It was nearly a decade ago when I received my first defined freelance SEO writing assignment from a client. By this point and experience writing for the web in a few different forms. Nothing that was described as Search Engine Optimized writing. The client was very clear in their requests that this was the kind of writing they were looking for. They sent me over a dozen headers and explained the process to me. It reminded me of some kind of school test question in a sense. Take “these words” and use them in a sentence. Instead it was now take “these words” (the header) and use them in a sentence. Then write a few more words staying on topic of “these words”.  Then, use “these words” in a sentence again.

So the idea of SEO writing is to get a set phrase, or keywords, into a piece of web writing enough time that it can be picked up in a Google search. With the assignment being my first in this realm, and there were many articles to write, I would send a few at a time off to the client to ensure they approved what I was doing. It was great in many ways because they would also encourage me to invoice right away instead of waiting to complete the entire job.

I loved being able to write this kind of content. Right away. It felt like a short learning curve because the fun factor almost took over everything. The challenge was to be as creative as possible and give each topic a freshly written approach. The topics were all for the same website so there was the added creative challenge of avoiding repetition in each piece.

When the first of these assignments was completed, more came in from the same client. Then more. It was a tremendous break for me in the business. I was devoting more time to my freelancing business and ended up with steady work for over a year straight with this one client. It was learning by working. It was paid work in writing. Being paid to deploy my own creative devices to accomplish the end goal for the client. I strongly encourage anyone new to this business to seek those opportunities out. SEO Writing is a great way to work your own creative edge in conjunction with client needs.

@WriterDann