How to become an SEO content writer in 2022?

Hi I’m Praneeth Kumar.

In this blog you will learn how to become an SEO writer step by step.

After reading this ultimate guide all of your queries and doubts regarding how to become an SEO copywriter and content writer will be solved, I guarantee that.

So Without further ado let’s get started.

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How to become an SEO writer?

There are 7 main steps you need to follow in order to become an SEO writer and make money writing articles for websites and blogs as either a freelance or contract worker along with your own website as well.

I will walk you through everything you need to know about becoming an SEO writer so keep reading through and stay engaged with me as well.

So keep reading this blog and so let’s dive right in.

Step1: Learn and practice SEO.

The first and most important thing you need to do is to understand what Search Engine Optimisation is all about if you are an absolute beginner to the field.

To explain it in simple words Search Engine Optimisation is all about optimising a website or webpage so that it ranks in search engines like Google and bing and get you traffic to your website or blog.

It is following a set of rules and properly optimising your website and blog post so that search engines can understand the page and site better and

it can rank your blog and website higher in search engines and get you more traffic overall and you can use the traffic to make money or generate leads for your business.

When you study further about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) then you will learn about three important categories in SEO called

On page SEO-It is about optimizing web page content for search engines and users, this is the work you do on your website.
Off page SEO-It is about optimizing a website to rank higher in search engines by working outside of your website like building backlinks.
Technical SEO-It is about optimising the technical aspects of websites like mobile friendliness to improve the speed, fixing duplicate content and security of websites.

You can learn more about all of these different types of categories in detail here.

But when your essential goal is to become an SEO writer then you should consider focusing, learning and

practicing only on page SEO because your essential job is to write content that gets published on websites and drive traffic to the website from Google.

So in on-page SEO the most important thing is Keyword research and keyword optimized pages.

So let’s see the next step which you need to do.

Step2: understand the requirements of your skill.

The second important thing that you need to take is to understand the requirements of your profession so that you can act upon the things that are the most important and help you to become an SEO writer and start making money.

As per step 1 in SEO you should focus on learning and practicing on page SEO.

Whether you want to become a freelance content writer or a SEO writer specialist your job will always be about writing and publishing content around keywords.

In on-page SEO there are a couple of things which You need to learn and practice like,

You should learn keyword research in order to find keywords and phrases that people search for around your topic so that you can find questions people ask in Google to create content on your website and drive traffic.
You should properly understand the search intent of the keywords before writing the blog post around them so that you can create better resources of information over others.
You should identify and understand your target audience and their characteristics so that you can create content that not only helps your audience solve their problem but builds trust and relationships with them as a brand.
You should learn copywriting skills because your job as an SEO writer is not just to educate your audience through content but also to convert your audience into potential customers and leads for companies through the content and make money as well.
You should learn how to write a blog post that keeps users engaged with the content on the website.
You should learn a few basic rules of on page SEO like keyword placement and creating title tags and SEO friendly URLs.
You should be aware of copyright laws and avoid copyright in your content, cite sources where required.
Above all, you should learn how to do extensive research for writing blogs because there are thousands and thousands of blogs are there on the Internet even in most of the topics you are about to write for websites on most topics and the only way you can stay apart and above the competition is by adding unique value to the audience with your blog and you can do that by learning everything to know about the topic through extensive research.

Note: if you want to become a successful SEO writer then you should not ignore the fact that SEO is a highly competitive industry but that does not mean that you cannot become successful.

All it needs is that you should be highly interested and love the subject that you are writing about.

The fact is that over 2 million blog posts are published every day, this is very huge/competitive when you think about it for a second.

The only way you can become successful in SEO writing and get your content/blog post stand out is by creating the best resource of the information about that keyword on the Internet and

you can do that by only doing a lot of extensive research on the topic before writing a blog post and

you cannot do a lot of extensive research if you don’t love the subject because you will get bored and eventually give up.

So my point is, if you want to become an SEO freelance writer and blogger then choose topics that you are really interested and passionate about learning like,

Health.
Digital marketing.
Blogging and online business.
Entrepreneurship.
Lifestyle.

Become an expert on the topic by learning a lot of things through research and effort even without a degree and educational qualification.

When you have built an expertise on the topic there is no way you cannot succeed because

there is always a demand for its experts while writing blogs and creating content and because of the EAT update from Google.

Most companies and businesses want to hire freelancers and SEO writers to write blogs for their company website from those,

who are experts on the topic they are interested in over others who are just freelance content writers without having any expertise in any of the subject.

