organic) take continued investments of both time and money.

Now let me be clear - I am glad when any business starts looking at the Internet for the opportunity and possibility to grow what they are doing. This is a good thing. But this business has chosen to invest much less in the internet than was suggested (by me). I have had contact with them for a number of years, but our engagements were typically a little strange.

In almost every case, budget restrictions on money and time limited plans from finding their true potential. Money was rolling in and there was a lot of growth, so there was not that much concern with additional organic growth. There was work to do, but we did not often take full advantage of the opportunities as they presented themselves.

Fast-forward to now. Like many businesses today, this business is feeling the economic crunch of consumer apprehension, and is making less money on all fronts. Still well in the black mind you, but simply less of it coming in.

So they start examining channels, and the "How's our web presence?" discussion comes up. Questions flail out about SERP positions, social media, pay-per-click, video and everything "Internet" that has been reported on in the past 2 years.

The irritation comes from the fact that I had posed many potential paths for success when times were good, but it was determined a very low priority. Now, when the priority shifts and expectations need to be reset, some uncomfortable situations can occur.

Buck it Up
So it's a lame situation, but I am an SEO copywriter with a longstanding relationship on the line - so I am up for the challenge!

I go into my own files, and retrieve all of the reports and the proposals I had delivered in the last 2-3 years. I sort these into projects we had done, and ideas that never quite materialized. The second pile turned out to be smaller than I thought, and I was happy to see in front of me, the concrete proof of lots of progress.

I re-read the reports and suggestions, and realized I had plenty of material for re-pitching an SEO plan. Better still, I now had a few years of data stored up in analytics programs, so I could use real numbers to support my efforts to-date, and give a little more fact to my proposal.

So this week was spent looking over miles of analytics and reports from the past, spinning it all back into an action plan. It was at times frustrating and exciting - because I could see what might have been had we moved back when, but I was excited at the idea of making lots of headway armed with this information.

I do think we can get some great momentum going, because suddenly everyone in the company (that matters to my longevity here) is curious as to what I am up to now.

This is the common thing that I have seen - when things are good in a company and money is rolling in, there is like a fountain of cash spraying all over everyone. Lots of vendors in on it, lots of contracts and stuff happening. Less about scrutiny, more about reaching out into as many opportunities as possible.

Then, as money starts getting tight because this kind of spending simply does not make any sense, every stone is upturned in a panic, looking for answers. Under the rocks are dirt and slugs, but every business digs deep, hoping a few diamonds are unearthed.

All's Well, That Ends With Me Working
To continue this metaphor waaay too long, I am going to be this business' diamond. I have numbers, I have stats. I have newly refreshed strategies, and I can project a solid ROI. I can run lean and strike hard - needing only a little budget and some uninterrupted time. I can't work miracles, but I can build a stronger, deeper online presence. I can increase the money coming in from the website. I can reach more people than I am at present - in a thought: I can help.

Though this started off with me feeling pretty whiny about how good ideas often don't receive the attention they deserve until the panic has started, it ends with me being pretty grateful that I am called in to offer solutions again. There is every likelihood that I will pitch a strategy that will not see the light of day, or may be co-opted by someone else in the company. So be it.

Times are tough right now, and people are looking for answers. I do think a solid web strategy is essential for today's businesses. However, I don't think enough business owners see the web as they should, as a place to deploy small, continuous and comparatively inexpensive growth strategies. This means continuing to grow, steadily and with purpose, no matter how the economy is behaving.

I am going to put this all behind me for the minute, and go cut my grass outside. It's a beautiful day here in Atlanta...I want to go be a part of it.

Time Off: the True Lure of Freelancing

2009-05-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

Freelancing in any field usually has a lot of perks to consider. But one of the biggest is an ability to take more time off than "normal" folks - this was certainly the case for me.

But it hasn't been working out that way lately.

I only blame myself for the inability to take more personal time, but it comes from a freelancing mindset, and I would think I am not alone in this thought pattern.

Fighting Those Unnatural Urges
By nature, I don't really consider myself a workaholic. I have a million hobbies, a great family and lots of friends to keep busy with, so I look forward to time off.

The rub comes from freelancing for a living.

A freelancer is never really sure where the next gig is going to come from. They don't know how regular the money will be, even if the work is happening. For me, there is always a sense that I have to be getting some new work coming in, or I am going to be royally screwed.

So this is where I am finding myself at times these days - unable to relax and enjoy what I have earned, unable to revert to my natural state of contentment. I have these unnatural urges to keep working and it is making it hard to play...which is a shame. It'll make my life shorter if it continues, I am sure of that.

So even though I believe a freelancer should always be looking for new challenges and more work, I am going to also suggest that there is huge value in occasionally ignoring this advice. Take a breather once in a while, and go fishing all day. Go window shopping. Travel somewhere. Hit a museum, an art gallery, or whatever it takes to reconnect you to the world.

Life is never all about work - even for a freelancer. The lure of SEO freelancing is not sexy because you put in more hours than if you were in another line of work. So while you look for new clients, more work and better opportunities, take the time to take a guilt-free break. Your mind, body and soul needs it, even if you feel like you simply can't get away.

A final thought on this before I move on, too - my clients are RARELY, if ever, as concerned about the project deadlines as I am. I don't miss deadlines, so why would they care? They set them, and I meet them...but in between, I often fret more than I should. Like I said before, this is my fault, and it wasn't always like this. I used to relax a lot more than I seem to any more.

Maybe I need to take a week or 2 off and do some soul searching?

Naaaahhh...too much work still to do out there.

Sticking to Your Guns

2009-05-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

One thing I sometimes struggle with as a freelancer, is doing too much for what I am paid.

This is not usually the case with bigger companies, but it almost always is a concern when dealing with small business owners. Why? Because larger companies have budgets, they have multiple projects running simultaneously, and they are used to paying vendors what it takes. They make take longer to pay, but they don't flinch or suffer sticker-shock.

Small business owners more typically are pretty tight with the money, are not used to paying vendors for "intangible" work (is there something more magical or esoteric to explain than SEO copywriting?), and need to stretch every project as far as it can go.

My problem is that I am at a point where I don't usually have to do work for a business or business owner that I don't like. While it's great that I truly like and care about my clients, it also means I am more than willing to do whatever is needed - which can mean unpaid hours, which ultimately makes me pretty mad at myself. I don't blame the clients most of the time - it is my fault for not properly setting the expectations and limits.

How to Fight the Urge to Give it Away
Of course, you never sit down and say "How can I give away some of my skills today?" and yet, it happens. However, by taking a few precautionary steps as a project begins, you can reduce the likelihood of it getting out of hand. The following 2 points are probably the easiest way for you to manage this situation.

Clearly define a starting point and an end point - avoid open-endings, like "When you are solid" or something equally as murky and undefined. Be firm - we start on this date, check-in on this date, and our targeted end date is this. Come up with a contingency if the schedule does exceed initial expectations - but do so BEFORE you get there. In cases where a longer relationship is expected, it is a good idea to set a check-in point that allows you to assess and review everything with the client, or perhaps structure the project in different phases (giving each phase a specific timeline).
Clearly define all deliverables - other than time, "stuff" can really get quickly out-of-hand if you are not careful. For example, you might agree to develop a logo, but once the logo is done you might be asked to create document templates, stationary, etc. None of it is a big deal, but all of these little things take time and can add up to some frustration. Many times, I clearly outline all of the deliverables and then set an hourly rate for any additional work...when I do this at the outset of a project, when a request comes for something not identified I can simply mention "Sure I'll do it - but since that is outside our original agreement, I will have to bill you separately for it." Most of the time, they are fine with that, and it makes this situation much better for you as the contractor.

In the end, I believe in giving more than you ask for. This is why clients like me, but my wife can get a little touchy at the end of the month as we pay our bills.

To keep the peace, I have learned (the hard way) to make some difficult decisions, and make sure I am getting paid for the time I am spending on clients...for as an SEO copywriter, if I am not getting paid for my efforts and expertise, my wife has every right to be angry that I am giving away my time instead of doing more housework.

And frankly, I hate housework.

Many Paths Might Bring You There

2009-04-05T21:43:00.000-07:00

This week, I was again reminded how many different ways you can do something.

I was building a new site for a client. So I was trying a couple different ways to get it done. But there were trade-offs for each decision made. When I went for options that allowed the client more long-term editing control, I lost some degree of visual control.

I am sure in time, I could manipulate the CMS-type options to work as I want them to but time does not allow me to do trial and error...we have a launch date to hit.

So I went back to the client, suggesting we concentrate on establishing a solid web presence to build the business. In time, we can look at rebuilding the site using more technological toys (like a good CMS tool), but it makes more sense to the business plan to get a site out there more quickly.

But even then, once I decided to code it from the ground up, I had to decide what language to use. I want to condense some of the repeating elements, so using server side include files made sense to think about. So I narrowed it down to either asp or php, for these are 2 languages I work with, and both can handle the scripts I wanted to write.

Point of all this is, there were many different ways I could do this project, and all of them might have been right. But my client is entrusting me to look at the options, narrow it down based on her criteria, and then help her make a decision.

And what makes it possible for me to offer this sound, sage advice?

Experience. Years of it. Hundreds of sites under my belt.

So get on it. Every site you work on matters. Every writing assignment should have something to be gained. Every meeting should teach you something. The lessons are there if you let them.
Pile it up, dive right in. Nothing gets work faster than experience, and experience tells you to never be afraid to seek out more experiences. Pretty cool the way that works out.

A Great Week

2009-03-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

If I can say so myself, I had a pretty great week.

Created 2 new corporate sites, able to launch one. The other has some tweaking to do. Put out another site page and helped to launch a blog for another client, and I think she'll be a great blogger. Enabling good content a proper means to reach an audience makes me happy.

But the real icing was checking in on a site I launched for a client about 2 weeks ago. Did some spot checks on targeted keyphrases, and had over 8 #1 spots for them. Good ones too - regional searches with big term punch. I haven't yet even created the master list to monitor progress, but the early reads are all extremely positive. Makes me happy to see it all work as planned.

So it's not always about work. Lots of times, it is about something else entirely. But this week, it was about work - lots of work. I like to think I met it all head-on, and came out shiny.

It was a great week.

SEO Copywriter Tip

2009-03-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I shared an honest to goodness seo copywriting tip. Here's a good one: don't work too hard.

I don't mean don't spend all of your time writing - we both know how foolish that would be. I mean instead, to simply write good pieces and don't sweat the seo tweaking...at least not right away.

If you're writing an article, do a little research so you can pull in some quotes or links that punch up the validity of your argument. Links out to other resources are good SEO practices, and they help your article too. Why? Because if you build the validity of your argument, you build your validity (over time) in the search engines.

Of course, the competitiveness of your niche matters a lot here. But from an seo copywriter's perspective, the approach is always from the same point of origin: reaching the audience in a unique way. So the SEO copywriter tip is don't spend too much time on SEO copywriting tricks...spend it on reaching audiences through the power of your writing.

Blending Strategies
Here's another SEO tip for Writers: Don't Underestimate Press Release titles
I had an experience a few months ago, where one of my clients was blasting a press release written by another PR firm. They asked my opinions on some of the potential SEO value we could get-we had a couple days to look at it before the scheduled release. So I worked with the PR firm to revamp the title, and the edit the first few lines of text. It was a few simple, but strategic changes, bringing some specific keywords to the front of the piece.

This was a good example of blending team strategies to reach a better conclusion for everyone. Knowing this article was going to be blasted and then heavily scraped (and it was), we were able to re-tool the title and introduction and get lasting results for the targeted keyphrases. The PR firm were experts at what they did, and my clients made the right move by bringing me in to help when they did.

9 months later, a direct-match search on the targeted keyphrase still shows 8 of the top-10 Google results are where this article was picked up--my client's site being in slots 2-3 at the moment (it varies in the top 12 slots). Many of these scraped articles have the links I embedded in them, many are instead straight up text. But the point is, for this key phrase a user is likely to read about my client 8 out of 10 times on the first page. And by having this article on some very reputable news sources, my client gets instant credibility and direct connection to the keywords I placed in the title.

I don't normally search too deep, but I am certain I have a really nice chunk of the top 100 slots for my client in some way here.

So this project, a press release, was really a huge success because the client had the foresight to bring in the elements they needed as they needed them. The event was covered by a PR firm, experienced in spreading the news. It was tweaked by an SEO Copywriter to get a little more mileage from the effort. The client probably spent about $2,000 to pull it together.

The results are traffic, links, and a direct match for this valuable keyword that will likely last for a good long time. A related conversion can be worth tens or even hundreds of thousands to this client, so even one sale more than justifies the cost.

So, the tips I leave you with are to work on a piece of writing to make it effective. When it is a solid piece of writing, look back over it with more of an SEO slant. Weave in a few keywords, if possible, to the title and first few paragraphs...but don't sacrifice readability for keywords. You're better off with a tighter, simpler article than one forced into answering objectives involving word count, keywords, or anything else sometimes evaluated by SEO writers.

Show the value of your skills by blending into team situations. Respect project hierarchies, but don't be afraid to suggest changes based on your expertise and experiences...it is usually why you are in the room to begin with. When you can seize an opportunity that offers long-term value, don't be afraid to make an investment, or to jump in with both feet.

SEO should stand for Search Engine Opportunity, if you ask me.

Changes in Attitude

2009-03-11T22:29:00.000-07:00

The search engines change. All the time. Rank for something today, and 3 months from now, you might be nowhere to be seen.

So as a freelance SEO copywriter, what does this mean to you?

Change. Because you must to survive.

How To Change
If you know you must change to keep up, the question then becomes how to do it.

There's not really a good, clean-cut "it always works like this" answer for you here. Some changes (like the always increasing value in links, or specific links from specific sources) are relatively easy to see, and easy to accommodate. But most often, changes in the search engines are really pretty subtle, so if you are not watching them all the time, you may miss out.

Crank Out The Pages
A freelance SEO copywriter needs to know what works (as far as textually) better than other options when writing a webpage. So it is imperative to have lots of active sites going at all times, in various niches, so you can tweak them and play around and see what happens.

Blogs are good ways to test change, because they tend to get lots of traffic, you can crank out different types of text to see what sticks and why. You can host them a number of different ways too, which can tell you a lot. And perhaps best of all, they can be free...so you can launch a bunch of them (all with different objectives) and feel free test your theories.

If you don't have theories to test, you may be in the wrong profession.

