One new thing today, dear reader, we will now be sending out job leads via this newsletter.

Details: We will list SEO, Social Media and Internet Marketing jobs. So if you know of a job and/or are looking to hire this type of talent, send in your job ad. The newsletter goes out weekly (on Wednesday), but if you have an immediate need, we’d be happy to list it for you right away. FYI, this is a free service.

How to Get Your Job Listed: Simply send your job particulars to info[at]SeoWritingJobs.com.

If you’re a writer, see today’s job lead below; a growing SEO firm is hiring. Now, on to today’s newsletter.

SEO Writing Company Dilemma: Company Wants 500 Articles – 4 Factors to Consider When Pricing Large SEO Writing Jobs Like This

Recently, I received an email from a fellow SEO writer. It made me smile because she’s having a “good problem.” She’s a bit overwhelmed and needed advice on a couple of fronts. She wrote:

I have 2 dilemmas . . .

1. I had an SEO firm ask for 500 articles. I told him the rate will be $25 per article, however, he said that rate will be too high. So, I’m wondering if you go to a lower bulk rate with that many articles. Or how do you determine a rate that is fair? Initially he will charge me my fees, then mark up the rate to the client so it’s a win/win for all.

MY RESPONSE

How low I’ll go depends on many factors, ie, (i) the type of content; (ii) word length; (iii) how much research is involved; and (iv) turnaround time. I always take these 4 factors into consideration when trying to figure out a “bulk rate.”

As a rule, I don’t go below $20 — no matter what. But that’s because I use my time to work on my own products, so if job doesn’t pay at least this much per article, it’s not worth it for me, even if I could do 2-3 articles in an hour (which equals $40-$60/hour).

See what I mean?

Learn more about how to price bulk SEO writing jobs.

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2. I need to hire writers! I’ve been on a quest to look for some really good writers, I have one, but he’s backed up. The SEO firm said he’s looking for 3-4 outside writers along with his in-house writers to handle the project. So, I was wondering do you have referrals for good writers . . . (I know I’ve read your articles about how to find writers on craigslist, etc,). I thought since you train writers you may have a few good referrals.

This project is not set in stone, however, this opened my eyes to show that I should be well prepared to handle something like this if it happens again. Thank you for all of your help!

MY RESPONSE

Following are links to a series of posts I did last summer about how to hire/outsource to other SEO writers.

How to Hire Freelance Writers from CraigsList (and Other Online Sites) to Outsource To & Grow Your Biz

SEO Copywriters: How to Find Reliable Freelance SEO Writers to Outsource To

Freelance Writers: How to Stop Freelancers You Outsource to From Stealing Your Clients

SEO Copywriters/Freelance Writers: How to Determine What to Pay Other Freelance Writers

SEO Writers Wanted: Growing SEO Content Marketing Firm Is Hiring

Are you a right brain creative who has the drive to succeed? If so, there just may be a spot for you at Nina Online!

About Us

Nina Online! is an up and coming SEO Content Marketing Firm that helps small to medium sized businesses increase their sales and profits by teaching them free to low-cost Internet Marketing Strategies.

We need a superstar like you to be part of our team. So, check out the hot job opportunities that are available. If you want to dance to your own tune, have the flexibility and freedom and be part of a company that allows you to make your own decisions. We are looking for:

**SEO Content writer who can produce up to 5 pages of QUALITY content daily (350-500 words)

**Basic to Intermediate knowledge of SEO & Internet Marketing

**Basic Understanding of Social Media Marketing (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube).

**Able to Provide 2-7 day turn-around time.

Types of Projects We Handle

We usually write articles in the health and wellness field, but we can tackle any topic. So, we need writers who are well versed in different topics.

Work from Home

Please send a resume and two of your most recent SEO article samples to NinaTheWriter*at*gmail[dot]com. And, feel free to list anything else you feel would help me learn more about you and your writing style.
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From InkwellEditorial.com

Freelance Writers: Advice on Applying for Freelance Writing Jobs – What & What Not to Do

Please send all queries to this firm; do not contact Inkwell Editorial/SEO Writing Jobs as we just list the job, not recruit for them.

Good luck!

Submit a Guest Post: This site and its parent site, InkwellEditorial.com, now accept guest posts. Get the guest post submission guidelines.

P.P.S.: Want to avoid freelance writing dry spells and make some extra money as an affiliate marketer? Learn how to make $50-$150/day pretty seamlessly in the best-selling ebook, How to Make Money Placing Ads on Free Classified Ad Sites

P.P.P.S.: Train to Become a Highly Paid SEO Copywriter Making as Much as $50,000 to $75,000 Your First Year: You’ll learn 4 ways to make money online using your newly acquired skills.

