One of the first things that I get asked by people who want to start a career as an SEO content writer is, “How do I find all of the SEO writing jobs?”
SEO content is such a great niche to get into as a freelance writer because there is so much work going. But if you don’t know where to start looking then it can still be difficult to find all of those juicy, high-paying jobs.
Here are five types of companies I would recommend approaching to find a good source of regular work. In fact, I would say the first four of these account for 80% to 90% of all of my clients.
1. SEO Companies
Any good SEO company, like Uplers, for example, will need to be involved with content writing at some point if they are going to get high rankings for their clients. In many ways content is at the heart of search engine optimization, because it can be utilized to build backlinks and improve the search engine friendliness of a website.
But content takes a lot of time to write, as you probably know. And good quality content, the type that Google really likes, takes even longer.
For that reason, many SEO firms outsource their content writing to enable them to take on more clients. They could not take on 50 clients and write all their content, so they hire writers to help them with it.
There is a huge demand from SEO agencies for SEO content, and by simply targeting all of the companies you can find you are sure to start generating interest and winning writing gigs.
2. Social Marketing Agencies
Like SEO, social media marketing involves a lot of content writing. When companies talk about getting involved on Twitter or Facebook, these can be good marketing techniques. However, they need something to share across their networks, to attract people to visit their social profiles, to ‘Tweet’ and ‘Like’ and generate interest.
This nearly always means that they need to publish content of some sort onto their blogs, websites or elsewhere. It doesn’t always have to be written content: it could also consist of images, videos or surveys to name a few. But written content is still the most common, and content which is keyword optimised is even more in demand.
Target social media marketing agencies and you can again generate a regular supply of content projects without too much effort. You could even find that this one type of customer can provide you with all the writing gigs you can manage, and as social media continues to grow, the opportunities for getting work from such clients are only set to increase.
3. PR Agencies
PR agencies, like social media and SEO companies, tend to be able to provide you with a regular source of writing gigs.
One of the big areas in PR right now is digital PR, which involves a mix of online press releases, SEO, social media and guest blog posting among other things. For that reason there is a real need for quality content writers, and just a handful of PR agencies could between them end up sending you a large amount of work.
4. Web Designers
I have found lots of work with web designers, either from those who require content for their clients as an additional service, or from those who are working on their own projects and don’t have the time or the energy to write their own content.
If you can find a good web designer who wants to offer content to their clients alongside their design services then you could find yourself with a very nice little regular writing gig.
You could even start to offer your own clients web design services and return the favour for your designer client, making yourself a more attractive proposition to clients.
5. Any Company Which Runs a Website
Okay, this one’s a bit vague. But what I’m trying to say is that SEO content writing gigs can be found with almost any type of company these days.
- There are companies running large websites who know the need for SEO content but don’t have the time or the skills in-house and need to outsource it to writers;
- There are companies who have just launched websites and could provide you with a huge amount of work as they get their websites sorted out;
- There are companies who have no idea what SEO content is but can be easily convinced that they are missing out without it.
Possibilities become even greater when you choose to specialise in a niche. For example, if you decide to market yourself as a real estate writer then you can target all of the real estate companies you can find and sell yourself on your understanding of their industry.
What I’m trying to say is that you can safely approach any company to offer SEO content writing services, and you often cannot tell from their websites whether they are likely to provide you with SEO writing jobs or not.
The only problem is narrowing the search down, so I would recommend choosing an industry or niche which you have some interest or knowledge in and approaching all of the companies you have the time or inclination to contact.
And the chances are very good that if you do this for a few weeks you will start to find clients willing to pay good rates for your services.