What It Is
Most often, I am simply given a list of keywords to develop. It's my job to create something from nothing, and I rarely get much direction from most clients...they don't know how to express what they want other than they know they want new pages.

In the past, it was all about page/word count. For instance, right up until early last year, a client might have given me a list of 500 keywords, and want a page of 250 words devoted to each with specific keywords in them...it was a lot of bread-n-butter gigs to say the least. And I stayed really busy doing it, too -- I made a great income by simply being literate, so my wooden pages were grammatically correct and not nauseating.

Many times I knew little about what I was writing about and had no time to research, but the clients didn't care as long as there were keywords in the pages, I matched their company tone, I was on top of the sentence structures and all the keywords from the list were handled. Good for them, better for me - I switched on auto-pilot and spit out thousands of pages.

Fast forward to now, and that strategy doesn't work.

Now, I still get a list of keywords but the clients tend to want more solid materials, because lowest common denominator stuff stays below the fold. So if this was the only thing I knew how to do (filling up hollow pages with hollow text), I would be really screwed right now. But I am not at all screwed, because I know what is happening in the engines, and am pleased to say, it is much better to write solid, meaningful work and build links to it than to simply pile keywords into bland filler. I appreciate the shift anyway...for even though many experts always said this was true about solid SEO techniques, it was far too easy to manipulate the engines with repetition for most people to care about the actual VALUE. Those people are likely watching their cherished rankings fall now, because there is no structure under their efforts, no meat to go with the potatoes.

I don't see the search engines moving backwards. Instead I see them continually trying to refine the ways to determine a page of content is worthwhile...using links and other references is not new, but it is a much stronger part of the algorithms than it used to be.

What It All Means
What this all means to you, dear SEO copywriter in the wings, is that you need not concern yourself as much with what the search engines want, and just need to be a good writer. The money train for pap and fluff has stopped, and it won't be starting back up.

Are keywords still important? Hell yes. But relevancy, and craft, and solid writing are FINALLY much more apparent to the engines than it was in the past. This is a golden opportunity for a good writer, because you can focus much more on your craft, and leave the tweaky manipulative things to someone else. It wasn't always this way...I was there a couple years back when it was all about keywords, and knowing how many to hit and how hard to hit them. I was part of the mess that is now on the Internet - sorry, there were mouths to feed.

But sometimes, a little change is the best possible thing you can hope for.

So get lots of sites going...don't belabor them, just create platforms on which you can write. And write, and write and write. See what is working, and what doesn't. See what creates an audience, engages readers, and encourages traffic to build. Study traditional copywriting, and learn those lessons well.

But just keep writing -- it is, after all, what an SEO writer does for a living.

A Weird Week

2009-02-14T18:24:00.000-08:00

It was a week of balance.

The Bad
One client was unhappy with some of the stuff I did. It was one guy on a team of directors, just happened to be the guy with the most say. My tone was off from what he wanted and we had to sort it out. It ended up fine, but it was unusual. I don't like missing the mark, so while this may have ended up okay for the project (I am still working), it is still pretty heavy on my mind.

The Better
But then I ran reports for two other clients, and both projects are shooting through the roof. They are both really new sites, but both are solidly indexed in less than a week, and results are showing tremendous promise. Many top-10 results, and both clients are simply glowing.

I also had 4 new offers for gigs this week - two fell of pretty quickly (tire kicking), but the other two are developing nicely. Again, very positive, very promising. One is a brand new client, one is a returning client I have not worked for in about a year or 2. All 4 calls made me pretty happy.

Also got a decent check in the mail, and one project that ended I was asked to continue for 3 more months. All really great things.

The Balance
So the balance comes because I am still pretty wigged out about the bad experience. I am not diminishing the great things happening, but the bitter ones stay for a while. My position as a freelance SEO writer has allowed me to get past it, and there's too much work to let me sit and stew. But still, it's simply not in my nature to allow failure to happen lightly.

So when you think about this as a career move, make sure to consider that you won't make everyone happy. Copywriting is pretty subjective. But still, you don't have to make everyone happy all the time. You could easily die trying.

The Takeaway
If this client and I didn't settle our differences, we could have parted ways pretty bitterly.

Instead, I listened to what they said. I did not argue or make excuses...just listened. I acknowledged their concerns, and allowed them to redfine what they wanted.

I saw where I was wrong, and offered to fix it for free. We all left the meeting satisfied that we'd be okay, and no damage done. But it was a little uncomfortable for a minute, that's for sure. Turned out, we just had a failure to communicate.

And then, the rest of the week it rained golden puppies of love.

Go figure...such is the life of balance as a freelance SEO copywriter.

Unremarkable Lessons Learned

2009-01-18T07:31:00.001-08:00

So the reason I started this blog was to check a few things. I wanted to throw some pages out there, and test some ideas I had. From that aspect, this has worked well, and continues to do so.

But if I were to ever offer you any advice, it would be to not do what I have done out here with this blog.

What do I mean by that? Simply that I never had any intention of making this a remarkable resource. None at all. And if you are not trying to differentiate yourself, not trying to be remarkable and unique - you are better off not doing a blog. This goes further than that - you should probably not be in business at all if you don't strive to make a difference somewhere.

I used this medium because I could launch and delete stuff quickly. I used it because it was attached to Google. I had other reasons and other things I wanted to test as well - but in all of my reasons, NEVER did I intend to create something of lasting value here. I think I have succeeded there, too.

This is not to say there aren't some good moments in here - I do think that I did flip out some decent pages from time to time. But the point is, I was never really trying to offer something special, so this never became special. I was never concerned with creating value, so value never magically appeared.

The lesson here, is directly stolen from from Seth Godin. Be remarkable, he urges. Do something special, something unique. Offer something of value to create something of value.

Or, use a free platform to test your ideas. Whatev.

Looking Ahead

2009-01-03T20:38:00.001-08:00

Ok.
New Year, new stuff to do.

I want to ride my Vespa more during 2009.
I want to play a minimum of 5 gigs...don't care which instrument.
I want to build sites for more of my musician pals, and help them promote themselves.
I want to attend 2 distant conferences (minimum), more if possible.
I want to rebuild my site before the Summer.

More than anything else, I guess I simply want to keep enjoying what I do.
Let that take me where it may.

Year End Wrap-Up

2008-12-28T19:48:00.000-08:00

So as the year draws to a close, I am looking back over it all, and seeing what I learned.

Schedule more time for my own stuff.
Keep the flow of projects steady, so one ends as another begins (reduce overlap).
Participate in more online discussions of interest.
Attend more conferences (try to hit 2 per year).
It's all about backlinks (today, anyway).
Bartering rocks.
Smaller businesses are typically more of a hassle, but can be extremely rewarding.
Communicating SEO in numbers is the best possible way to get more work.
Old clients can surprise you with new requests any time.
It's all about the relationships you make, maintain, and build upon.

I am sure there was more, but this is a fine little list of 10 things that definitely were a part of 2008.

Overall, Articulayers had a really solid year. Surprisingly, had more work toward the end than at the beginning - which is a polar opposite of the norm (especially when the economy is sluggish). I did see some folks coming to me for a "life-saving" effort (economy-driven), but it definitely felt like more people were hip to SEO this year than last.

I didn't make one cold call in 2008 - a first.

Lots of blogs went up this year - hope they make it. Blogging can be a bear if you are not into it. And jeez, I even like blogging now, but can hardly find time to write anything here, much less plan and execute detailed posts. As with many things, blogging looks much easier than it is. But I helped launch a dozen or more really solid corporate-type blogs - hope they all succeed.

Finally, I gained 8 new clients since July, and they are my main focus as 2009 begins. Some won't have more work right away, but I believe all of them will be back for more of the SEO copywriting love they find here. Great folks, running businesses I believe in or solid reps for bigger companies.

So Happy New Year. Hope you, like me, are psyched for it - SEO work has never been better, or more detailed...and I still love what I do, every day.

Piece.

Oh Months, Must you Keep Flying By

2008-12-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

So November came and went, and now December is half through, and I haven't had anything to blog about...well, not really true - lots to blog about, just no good time to do it. I had a couple major website releases for some clients, so work prevents other work, you know?

But in releasing some new stuff for these clients (one here in Atlanta, two up in Wisconsin), I am streamlining the way I communicate SEO. I have talked before about why the suits like numbers, so I have created a few report templates that now allow me to offer really solid reporting for any website...it is a plug-and-play way for me to keep the communication flowing upstream. And they have all the money, so I keep them happy.

So in October/November, I concentrated on 3 clients, helping 2 others with some minor updates. I did some SEO copywriting and web optimization, and actually did a pretty cool print ad. I gathered up some year-end data, and reported tons of great progress to a lot of my existing folks.

I have also been bitten pretty hard by Facebook - lots of friends out there, and it's been fun. Got a couple light leads from it, but it is a social valve for me right now - not a phishing tool. I have plenty of work - I actually have very few places to use the web for any fun. Social media is a little weird for me - I am not that casual on the web. But this is still pretty fun, and it's great to talk to friends I haven't seen in 20 years or more.

I traveled some in the past two months. Attended some training and webinars, but nothing earth shattering. Have had some direct contact with some industry types, which is cool...simply talking to more like me is always a good thing.

But I didn't build much for myself in the past 8 weeks - it has been all about the Benjamins. But now that the Christmas coffers are full, I am going to try to balance 2009 and the holidays more in my own favor.

Art Versus Eating

2008-10-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

I just watched a great documentary (called "My Kid Could Paint That") about a suggested art wunderkind - Marla Olmsted, the 4 year-old painter from New York. It was a good film, in that it made me think. Don't care whether or not it is true - because it had the desired effect. It was good art, in and of itself. Many of the characters are pretty tragic, and not the point here.

As a freelance seo writer, I often get asked about why I do this. Especially by folks who know me, and know how much art has driven my life. I started out playing in bands and writing comedy and fiction. So there is some internal struggle from time to time as well - why do I do this? But the reason is so simple, it almost hurts. Art is communication. This makes anything you do well, anything that connects you and your message to other people, art. So for me, I simply had to re-think what I thought it means to be an artist.

I have a lot of friends that play music. Most have day jobs, some don't. But all of them have to play, because they do. I play - piano, drums, guitar - whatever. Sometimes with others, more often without. I decided a long time ago, I like owning stuff. Having stuff, and expecting music to pay for the stuff I like made a few decisions for me. I am a realist. Fiction is tough. Writing comedy is tough. Playing music is tough. One out of a million make enough to eat. That makes for a lot of hungry folks. So I aimed my art more specifically, I discovered and subsequently targeted my product(s) at an audience always willing to buy...I got into copywriting. To me, this is easy. Give me a specific direction, I'll give you the script for success. Easy.

But I think there is a great deal of art in what I do. I am mastering the art, by hitting the mark in fewer conversations. Less revisions. Quicker flips. If I can talk to you once and deliver, you benefit from my artistic bend.

I eat well. I had sushi for lunch today, and was happy that the high price didn't matter to me. I could easily afford it. My current art affords me sushi lunches, which is cool by me. Because I want my art to pay for my life. It makes me happy and content - I find creativity as well as monetary rewards.

Some of the best artists I have ever known struggle with paying bills on time. I don't. Some of them question their paths, don't know what to expect from their futures. I don't. I buy their art. I see their shows, and drop my money in the tip jar. I go home to a nice house, and have all the stuff I need. I don't feel I want for much. Freelance copywriting has been the key to my success.

So how this ties into Marla Olmsted and the documentary, I don't know. What I do know, is that I appreciate my art. I know how to create something from nothing, or can make simple ideas more beautiful. My professional detachment allows me to not be married to anything I write for work - changing my text is part of the drill. If I don't want a comma moved or a verb switched, I have fiction to save me. My art is still there, it is still mine. But when they are paying me, and paying me well to say what is important to them (not me mind you, but a collective them), I let them change whatever they want. I offer opinions on what's best, but don't let my art get in the way of my eating. Eating costs money...and so does my time. It balances out nicely.

Ongoing Education

2008-10-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

The thing about SEO work that appeals to me (one thing, anyway) is that it changes all the time. This means that you must be ready to study forever if this is a career choice you wish to pursue and actually do anything with your skills for others.

As an example, this week I have already completed an hourlong Webinar on podcasting, and have another tomorrow on the changing face of SEO work. I register for these things all the time. I pay attention to what the experts are saying, and make sure I am doing all I can in the interests of myself, and my clients.

I do have to say, most of the time, I already know most of what they are preaching. I have been doing this for over 6 years, so I had better be on top of it. But I do get something out of every bit of time spent...sometimes, it is one simple hint that can really open up some good possibilities. The point is, I never know what they are going to cover unless I am there, ready to listen (not judge them or compete).

In that respect, attending a conference or 2 per year is also a great idea when you can do so. I have only been to one so far this year, but am trying hard to get my employer to send me to PubCon in Vegas in November. Why? Because these are the industry pros that I pay attention to, this is the elite group of folks I would like to be on par with, if not directly associated with someday. I don't tend to crawl from the cave too often, so I don't make a public spectacle of myself either when I do attend something. I am the quiet guy in the back row.

But attending the right conference can be a great experience - it really energizes you to hear from people you respect. I have met some of my SEO heroes, not that they'll ever remember me. Again, back row lurking has its drawbacks.

But the point is, I am not afraid or vain enough to ignore the potential of talking with a bunch of people who do what I do. I don't see it as competition at all...I have yet to meet someone that I compete with in my niches. I am not an affiliate marketer, and I don't usually go after things that don't support small businesses. So strategy is strategy - and we can share lots without stepping on each other's toes.

In the case that I do already know everything they are discussing, bully for me. It just makes it a little easier for me to know that I do know what I am doing, that I do add serious value to my clients' efforts. It gives me some strength to argue my intentions.

After all, if I know everything they are talking about, I am consistently doing everything I can for my clients, no? Not a bad place to be at all...and again, I don't know this until I hear what they have to say.

So get out there, and register for whatever you can. Learn, learn learn. SEO work will never get any less complicated...so be willing and able to become a part of it. It's a simple reward of this profession to become a part of a community willing to share the tricks of the trade.

Branching Out

2008-10-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

As a freelance seo writer, I have a unique opportunity to help people. Lots of times, it is small business owners, who I help by offering affordable rates and honest service. But this weekend, I started a new thing, and thought I'd write just a quick note about it. Bear with me.

I know a lot of blues musicians here in Atlanta, and they are some really great people. However, though they are very talented, most cannot do much with their websites. It's a shame, because better sites would mean more people find them.

