During the holidays, things slow down for many freelance writers and SEO copywriters. And, this is just the time when many freelancers need the extra income. After all, there’s no Christmas bonus for us from employers. Following are two ways to bring in more business during the holidays if things are slower than normal for you as an SEO copywriter.

Write and Distribute a Teaching Report: Teaching reports do wonders to bring in the business – and they are a great marketing tool all SEO copywriters can use moving forward. Let me explain.

Do you constantly find yourself having to explain certain internet marketing services to clients? Do you answer the same questions over and over again? For example, some common questions you may field as an SEO copywriter are:

-What are keyword phrases?
-What is keyword density?
-What’s the difference between an SEO article and a blog post?
-What is an SEO press release?

If you’ve ever said to yourself, “I need to put an FAQ on my freelance writing website,” or, “I wish I had time to write an explanatory report to pass along to clients,” or, “I should do a tips booklet for clients,” etc., then this is the time to do it.

During your regular work cycle, you probably never have the time to devote to a task like this. A slow time like the holidays is the perfect time to not only write it but distribute it to old clients, and new ones as well.

Another thing about teaching reports is that they allow you to explain the breadth and depth of your services. Once clients read it, they may order even more services, because they will have gained a new understanding of what a certain service is all about that they didn’t know before.

And, this why they’re a great marketing tool – not only during the holidays, but all the time.

Discounts for services ordered now and moving forward: While discounts are old hat – they are so for a reason. They work!

To put a twist on it though, offer clients a discounts for services they order now, and a discount for ones they order in advance. Eg, as an SEO article writer, you could sell articles in packs of 20 and let the clients use 10 now, and 10 in the first quarter of next year.

What is an SEO Copywriter?

FYI, SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization copywriter. SEO copywriters write web copy with internet marketing principles in mind to drive traffic and increase sales for their clients.

Follow us if you found this post helpful!

May be reprinted with the following, in full: Submitted by Yuwanda Black of New Media Words, an SEO writing and internet marketing outsource firm. Learn more about SEO copywriting and how to make up to $250+/day writing simple articles as a freelance SEO writer. Want to increase your website traffic and sales? Get the free internet marketing report, SEO & Internet Marketing 101: An SEO / Online Marketing Tutorial for Those New to Internet Marketing.

Search New Media Jobs by Category
SEO/SEM; Freelance; Blogging/Bloggers; SEO/Online/Web Writing; Internet/Online Marketing; Web Strategist/Consultant; Web 2.0 Designer/Developer; Social Media Marketing/Networking

Search New Media Jobs by State
AK; AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; HI; ID; IL; IA; IN; KS; KT; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NB; NC; ND; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY

Can’t Find What You’re Looking For? Search jobs by keyword and location in the ”Jobs” Section to the right.

Social media marketing is here to stay. With that being said, it’s something every SEO copywriter in particular needs to make a part of their regular marketing routine. Why? If you’re an SEO copywriter, many of your clients are online. So, that’s where you need to be visible as well.

But, there are so many social media marketing outlets to choose from. How do you select the right one and make it work for you? Following are two critical guidelines that’ll help you narrow the field.

SEO Copywriters: 2 Critical Things to Keep in Mind When Choosing a Social Media Marketing Outlet

Do you have the time? Social media marketing is time consuming, if you do it correctly. So you need to choose a medium that will mesh with the amount of time you have to allocate to it.

After all, there’s no sense in using an outlet if you’re not going to fully invest time in it.

If you’re a busy SEO writer – as many tend to be – you won’t have hours to interact with a community. Hence, a social media marketing outlet like Twitter could be perfect for you. As you only have 140 characters to say what you want, your posts/replies by default are expected to be short and sweet.

You can post 5, 10 or 20 times a day on Twitter – in just a few minutes. This makes it a perfect outlet if you’re always pressed for time.

Objective: What’s your objective as an SEO copywriter for participating in social media marketing? Of course, the overriding objective is always to get more clients; bring in more business.

But, do you do it overtly, or covertly? That is the question. Some social media marketing outlets are more suited to overt marketing (eg, LinkedIn), while others are more of a way to stay plugged in and visible (eg, Twitter).

Before you choose a social media marketing outlet, make sure your objective meshes well with it. Otherwise, you can do your freelance writing business more harm than good.

Popular Social Media Marketing Outlets

Following are four extremely popular social media marketing outlets and their overall demographic.

LinkedIn: Used more by professionals.

Twitter: Used by everyone, but has a lot of internet entrepreneurs, bloggers, internet marketers, etc.

MySpace: According to social media marketing experts, MySpace has some 122 million users. These range from pop stars to mainstream business. Many use it for social purposes, as well as business purposes.

Facebook: Made popular by the college crowd. You’ll find a mix here similar to MySpace.

The bottom line: social media marketing is an excellent way for SEO copywriters – and other online entrepreneurs – to stay in front of potential clients unobtrusively. But, you must invest time in it and not abuse it to bring in the business.

Follow us if you found this post helpful!