Copyright © 2011: All material on this site is copyright protected and cannot be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without my written consent (linking to is fine).

The following is a guest post by John Coutts.

I was 15 when I sat my English GCE Ordinary Level (O-Level) exam at school in the UK one sunny afternoon in May, many years ago. I failed. And that surprised me as I had thought I was pretty good at English. O-Levels are internationally recognised qualifications, and of course, the more you can get, the better a prospective employer will view you. But I failed my English O-Level exam.

That didn’t stop me writing though.

Writing, Writing and Writing Some More

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. I wrote poems and songs and short stories when I was younger. I even had one song published and recorded, though it didn’t become the big life-changing hit I had dreamed of. I had many stories and some poems published in local magazines too, which made my mother proud, but I didn’t earn much doing it. But I wasn’t really trying to earn money, come to think of it. That happened much later.

The Internet Turns My Writing Skills into a Viable Business

I discovered the Internet, or to be more precise, the World Wide Web, in 1995. A year later I set up a small web design business. It involved a lot of writing, both as text and as HTML code. Back then nearly everyone coded by hand in Notepad. I loved the work and I still hate to use WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web page editors.

Landing a Weekly Column & Other Writing Jobs

A few years later I approached a local newspaper about writing regularly for them and ended up with a weekly column of about 1,000 words a time to write. I also took over the updating of their web site, so I found myself doing quite a lot of writing and a lot less HTML coding – and I was paid well for it too.

A Eureka Moment: I’m a Writer!

One day I sat back and thought about it and realised that more than 80 percent of my work involved writing. I may have failed my English O-Level exam, but I had become, by all ways of judging it, a writer.

Moving Abroad and Making a Living as a Writer

One day some years later, my wife and I decided to leave the UK. We set our sights on Spain. For one thing, the weather is nicer in Spain than in the far north of Scotland where we were living. The Shetland isles is a wonderful place for many, many things, but warm weather is not really one of them. It’s home for the shaggy Shetland ponies, but no longer home for me.

Settling in Sunny Spain

We settled in the southwest of Spain in April of 2007, in a remote and very rural part of the country where men still ride on donkeys, though they carry cell phones now and often have a Mercedes too.

Work from Anywhere: Making a Living as an Internet (SEO) Writer

This is the “real” Spain and a truly wonderful place it is. However, when we were preparing to leave the UK we realised that we could not rely on the country for making a living. We wanted to be completely independent, and that naturally meant working through the Internet.

I again turned to writing. I found a company based in Florida who hired me to write articles for a reasonable amount. Well, it seemed reasonable back then when we were just starting out. Over the next year or so I discovered that my web writing skills were in demand, and I did quite well overall.

Then one day I discovered a web site that changed all that. I discovered Yuwanda’s web site, and her ebook that told me I could earn a lot of money writing SEO content.

I have always found that simplicity works best. Never try to re-invent the wheel when you don’t have to. I followed Yuwanda’s suggestions for becoming an SEO writer exactly as she laid them out. I had my first client a few days later. I was bold and told this client that I charged $25 an article. That was a big jump for me at the time. He never batted a virtual eyelid, saying that my charges were “very reasonable.”

Writing Thousands of Words Per Week as an SEO Writer

From there it was just a matter of keeping on doing the same old thing, contacting potential clients and accepting the work that came in. I soon raised my rates and lowered my word count per article from 500 words to 400 words. No one seemed to mind.

Today I am still writing . . . thousands of words every week.

Coming Full Circle: In Spite of “Failure”, I’m a Writer

It would have been nice to have passed my O-level exam at school all those years ago, but to be honest, it hasn’t really held me back in the slightest.

About the Author: John Coutts is an SEO writer. He has an international client base and can be found online at http://www.WriteSystem.com.

SEO Copywriter Training Class Discount: Get details on the course and learn how to take advantage of this special, limited-time offer.

Submit a Guest Post: This site and its parent site, InkwellEditorial.com, now accept guest posts. Get the guest post submission guidelines.

P.P.S.: Want to avoid freelance writing dry spells and make some extra money as an affiliate marketer? Learn how to make $50-$150/day pretty seamlessly in the best-selling ebook, How to Make Money Placing Ads on Free Classified Ad Sites

P.P.P.S.: Train to Become a Highly Paid SEO Copywriter Making as Much as $50,000 to $75,000 Your First Year: You’ll learn 4 ways to make money online using your newly acquired skills.

Copyright © 2011: All material on this site is copyright protected and cannot be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the webmaster’s written consent (linking to is fine).

If you follow SEO news, you’ve probably read a lot about content farms lately. If you don’t know what this is, a brief explanation is given below.