So, narrow down your focus and select a few evergreen topics that you are really interested in learning about and build an expertise around them through research.

This is also true in becoming successful in blogging in 2021 and beyond.

There are very few chances of you becoming successful in blogging if you focus on Blogging on lot of topics/niches because,

You don’t build expertise in any of the topics.
The traffic to your blog is not highly targeted.
The competition is also extremely high.

For more information you can read my guide on things to know to be successful in blogging in 2021.

Now the next step is that.

Step3: Practice and improve your skill.

Now you know exactly what are the things you need to do, it’s time to get the theoretical knowledge into the practical world and start practicing the knowledge that you have and improve your skill.

What I mean by this is that you should either create your own website and blog and

start producing content and learn and improve your skill of writing blog posts or use online content publishing platforms like Medium where you can write and publish blog posts and improve your skill of writing blog posts.

There are two main benefits of doing this,

You will have a clear Understanding experience and knowledge about writing blogs and SEO.
You can have samples of work that you can show to others when you are applying for work as a freelancer.

If you can invest money initially, I would highly recommend you to consider Creating your own website on wordpress so that you can start producing and publishing blog posts and

improve and practice the skill of writing blog post and this will also work as a sample of examples of work that you can show to others when you are applying for freelance work.

You can easily get started creating a website on wordpress for as low as $65.00 a year with Bluehost hosting.

Read Bluehost review and why bluehost is good for WordPress websites.

For more information you can read my helpful guides,

Now that you have decided on the blogging platform whether it is WordPress or medium you can then start writing and

publishing blog posts and practice and improve your skill of writing blogs, take a look at a couple of things and keep them in mind before writing blog posts.

What makes any blog post awesome in the first place?

There are 5 things to get right like these,

The content in the blog is unique, relevant to the query and not plagiarized but provides a unique perspective over a topic.
The content is right, trustworthy, backed by facts and mostly written by an expert on the subject.
The blog content is engaging, easily readable and informative for the users.
The blog not just addresses theoretical knowledge but has practical and actionable insights to solve the problem or provides new/fresh perspectives.
The blog is properly formatted and visually appealing to read.

So meanwhile when you’re practicing writing blog posts you should keep in mind all of these things so that you can create content that is better than other posts and rank higher in search engines and get more traffic and eventually more leads and money.

For more information you can read my ultimate guide on how to write a blog post for beginners where I walk you through everything you need to know about writing blog posts and how I write blog posts.

You can also read my ultimate guide on all the blogging mistakes you should avoid doing to grow faster in blogging and save lots of time from failures.

This practice and step alone can help you enormously in becoming an SEO writer successfully.

Now let’s see the next step.

Step4: Build a portfolio.

If your essential goal is to become a successful freelance SEO writer then you cannot afford to ignore this step because a Portfolio represents your skills and review of your work.

A portfolio must include a couple of important things like,

Obviously you should include the samples of blog posts that you have already written on your wordpress blog while practicing.
You should also consider adding some testimonials and reviews of your work working under a few people.
You should also include the expertise and experience you have in the industry.

All of these things are quite important,

In order to build a good portfolio and get some reviews of your work,

you should consider working as a freelancer and write blog posts for companies/websites for absolutely free of charge or for low price initially so that

you can get some testimonials for your work and some positive ratings from people who have taken your work and you can include them in your portfolio.

This is where having a website that you own on WordPress for your journey of becoming SEO writer helps a lot,

you can also include all the testimonials of your work on your website which acts as a social proof and

obviously people can also see the samples of your work that is published on your blog before they want to hire you as a content writer they get good first impressions like they know,

You are experienced in the field.
You have knowledge on the subject.
You have worked for others before.

This will increase the chances of getting successful in SEO writing.

The next following step you need to take is.

Step5: Register on freelance platforms.

Now when you have got the skill and experience, it is the time to get your skill, work and name out in the world.

The first thing I would ask you to do is to register yourself as a freelancer and SEO writing specialist on some popular freelance platforms like,

Problogger job
Upwork
Linkedin.
Behance.
Flexjobs.
Guru.
Freelancer.

When you are initially working out on these platforms as a freelancer and complete beginner then you should work for low prices to get some reviews and

testimonials from people to build a strong portfolio and when you get enough ratings and testimonials from people then you can increase your prices.