May be reprinted with the following, in full: Brought to you by Yuwanda Black, the lead SEO copywriter and social media marketing maven at New Media Words. New Media Words is an SEO writing and internet marketing outsource firm. It partners with internet marketing companies, web designers, advertising agencies and others to bring affordable, effective online marketing to small and medium-sized businesses.

Search New Media Jobs by Category
SEO/SEM; Freelance; Blogging/Bloggers; SEO/Online/Web Writing; Internet/Online Marketing; Web Strategist/Consultant; Web 2.0 Designer/Developer; Social Media Marketing/Networking

Search New Media Jobs by State
AK; AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; HI; ID; IL; IA; IN; KS; KT; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NB; NC; ND; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY

Can’t Find What You’re Looking For? Search jobs by keyword and location in the ”Jobs” Section to the right.

In the CareerBuilder article, Five Careers That Sail Through a Tough Economy, one of the professions listed was that of web designer. The author wrote:

The Internet has evolved from an information resource into a robust economic platform. Companies take advantage of low-overhead Internet storefronts to tap new markets worldwide . . . They need a compelling Web presence to reel in customers — and that’s where you come in.

Why the Depressed Economy Means Opportunity for Freelance (SEO) Writers

Where web designers are is where the work is for freelance SEO writers. Really, this spells opportunity for all types of freelance writers. But, SEO copywriters have a distinct advantage in that more and more companies are pouring larger portions of their ad budgets into online advertising.

Why are they doing this? For three reasons primarily:

Online advertising is cheaper than traditional media outlets: Compared to television ads, radio spots and newspaper buys, online advertising is much, much cheaper for companies. As online marketing is a relatively new medium, many companies haven’t caught on to just how lucrative this type of advertising can be.

Tough economic times cause many to look – for perhaps the first time – at this outlet. And, once they see the ROI numbers (Return on Investment), they’re simply astounded that they haven’t tried it before.

Speaking of ROI . . .

Large ROI: Marketing is less about how much you spend – as long as it’s in your budget – but what you get back in return. And, online advertising returns have proven to be a lot larger than traditional media advertising. The success of the biggest player in the internet marketing game – Google – tells the story.

In the article, 1/22/09 MSN article, Will Google survive the downturn?, journalist Andrew Horowitz writes, “Google has established consistent earnings per share and sales growth since its inception despite the troubles within the economy as of late.”

A huge part of Google’s income is made from advertisers spending money on pay-per-click and other internet marketing campaigns. This is only going to increase.

Businesses Love Online Advertising: Once they discover how lucrative internet marketing is, businesses fall in love with it. Features like real-time feedback contribute to the love affair. What is real-time feedback? When a company runs a pay-per-click campaign, for example, they can instantly check the data to see how their ads are performing.

This allows them to tweak what’s not working and to expand what is. This saves thousands – and for some companies – millions of dollars in advertising. Why? Because they don’t have to wait for a newspaper to circulate for example, to know how effective their ad campaign was.

The Career Opportunities for SEO Copywriters are Vast – and Growing Fast!

What drives online advertising? Search engine optimization (SEO). And, there are few who know what it is. Those who learn – and do so now, the beginning of this boom – will be able to build lucrative freelance writing businesses that will sustain them for years to come.

Interested? Learn everything you need to know about how to start a successful career as an SEO copywriter.

Follow us if you found this post helpful!

May be reprinted on your website, blog, newsletter, newspaper, etc. with the following attribution and live links, in full: To learn everything you need to know about how to start a career as an SEO writer and start making $100-$250+/day, get the best-selling ebook, How to Make $250+/Day Writing Simple, 500-Word Articles. Learn more about how to start a successful career as a freelance writer.

Search New Media Jobs by Category
SEO/SEM; Freelance; Blogging/Bloggers; SEO/Online/Web Writing; Internet/Online Marketing; Web Strategist/Consultant; Web 2.0 Designer/Developer; Social Media Marketing/Networking

Search New Media Jobs by State
AK; AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; HI; ID; IL; IA; IN; KS; KT; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NB; NC; ND; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY

Can’t Find What You’re Looking For? Search jobs by keyword and location in the ”Jobs” Section to the right.

In 2007, I started to do SEO article writing.

Even though I’ve been freelancing since 1993, this is a very new form of writing for me. To date, most of my clients had been small business owners who commission newsletters, brochure copy, articles for their websites, etc. I have some corporate clients who outsource their editing/rewriting work to me, eg, editing annual reports.

I decided to give SEO writing a try for four reasons:

i) I was bored with my existing workload;

ii) I’d read a lot about SEO writing and knew that it was going to be lucrative long-term;

iii) there’s not a lot of competition in the field (not for good, quality writers anyway); and

iv) it’s quick turnaround (in pay and assignments).

As an aside, it fits my rather schizophrenic writing personality too in that I may write five articles in one day on extremely different topics – from wedding accessories to mortgages. As my brain likes to flit from project to project, this works great for me.

How to Break into a New Freelance Writing Niche Quickly & Profitably!

As this was a completely different field for me, I had to start marketing from scratch. Following is how I went from 0 to making $250/day in about three week’s time.

Marketing for New Clients? Here’s a 3-Step Plan that Works Every Time

1) Website: I took about a week to build a website specifically for this type of writing.