So I bought a bunch of webspace, and a couple domains, and I am going to help them. I am creating some sites to showcase a lot of their work, and will include calendars for where they are playing, and pix, videos and whatever else they want. I am helping them for nothing - simply because I believe in what they do.

So while most of the time, being a freelance seo writer means getting paid, in this case, it means using what I know to give back. It is like speaking to college students, or mentoring new writers. I just believe that these are important things to do, and am glad I have the chops to do something of value. You don't always have to get paid to get paid, if that makes sense.

So don't think that doing one thing for a living means that every time you do it, you always have to charge for it. Branch out a little. Do what feels good, just because. Balance your zen.

In the end, I know it will make me a better writer. If not, it will at least make me a better person - so how can I lose? When i get the sites up and running, I will post about here, so you can see why I care. Cheers!

Is SEO the Secret Sauce?

2008-10-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

With the economy doing slow laps around the toilet bowl, many business owners are starting to panic. They look at a shrinking income coupled with rising costs, and they realize there is trouble ahead. Many of them are looking for any answer to try to breathe new life into the business. So is SEO the secret sauce that will save the day for businesses now struggling?

It sounds weird to hear me say this, but most often, probably not.

I believe SEO work is important for any business seeking to gain web traction. As a freelance writer who specializes in SEO, you know I believe that content is king. But SEO is a part of a web business, not a magic pill to suddenly turn the tide of the badgered economy.

A Little Syrup for the Eggo Above.
Ok, I know that probably sounds mighty waffle-like. On the one hand I think that every business on the web should be doing some SEO work, but on the other, I don't want them to think it is magic.

In actuality, for many businesses, organic SEO might be magic. A little SEO work by a professional can have some pretty quick results, and quick results make anything easier to swallow.

But for many businesses, it won't. Chances are pretty good that if the current state of economic affairs is the thing that is driving you to now consider SEO work, you likely have bigger issues to iron out. Does this mean you should rule it out as a strategy? No...not by a long shot. But it should be a strategy that works with others to improve the entire financial picture of the business.

One way to think of it, is say your business is like your arm (stay with me here...). Your arm gets cut, and starts bleeding. The cut is deep, and you need to think of a way to fix it.

The Band-aid. One option is to go to the bathroom and put a band-aid on it. This may help a little with the bleeding, but since the cut is deep, it may not help much. Using only a band-aid you might also have some issues trying to get your arm to heal correctly because you are dealing only with the result of the cut - you are treating a symptom, not the issue.
Getting Stitched up. Another option is to go to a Doctor for stitches. With stitches, you will invest a little more, trust a professional, and take a little longer to see the full effects of how it helps your arm heal. It may slow you down a little, but the professional is interested in the long-term healing of your arm. They want to close the wound, stave off infection, and help you get back to 100% use as soon as possible. If the professional knows what he or she is doing, you won't even have a scar.

So if you are thinking about how SEO might be used in your business, don't think of it as a band-aid that will allow you to survive a rough economic slide. It may work for you this way, but it also may not...and this is a dangerous bet for many businesses.

Instead, think of organic SEO as a careful, deliberate and ongoing effort to keep your business strong and healthy.

A freelance SEO writer is not a rainmaker. A genius, perhaps. A wizard or miracle cure, probably not.

So if you are freelancing for some businesses, make sure not to blow smoke up their collective dress about what SEO will do for them right now. If you are a business owner looking for a way out of tough economic conditions, think of organic SEO as a good tool, but certainly, only one of many. Be sensible.

True organic SEO work takes time. It takes effort. The work really never ends. It can be insanely profitable, while bad SEO work can be insanely expensive.

And the Beat Goes On

2008-09-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

I am amazed at how truly easy it is to get a website going now.

In the past few weeks, I have done some projects for people, and have been reintroducing myself to some of the bountiful world-o-plenty out there these days.
I started building sites right before the Internet bubble burst, back in 1998. Horrible sites, they were indeed. But there was a fair amount of complexity in getting an html site to render properly everywhere. So we got hired to make it so, and things were good.

Always Changing
In the early 2000's, I started to see a rise of better coding, better websites. I learned .asp, and tried to keep up - but it was getting increasingly hard to stay on top of new things, they were simply changing so quickly. But we were all busy, because someone had to do it.

Cut to this week. I start a hosting account for a client, and literally have 3 sites built and live within 2 hours. Granted, they were blogs, and from easy one-button installations, but that is exactly the point. It was soooo easy.

Another thing I have wanted to do for my clients for years, is to connect a CMS to their site so that they can maintain it themselves. But, the technology behind all that was fairly expensive back in the early 2000's, so I kept little bits of code here and there when they were appropriate. But I never did get a full-fledged CMS tool out of it - those that could do the coding, wouldn't unless there was a lot of money involved.

Cut to this week. I build a template of a couple page designs in less than one day. These will be the framework for a 70 page site, that is built to grow over time. I will be able to migrate all the existing content into this format in a couple of days. Using a Dreamweaver page template and connecting the owners with Adobe Contribute, they have 100% editing power. A CMS that works like a charm.

Change is As it Is
Point is, the only constant is change. All these things involved in creating and maintaining a website change the way I can offer value to my clients. The more I know about how to save them money and still deliver a strong product (very important) the more valuable I am. So I look for things like the Contribute set-up, and I know what to recommend to my clients so we both get what we want.

Stay on top of as much of this stuff as you can. Web technology, coding standards, options and opportunities. It is always changing. If this aspect of freelance seo writing is more frustrating than energizing, you are probably in the wrong line of work.

Frankly, I love being able to offer more to clients, even if I have to rely on new open-source, or "borrowed" technology to do it. In the old days, people who built things were very protective and anal about it. My old coding buddies would berate me for saying so, but I like the shortcuts out there these days - it's nice to have better, out of the box solutions that are affordable.

Blogging Tips

2008-08-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

Though I don't employ any blogging strategies in this blog, I actually do know quite a bit about doing it well...I have been studying them for years.

I am not very experienced in using them for PPC/adwords kinds of strategies, but I do know how to create materials and get involved in communities that get you out there. I know some simple things that can make your blog successful.

I am not going to leak these tips out here, but I am writing a pretty detailed document on how to do some of it, from the ground up. I want it to cover most everything you need to know to get a blog up and humming. While it won't be here, it'll be infused in some way on http://www.articulayers.com/ in 2009, which is when I will finally release a new site for my own company.

In the meantime, if you are considering blogging and want some good, basic tips on getting it going, feel free to give me an email, and I will be happy to send this document to you.

Please - Look at the Spam Posted in the Comments of the Last Post

2008-08-25T19:35:00.001-07:00

Here's a link: http://freelanceseowriter.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-non-optimized-blog.html

I just don't understand why some people think this will work.
"Dan" (or Sanjay) worked so hard on finding a simple contextual connection in my post to advertise his business, he disregarded the most basic rules of blogging...add to the topic, silly.

Normally, I would just kill it.
But Dan (or Sanjay) makes a good point--no wait, he doesn't.

He offers nothing of value, but wants to do it on my blog instead of his own. Although I am sure he has plenty of like-minded gunk on MANY blogs of his own, as well as many thwarted efforts to offer these wonderful comments on others' work. When you really think about it, getting something for nothing is a long, easy road of try and try again. He (they) have lots of failure to look forward to, I am sure.

So I left it there instead of deleting it like I normally do--and I sincerely hope this schizophrenic author figures out a better way to make a living. In the meantime, be sure to never visit his site, or the one being hawked. He'll be unemployed soon enough, reflecting on "the good old days" when he was a web "professional."

And NEVER, EVER think that comment spam is an SEO strategy worth pursuing.

What he does on my blog is similar to what the rest of us do in the bathroom.
Grunts and all.

My Non-Optimized Blog

2008-08-23T16:51:00.001-07:00

I assume most people seeing this blog realize pretty quickly that it is not optimized at all. I am doing this on purpose--everything I do outside of this blog usually means intensive SEO, so I am not interested in it for this blog.

What?
I know, an SEO writer avoiding SEO on his own stuff makes no sense. But there are many reasons to do something, and in this site, optimizing does not serve my purpose as much as simply writing when I have time. It is like a focused diary for me...a way for me to simply keep writing, but in a much less formal way than I do for my clients.

If I were going to optimize this thing, I would:

Link specific words and ideas to other sites
Strategically blend in my keywords
Become more verbally active in related blogs (to pull in readers)
Quote other bloggers
RSS feed it to the world
Put social media links in it
Target my subject matter
Monitor traffic patterns
Use my titles as linkbait

I am sure I'd do more too, but you get the point.

I had someone ask me directly this past week why I am not optimizing this, so I thought I'd explain.

I actually started this blog because I wanted to sort through some ideas I had for redoing my own site, http://www.Articulayers.com It has served this purpose for me already--I know I want to do 2 new sections of content on my site when I rebuild: one on SEO tips, and one on topics of interest for college students working on an English degree. I have been testing some ways to do this both on this blog, as well as on a couple websites I have out there, hidden from the world. It is slow going, because my workload has been very demanding this year...and my own site is perhaps not quite what I want it to be anymore, but it is still fine--for now.

Rest assured, when I do move this blog, it will be optimized.

And my site will be better because of it.

Multiple Sites or One?

2008-08-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

I have been implementing some new strategies for some folks this week, and sometimes, I get asked which is better - to do many sites (like a microsite strategy) or simply putting more power behind one.

Like everything in SEO, there is no really simple answer here, but I will offer my own advice and experience.

Why Have Multiple Sites?
You might wonder why you'd even want to have multiple sites. Here are a few good reasons:

More potential SERP results. In most cases, a single site won't have more than 2 results on any SERP. I sometimes sneak in a few more, but rarely. Yahoo is for some reason a little easier on this than Google, but neither one is very consistent. But, add a few more unique sites into the mix, and your potential for term domination increases. I say this, but ask you to be sure to note the rest of this post as my qualifier in saying it.
Isolate tracking. On one gig I have right now, I manage about 70 sites. Of these, 2 are open for search--the rest are copies (that I intentionally block from search) on unique URLs, placed there to isolate the results of specific initiatives. It helps the business to track ROI on an effort without complicating things--I built out a few templates, so that I can enter in graphics and phone numbers but otherwise leave everything else as-is. Sometimes there are better ways to handle this, but for this client, it makes sense and works well.
Try different approaches. Let's say you have a successful site, but want to see if you can do better by trying something new. If you start another site, you won't have to risk what the first one is doing to create a new avenue for exploration. Rather than split-test a site that is performing, you can take an entirely new direction with a new site and see what you can do with it. If it too becomes successful, you are in a great place. If it flops, no biggie...your main site is still there thumping away. Pitch the dud, and try again.
Zero-in on a tiny aspect of the big picture. Let's say you have a site on fishing. You can launch another one on fishing boats, another on fishing gear, another on great fishing destinations. Each one is smaller, but more focused on the info it offers...can result in better SEO saturation, and better user interaction with each specific property.

There are many more reasons I am sure, but that is enough to help you see why this is sometimes a good idea.

What are some Problems with Multiple Sites?
While it may seem like a great idea, there are some things to be careful with if you are launching multiple sites.

Duplicate content. Don't think that putting the same site out on different URLs will work...it won't. Don't think you can lift pages, swap a few words, and make all of it work. The engines are only getting better--and believe me, it is not hard at all for them to find and penalize duplicate content.
Same Host. If you host all of your sites on one server, the search engines see it immediately. This can make them look more closely at what you are doing, which in turn, may make them decide to only show some (or worse, even none) of them.
Same Site Structure. Same as above--if every site you launch has the same code "skeleton" (even with unique content in each), it is easy for the engines to see this, and possibly penalize you.
Same Registered Domain Owner. Ditto to above.
Updates/Management. The more you have out there, the more you have to update. The more you have to pay. The harder it is to maintain exceptional content across the board.
Loss of Strength. If you have multiple sites and the engines see it, they may reduce the overall value of any one of these sites. I have seen this happen, but it is not something I can directly put my finger on - like "this" caused "that" positively. But I do think it is true--one site, one host, one registered owner can actually help you to rank a little bit. More so in Google than Yahoo or MSN, in my experience...I think it is because Google tries to be pretty proactive in thwarting spammy stuff.

Again, these are but some of the potential drawbacks--but the possibility of potentially harming your efforts should be enough for you to reel it in a little, and make sure you do things very carefully.

So What's the Best Thing To Do?
I don't think you should blanket this question with one answer. Handle it uniquely for each situation. I usually suggest at least 2-3 sites for any business - but some are handled perfectly well by expanding on one. It simply depends on what you are facing.

If you do decide to look at multiple sites as a strategy for a business, consider these tips for better results:

Use multiple hosts if you have more than 10 sites.
Use the privacy option when you register each domain. It costs a little more, but it is worth it to disassociate yourself from them completely, or at least, make it harder to draw a straight line between them.
Use various site structures and different coding methods.
NEVER duplicate/share content between them.
Limit your links between them (may eventually hurt you, sometimes, penalizing all of them as a result).
Make each one legitimate for its targeted audience...create real value in each site on its own.

Not the be-all-end-all on this subject by any means, but hopefully, you get the idea.

It All Starts with the Keywords

2008-08-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

This week, I have taken on a couple of new clients. It made me think of how important the keywords are to any SEO project.

The most common thing I see is someone thinking a keyword will work, when it won't. Guilty of this one myself--I often think people will search on something specific when they in fact, don't. This is why you should try to limit your guessing in choosing your targeted keywords.

Start With a List

A business owner, or a freelance SEO writer on the job needs to free-associate some terms with the way they want the business to be perceived. List them out--that's what whiteboards and legal pads are for. Think of what you want the website to do, what the company offers--simple, basic ideas or more specific ones. Write them out and don't edit them. Do as many as you can.

In my experience, the initial list you develop here is seldom the list of keywords you will actually target in SEO.

Not to say you can't target them, of course...and you usually do. But the list a business owner and another web professional creates, and the list a street-level web user creates may not line up. They will usually intersect through obvious keywords, but many business owners are surprised to see the really odd things people type in an engine to find them.

There is often a gap between how intimately someone on the inside considers the business, and how a potential web customer sees them, or more accurately, searches for someone like them.

An SEO copywriter steps in here, to help bridge this gap.

Use the Tools

Take the brainstorming list, and run it through some really basic keyword analysis.

