How I Went From 0 Clients to Making $250-Day in Less than 3 Weeks Writing SEO Articles
In 2007, I started to do SEO article writing.
Even though I've been freelancing since 1993, this is a very new form of writing for me. To date, most of my clients had been small business owners who commission newsletters, brochure copy, articles for their websites, etc. I have some corporate clients who outsource their editing/rewriting work to me, eg, editing annual reports.
I decided to give SEO writing a try for four reasons:
i) I was bored with my existing workload;
ii) I'd read a lot about SEO writing and knew that it was going to be lucrative long-term;
iii) there's not a lot of competition in the field (not for good, quality writers anyway); and
iv) it's quick turnaround (in pay and assignments).
As an aside, it fits my rather schizophrenic writing personality too in that I may write five articles in one day on extremely different topics - from wedding accessories to mortgages. As my brain likes to flit from project to project, this works great for me.
How to Break into a New Freelance Writing Niche Quickly & Profitably!
As this was a completely different field for me, I had to start marketing from scratch. Following is how I went from 0 to making $250/day in about three week's time.
Marketing for New Clients? Here's a 3-Step Plan that Works Every Time
1) Website: I took about a week to build a website specifically for this type of writing.
2) Research: I compiled a list of SEO companies I wanted to contact for work.
3) Contact: I contacted them - one at a time, using the names of appropriate contacts where possible and at minimum mentioning the company in the email when no specific name could be found.
Marketing Success by the Numbers: What makes this plan work every time is that you make contact every day with a certain number of firms. In my case, I decided to contact - at minimum - 20 companies a day.
On the very first day of marketing, I received two inquiries from companies wanting to use me for pending projects starting the next month.
About three days later, I received another inquiry from a potential client who wanted to package my services with a presentation he was giving to secure a client. And, in the second week, I landed a client who gave me 4 writing projects in three days.
This client is a large SEO marketing firm and wants to put me on their permanent staff of writers (we'll see how this pans out).
While nothing beyond the current 14 writing assignments has panned out, the point I'm trying to get across is that if you make enough contacts, you will get work - especially in the SEO sector.
The best part of being an SEO content writer? You can start with no experience, no samples and no website.
Good luck if you decide to give this type of writing a try.
Yuwanda Black is the publisher of InkwellEditorial.com: THE business portal for and about the editorial and creative industries. Visit http://www.inkwelleditorial.com/e11-excerpt.htm to learn more about how to start an SEO writing career. It's one of the easiest ways to start making money as a freelance writer, especially if you have no experience.