Content farms are one of the reasons SEO writing is exploding, which bodes well for freelance writers who embrace this niche. If your brow is furrowing because you know what content farms are and you’re wondering how they heck they can be good for freelance writers, read on. I’ll explain. But first, let’s get those who may not know what content farms are on board.

What are Content Farms?

These are websites comprised of a lot of content (almost always contributed by freelance writers), and usually are built around attaining high search engine rankings on many different topics. The primary goal of sites deemed content farms is to generate ad revenue. This in and of itself, however, is not the problem. After all, all for-profit sites exist to make money in one form or another.

The reason these sites are deemed “content farms” is that usually contain a lot of content of inferior quality that outrank sites with better content. In other words, the quality of the content is not given as much weight as the revenue it could produce.

For example, if you wanted information about breast cancer, you’d probably want to read an article on Komen.org or Cancer.gov, not some random site you’d never heard of, right? But, because many times articles on content farms outrank content from highly respected sources, they’ll show up first.

Some sites the label content farm have been leveled at are eHow.com (owned by Demand Media), AssociatedContent.com and Answers.com. There are many others.Post continued below.

Making Lemons into Lemonade: Why Content Farms Spell Opportunity for Freelance Writers

As we discussed in the post on InkwellEditorial.com yesterday, more and more companies are pouring money into internet marketing as a whole, and content development in particular. This is, in my opinion, for three reasons:

Why Businesses are Spending on SEO Content

(i) Companies now understand/embrace SEO: It always takes the rest of the world a while to catch up to technology. Just a few short years ago, job titles like SEO copywriter, SEO content strategist and SEO content developer were only known to tech insiders. The techies know it first, then it becomes mainstream a few years later.

Well, SEO is going mainstream now, which means companies are embracing it – and starting to put their funds where their mouths are.

(ii) Returns are Measureable: This is perhaps the main reason SEO is being embraced by so many companies – they can easily measure results. For example, take newspaper advertising. A marketing director may have to wait a few weeks or a few months to accurately judge their return on investment (ROI).

In internet marketing, results can be had at the click of a button in a few hours or less. If, for example, they want to know how that new PPC campaign is going, all they have to do is log into their account and get instant data like how many visitors a page had, the CTR (click thru rate), how many pages a visitor accessed, etc. That’s the power of the web.

The access to instant — and detailed — data like this means that companies get more bang for their buck because they can decide to cut back/spend more/change the direction of a campaign just like that! And, because these decisions are based on real data, it’s less of a risk for them. In fact, it exponentially increases their chance of success.

(iii) It’s Cost Effective: Internet marketing is cheaper than traditional media advertising. When you couple cheaper with a better ROI, is it any wonder companies are pouring dollars into it?

3 Reasons Content Farms Mean More Writing Jobs – and Better Pay — for SEO Copywriters

Now that you know why the market for SEO writing is expanding – and will continue to do so for a long time – let’s look at why content farms are good news for SEO writers.

Brand: A company that cares about their brand sees content writing as an investment, not something they’re looking to get for a pittance. Hence, the inferior quality writing (and writers) that can be found on many content farms are/is not competition for professionals SEO content producers.

Because the need for professionally researched and well-written SEO content is growing, the need for professional SEO writers who know how to conduct research and turn in top-notch content is growing as well.

Note: There are excellent SEO writers all over the place; some work on “content farms” and turn out darned good content. So, this is by no means meant to slam writers who choose to write articles for “content farms” like eHow and AssociatedContent.

I have – and continue to – contribute content to sites like this – precisely because they garner such good search engine juice (ie, the content shows up high in search results (if optimized correctly)).

Continuous Need: Because businesses now understand SEO, they realize that it’s not easy to “pay your way to the top” of search engines – not and stay there — unless you have deep pockets.

One of the best ways for a site to rank high in search engines is to be filled with quality content – and a continuous flood of it. The more often a site is updated with high-quality, unique content, the higher it tends to rank.

One or two batch of keyword stuffed articles ain’t gonna do it. A daily, weekly, monthly and yearly supply is needed. This means the need for a daily/weekly blogger, a monthly columnist, a weekly newsletter writer, a daily tweeter, etc. And, many of these assignments will be farmed out (pardon the pun) to who? Why, professional SEO writers, of course.

Google’s Listening: As the below articles indicate, Google (because it’s the #1 search engine) has been taken to task recently for its crappy results on some searches. The Washington Post article (yes, this topic has made The Washington Post y’all), How you and Google are losing the battle against spam in search results, notes:

Google is facing withering criticism from tech bloggers and search engine experts who say the world’s premier gateway to digital information is increasingly being gamed by spammers. . . . “It’s clear that Google is losing some kind of war with the spammers,” said tech guru Tim O’Reilly . . .