There are some great free tools to use to get a look at search volumes for specific keywords in various engines. Some even offered by the engines themselves. I suggest to try a couple out to see which one you like. I use more than one usually...simply because they all offer something different, and no one of them is perfect. I also like to gather as much data as I can before making a decision on keywords.

So get a few tools you like to use. Plunk in your keywords, and a good tool will not only show you the search volume on that specific term, it will list related ones. This helps you see things clearly from a user's perspective. Don't think of a keyword report like this as the Bible, or something carved in stone...try to see it as a direction.

I usually export out these lists in full, into Excel. Then I manually cull the lists, tossing out duds, and non-target worthy results. I sort the data by search volume, and the list starts to take shape. I combine the best words from the initial brainstorming list (because these are important to the business) with keywords from the analysis (because these are important to the web users) and I am able to map out a clear strategy where everybody wins.

Everything I do, depends on this list. I need to create pages that answer needs...a user's and my client's. I depend 100% on the research and data behind the keywords that make this all click together in our favor.

Take the time to really understand the keywords and search habits of your audience. Don't guess, dig deeper. The results are always worth it.

An English Major Doesn't Mean You Have to Teach

2008-07-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

Talking with a new friend this week, she expressed some angst over being asked, "Oh, you're an English major...so are you going to teach?" and it reminded me how much that used to bug me too. Not that it's their fault for asking, but it is a little frustrating to hear time after time.

But make sure this sinks in: an English major creates a LOT of potential career paths. It's up to you to decide which one to choose.

My friend didn't quite know what she wants to do yet, but she knows she doesn't want to teach. I was pretty much the same--I liked a lot of the ideas of teaching, and respect teachers a great deal. But as a career path, it wasn't for me. I was in my early 30s, and wanted something more. I wanted to write, and not really limit it to any one thing--I wanted to tackle lots of different types of writing. So I looked into commercial writing, and soon started to land copywriting gigs. Over time, I got into web work, and soon my career path found me, not the other way around.

I didn't think, "I want to be an SEO writer." Google was just starting out when I was getting out of college, and since it was in the late 90s, the Internet boom was imploding all around me. So web work was kind of sketchy as far as a future was concerned, and I didn't really go that route at first. It was intriguing, but so much money was lost that the market was a little shaky for a while there.

But within a year or 2 right around the year 2000, I started seeing what the Internet boom and bust had done to a lot of people's sites. There were a lot of things out there that needed some attention, and I started to look at the web in a different way. I saw the potential for its greatness, and tried to help people make the sites better. It's proven to be a great thing because now I have been doing this for over 6 years, and I still like working every day. In fact, it is hard to think of a job I could like much more than this--it feels perfect. I consider this to be pretty lucky.

The point is, for a time there I didn't know what I really wanted to apply my English Degree toward. Lots of people around me were trying to get me to look into teaching, but it just didn't feel right for me. Not to say that I won't look in that direction at some point, but not for a while anyway. I knew that an English degree could be worth more to me than that if only I could find the right way to market myself and my talents.

I learned that many businesses need good writers, but don't necessarily want them on payroll. They may not need them all the time, but they need them. This led me into freelancing, and the rest, as they say, is history, or maybe my-story.

So I told my friend, like I am telling you, don't let someone convince you that to use your English degree, you need to teach. You need to teach if this is what makes you happy, and what excites you. For me, this wasn't a path I wanted to travel on...yet.

I love that fact that I am a word nerd. I love being a writer. I don't mind that I write sales stuff and what some might think is boring--I find it challenging to be creative and effective--it is a true art form if done correctly. I don't even mind trying to explain what I do...because believe me, not very many people out there really know what an SEO writer does. But if this is the price I have to pay to do what I want to do for a living, so be it. There are much worse fates.

My English degree doesn't come up any more unless I am talking to students, or those looking to break into the business. And when they hear that I too, was peppered with this question repeatedly, they find solace in the fact that I have an answer. And my answer was (and still is) "No, I am not looking for a teaching career...I am looking to creatively help businesses with my utilitarian corporate communications."

That usually says enough--or, it is enough to make me feel better anyway. And with all those big words shoved together, it usually makes the questions stop too.

Avoiding SEO Traps, Part 2 of 2

2008-07-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

Link Farms, or Getting Something for Nothing
One of the most common ways that I see some questionable SEO firms operate, is to cash-in on a farm of sites. In an email, they will offer something like "We have hundreds of sites, and we will focus and harness them to improve your website's rankings..." In a nutshell, they are offering you a paid link back to your site from their own farm of established websites.

I am relatively sure this works right now because there is such an emphasis on backlinks, but feel this is a tactic that will have a very short shelf life. It is too easy, and it will not last forever.

How and Why it Happens
Things like open source code, Wordpress, Blogger and social media have made it much easier and quicker to get a bunch of web properties out there.

So people launch site after site, looking for the ideas that stick. They may cycle through hundreds to arrive at ten that get some decent traffic. So they jettison all but those that work, and then start over and do it again and again. In time, they build a farm of a few hundred or even a few thousand sites. This is all about the numbers, so the sites all look pretty much the same, and they'll usually function pretty much the same.

Scraping content is simple, so someone can get lots of these sites going and not really have to do much as far as ongoing development. There are scripts that populate sites so no human ever gets involved in what the site says. So you can create it with a script, populate it with a script, and use another script to change the content dynamically. It's hands-free developing--which is why it is so popular.

Then, once a few sites are established, the owners sell space on these sites where they create links to other sites. Sometimes, depending on the skill and knowledge level of the SEO offering these links, they are niche-targeted. That's a best case scenario--like a farm of financial-related sites leading back to your financial website.

But more often, the SEO provider isn't as concerned with the link quality as the link quantity...which is actually something that could hurt your efforts as much as help them. This strategy may show some immediate and impressive short-term gains, but the engines aren't stupid. They will look at who, and what is linking to your site, and why. And if everything is not kosher, they remove the link juice. Worse still, they may penalize a site for using these so called "Untrustworthy" links.

Even though this flooding of content through "cookie cutter" sites is a strategy that is working right now, I don't see this surviving for very long. It is too easy to game the system using these link farms, and it has never really been the intention of a search engine to reward this kind of thing. My prediction, based only on what has worked in the engines (and why) for the last 6 years, is that these simple-to-game farming strategies will soon lose all power.

Links are meant to offer strong juice to content. So create more viable content, and as the value of link juice diminishes, the content will resurface as the pinnacle of truth. Amen!

Content Is, and Remains King
The search engine algorithms are at their core, all about content...and the best content will not lose long to the sites that are better at manipulating links. Links are much much easier to fake than good content...so mark my words, in time, the value of backlinks will diminish or at least refine itself to a point where these strategies have much less value, if any at all. Creating a million websites and passing out the links is free and easy--so a better content filtering system will need to be employed to separate the men from the boys, as it were.

If you are investing in SEO, invest in content. SEO is a little about manipulation. But it is more about understanding, and creating good, solid reasons for continued website interaction. In a word, SEO is about content. If someone promises anything more than this, expect to pay a lot. And good luck to you...you'll likely need it.

Avoiding SEO Traps, Part 1 of 2

2008-07-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

I got another one of those emails today, offering "expert" SEO services. For a hefty premium, these guys promise first-page results and all kinds of beautifully esoteric things. Of course, I am not interested in this stuff...at least not from them. But it made me want to warn people about falling into one of these all-too-prevalent SEO traps.

Promises, Promises
The first thing I notice in these ads, is that they are quick to point out how the face of business is changing. True, true. The Internet has changed business...and this means, you must take advantage of new business methods like SEO to succeed. These authors tap an existing pain to offer a remedy.

Then they go on to promise that if you pay them, they will guarantee your first page ranking. It's the remedy. This is also a warning flag as big as a house. Why? Because they are sending this email out to hundreds or even thousands of "marks" so how can they possibly promise legitimate results for all of them?

They can't. They can promise page one rankings, but they can't offer any specifics around what that means. In the 6 years I have done this, I have a learned few tricks that can get most pages onto the first page of a targeted SERP pretty simply. It ain't rocket science. Whether or not they stay there on page one, is another question entirely. Getting there is one thing. Staying there is completely different. Getting there is easy, staying is not. So a promise of first page rankings may be truthful, but may mean less to you than you think.

Also, it is important to recognize how competitive your keyphrase is. This makes all the difference. Ranking for "Viagra sale" is going to be infinitely more difficult than ranking for "South Milwaukee chain saw repairs" so this is not really comparing apples to apples. It is more like looking at an apple and a watermelon, and calling both "fruit."

So when someone promises to do something for your business, the first page sounds very alluring...but you have to also know what that means. It may be first page ranks for long tail keywords that never convert. I also sell siding, bridges, shoes, and used office equipment if you are interested.

Researching and understanding keywords that convert is waaaaaaaaaaay more important than being on the first page for ones that don't.

Use a promise of a first page result as a warning. I have dealt with some of the best people in the field of SEO, and they are hesitant to promise things like this, and I never do either.

Make it Real
I am realistic about the engines. I know a lot about what makes a site or a page or a file attractive--both to a user, and to a search engine. That doesn't mean I'll promise you first page rankings--even though I know how to get them. Don't trust people that do--more often than not, they game the system. My method is simpler and just as available--I (or other ethical SEOs) will improve your site, and how it is viewed by both the user and the engines. I'll promise progress, and promise to deliver better content...but promising something that is completely out of my control (like a SERP ranking) is silly. SEO can be offered in realistic terms. Demand it.

See Part 2 of Avoiding SEO Traps

Freelancing Independence: the Trade

2008-07-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

Since yesterday was Independence Day, it seems like a good time to address one of the lures of freelancing--the freedom.

There is no doubt that freelancing can free you from the routines and necessities that others (those with regular jobs) must face. You don't have to go to a single place to work, you don't have to follow anyone else's schedule most of the time. Technically, you don't have a boss. In most cases, you alleviate the repetition and the "big picture" demands that cause professional boredom.

What you get in return is (among other things) projects in many different situations, the power to determine and set your own schedule, and an uncapped earning potential.

Pretty sexy.

But it is important to realize that this trade-off has some requirements. It also means that a freelancing lifestyle is not for everyone.

3 Things You Trade for Your Independence as a Freelance SEO Writer

Stable Paychecks. Getting paid every two weeks has its perks. I can definitely say, as a full-time freelancer there are times when the money gets very tight, and others when it seems to fall from the sky. But paying your own bills won't wait for you to collect from a hard-to-reach client, so how does a freelancer deal with stabilizing their cash flow?
Freelance Solution: Scheduling work and billing cycles accordingly. A freelance seo writer should realize that they need to stagger projects and payments to always have work cycling through. Look at pending work, existing projects, and outstanding invoices. You should keep all 3 at a nice steady churn to keep things moving forward smoothly. Also understand that completing a project and getting paid are 2 completely different aspects to a project. If you know it takes 6 weeks to collect from a client, you had better know what you are going to do for those 6 weeks to pay for gas and groceries. It means knowing how to schedule your time and balance your workload, how to save money when needed, and how to follow a personal budget. Knowing that some times are going to be stronger than others, you need to work as much as possible when the work is there and save that money. You may need it later in the year if things slow down. Create a weekly budget, and adhere to it. Be careful--If a client takes 3-6 months to pay for a project, receiving an unusually large check can be very tempting. But remember that larger sums of money represent a lot of time during which you likely had to use other sources of income. This aspect is very hard to understand or manage when you are first starting out, but as time goes on, you will see how proper project scheduling and balancing your budget wisely plays into your overall success rate as a freelance seo writer.

Company Sponsored Benefits. One of the reasons you are attractive to a company is they don't have to pay for your benefits like they do with their full time employees. But what happens if you get sick and need a doctor? What about saving for retirement?
Freelance Solution: Finding individual plans to meet your needs. Talk to a couple insurance agents and find a plan that answers your needs. True, this will create a monthly obligation...but you don't want to get caught in the lurch by something. Nobody plans to get sick, or have an accident. But smart freelancers have insurance plans and leave less to risk. Similarly, planning for retirement is something that a freelancer should take seriously. Talk to a financial planner to investigate CDs, 401ks, stocks, bonds, or other investment opportunities. Freelance seo writing can be a very hand-to-mouth kind of existence, so don't be short-sighted. Take control of your own future, and plan for it. Be realistic, and be aggressive. See part of every paycheck as an investment in your future.

Coworkers. A lot of freelancers I have talked to start freelancing as a way to get away from people at work. Though some people can definitely be a challenge to deal with, others make every day more fun. A work environment offers a lot of opportunity to develop new friendships and get to know new people, so what does a freelancer do to increase socializing and relationship building?
Freelance Solution: Networking. Like I have stated many times, relationship building is a big part of freelancing. Since it is not as easy to make new friends without a structured environment to encourage it, you simply have to be a little more proative and conscious about making connections. Join professional networks in your area. Look into the Chamber of Commerce. Look at industry-specific organizations to which you might belong. Find some bloggers to engage with or forums to join. Reach out however it feels best. Most freelance seo writers are really busy writing and finding work. Make sure to take time to come out from this little shell, and get personally plugged-in--both to your local business community and to the industries you serve. By doing so, you can surround yourself with forward-thinking professionals who are great resources to share with and learn from on a regular basis.

These three things are only some of the trade-offs you'll encounter when choosing freelancing as a career path, and they illustrate the point that this is not the right path for everyone.

The trade-off is something you must welcome or freelancing is going to be tough. The benefits of freelancing certainly look sexy, but contrary to what people think, a life of freelancing is never easy. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of preparing to be able to balance everything properly. But when it feels right to do so and to make the trade-offs necessary for success, you honestly rarely think about the effort you are putting in.

Keep your eye on the target. Research and understand as much as you can before starting something. Don't take things too seriously or too lightly. Relax, and enjoy.

Screen Capturing the SERPs

2008-06-29T01:40:00.001-07:00

If you are an SEO writer, it can help to keep track of your wins. One way I do this is by taking screen captures of some rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

The SERPs change all the time. In the case of Google, there are many different data centers serving up information. This means you could technically be seeing different results depending on which data center you are pinging. It also means if you win a good SERP position, it may likely be fleeting. So if you want to share this win with your bosses, you need to take the time to know some methods of capturing this information as it happens.

I have some SEO tools that automatically ping some terms for me and they create a spread sheet I can analyze every day. But no one else should have to look at this--they don't care about it on this minute level. This is why I am there--to care. What I do for them is to capture images of good things, and imbed them in an email.

