Want your content or copy to rank but can’t make heads or tails of search engine optimisation (SEO)? You really don’t need to be an expert to optimise your content and start ranking. With this guide to SEO for freelance writers, you can quickly get to grips with fundamentals like search intent, keyword research, and readability, and rank higher (without the tears).
Whether you’re writing web copy and blog posts for clients, or trying to tidy up your own website, this guide will cover everything you need to know about SEO for freelance writers.
Caution: it is a long guide (with over 8+ years of knowledge crammed into it) so take it a step at a time.
Table of contents
- What is SEO (and why does it matter)?
- How to optimise your content and copy
- SEO for freelancers…in a nutshell
What is SEO (and why the hell does it matter for freelance writers)?
Search engine optimisation sounds pretty complex, and it certainly can be, but it can be boiled down to something simple like:
SEO is all about helping search engines understand your website’s content and copy. The more value it offers users, the higher up it will appear in a search engine results page (SERP) based on relevant search queries.
In other words, if you optimise your content properly, it will help you rank on the first page of the SERPs for relevant keywords and direct relevant, organic traffic to your site.
There are four types of SEO:
- On-page SEO is the easiest (and most accessible) way to increase your website’s visibility. It’s all about optimising elements of your website, from including the right keywords in your meta descriptions to writing image alt text.
- Off-page SEO is all about external tactics that drive traffic to your website and improve your overall reputation, including backlinks (links from external websites to yours), guest posting, and online reviews.
- Local SEO is relevant to businesses that have physical locations, or focus on a particular geographic area. It typically involves creating a Google Business Profile, targeting local keywords, and embedding Google Maps on your site.
- Technical SEO is a bit more complex and is the process of improving the technical aspects of your website, including page speed, crawlability, and dead links.
Don’t worry if you’re feeling overwhelmed, though. We’ll be focusing primarily on on-page SEO (with a little bit of technical SEO) which is the easiest to get to grips with!
How to optimise your content and copy
👉 Know your search intent
First up on our journey into SEO for freelance writers is search intent. This is, without a doubt, one of the most important things you need to consider before you start writing any piece of content or copy.
Search intent is all about the purpose behind someone’s search query (in other words, what they’re aiming to find when they type something into a search engine). There are four types in total:
- Informational: when someone is looking for more information about a topic, which can lead them to how-to guides, tutorials, definitions, and so on.
- Transactional: when someone’s ready to take action, like purchasing a product, booking something, subscribing to a service, etc.
- Navigational: when someone already knows what they’re looking for, e.g., a specific website, brand, or page.
- Commercial: when someone’s shopping around for specific products and services, looking at product pages, reviews, and other information that will help them make a purchase decision further down the line.
Why does search intent matter?
It’s simple. If you know what people are looking for when they’re using certain search terms, you can create content that matches their intent.
If your target audience is typing “how to build high-quality backlinks” into Google, they’re clearly looking for educational content, like a how-to guide or a tutorial. Alternatively, if they’re looking for “best backlink building services“, they’re clearly considering making a purchase and are looking for reviews, comparisons, and general listicles.
If your content doesn’t align with their intent, e.g., if it’s a sales-based page targeting the keyword “how to build backlinks“, they’re going to bounce because they wanted information, not a sales pitch.
Nail search intent and you’ll be able to create content that engages visitors, drives conversions, and ranks top of the SERPs.
👉 Find your keywords
It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a blog post, a landing page, or your ‘about us’ page, you need to use relevant keywords to increase your content’s visibility and ranking in the SERPs.
You’re unlikely to rank high with just a hope, prayer, and no thought towards keywords (sure, it’s not impossible, but why waste your time and energy? 🤷).
So, where do you start?
Before jumping straight to keyword research tools, you need to gather a list of general keywords by:
- Identifying key topics that are related to your content, copy, services and/or products, e.g., if you’ve got a client that sells luxury candles, it might look something like “candles”, “scented candles”, “soy candles”, “three-wick candles”, “wax melts”, etc.
- Getting inside your audience’s head and thinking about what they might be looking for on search engines (focus on search intent). If you can, look at buyer personas, psychographics, or even social media, to focus on their interests, pain points, and aspirations.
- Using Google. Even if you’ve only got a few potential keywords or phrases, you can use Google autocomplete, People Also Ask boxes, related searches, or even Reddit threads to get a bigger list going.
- Spying on your competitors and seeing why kinds of keywords they’re using in their web copy and blog content.
I also like to use AnswerThePublic or Google Trends to get a good list going. You can start with a simple phrase and end up with dozens of short- and long-tail keywords (don’t worry, I’ll explain what they are in a few minutes), questions, and related search terms.
Using keyword research tools
Now you’ve got a decent list of topics and general keywords, you can use a keyword research tool to refine everything.