And Google is listening, firing back in the same article saying:

. . . we have seen a slight uptick of spam in recent months, and while we’ve already made progress, we have new efforts underway to continue to improve our search quality . . .

This means (we hope) that a lot of those spammy sites won’t rank because they’ll change their algorithms. In short, gaming the system with keyword-stuffed copy will slowly become a thing of the past (again, we hope).

What this means for sites that do float to the top of search results is that once they get there, they’ll have to continue to produce quality content to stay there. Again, who’s going to be producing a lot of this copy — and be paid very well to do so? Well, professional SEO copywriters of course.

One could say that SEO writing as an industry is maturing – finally. As a freelance writer, are you prepared to grow with it?

Read More on Content Farms

How ‘content farms’ beat Google, and what search engines should do about it

Google Targeting Content Farms, Low Quality & Shallow Content as Spam

What If Content From One Company Dominated Google’s Search Results?

Is This Google Algorithm Change About Content Farms or Not?

Should ‘Write To Rank’ Articles Be Punished by Google?

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P.S.: Valentine’s Day Gift — SEO Copywriter Training Class Discount.

Submit a Guest Post: This site and its parent site, InkwellEditorial.com, now accept guest posts. Get the guest post submission guidelines.

P.P.S.: Want to avoid freelance writing dry spells and make some extra money as an affiliate marketer? Learn how to make $50-$150/day pretty seamlessly in the best-selling ebook, How to Make Money Placing Ads on Free Classified Ad Sites

P.P.P.S.: Train to Become a Highly Paid SEO Copywriter Making as Much as $50,000 to $75,000 Your First Year: You’ll learn 4 ways to make money online using your newly acquired skills.

Copyright © 2011: All material on this site is copyright protected and cannot be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without my written consent (linking to is fine).

If you work for a B2B company and you’ve been wondering, “Why are people bouncing out of our site so fast” or “Why don’t we position for X keyterm,” read on. You may benefit from one (or all) of these five SEO copywriting tips.

The Straight Dope on Facebook, Twitter, and SEO: Ever wonder if all those links that result from people retweeting and sharing content on Twitter give you a boost with SEO? . . . in December, Google confirmed that the playing field had changed a little. Here’s what that means for you and your [SEO] content.

SEO Goes Mobile –  Two New Mobile SEO Tips For 2011: Mobile search is still growing at a rate faster than PC search (four times last year’s figure in 2010 accordig to Google, and 5x in past two years), accounting for 10% of Google search volume or more, it seems no one really knows what to do differently to take advantage of the growth. . . . these two tips can help you get more qualified mobile traffic to your digital content.

[SEO] Content Farms: Google announced they will go after low quality content and content farm sites in early 2011. So what do you do if your site was hit by this new algorithm?

P.S.: Submit a Guest Post: This site and its parent site, InkwellEditorial.com, now accept guest posts. Get the guest post submission guidelines.

P.P.S.: Want to avoid freelance writing dry spells and make some extra money as an affiliate marketer? Learn how to make $50-$150/day pretty seamlessly in the best-selling ebook, How to Make Money Placing Ads on Free Classified Ad Sites

P.P.P.S.: Train to Become a Highly Paid SEO Copywriter Making as Much as $50,000 to $75,000 Your First Year: You’ll learn 4 ways to make money online using your newly acquired skills.

Copyright © 2011: All material on this site is copyright protected and cannot be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without my written consent (linking to is fine).

A few days ago, I had an interesting exchange with a fellow SEO writer after last week’s newsletter on why SEO writing may not be the best career choice for you.

I wanted to get your take on it cuz I’m curious. So read the following, then weigh in on the two questions asked at the end.

Comment from Newsletter Subscriber

There are some SEO writers who define their own market. They write fewer articles for higher wages for industries they care about.  The key is to write fewer articles per month at higher rates. Otherwise, the quality of research and writing is just typical mediocre stuff. More people need to aspire to higher levels of writing and pay.  

My Response

I agree G-.
 
But there are those SEO writers, like me, who prefer to price their services a little lower to easily bring in clients. While higher paying gigs are great, depending on your rate, they tend to be harder (not hard, just a bit harder) to come by. So the dry spells can be longer.
 
I stay busy because . . .

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P.P.S.: Want to avoid freelance writing dry spells and make some extra money as an affiliate marketer? Learn how to make $50-$150/day pretty seamlessly in the best-selling ebook, How to Make Money Placing Ads on Free Classified Ad Sites

P.P.P.S.: Train to Become a Highly Paid SEO Copywriter Making as Much as $50,000 to $75,000 Your First Year: You’ll learn 4 ways to make money online using your newly acquired skills.

Copyright © 2011: All material on this site is copyright protected and cannot be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without my written consent (linking to is fine).