March 17, 2025
This guest blog post is courtesy of Desiree Joy Villena, a virtual assistant based in the Philippines.
To make a living as a freelancer these days, you need to go above and beyond. Fellow freelancers understand the importance of creating good content to appeal to clients, but what about appealing to Google with SEO writing assignments?
With ever-increasing competition among online businesses, search engine optimization (SEO) has become more crucial than ever. If you’re new to freelance SEO, it involves increasing your website’s audience through natural search results. I’ve developed this step-by-step process with SEO freelance tips for creating articles that are informative, engaging, and rank well for their intended keywords on Google. Follow these steps, and you’ll attract SEO clients left and right. Find out why SEO writing is one of the top types of freelance writing that can earn a high rate.
Remember, Google’s latest content guidelines emphasize that content must follow E-E-A-T principles: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Before submitting any SEO copy to your clients, ensure the article meets these criteria to improve its chances of ranking higher in search results.
Follow these SEO services freelance tips to create content that shows up on the first pages of search results.
When writing SEO posts, it’s essential to have a strong understanding of your target keyword. For this, you’ll need two things: an analytics tool like Ahrefs or Moz, and excellent note-taking skills. Most experienced freelancers are already skilled in the latter! You can invest in your own accounts or use your clients’ accounts for research.
To begin your research, enter the keyword in your preferred analytics tool to access an overview of relevant information. This should include the number of searches per month, the “keyword difficulty” (how challenging it will be to rank for this keyword), and most importantly, the related terms and top-ranking results for that keyword.
Here’s where those note-taking skills come into play. Jot down common user questions and related terms; in the SEO business, we refer to these as “long-tail keywords” because they are usually longer and more specific than the main keyword you’re targeting. Think of them as boosters for your keyword—pay close attention to long-tails with search volumes of 100/month or more, as these can be extremely helpful in getting your content to rank!
This tip is among the top SEO freelance strategies, which is why we’ve included it first. (As a side note, it’s essential to allocate how much time you should spend researching your topic before you write SEO content.)
Once you’ve noted all the long-tail keywords for your target keyword, navigate to the SERP (search engine results page) overview section of your analytics tool to identify the best SEO strategies for freelance writing. Focus on the first page of organic search results—everything that appears after the ads, including the featured snippet at the top.
Open the top five to six results and examine the content closely. (If you have freelance questions of your own, check out this freelancer FAQ guide.)
Not everything you find in these results should make it into your piece. While massive “skyscraper” posts were once popular, today’s conventional SEO wisdom suggests that relatively shorter articles—around 1,500 to 2,000 words—tend to be more effective (though this may vary depending on the freelance niche). There’s no need to absorb every detail from the SERP results, but do take note of the following aspects to enhance your SEO freelance writing:
The more frequently you see a certain element among the top results, the more crucial it is to include it in your own post. For example, when I recently collaborated with colleagues on a post targeting the keyword phrase “how to market a book,” we noticed that the top three results had 8, 9, and 11 tips/steps, respectively. To align with these results, we ensured our post included a similar number of steps.
Lastly, remember to avoid keyword stuffing, which involves using the same phrase too many times in your writing.
Speaking of which, the next step in this process is to…
Now that you’ve gathered all that data, it’s time to synthesize it into an outline. The top pieces of content should provide you with a solid idea of what your piece should look like: how many sections and subsections to include, the proportions of those sections, and which long-tail keywords to target.
That said, sometimes the SERP results aren’t entirely consistent. If you find the top results to be disparate (“mixed SERP”), base your freelance SEO structure on the pieces most relevant to your client’s goals and target audience. For instance, if you were writing for a beginners’ cooking blog and researching the keyword “homemade lasagna,” you might find half the recipes to be simple and the other half quite advanced. Since you want your content to attract beginners, you’d likely want to emulate the simpler recipes while incorporating unique elements from the more advanced ones.
(Discover how much you can earn if you’re looking for freelance copywriter rates.)