How you do a simple screen capture of a SERP
I used Google and a PC for this example.

I perform the search. In this case, I used "Freelance seo copywriter tips"
The SERP appears, with my results in the top 2 positions. Hooray!
Since I have multiple screens, I use the mouse to make sure it is on the right screen by clicking in the background of the SERP. I then hit "Ctrl"-"Alt"-"Print Scrn". The "Print Scrn" button is located just over the insert button on the far right of the top level of this keyboard. This saves the screen capture to my computer's memory.
I open PhotoShop, and create a new image. It has a size of about 1200 by 1000, to acommodate the screen capture. If you don't have PhotoShop, you can use Paint...just start a new image in whatever program you prefer.
In my new image, I hit "Ctrl"-"V" which pastes the screen capture from my computer's memory into the image I am creating.

At this point, you have something that looks like this:

Now this is fine, but I like to highlight a little further what it is I want them to see.

So I crop it, and then use the paintbrush tool in PhotoShop to highlight the search term, the number of results, my position, and sometimes offer other information.

I typed in the date in the sample below to give you an idea:

I might have circled them or whatever--I use the paintbrush tool because I think it looks funny, and it is simply meant for a quick look at what I am doing. If it needs to be more formal, I can make the lines more definite and precise.

But see how easy it is to give them a little bite of what you are doing? If you want to keep them happy, every once in a while offer one of these for a competitive keyphrase.
If you can show a high rank for the same thing in Yahoo and Google, you are showing about 80% or more of the search volume out there.

Nothing makes as much sense as something that works.

Old Clients, New Work

2008-06-29T01:21:00.000-07:00

I was reminded twice this week why as a freelance seo writer, I always try to keep relationships healthy.

I had two older clients come back to me this past week seeking long-term engagements. This is great--I can offer more detailed service and they get more work...which means more money!

But I didn't seek these new engagements--they found me. And I am doing SEO work for both, but have not done SEO work for either client before. They were both copywriting clients who learned of my specialty while I worked for them. When their needs came up, they remembered me positively, and I got the call.

I've said it before, but it is worth repeating. Freelancing is a lot about making and maintaining good relationships. You never know who is going to one day be in charge, and what that means to you.

So if you are just starting out in this field, make sure to keep your relationships solid. Meet your deadlines, and do your best to resist any weirdo tendencies. Keep your personal tweaks personal. I have lost some good relationships because I was too casual, and offered too much. I regret this, not just from a work standpoint but as a personal failure. It's fine, and all part of the learning curve--but I wish I would've been smart enough to be able to keep some relationships stronger.

And those are of course, the exception. As a rule, I make myself easy to find and easy to talk to...and my clients appreciate it. And they return, sometimes months or even years later. Which feels pretty cool.

SEO Copywriting Tip

2008-06-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I have offered a genuine SEO writing tip, so ...

Synonyms and SEO
If you have been in SEO for any length of time, you can see algorithms trying to improve. And they do improve, but sometimes in weird, slow-moving ways.

Over time, one thing I have seen is contextual results becoming more and more important in search, and I see this only increasing as time rolls on. Using synonyms, variations of your main keywords (like plurals), and any related terms should help you build contextual domain strength for your root keywords.

It makes perfect sense.
You are selling widgets. So you, as an SEO writer, go after both the short tail and the long tail keyphrases for widgets. This will include many synonyms, plurals, related terms, and longer strings.

You research what you can about the searches being made. You create a master list of targeted keyphrases, search strings, synonyms, and any related terms that people associate with widgets. Map it all out before you start writing anything--it is much easier to make it flow naturally as you write if you know clearly what you "need" to say.

Nail Down the Short Tail and Grab the Long Tail
Answer to the short tail in navigation/informational architecture (when you can). So you might have a page titled "Widgets" with a main navigational link also named "widgets" leading into the page. This creates a solidly anchored link, making the main keyword an integral part of your site. Great!

Within the page itself, you'll of course want to add some depth to the widget information--you can't simply repeat widget a million times and expect it to work. But here is where your research and knowledge of long tail search habits, as well as your mastery of synonyms and contextual referencing comes into play.

Example: Let's say that "wuggles" is a synonym to widgets. In your widgets page, you can think of wuggles as a second-tier keyword. You'll want to infuse your primary and secondary keyphrases seamlessly into your body content. In addition to the main sentences you write, look at the metadata, the page titles, your headers, bullets, and ordered lists.

Switch back and forth between wuggles and widgets pretty liberally. Connect them to words that comprise potential long-tail searches, like "get a widget" "buying a wuggle" "finding a widget provider" "wuggle information" and so on. By using your main keywords alongside some related synonyms, you can create a deeper contextual meaning to your content.

This doesn't mean you should focus on wuggles opposed to widgets. It means that you should display your understanding that in talking about widgets, wuggles make sense. The user will appreciate it, because they also associate wuggles with widgets and will spend more time reading what you have to say. And, since the algorithms are getting smarter and will want to see wuggles mentioned on a widgets page, it will also make the engines happy...a win-win, as they say.

DON'T STUFF
I've said it before, and will always say it: don't cram keywords into a page. Make it flow naturally, or don't do it...stiff, forced content is hard to read, which goes against the number one rule for SEO writing. You are writing for a user, not a search engine. And over-saturating keywords makes your content crappy, your intentions transparent, and your SEO efforts much less likely to work. Synonyms are no exception.

But honestly, I find that the shifts in the algorithms are actually making it easier to write well. It may be a little tougher to get the rankings you want as quickly, but it is MUCH easier to write a good page and not have to sweat the keywords as much as the writing itself. I consider that progress.

As the engines try to find new ways to get the best content to the user, they are getting better at realizing that keyword density is not the best answer (thank GOD!). The best answer is content that flows well, and speaks authoritatively...content that liberally and naturally uses a variety of related, contextual words. So bust out the Thesaurus, know your topic, research, and write!

Week in Review

2008-05-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

So I thought it would be fun to do a little post about what I did this week, just to offer some input into a typical week/day for a freelance SEO writer.

I Dedicated Time to Getting New Business
I spent about 1 full day answering inquiries and making connections with potential new clients. 1 is a student asking for mentoring, and 2 new businesses inquired from referrals this week.

I find that setting aside some time every week to pursue new stuff is a good plan to keep the work flow at a manageable pace. I get lucky, and usually get by more on referrals now, so I don't have to look for work--it tends to find me. Knowing this, I am usually quick to take advantage of time off, and I go fishing or do something fun while I know I can.

If I didn't have some pretty strong prospects and a few working projects, I might make a few calls, or send out some emails as a way of reminding folks that I am here, and can help them make some money. Cold calling is far from my favorite thing to do, but it is effective if you are diligent. I more often have a tendency to just cherry-pick projects where I like the people and like the work. Once someone is happy and is seeing some results, it is easy to justify another project and another and another...meaning only that cold calling is not as necessary.

I Dedicated Time To Research
I spend at least 2-3 hours every day reading blogs and other websites...very often much more than that. My line of work is quickly changing, which is part of why I like doing it. But this requires me to be up-to-speed on new things like different coding practices, different media uses, new strategies--all kinds of related stuff. I am lucky because I like doing it--but this is a necessary part of my job.

Research does not have to be boring. It rarely is to me--no matter what subject matter I am looking at. Which is good of course, given my field. But I never know what I am going to learn, or how...and that is a big part of what makes life on the Interweb exciting and challenging. So if you are pursuing this as a career move, realize that you will spend a lot of time researching...learn to love it, or it will be a big hurdle for you to cross.

I Stayed on Top of My Deadlines
This week, I had 2 press releases, 2 blog posts, some product information, and two sales rep sites to optimize for a client. Done. It was in-hand and approved 12 hours ahead of schedule.

Meeting deadlines is perhaps the single most important thing to master as a freelance SEO writer. Most everything else can be forgiven--missing deadlines can have a very expensive ripple effect that will typically end with you looking for a new client. Miss a crucial deadline or two and you will be fired, no matter how good your work is.

It may not seem like much to you when you are just starting out, but often in a project, many different moving parts are coming together for a single impact. You might have a radio spot coordinating with a press release, a webpage, and a TV commercial for example--that is a lot of budget being focused on one project. If your copy is the thing slowing it down, none of the other parts can function properly until you are ready. This means that if you slip and miss a deadline, by the time you get the copy to the client they will already be angry at you being late. Believe me, if they are mad at you, they will very likely translate this feeling onto your work...seems petty, but it is true.

So avoid this. Be on time. If a ridiculously short deadline is asked for, you might try to push back and get more time. But do use caution. It can easily come across as you being slow or weak or a whiner if you need more time or resources than they are budgeting--so tread lightly here. You may be 100% justified, but you have to present it to the client so they can understand why you need more time. As a rule of thumb, I try not to ask for an extension unless I absolutely need it. So yes, this means I sometimes have to work crazy gorilla hours to get a project done. But that way, when I do ask for something extra, my request carries a little more weight because it is unusual.

One thing in my favor, is that I have done this a long time, and I know basically how long it takes me to get something done. So when I get a weird deadline, I know very early on that it is weird. I can often nip it in the bud, by resetting the expectations during the planning phases. It is ALWAYS easier to ask for more time before something starts--once the project is underway, it is like a train hurtling down the tracks.

I Spent Some Time Billing
My absolute least favorite part of this work is trying to get paid. I don't have to argue with anyone about it, but just coordinating invoices is a big pain to me. But I like getting paid, so this is a necessary evil.

I have a whiteboard in my office where I monitor my flow of invoices. I found that having it on the wall made me look at it all the time, and spend enough time to keep it full and flowing. If I notice I don't have enough invoices working, I try to complete some projects to get them billed out. If one or more of the invoices is lagging, I can make a call or shoot out an email to see what's up.

If you are new at this, do try to understand, that you getting paid really matters only to you. The client wants to get the project done. The bigger the client, the more convoluted the process to get paid can be. I now spend a few minutes when starting a new project to handle any billing questions. I find out who I should send them to, and who needs to approve them. When necessary, I introduce myself to the person in the billing department that I will deal with--I like making friends with these people for obvious reasons.

That was About It
Very basically, these were the elements of my week. The days divide up around these tasks however they do--it depends on what kind of priority everything has. But by knowing what my work weeks should more or less entail, I can keep enough work in the door and enough checks coming in to keep me fat and happy.

What is meant by Blackhat SEO?

2008-05-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

If you are not familiar, there are generally thought to be 2 schools of SEO work--whitehat and blackhat. I am a Whitehat guy--meaning I don't do too many risky things, and I try to follow the established "rules" of SEO. So what is blackhat, and why would someone do it?

It's all about the Benjamins
Blackhat SEO is done for one of 2 reasons--the first (which is rare) is purely for malice. Much like some people like to create viruses and things that simply clog up or destroy machines, some blackhatters just like to throw a wrench in the system. Again, this is likely pretty rare, but I can't help but believe it to be true.

But much more common, is to use some risky techniques to get LOTS of traffic fast--and try to capitalize on it. Web work is all about traffic, and conversions are essentially a numbers game--throw enough people into a site, and sooner or later, some are going to click through an ad...and each click means $$$ to the site owner. So in a nutshell, blackhat SEO is about making money off traffic--typically, by any means necessary. So a blackhatter is going to try to figure out the loopholes that allow them to drive huge numbers of visits quickly, and they work the numbers to their financial advantage and then move on--preferably before getting caught. Stick and move, stick and move.

What do they do?
I can't by any means claim to be an expert, but I have studied some blackhat techniques. What I have seen, more than not, is that it is about writing clever scripts that quickly do something that would otherwise take a long time to accomplish. If blog comments are a good tactic for SEO (which they can be), a blackhatter will write a script that auto-finds and auto-populates as many blog comments as possible. Each comment has a link back to the main site, so run it a few nights in a row, and bingo--you have lots and lots of backlinks without ever really visiting a single blog.

Or, let's say that blogs themselves are the ticket to happiness. A good blackhat will create a script that creates and populates many blogs, so by running this a few times, they suddenly have many many web properties out there linking to the real site they want to promote. The content is obviously auto-generated, as it rarely makes sense--think of a spam email, and just make it larger, and more complex. To give you a sample, I just went out and found this little gem on some crappy auto-gen blog: "My study is Rolando and I am today 1 meg proportionality earnest most this change gifting possibleness that I am fortuitous sufficiency to hit been offered. I chose my intellect sagely and am today sight my dreams become to fruition. "

I hope you too, sight your dreams become to fruition.

But this must work sometimes--enough people do it to make me think that it is the monkey and the typewriter kind of thing going on here. Seems like a really sleazy way to make money to me though...

What's wrong with making money?
Nothing is wrong with making money off SEO work. Frankly, I don't have any real problem with blackhat stuff (though the example above does show why I dislike some of their web-clogging tactics)--but I simply won't do it, because it is risky. What's the risk? Being penalized by the search engines...usually, having the sites in question removed permanently from the index.

Black hatters are some of the smartest people on the web, and always have been--they can code circles around most of us (and they do). But they lose sites as often as they gain them, which is why they continually change tactics, and look for new loopholes to sneak into. To me, that is simply too time consuming to even consider an option.

Conclusion
Ultimately, even if you are a whitehat SEO writer, I have found it is smart to learn what you can about blackhat techniques. You don't have to do it, but you should study it, and understand why some of their techniques work. Why? Because you might be able to change it and gain some valuable headway. Besides, these are the guys and gals you will be competing with, so you'd better know what they are up to. Some people consider themselves "greyhats" or whatever--I don't mince words like that. Either you follow all the rules or you take risks...the levels of risk you take color you accordingly.

In the end, blackhat is not illegal. It is simply a game of risk--how much risk are you willing to take to find success? Whitehat techniques will very rarely get you penalized, if ever. Not so for blackhat--if you get pinched for spamming the web, it can have a cascading effect on every site you manage, both now and in the future. The best blackhats have to be very secretive, because if they are identified, they will be lucky to ever get a site to rank again. So they have to hide, and protect their efforts with secrecy and misdirection.

I personally don't like doing things that way. I like being transparent, and above board all the time. It makes it much easier on me, and offers a longer success rate to my clients. But if you are willing to take high risks, there is certainly a lot of money to be made off of mastering the right blackhat techniques.

It is a pretty elite club though--you have to be an extremely good coder, and you have to have a mind that is one step ahead of the pack all the time. Personally, I have a lot of respect for the blackhats...but it stops there. I will study and learn whatever I can from them, but when it comes to risk, SEO work is not where I want to go out on a limb--it is simply not worth it to me. Besides, I like writing--not coding. I want to be able to add something of value to the web, not just cash in. Big difference in approach there.