Most probably you will not get any job/contract as soon as you register on these freelance platforms because of the competition so you should try other approaches like because you already have a website

you should consider marketing yourself as a content writing specialist in a specific industry so that competition can get low and

you can get some work other than this field and platforms to get some testimonials and reviews of your work which can give you an initial boost and get your name out in the public and help you in building a strong portfolio.

So the next step is.

Step6: Do the Marketing.

Now that you have created a profile on freelance Platforms and got some testimonials and reviews of your work.

It’s time to do some marketing and networking so that you can get the first few clients.

You can use digital marketing strategies like,

You can run Facebook ads to people who are looking for hiring writers for blogs related to that industry.
You can also consider guest posting on some of the highly visited websites related to your industry so that people who read and like your content on those sites can visit and connect with you on social media and you can get more clients.
You should also connect and network with other writers of your industry on social media platforms like LinkedIn to get more clients for your service through referrals and word of mouth.
You can also write blog posts on your website and get more traffic and you can convert your own traffic into potential customers for your SEO writing service.
You can also consider running at sound search engines like Google AdWords and also consider Pinterest ads to increase your reach and get more exposure.

You should also consider joining relevant Facebook groups and forums related to your industry to get your name out in the public.

Most probably you will definitely get a couple of clients to your freelance SEO writing service and this can give you an initial boost.

Step7: Get the work, do it and get paid and repeat.

When you get a couple of initial clients for your freelance SEO writing service,

There are couple of things you need to follow like,

Charge a small amount of money as fees because you should be focusing on getting some testimonials and reviews for your work rather than making money from the first client itself.
Complete the work before the deadline and respect the time of your client.
Provide work more than beyond expectations for your clients so that they can get impressed by your work/effort and build good relationships with you and they can get you more clients through word of mouth.

You should be doing this for some time when you have a good number of testimonials, reviews, a strong network and experience in the industry so that you can succeed faster in freelance Platforms as well.

A few Pro tips for becoming a successful SEO writer:

Look, I am a SEO writing specialist, I have written over hundreds of blogs on SEO and digital marketing topics on my blog and other websites on the Internet and read many blogs, articles in the journey and the only lesson I have learnt so far is that,

Focus on adding value to users and improve the User experience in every way possible on your blog and while writing blogs.

Look, it has been over a couple of decades since Google has been invented and since the birth of SEO to now,

Google has always been working on a single goal which is to provide right and authoritative websites in Google search results and improve UX on Google.

In the journey Google has invested millions of dollars in improving the search results and algorithms quality and hired the best engineers in the world to do that.

If you take a look at some of the popular Google penalties like Panda penalty and penguin, core web vitals, humming bird then

you can find a similar goal which is Google is trying to provide better results for users in search and

penalize websites and content that provide bad UX but want to rank high on Google with using bad SEO practices like keyword stuffing, spammy plagiarized content, etc.

I assure you that whatever the update that happens in Google for the next couple of years will always focus on improving the User experience of websites and

helping users provide better results in search so focusing on improving the User experience as the number one priority is definitely a good thing to do as a SEO writer and Blogger in particular.

Another thing is,

You don’t need to have a degree in SEO or have an educational certification,alot of first hand experience in writing to be a good SEO content and copy writer,

you just need to be a good communicator who can explain complex concepts in simple words and

educate different techniques and inform new content to people online not just through blogs and

text but also through images like infographics and tables, charts etc.

You do not also need to have coding skills to be an SEO writer,

if you are perfect in writing blog posts which rank in Google then you are completely fine with it,

you don’t need to learn coding which can be useful for technical SEO not on page SEO, you don’t need to be good at a lot of things to make money.

The last thing you need to do is to always be updated with the regular changes that happen with Search Engine Optimisation and updates that take place in Google.

You can only be perfect and continue to have a skill that is in demand only when you constantly update your skill and

improve your knowledge with the latest information and practices about SEO and other industries related to your niche.

You can do this by following some of the most popular SEO blogs on the Internet like,

Keep yourself updated with regular and latest case studies, statistics and updates that take place in SEO and adapt and improve your skill with changes that happen in the SEO industry.

You can also consider subscribing to my blog to receive best advice about Search Engine Optimisation backed by stats and data.

Here are a few helpful resources you can read.

These are all the things you need to know about how you can become an SEO writer in 2021 and beyond.

With that said let’s conclude the blog post.

Ending remarks;

There you go, these are all the things you need to know about how to become an SEO writer.

Do comment down what do you think about seo writing and will you become one, i would love to know it from your side.

Share the blog post with your family and friends if you have found it helpful.

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I will catch you next time till then keep learning and keep growing.