It’s impossible to determine your structure without knowing the exact keyword(s) you’re targeting. However, in my experience, the best SEO freelance writing posts typically fall into one of the following categories:
As you might expect, the last type of post is often the trickiest to execute, especially when trying to keep things concise. This is why outlining before you write is so vital; otherwise, it’s easy to overlook important information and awkwardly squeeze it in at the last minute.
Now comes the moment you’ve been waiting for as an SEO writer: actually writing the post! At this stage, it’s primarily about transforming your outline into a detailed yet readable article. According to Yoast SEO guidelines, I aim to keep most of my sentences to 25 words or fewer and rarely have a section (under a heading or subheading) longer than 300 words.
If you find this part of the process challenging, it might indicate that you haven’t conducted enough freelance SEO research or haven’t fully considered your structure. While the preparation phase can feel time-consuming, experience shows that it ultimately saves time in the long run—sometimes even days! If you hit a wall while writing, it may be time to revisit your outline.
Another helpful strategy for overcoming writer’s block is to work on a different aspect of the SEO writing project for a while, such as visuals. I enjoy selecting and editing my own stock images to accompany my pieces and sometimes create custom headers or infographics. Even if the client hasn’t requested visuals, experimenting can be creatively stimulating. You don’t even need Photoshop; I use Canva for templates and Skitch for arrows, captions, and other small graphic design elements. Here are the best apps for writers and freelancers.
In terms of writing tips, don’t get discouraged. Writing SEO posts is meant to be a challenge! It requires more strategic structuring and careful writing than simply crafting an interesting think piece. You should feel engaged in the process and ensure you understand how to set freelance hourly rates that reflect your skills, so you aren’t working for low pay.
Finally, you’ll need to do something that many writers dread: asking for and incorporating feedback. If you’re fortunate, you’ll have a group of fellow freelancers to proofread your piece before sending it to your client. Bonus points if they’re also SEO writers! Their feedback should be constructive and aimed at enhancing clarity. Feel free to ignore suggestions that don’t align with your piece, but take their advice seriously, especially if multiple reviewers offer similar insights.
Dealing with client feedback can be more challenging. Be cautious of falling prey to freelance scope creep. Sometimes, SEO clients who aren’t well-versed in SEO may request changes that lack substance or could be detrimental to the post. For instance, they might ask you to make a section unnecessarily long or to remove the step-by-step structure that helps break up the content into digestible pieces, which can improve SEO ranking.
You have two options:
1. Strive for a compromise between their ideas and best SEO practices—such as adding a new section for the content they want instead of expanding an existing one.
2. Make a professional case for keeping the piece as is. I typically lean towards the former, as it’s more diplomatic and increases the likelihood of working with that client again. However, if you strongly believe their suggestions would hurt the post’s chances of ranking well on Google, don’t hesitate to express your concerns professionally.
After incorporating everyone’s feedback, proofread the post carefully for typos (or, ideally, have someone else do it) and format it with any images you’d like to include. Once you’re done, you’re ready to submit and invoice the client! Completing that first SEO post will establish you as a capable SEO writer, and each subsequent post should become easier. Before you know it, you’ll be writing SEO content that attracts clients and enhances your reputation in the industry.
To enhance your SEO efforts, consider writing topic clusters that help drive traffic and improve ranking factors for your SEO articles. For example, you might create an FAQ piece and develop several related topics that link back to it. If you’re writing a Disney travel guide, that could serve as the main article, with additional pieces covering the best Disney restaurants, hotels, rides, and more.
Another effective strategy for growing traffic to your clients’ SEO pieces is to offer backlink services as part of your freelance SEO package. High-quality backlinks from reputable third-party sites can significantly improve ranking factors with Google and other search engines.
Are you finding these freelance SEO tips helpful? Feeling like an SEO writer yet? You’re on your way to making great money as a freelance contractor who provides valuable SEO writing services to your clients.
Tags: content marketing, freelance, freelance rates, freelance writing tips, freelancer, guest post, search engine optimization, seo, six figure freelancing, writing advice, writing tips
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