Hate to say it like this, but essentially my hat's off to anyone finding success on the web.

Studying the Competition

2008-05-10T08:30:00.001-07:00

A big part of successful SEO work is studying the things that are working for your competitors. Once you have entered your niche and start to go head-to-head with other companies vying for the same prize, you can study and learn from what they are doing to help improve your own efforts.

Viewing the Number of Pages Indexed
One important measure of a site is the number of relevant pages indexed by the engines. It all starts here, really. Do a "site:---" command in the engines and compare the number of pages in your site to that of your competition. While page volume in and of itself is not the most important element of SEO, it is an important measure to monitor and improve. You should always be adding relevant content to your site--this is a big part of organic SEO. But if you are not getting your pages indexed properly, they might as well not exist...so if you see a competitor has hundreds or thousands more pages than you, look at how they are accomplishing it, and see if there might not be a good strategy in there for you to also employ.

Viewing the Back-Links
One of the most crucial elements of SEO is links into your site, or back-links. You should already know that you can do this by using a "link:--" command in some of the engines. Yahoo has the most extensive list to review, but Google works as well for this command. I tend to use Google first, and then run a check in Yahoo to see what Google is not counting.

But just as you can do this for your own sites, you can also run this check on your competitors. See where they are receiving some of their back-links, and you might be able to identify sites where you too can get a few links back to your sites.

Viewing the Source Code
If a competitor is doing better than you, it sometimes helps to see what they are doing in the code. You can do this by clicking on their page, and using a "view/source" command in your Internet browser. The source code will open in a new window, usually in a text format.

Look at the meta tags, the page titles, and the keywords used within the code that is not immediately visible (such as image alt attributes). Are they saturating the keywords better than you? Are they using headings and bullets that you aren't? The source code is closer to what the spiders see, so there may be things revealed that you can adopt and use in your own building strategies.

Keep an Open Mind
If you think you are doing everything right and you are still not achieving your goals, be open to what the competition is doing. Be ready to admit that they could be doing things better, and be willing to try new ideas. Some things, like age of the domain, are hard to control. But other things, like page volume and back-links, are certainly within the power of any SEO writer.

I always try to stay aware of what my competitors are doing. Some of them have more money than I do, and some have less concern about staying "white hat" and 100% above board to achieve their goals. This means I will sometimes lose a battle, but I typically can hang tough and win the war.

I have a fair amount of tried-and-true tricks up my sleeve to make things click the way I need them to--I spend at least 50-60 hours a week, every week, studying how the algorithms are shifting and behaving. I have sites that I use purely for testing theories...and I am constantly balancing risk against possible (or probable) gains. I read experts blogs, and if I don't use all the techniques, I certainly can get some good info out of them. In my experience, by the time the blogs are chattering about something, the technique is already overexposed and probably short-lived.That's fine by me--it still helps me to see what other people are looking at, and how these people might be applying these techniques to sites I am going up against, head-to-head.

I like competition. I like being challenged to beat someone at what we do. By no means do I always win--but I can certainly give most sites the organic SEO boost needed to improve traffic.

SEO Copywriting Tip : Keep it Coming

2008-05-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

Fresh content is an aspect of organic ranking many websites fail to do. My own website (http://www.articulayers.com/) is unfortunately a great example of this--I have not been diligent in doing new site updates. In fact, other than a few very minor tweaks, I have not done much to this site in almost 2 years...simply been too busy.

On one hand it is good, because it made me start to look a little more seriously at blogging and other aspects of the craft, but for the good of my site's organic rankings, it has been the kiss of death. I totally owned my keyphrases for years, and in the last 6 months, have been dropping like a lead balloon.

I am not too worried about it, because when the time comes for me to put more muscle behind it, I will--in the meantime I have been testing some off-site strategies to see what happens. But I do know if I don't do something to improve the freshness of the content in my site, it will slowly fall off the map completely...or at least not get beyond the second page of the SERPs, which for me, is not really ranking at all.

An Easy Sell
I have found that selling the idea of fresh content is usually pretty easy with established clients. They may hesitate at first, but once I can clearly show them (preferably using their site) the value of adding fresh SEO content (as well as non-SEO pages) , they are quickly in my camp, and ready for me to add more girth and pull to their site's content. An SEO copywriter should be able to show a client proof (and I use that term a little liberally here, since you can't really prove much in organic SEO) that this service will have a lasting value. From there, it makes writing and posting new content a relatively easy sell.

Keep it Valuable
Remember that this type of fresh content is an SEO strategy, and like all solid SEO efforts it should be focused on providing more user value per visit. So if you have a client selling widgets, you want to offer content all about widgets--what they are, how they work, what to look out for, and so on. Posting your Aunt's cookie recipes might indeed add content, but this is not adding to the perceived "widgets" value of the domain...so it won't work as you might want it to.

Every niche has a million and one things to talk about. As an SEO writer, it is often my job to dig up the dirt and understand instinctively (or thru trial and error) what fires up the audience. From here, I need to know how I can blend this user need into the architecture of the site without disrupting the flow of information, or impeding the call-to-action. There is a very fine line between providing enough information to earn trust and making a sale..it is an SEO writer's tightrope.

Simple Strategies
In offering fresh, regular content there are some very simple things you can suggest.
Blogs
If you can get a blog infused into the site's architecture, you are opening up a beautiful channel of opportunity. Blogs are easier to write than many other types of copywriting, at least most of the time. The language is a little more casual, the topics can range all over the map (within reason, of course). And most importantly, it is something I can train a person to eventually take over--so my client can reduce their cost by handling this in-house. Though I love people coming back for more of my work, ideally, I am really after finishing a project and moving on. If I can work with a client to make them more self-sufficient, they will appreciate me more than if they depend on me for every word. Blogs offer this platform...and will tend to boost the organic aspects of a site significantly. Discussion boards work well too, but blogs are so easy, it is a shame not to harness them.

Press Releases
Most businesses have a lot going on, so why not share this with the world through regularly scheduled press releases? Writing press releases is pretty much a formula--once you have done enough of them, you see the pattern. Intro paragraph summing up the release, second paragraph highlighting the benefits of the action, third (and fourth) paragraphs offering quotes from the principals, and a summary to close. Bing, bang boom. Blast it out to a free news wire (there are lots who do it for free) or put a little money behind it to have it picked up by a reputable news wire. Note that paying to have it picked up may cost a couple hundred dollars, but in doing so, you are greatly improving the chances that this release is seen by more people. I typically suggest both--using the paid services for the really important releases, and the free ones for the rest.

I will say, if I am doing a "blast" of the release in either manner, I am always very careful to have it on the home site before anyone else can get it. Stronger sites (like major news services) will outrank you for your own press release, but over time, they will typically fall below the original post. pay special attention to the way you word your titles too--this has more juice than many people realize. By not optimizing the title, they miss an easy opportunity for SEO progress.
Tips and Hints
Every business probably has some tips and hints to make it easier to use their products or services. So map out a strategy that adds a new tip every week, or every month at least. Again, the point is showing the engines that your site is actively trying to add to the discussion. Sometimes tips and hints can become the entry pages that bring in targeted customers.

Testimonials and Case Studies
These are excellent sales tools that really work well when properly executed. A case study or testimonial will have a user putting themselves in the situation described--which is perfect! People tend to feel more comfortable making a purchase when they see that other people who have done so are reaping the benefits. Illustrate that for them.

Watch, and Learn
Use your analytics and tracking programs to see how these new pages perform. Look at keyword referrals, entry pages, forward paths and time spent on the pages. When fresh content is working well, not only will these all improve, but so will your SERP positions. If you see something is working better than other efforts, put more muscle behind it--expand the keywords, the subject matter and the amount of information you provide.

There is not set formula to follow: adding X number of pages will not result in Y every time. This is simply another aspect of SEO writing that provides a little job security...and there is no denying the effect that fresh content has in today's organic SEO world. Could change tomorrow of course, but for now, just do it.

A Happy SEO

2008-04-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

What makes a freelance SEO writer happy? Success.

This week, for one site, I was able to capture 9 of the top10 spots for my targeted keyphrase. SERP domination like that is what I call success--it made me very happy to line everything up carefully, pull the trigger and watch it all fall into place.

This week, I was able to optimize and launch a new site for a long-standing client. I built it from the ground up to replace the canned Go Daddy template site he had. in doing so, I not only improved his look and feel, but I took his 8 page site and made it into a 60 page site--only creating 3-5 new pages of content. He had extremely long pages full of great information--I simply helped him to re-think the informational architecture, and put the same content out there in smaller, more focused bites. I am writing a case study on this project because his was a very common dilemma, and I think what we did to fix it could help many people.

This week, I was able to look at some traffic stats that showed improvement over last month--slow, steady climbing, which is exactly what I want. While huge dramatic leaps are cool, they also seem to prelude huge dramatic drops as well...when a site continues to build and grow in a steady fashion, it seems to have longer-lasting results.

This week, I was able to mentor 3 up-and-comers, sharing whatever I could with them. We spent a few hours talking about strategies in SEO writing, and what to do or not, and why. They were energetic and plugged-in--I wish them all great success.

This week, the bass started biting...I caught 15 large mouth beauties last night. Looks like freelancing will once again take a back seat to my fishing fetish.

This week, I received 4 Braves tickets as a bonus for doing some good work. Look forward to taking my family out for a nice evening.

And it's only Wednesday!

A Saddened SEO Sigh

2008-04-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

So I had an old client, one that I helped about 2 years ago with some SEO work.

At the time, this client was concerned because his company website was not ranking for his targeted keyphrases. I worked with him to help create a new, improved structure, and wrote a bunch of stuff to help him hit his organic goals. The results were very positive--we entered the Top-10 SERPs for most of his targets, all without using anything more than some relatively simple and inexpensive on-page strategies.

So his traffic improved, and the site started doing really well for him. Great!

Here's the Rub
Since his traffic improved and site conversions were up, he decided to upgrade the site. A good move for sure, because the look and feel of the one we had optimized was pretty weak.

He found a new, fairly expensive developer who made him a new site. It was built with some solid UIs (user interfaces), allowing him to update and edit his content on a whim. Sounds great, right? Sounds like he was taking steps toward making the most of his web presence.

The problem?

There was no way for him to build new pages, or add to his basic site structure. Worse still, he had no way to control the meta data or individual page titles in the new site. There was only one page title and one set of meta data--so all of our wonderful optimization and SERP mastery was now for naught.

Sure enough, as soon as the new site was indexed, all of the precious SERP positions disappeared. His new developer was not very SEO savvy, and told him that the single set of meta tags was all any search engine needed (WHAT???!!!)

I wept, quietly on the inside, for my client...I knew he was pretty well hosed by his new, fancy website, and his developer's attitude would prevent him from improving in something very crucial to his success. My hands were tied.

The Moral
Bells and whistles are for trains, not websites. If you want to really service your customer base, make your site appear in the engines when an end user is typing in a search. Help them find you.
For my old client, he came to me imploringly, seeking some SEO juice. I suggested a few things, but told him that he was really missing a valuable piece of the puzzle, and he shouldn't expect it to work as it had for us in the past. I explained why the meta data was so valuable, and suggested some off-page strategies to make up for it. He had spent too much money on his new site to pitch it or start over, so he is doing what he can.

But this caused me to heave a weary SEO sigh twice:

My client looked to upgrade a successful organic site, but did not consult an SEO before making a success-crushing decision...and the decision made could have been avoided.
My client's new developer was telling my client bad, uneducated and inexperienced SEO information, and my client (though I thought differently) didn't know any better.

These are things I have always dealt with as an SEO writer and web developer. But it still makes me shake my head...and sigh sadly.

Oh well...there's always more to do.

A Typical SEO Evaluation

2008-04-19T07:23:00.000-07:00

This week, I did an SEO evaluation on a potential new client's site. The things I found were pretty common mistakes, so I thought I would genericize the situation and offer them here. The purpose is to give you some things to look at if your own website (or a client's) is struggling in the search engines.

This evaluation took about 2 hours, and focused only on the site's ability to enable indexing. I'll break it down into the 4 main issues I found, and some simple, cost-effective solutions I offered.

Issue 1: Page titles and meta data were all the same across the board. What it looks like to me, was the site builder created the html header for one page. He then simply copied it into all of the other pages as he built out the site. This can be a good way to build sites from scratch, but the specific information in the head tags needs to be changed prior to launch.

SEO Solution: Use unique description, keyword, and title tags. Focus on a pre-researched list of primary, secondary and tertiary keywords. Lay out a spread sheet with all of the pages and their specific content for each tag. Each page should have a unique, hand created and strategically focused set of meta data.

Issue 2: No alt attributes used in image files. Across the whole site, not a single image I found had an "alt name" attribute assigned.

SEO Solution: Add alt attributes to the html tags for every image. This markup is to enable users who are visually challenged to still "read" the non-textual parts of your website. It is referred to as "Section 508 Compliance." The use of keywords here is not as important as describing the image accurately.

Issue 3: No Site Maps.

SEO Solution: Add site maps. Generate an XML site map as well as an html site map that is accessible to the user. If applicable, create an RSS feed. Site maps are not guarantees that every page within them will be indexed. But site maps do tell the search engines what you want them to look at, and they do often help a site get more thoroughly indexed.

Issue 4: No Method of Measurement Being Used. The site owner really has no idea what is happening on the site--who visits, what they are looking for, what they are doing. There are some potential e-commerce opportunities being missed, and the call-to-action is muddled and soft across the whole site.

SEO Solution: Add tracking and increase visibility and accountabilty of all calls to action. Set a baseline so there is an achievable, measurable goal.

There were other issues in the execution of the site that offered chances for optimizing, but these simple steps above were enough to get them started in the right direction.

From my end, it is pretty easy to optimize these things and make sure the site is getting properly indexed. As an SEO writer, it is important to always do this before doing anything else. It is truly eye-opening to see how many times these relatively simple things can improve a site's ability to gain organic SEO power.

And then the fun can really begin!

Another Simple SEO Copywriting Tip

2008-04-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

About the Death of Keyword Density
Since the last SEO tip was so fun, I thought we'd try another. This one is more directly about SEO copywriting, and the changes that are happening in searching and in the search engines.