2) Research: I compiled a list of SEO companies I wanted to contact for work.

3) Contact: I contacted them – one at a time, using the names of appropriate contacts where possible and at minimum mentioning the company in the email when no specific name could be found.

Marketing Success by the Numbers: What makes this plan work every time is that you make contact every day with a certain number of firms. In my case, I decided to contact – at minimum – 20 companies a day.

On the very first day of marketing, I received two inquiries from companies wanting to use me for pending projects starting the next month.

About three days later, I received another inquiry from a potential client who wanted to package my services with a presentation he was giving to secure a client. And, in the second week, I landed a client who gave me 4 writing projects in three days.

This client is a large SEO marketing firm and wants to put me on their permanent staff of writers (we’ll see how this pans out).

While nothing beyond the current 14 writing assignments has panned out, the point I’m trying to get across is that if you make enough contacts, you will get work – especially in the SEO sector.

The best part of being an SEO content writer? You can start with no experience, no samples and no website.

Good luck if you decide to give this type of writing a try.

Follow us if you found this post helpful!

May be reprinted on your website, blog, newsletter, newspaper, etc. with the following attribution and live links, in full: To learn everything you need to know about how to start a career as an SEO writer and start making $100-$250+/day, get the best-selling ebook, How to Make $250+/Day Writing Simple, 500-Word Articles. Learn more about how to start a successful career as a freelance writer.

Search New Media Jobs by Category
SEO/SEM; Freelance; Blogging/Bloggers; SEO/Online/Web Writing; Internet/Online Marketing; Web Strategist/Consultant; Web 2.0 Designer/Developer; Social Media Marketing/Networking

Search New Media Jobs by State
AK; AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; HI; ID; IL; IA; IN; KS; KT; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NB; NC; ND; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY

Can’t Find What You’re Looking For? Search jobs by keyword and location in the ”Jobs” Section to the right.

SEO copywriting is an exploding niche. There are SEO writers routinely bill $25 to $100 per SEO article, or more. So then, why are there so many freelance writers who still struggle and take on $3 per article article writing gigs? Because they lack the following:

3 Keys to Becoming a $100 Per Article SEO Writer

1. Marketing Skills: Many SEO copywriters go to job boards that list poor-paying SEO article writing gigs because they don’t know how to market. Going to job boards is easy. After all, it’s where many of the jobs are. But, the lucrative SEO article writing gigs can’t be found on job boards — you have to ferret them out for yourself. This means learning how to marketing effectively.

2. Confidence: Many writers lack confidence in their skills. Thus, they find it hard to negotiate with clients. When you know that you’re good at what you do — and especially in a high-tech niche like SEO — you negotiate from a position of power. This means you command higher rates — because you know you’re worth it.

3. Negotiating Skills: Speaking of negotiating skills, keep the following in mind: clients pay not for the 400-600 word SEO articles you write for them, but for what those SEO articles do for their bottom line.

They may be selling a product or service that is worth thousands — and using your SEO copywriting skill to do it. Many who hire SEO writers either don’t have the time or skill to do their own writing. This means they need you as much as you need them. They’re not hiring you, they’re partnering with you. Always tune into this info when you’re negotiating rates.

Haven’t a clue as to what SEO article writing is? Read on.

What Is SEO Article Writing?

Basically writing articles with specific phrases that clients give you. FYI, SEO stands for search engine optimization. For example, if you owned a website that sold carpet, you would want a lot of articles with phrases like “carpet cleaning”; “carpet stains”; “carpet stores”; etc. on your site.

So, the client will email me and say, “May I have 3 articles with the keyword phrases (that’s what these phrases are called) “carpet cleaning”; “carpet stains”; and “carpet stores“. Make each article 400-500 words each, please.

You would write then write the articles on anything you want around these keyword phrases, ensuring that you repeat the keyword phrase at least 7-10 times. This helps drive traffic to the webmaster’s site (it’s called keyword density).

That’s SEO article writing in a nutshell. And, there are millions of websites that need this type of writing. The amazing thing for those who know how to write this kind of copy (SEO writers/copywriters) is that there is very little competition because the field is so new.

Becoming a $100 per article SEO writer is not hard, if you learn how to market, have confidence in your skills and learn do some research on SEO (it’s not rocket science, I promise!).

Follow us if you found this post helpful!

May be reprinted on your website, blog, newsletter, newspaper, etc. with the following attribution and live links, in full: To learn everything you need to know about how to start a career as an SEO writer and start making $100-$250+/day, get the best-selling ebook, How to Make $250+/Day Writing Simple, 500-Word Articles. Learn more about how to start a successful career as a freelance writer.

Search New Media Jobs by Category
SEO/SEM; Freelance; Blogging/Bloggers; SEO/Online/Web Writing; Internet/Online Marketing; Web Strategist/Consultant; Web 2.0 Designer/Developer; Social Media Marketing/Networking

Search New Media Jobs by State
AK; AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; HI; ID; IL; IA; IN; KS; KT; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NB; NC; ND; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY

Can’t Find What You’re Looking For? Search jobs by keyword and location in the ”Jobs” Section to the right.