See, up until a couple years ago, keywords were the main (almost the only) thing to understand in SEO writing. Keyword density and meta tags were simple things that even horribly untalented people could manipulate pretty easily and see some great results. Stuff a bunch of keywords into a page, and bingo, you could start to rank for them. But, in most cases those days are all but gone, and as an SEO writer it makes me very happy. Why? Because it is going to be tougher and tougher to rank for crap...and this means job security for you-know-who.

So is Keyword Density Gone Completely?
Short answer: no. But as with everything in search, it is only one element, so manipulating it and it alone won't work for you anymore...at least not like it used to. It is now measured and balanced with other all other aspects of organic search, and is much less important than most things, things like backlinks or good page titles. Like everything about organic development, the value of keyword density varies by search engine--some of the "short bus" search engines still value density pretty highly, but I don't typically care too much about them as they simply don't drive the traffic I need to call something a success. Call me a search snob, but the numbers don't lie.

Personally, I used to measure my keyword density as part of creating every page. I had targeted levels to reach and if my finished page did not meet the targeted keyword density, I figured out a way to include more instances. I was pretty smooth at it so it wasn't always obvious...but it still always felt kind of slimy to do things like that. But that was then, my friends--and times are better now. I have not had to sweat density since about mid-2004, and the last time I did, it was only because the client very specifically wanted me to do so. I tried to explain it might not really be the best plan, but as the freelancer for a major client, I pretty quickly shut up, and did what I was told. They were happy, I got paid, and their pages did fine. But this was not only because of the density levels I met on every page--there were many aspects to this site that made it a big one.

But in the past 2 years, more than once I have also made pages rank for a targeted keyphrase without having a single instance of the keyphrase appearing in the body copy. Let me repeat that: NOT A SINGLE OCCURENCE of the keyphrase in the body copy, and I still got a #1 ranking in Google for my keyphrases (and held them easily for over a year, BTW). How? By refining the keyphrase, manipulating the page title, metadata and backlinks properly, and having generally solid content on a trusted domain. I did it all very intentionally, and it was really quite an eye-opener for me. I saw it as a huge leap forward, because it reduced the amount of time I would have to spend cramming in a few more instances of the keyphrase to reach some arbitrary number that seemed to make the algorithm click my way.

Make It Good, and Make It Stick
Now don't think that this means you can ignore keywords--nothing could be farther from the truth. But in my experience, from the user's side of search, keywords are slowly being replaced by much more specific keyphrases. Instead of typing in 1-2 keywords and sifting through the results, people are more comfortable typing in longer strings to get what they want. I saw some stats on this recently, which I will try to dig up to share, but it basically stated that the average search was edging closer to 4-5 words, where it was still 1-2 only a couple years ago.

So the engines are going to look for these longer tail searches in the content, which makes density manipulation pretty difficult. They are also starting to connect contextual content more and more often--which is partly why I was able to rank for a keyphrase without actually using it. I was talking about the same subject matter but used synonyms and the like and still had great success.

The key is to make a page of content good, solid writing first. Actually, just stop there. Make it good, and it is much easier to make it stick.

Spend Your SEO Writing Time Wisely
The same amount of time I used to spend manipulating density is now applied to better understanding search nuance. The end result is better pages--both for me as the writer, and for the users. The users reward me with more links to my pages, more time spent reading them, and more completed calls-to-action.

So if you are intent on becoming a better SEO copywriter, you should know it is more about being a good writer than being a keyword magician (or worse, a spamming stuffer). Spend more time doing keyword research, understanding your audience's needs and search habits, and creating good content. If you have a good page, people will spend more time with it. They will be more inclined to link to it, or take a specific action. Keyword density in itself is pretty darn easy to manipulate...good writing is more of an art. Bully for us!

SEO Copywriting Tip

2008-04-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

I know I promised some SEO copywriting tips, and have not yet delivered...so here's a really simple one for you to chew on.

Crosslinking Your Content
So you have a nice site, you have it built well, and everything is ready to go. You have plenty of good content, the navigation is clear and works well, and you have both an html and an XML sitemap in place. How else can you help to increase the assumed relevance of your content? One simple answer is crosslinking your content.

Why do It?
The engines might clearly see the pages you have out there, but what do they think of them? If each page only has a navigation link, and a link from the sitemaps to it, it is what I call a "dangler," which means it is kind of floating out there. Think of a tree branch with a single leaf on it.

Danglers might be important pages to you and your site, but the spiders only see it dangling...so they don't understand that these are so important to you. Cross linking your pages from within the body content gets rid of this situation--and instead of a site filled with danglers, the spiders start to see it as a nice little compact web of information.

It's Easy.
All you need to do to crosslink your pages is to link important words to pages that help illustrate what those words are. They don't have to be exact matches to work well either. For example, let's say you have a site about getting small business money containing a page giving loan details, and you want this page to really stand out among the rest.

Look through the other pages, and find out where you are talking about loans, financing, money, or other similar ideas. Hyperlink these references to the loans page. They might be single words (like loan, loans, financing, money, etc.) or might be short phrases like "getting business loans" "small business financing options" and so on.

I have found that a contextual reference is increasingly important--meaning simply that you don't want to only look at linking the word "loans" to make the page for loans work. If it is a related idea/term, it will help you to associate it with your loans page...the engines (especially Google) are doing this more and more as time rolls on. Think of it like anchor text..because that is, after all, exactly what it is. And just like you don't want every anchored link on someone else's site to say the same thing about your site, the same holds true within your own architecture. Show the engines that your loans page is about all things related to loans, and you will find the juice you need.

How Many Links are Enough?
There is no single answer to how many links are enough...but don't go completely crazy with this idea. Ultimately, you are linking these terms and phrases to help the user learn more. If you overdo it, it becomes kind of a hassle to look through your site, and it starts looking like you are simply trying to manipulate the system which is never a good thing.

As a general starting point, if I have about 300 words on a page, I might look to hyperlink about 10 of them to other pages. It may be more, but not too often less. This gives some depth to the contextual content without going nutsy with it...and it has never had an adverse effect on me doing it this way. I am reasonable with what I am trying to accomplish, not spammy. If I have one page I am trying to really boost, it will get linked from a bunch of pages, but I try to mix it up and "spread the wealth" across all the pages as best I can.

When your page is linked from a couple or more places in your site, it takes on a little different stature in the eyes of the spiders (do search bots have eyes?). It will diminish the dangling, and overall, make the search engines happier with what they find on your site. Will it boost rankings? Probably not...but it will make each page stronger, which will increase the assumed strength of the domain--which definitely will end up helping you in organic search.

Just do it.
Internally cross linking pages is one of the easiest, and cheapest ways to help you get more mileage out of your SEO efforts. I am surprised at how many people don't employ this simple strategy...but look at the sites doing well in your niche, and I'd be willing to bet that they are doing it. Just jump on in--as long as the links all work (very important--don't allow broken links in your site!), it will have a positive effect. Hard to measure perhaps, but positive nonetheless.

Get linking!

The KPIs of SEO

2008-03-22T09:10:00.001-07:00

Helping the Suits Understand the Value of SEO Copywriting
Times are getting better on SEO Copywriters, at least in my experience. More people are understanding the value in what it is we do. That said, I have found that if you can use numbers to show how your letters have improved and increased the important numbers (the dollars, baby!), you can seem like a wizard, a prophet or a saviour. Maybe a bit of all 3.

The Suits only understand crunching numbers. Graphs and charts. Spread sheets and data analysis. Creativity is lost in many boardrooms...it is replaced by a cold, unfeeling business sensibility. They want numbers that clearly map out probable futures. Knowing this to be the case, as an SEO you need to look at numbers that can be improved and measured, numbers that actually support your value.

What you'll need to look at is what they call KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators. For me, I referred to some experts on the web (like Matt Cutts, Aaron Wall and SEOBook, Search Engine Watch and Webmaster World to name just a few) to verify I was thinking the right way about what to measure for search engine optimization. Once I was on the same page as the experts and better understood what to measure, as well as how and why, I felt I was ready to pitch.

Why KPIs are So Important
It may vary by a client's specific needs, but usually, I am asked to help increase sales, or more specifically, conversion rates.

Conversion rates mean that I make more visitors do what the website owner wants them to do, like buy a product or sign up for a service. So not only am I expected to drive more visitors into the site by increasing its presence in the search engine results, I am also expected to make a user focus on a specific action once they arrive. The only way I know to properly measure this is through KPI analysis. If I can't draw a straight line (or at least a mildly wobbly one) from what I am doing to the increases in conversion rates, I won't be working very long.

The numbers used for measuring KPIs are going to come from some kind of analytics and tracking program. The most common ones I see used to monitor and analyze traffic are Google Analytics, Omniture, ClickTracks and WebTrends. They all operate essentially the same way--looking at log files or using tracking cookies to see what people do in your site.

These analysis tools can spit out reports, do comparisons and analysis, and in the end, will help you be able to hang tough in the boardroom.

An Example of Measuring the KPIs of Search
Let's use an example of an established site, coming to me to increase the sale of their widgets.
The site owner has been using Google Analytics, and shares statistical information for the past 14 months. For the purpose of this illustration, we'll assume that the coding of the site is already tight, and that there are no issues or glitches in the collection of the data I am reading. I don't have to tweak the coding, I simply have to use SEO copywriting skills to improve the rankings and the conversion rates.

Step 1: Collect Historical and Relative Data
I will first look to see where the site is to-date. 14 months of data should help me to see what the average traffic is every month and if there are any seasonal trends in the business to evaluate. If possible, I will use more than just the Google data, simply because I want to be sure the numbers I am seeing are as accurate as possible.
Inside the Analytics, there is a lot to learn. I review the number of visits, pages per visit, the bounce rate, the time on each page, and when possible, the forward paths through the site. I also need to know the referrals and the number of visits driven by organic searches (with the associated keywords), and like to see the ratio of new-versus-returning visitors as well as their raw numbers.
Depending on the widget community, I may also analyze current market trends or shifts that happen outside the website itself--these are imporatant things to consider, because if the market is strong, weak, growing or shrinking (collectively) it may have a direct effect on my ability to improve the sale of widgets for my client.
Step 2: Keyphrase Analysis and Targeting
I will quickly start identifying the keyphrases truly important to the sale of the widgets. Sometimes the client knows what these are, which is great. In my experience, the business owner is often a little too close to the subject matter to see it objectively, and they don't really know what an end user is actually typing into a search engine to find the widgets. What they believe and what really happens on the web might create quite a gap to fill. They might think that people understand that "widgeting widgets that offer a beneficial widgetry" is the most accurate description of their product, but fail to see that people are only typing in "widgets" to get what they want. Or vice versa. Point being, I don't want to go only by what the business owner thinks will work--there is data available to illustrate what actually does work.

I usually ask them to tell me what they would most like to rank for and then I use some keyword analysis tools to look deeper, and see what searches are actually happening on the web. I use the engines to review the top SERPs (search engine results pages) for these searches, to get a feel for the competitive landscape. It may be much easier for me to show some progress and ROI in "Nashville widgets" than going after "widgets" on its own...in most cases in SEO, less competition means greater chance for success.

And Then, We're off and Running:
Once I am sure I am looking at the right KPIs, I do the following:
Set a baseline - using the 14 months of data, I create a monthly average for each KPI. This is the starting point--it creates something tangible to measure and improve.
Create a list of Targeted Keyphrases - using keyword tools and web research, I target a specific list of keyphrases. I then break these down into primary, secondary and tertiary keyphrase groups based on search volume and/or previous conversion rates. Each page to optimize has a primary, secondary and tertiary keyword (or keyphrase) assigned.
Create a spread sheet - I build out a spread sheet in Excel to bring all these things together into one easily understood (and share-worthy) document. I add columns for every month to enable ongoing reporting and show month-over-month variances. There is an Excel page(tab) for the on-site stats (the KPIs from Analytics) and a tab for Keyphrases' SERP positions (which I manually review--some automated review tools cause penalties). Sometimes I include another tab that offers the details of any work done between reports.

Why It Works
This Excel sheet makes what I do real, and offers something tangible to the business owner. All he or she knows, is that they want to sell more widgets online. But by me taking the time to carefully structure an accurate document of my efforts to do so, they can better understand the methods to my madness. Better still, if some efforts seem to work better than others, this sheet will help us to see (in numbers) what that really means to the bottom line, and helps put the greatest push behind the most probable successes. This means I am showing them how to spend less money to earn more of it--a beautiful thing for us all.

There is no true rule of thumb that works for every situation here...organic search is not a science. However, by knowing that measuring KPIs accurately can mean job security for me and more money for my clients, it is one step into the boardroom I am always willing to take. If I set it up properly, clients eventually tend to get really excited about what organic SEO can mean to them.

Cha-ching.

How You Look: Keeping it Real

2008-03-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

Potential clients want to see themselves in your work.

They want to know that you understand their desires, that you can see things from their perspective. They need to know you get it. They come to you with a situation, and want you to bring skills and experience that can accomplish something tangible.

SEO Copywriting is not usually about satisfying an artistic ego. Although let me qualify that statement--because the better you get at doing SEO copywriting, the more of an art form it becomes. But really, it is purposeful writing designed to increase profitability. While there is definitely an art to it, it is all about the numbers. If you can't increase and maintain higher web traffic and conversion rates, you are not satisfying the most basic purpose of SEO Copywriting.

How you pitch potential SEO clients, and how you look at what you do is something I have found essential to succeeding in this business. Keeping it real is often kept simple by having some numbers to crunch. I was very reluctant to embrace numbers, being the word nerd I am. However, these are excellent tools to make the Suits perk up and take notice.

Being a creative in a non-creative environment is always a little strange. But meet them on their terms, and it is amazing how much freedom you can receive. If I go to a company and pitch an SEO project, I know that we need to talk about my writing in real numbers. We need to look at what they want to invest, and what kind of return they can expect from this investment. It is up to me to manage this correctly, letting them know I understand the goals and bottom line.

If I am successful in pitching my dreamscape using real numbers, they tend to let me do what I do without much interference. I get a wide berth, sometimes a budget, and a deadline. SEO work is great, because you can see results almost immediately when things are all clicking well. This means I don't have to promise the moon. I can say, "I will help to drive the traffic from this proven keyphrase" and it is always received well, especially if I can show positive traction in a few weeks or less. When you are able to punch it up with some traffic stats and some supporting sales data, the intrinsic value of SEO copywriting really sells itself.

Let Them See Themselves in What You Do
Be easy to work with. I try to show a new client what happened in the past, and what I learned from it. I have some case studies showing numbers--I have screen shots of former successes with the stories behind them. I have spread sheets, and graphs if these help to illustrate a point. I try to use whatever language and whichever tools work best to have a new client see what their own efforts can become if they take me on board--I want them to see themselves in the same position as one of my previous success stories and visualize how I will impact their projects.

I am honest, and don't promise glitter on snowflakes or anything I can't really do. Since a lot of what I do is SEO, I don't promise top-10 rankings--instead, I try to promise progress, but only if I am sure I can deliver it. I can't guarantee how a search engine is going to treat a website, but I have a pretty good idea. So I can almost always reasonably promise progress, and monitor the numbers to make sure I can deliver something that can be measured. I stick closely to what I know I will be able to control, and steer clear of issues that are not within my scope. I make my pitch in a warm, authoritative tone using a language they can understand, and then I back off to let them decide if they agree.

Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. I don't get every job that comes up, and have had plenty of disappointments because I was passed over for something I really wanted to do. I have found though, that it works for me more often than not.

I may not land all the gigs I want to do, but of those I do tackle, none feel forced, or something I am doing reluctantly. Because I can honestly believe in my clients, and like them, and want them to succeed, it is much easier to enjoy what I do for a living and avoid professional burnout.

And I can't help but think that this is a big part of the reason why I have been pretty successful so far. I love what I do, and I am willing to take the time to learn how to speak to people in their most comfortable language. If I need to, I am now more able to crunch numbers, or use some charts and formulas if they are what is called for in a meeting. I am learning that speaking a wider range of business languages increases my own bottom line, and that is pretty cool.

My real point to all this is I have found that as an SEO copywriter, I need to be able to speak in real terms (and yes, even use numbers and charts and stuff) about the real impact to expect from a project. If I can help them understand what it is I do and why I want to work for them, it makes what I do tangible and real. At that point, like I said, the SEO writing part of it really sells itself.

Who You Know: Making Connections

2008-03-19T02:32:00.000-07:00

I am sure you've all heard, "It's not what you know, it is who you know." This is very true in business, and remains so in SEO copywriting.

Does this mean that you need a jammed-up rolodex? Not necessarily (but it helps, of course). Every business card collection has to start somewhere.

What it really means, is that you have to make a strong impression when you do get a shot because this will almost always lead to another. It can take some time to build a reputation and collect the experience that leads into another job, but it can be done.

For me, it was about diligence. I was good at doing cold calls and good at presenting myself. I had very little experience, but every job that was relevant was painstakingly documented. Once I had a few of these, I presented them in a uniform manner as a portfolio leave-behind. When I had enough stuff, I built a website, and used it like an online resume.

I initially had free business cards printed, then I made some at a copy center where I also made some cheap flyers and one-sheets about using a copywriter. I went out and stuck these in mailboxes and doors, posted them wherever business people flocked. I used them until I could afford to buy some stuff that looked better.

Hate to admit it, but I ran out of printed stuff as leave-behinds a long time ago. I will qualify this with the fact that almost all of my work comes through the web. I do have a print sample portfolio in case it is requested, but I don't have copies of it. I do have pdfs of lots of work at the ready though--and this has proved to be an indispensible way to communicate with potential clients about copywriting gigs. Portfolios and samples are 100% electronic as often as not in this field, and getting more common every year.

But at first, I found printed materials to be wonderful at helping make a client feel more cared for, and well attended. Why? First of all, I was willing to come into the office to make the right impression. Once there, it was obvious I was careful in how I presented my work. I clearly had pride in what I had accomplished, and when possible, I offered some kind of case study or report on how my writing made more money for someone in my past.

So for me, it was not a question of who I knew, because I didn't know anybody. It was more of a question of what did I want these new folks to think of me when I did get a chance to meet them? I wanted them to think of me as detailed, precise and organized. Creative, accessible, and quick. And busy. I always wanted them to think I was too busy to waste time.

Be the Ball, Danny...Make Your Future
It seems funny to me now, but I used to make it seem like I was much busier than I actually was. If I was in a meeting and a follow-up was called for, I didn't have to check my day planner...I knew I was almost always free. But this never stopped me from pulling out the planner and suggesting one or two other times. Why? Because I wanted them to feel like I was in demand. I didn't lie, I was just cryptically evasive. They wanted to believe I was really busy and talented, because it answered their needs. I simply complied, and many times it helped to get me the job.

But it is important to note, once I got hired, my work was able to stand on its own merit. I didn't miss deadlines. I was available for calls and direction. I offered suggestions, but only if asked. I could match the tone of virtually any company in any medium, and switch gears mid-stride without breaking a sweat. In a nutshell, I tried to make sure I was a dream to work with so the people who hired me would remember me.

For me, this simple strategy worked well. One guy talks to another guy, and soon different reps from the same companies I was doing projects with started calling. They talked to friends, and soon other businesses were calling. My need for continued cold calls started to dwindle, my calendar started to fill up. I actually had to start using a day planner and moving some meetings around for real. I had to turn down some work, pass some on to other writers I knew.

So what did I learn? That who you know always matters. Every meeting, every single interaction is important. That careers in specific corporations might last for a very short time, but a well established relationship will transcend these changes. I have had many clients leave one position and enter a new company only to call me again, and start me down a whole new path of projects. I earn a new company for the resume, and they know that they can depend on me--a win-win, as I like to call it.

One thing I have learned is that the players within the creative industry are shifting and changing all the time, but the work is always there. And as the players move on to new games, they are trundling their rolodexes, their Outlook contacts and their business cards to the new desk. I have benefited many times from these career shifts--I work hard to try to never view any business relationship as unimportant, which again, feels really easy to do most of the time.

Eventually, work usually tapers off from any one specific client. They might be finishing projects and moving on to other directives, or whatever. They often bring someone in-house because you have shown them the benefit of having good writing available. Hate when work starts to taper from a good client, but by this time, I tend to have other folks to take their place, and it rolls on.

I have been really lucky. Work has not been too hard to find for the last couple years, though it was a little leaner for sure when I was starting out. I don't think this is because there was any less work--just that I couldn't personally get considered for it. I didn't know anybody.

That is not the case any more--I can pitch most anything and have no inhibitions. I have no fear of the boardroom--I get energized talking to suits. Selling myself, and selling them on their personal gains to be had from the craft of SEO copywriting. I am getting better at talking in languages once alien to me--using numbers where only letters used to be.

But best of all, I have made some great connections through it all. I have worked with creative directors, webmasters, business owners and Marketing Execs who all come back to me when they get a new project that needs some copywriting or SEO attention. Sometimes, it is just for an opinion. Sometimes it is for a small project, and sometimes for a big one. I try to handle them all the same, and continually increase the circle of who I know.

Can't speak for everybody, but this has certainly worked well for me.

Who You Are: Selling Yourself

2008-03-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

Clients are going to buy when they are comfortable. This is true for when you write, and when you sell your SEO Copywriting skills. So think of your job as making them comfortable with you...you need to make them willing to do what you say, and trust your expertise.

What do you do you if you don't have that expertise? Sorry, but there are no shortcuts here. You will have to earn it. You have to prove you can write, and that your writing makes a solid business investment.

Get Working-- And Get Them Talking About Your Work
The best way to do this quickly is with a client list and some testimonials. It worked for me anyway--I had zero experience, but started building it. I had every satisfied client write a paragraph or two about using my services. At first, I traded work for a testimonial or two if it was worth it--and believe me, it was. Someone else's praise for me made potential clients feel they were risking less by using me--it's pretty obvious strategy. One I don't even use much anymore--you honestly need this less and less as your career grows. But when you are creating a new career, testimonials are like gold.

Another way I quickly pulled ahead of the pack was an ability to hit impossibly quick, huge deadlines. Why? Because I was hungry. But I never promised the impossible. I did what I said I could do, hardly ever flexed from an initial budget quote (which was always competitive, not too low or too high) and I was immediately better than other writers my clients had used. It escapes me, but it is true--simply deliver the goods as requested in a respectful manner, and you can quickly build a solid reputation. I am glad so many people suck at what I do--makes it a little easier to shine and not tarnish my slacker image.

A little bit of a reputation can go a long way in getting writing gigs. You have to have some work that is real, work that shows a benefit to the client or a Return on Investment (ROI). If it is too early in your career to be able to show this, you now have a goal. Pitching SEO is never easy, even when the audience is plugged-in and ready to bite. Demonstrate an ability to earn a dollar, and you will help pave your career as an SEO Copywriter...trust me. SEO copywriting is a financial question for many businesses so it is up to you to have the right answer.

If you haven't even yet begun to write, much less for money, get started.

There are a million places to publish stuff online, so you have absolutely no excuse not to write. From porn to poetry with all stops in between, get out there.

But do keep this in mind--writing for money is not like writing for a blog or website or something that you have control over. Don't go to a business meeting with your poetry, or a short story your aunt (who is a librarian) loves. You won't work like that, I promise.

Instead, write some articles specific to the area of work you are after. Give them away if you have to, but make them stellar. Make someone happy with what you have to say, and get them to say so. Just once.

Web writing for real business money is calculated. Tallyed-up at the end of each day. What you think hardly matters--you are a verb-churning monkey to a lot of the people you will encounter. So be it--wear it proudly. Certainly beats cleaning up after the verb-churning monkey, or possibly being married to the verb-churning monkey.

But like any good monkey, you must hurl your wares with care--this is after all, a career you are building.

How Do You Get Started in SEO Copywriting?

2008-03-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

In the past year or two, I have been speaking more to college students about how to do SEO copywriting. Hopefully, this will address one of the most common questions I get.

I know I make what I do sound pretty sexy sometimes. Many turned-on students ask me, "How do I get started In SEO Writing like you?" I sometimes have to beat them down with a stick.

The best answer to writing for SEO, is to simply write better. SEO stuff comes after learning more about good writing, not prior. In time, you will be able to use SEO goggles to see the world but don't rush it. Let SEO be an acquired skill, augmenting your desire to become a writer.

Become more adept at speaking to specific audiences. Learn all you can about completing a thought. Get better at making an argument. Defending a position. Making a sale. You'd be amazed at how some simple mechanics and a little spark can keep you really busy.

Search is based on being viewed as an expert in your field. The search engines are trying to provide relevant results using really sophistacted, ever-changing formulas. They are far from perfect, and they change a lot.

My best suggestion is, don't ever focus on writing what the search engines want because it is a moving target. If you are learning tricks, they probably have a very limited shelf life. Don't write for a formula, write for a web user. If you do it well, there is plenty of work.

Focus on good writing, and good solid content. Take pains to avoid bad writing, and you are well on your way to good SEO writing. Isn't that simple?

Nothing else will work for you for very long. Don't bother with it. SEO Writing is only the right move if you want to write, a lot. SEO is a speciality, it is a subset of being a writer.

That all said, there are ways to get started in SEO writing simply because people are so starved for original content. It is a great place to get some writing experience. How you get started and how much you can actually make at this will depend on a lot of different factors.

I figure that will be good fodder for some new posts.
We'll look at Who You Are, Who You Know, How You Look, and see where that gets us.

I think I am going to like this...

What Seo Copywriting feels like, at least for now

2008-03-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

Doing what I do for a living, I've seen some definite flows and ebbs in market perception.

Search is still pretty young as a business concept to many people, and I find I explain what I do for a living a lot. I don't mind. SEO writing is a little strange. I understand why it may seem weird to someone who doesn't stare at a screen all day, someone not obsessed with the Interweb like me.

But clearly, organic search is pretty well acknowledged for what it is worth. An ability to demonstrate consistent ROI speaks for itself. Same goes for paid search and ad programs and the like---used correctly for the right type of marketing, and SEM can be very successful. I believe most businesses benefit from both organic and paid search, and most can see the benefit if they don't in some way already harness it.

But still, I find myself attending my son's school functions, explaining again to another blank stare, "It's called SEO...search-engine-optimization. S-E-O. I am an SEO writer. " From the looks I receive, I think they believe my line of work has something to do with monkeys.

Oh, the crazy life on the Interweb.

But I am not complaining. Search, may be a little weird as a profession, but I am comfortable here. I like being cyber-geeky. I can't think of anything I'd like to do more than being a search nerd. So to me, being an SEO writer at this point is a pretty cool thing to be. I don't know a ton about what the professional climate is like out there for other folks, but when I do get out of the cave and get to talking to other SEOs, it seems we are all doing pretty well as a group.

I lucked out, in that I was in a few good places at the right time, and really got into some cool stuff where search is concerned. I continue to do SEO copywriting every day, cranking out amazing numbers of pages (if I do say so myself). Why? Because I like writing, and I have found solid writing is at the core of many SEO strategies. I would say all of them, but I am sure someone would call me out on it and I am not going to haggle semantics. But who are we kidding? Good writing is at the core of everything.

As a writer who gets paid, I have to be careful all the time with what I say and how I say it. I don't have to be that careful here--I want a little sloppy fun. I will only edit everything 2-4 times.

So I am going to start next week with some SEO tips, copywriting style.
I am still trying to warm up to blogging. You kids, and all your newfangled Interweb thingies...

The Freelance SEO Writer Blog Begins

2008-03-13T18:10:00.001-07:00

Hello. My Name is Marty Lamers.
I write for a living. Sometimes I like it, sometimes it bites, but most often I truly love it.

I have a lot of freedoms I don't take for granted. I make a good living at a corporate gig and as a freelancer through my company Articulayers.com. I think I succeed because I believe in what I do.

So the reason I am starting this blog, is I keep wanting to update my own freelance company site, but that involves a lot of coding and thought. And code is cold and unforgiving. And then there's more search engine optimizing. And more studying and research, and more work and all that effort...ew.

I have actually been way too busy to allow myself the time to redo my site...at least that is my excuse.

So my poor old site sits there, never getting updated.
Nice corporate image, you say. I know. Weak, you supposed Internet pro, you snarl. I know. i should be ashamed.

But I figured I could do this blog a little more often, and hopefully, have some fun with it. Blogs are as easy as it gets, I think.
I will leave it out here for a while, and post some freelance copywriter experiences in it...or talk about SEO stuff, or do whatever comes to me as necessary, fun, or whatever.

For the most part, this is a blog for people considering entering this field. It'll have some tips and stuff, but most of it will be just insight that should serve to help you understand more about what a guy like me faces being an SEO Copywriter for a living.
I make no apologies for this content.

I'll be back soon, hopefully with something to say.
-m