Before I get into it though, we first have to quickly talk about short-tail and long-tail keywords…
Short-tail vs. long-tail keywords
| Short-tail keywords are broad keywords (usually only one or two words) that target a wide audience, e.g., “email marketing”, “content writing”, “marketing ROI”. The beauty of these keywords is that they have high search volumes – thousands of people are using these search queries a month. Unfortunately, this also means that they’re highly competitive. Though there’s a chance you can outrank other websites for these keywords, it’s a process that can take months, or even years, depending on the website in question. Long-tail keywords, however, are far more specific – focusing on a very specific search intent, e.g., “email marketing for beginner freelancers”, “becoming a B2B SaaS content writer”, “how to calculate the ROI of a marketing campaign”. Their search volume will be much lower than their short-tail counterparts, but the competition is lower, which means you’re far more likely to rank for them. Both are beneficial to a website’s success, though. So, try to target both short- and long-tail keywords if you can. |
And now for the keyword research!
I’ll be using Moz’s Keyword Explorer to show you how to do this, but you can find a list of other freemium keyword research tools below that’ll do a similar job.
To start, you’ll enter one of your keywords or topics and Moz will come up with related, relevant keywords. You can filter them by top suggestions, questions, closely related topics, broadly related topics and so on. (You can see what this looks like below.)
Once you’ve got your list, you need to look at the metrics. Moz uses the following (some tools use different names):
- Monthly search volume (how often people search for it)
- Keyword difficulty (how difficult it is to rank for it)
- Organic click-through rate (how likely it is that people will click)
As tempting as it is to pick out the keywords with the highest search volume, remember what I said about short- and long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords mean:
- Lower competition and a better chance of ranking in the SERPs
- Higher conversion rates because niche searches usually indicate that users are close to taking action, e.g., “budget-friendly coffee machines under £100” implies the user is ready to make a purchase
- Better SEO and authority – over time, ranking high for long-tail keywords will help you build authority for your website, which will eventually make it easier to rank for short-tail, high-volume keywords
So feel free to go as niche as you want! You can always sprinkle some of the short-tail keywords into your content and copy too.
⚠️ Warning ⚠️
Do not under any circumstances, start using your keyword(s) in every single sentence of your content and copy. Search engines want to see natural, valuable content, which means no keyword stuffing.
Keyword research tools
The following tools are free to use, but do come with limitations, e.g., less data/metrics, X queries per month, mandatory sign up etc.
If you don’t want to fork out for a new tool, just mix and match when doing your keyword research.
- Moz Keyword Explorer
- Semrush
- Keyword Planner
- Ahrefs Keyword Generator
- Ubersuggest
- KWFinder
- Wordtracker
- Backlinko
- Wordstream
👉 Use your keywords
You’ve got your keywords, now it’s time for us to make sure they don’t go to waste. You’ll need to include them in certain elements of your content and copy to improve your chances of ranking (also known as optimising your content).
Headlines and headings
Whether it’s a website page or blog post, you need to use your main target keyword in the headline (H1).
If you’re trying to target a keyword like “using backlinks to increase site authority” for a blog post, it might look something like this: “Ultimate Guide: Using Backlinks to Increase Your Site Authority”.
Alternatively, if you’re writing copy for a marketing freelancer targeting startups, a homepage headline might look like this: “Freelance Marketing Solutions for Startups”.
You can then integrate your main keyword and any secondary keywords into your subheadings (H2, H3, H4), e.g., “What are backlinks?”, “The benefits of backlinks”, or “Tips to gain high-quality backlinks”.
Title tags and meta descriptions
The title tag and meta description of a web page or blog post are what will reel in visitors from the SERPs. You want something that is engaging, eye-catching, and optimised.
The meta title is usually similar to your headline, but includes extra elements to jazz it up, e.g., “Landing Page Strategies That Work | Ultimate Guide | Website Name”.
Your meta description needs to do a similar job. It should sum up what your content/copy is about and why it’s so valuable for your target audience, e.g.,
“Get landing page strategies that drive conversions. Learn expert tips on copy, design, and SEO to create landing pages that convert visitors to customers.”
You’ll have to be short and sweet with them though. Title tags shouldn’t be longer than 60 characters if you want them to display properly in the SERPs. Similarly, your meta descriptions should be somewhere between 50 and 160 characters.
URLs
Finally, you want to include your main target keyword in your URL. It helps to make your URL more descriptive, and makes it easier for visitors and search engines to know exactly what the page is about.
An example would like like this:
http://www.websitename.com/blog/landing-page-strategies-that-work/
It’s short, to the point, and uses the keyword “landing page strategies”.
| If you’ve already published a ton of website pages or blog posts, and can’t be arsed going through them all manually to see if you’ve optimised everything, you can use Screaming Frog to gather all of your data. It’s completely free! Just input your URL and it’ll give you all sorts of handy information – letting you know if you’re missing meta descriptions, if anything’s over the character limit, and even stuff about images (that we’ll discuss below). I love to use it whenever I’m auditing a website, as there’s always something that needs fixing. |
👉 Optimise your images
Images are one of the best ways to break up blocks of text on a website, and contribute to brand consistency.
Though it’s usually easy enough to pick them out, there are a few things you’ve got to bear in mind.
Avoid stock imagery at all costs
Okay, this isn’t really a piece of SEO advice, but it is a personal gripe that does relate to how well your copy or content is received. Stock imagery is awkward and cringey, and just ruins all the good effort you’ve made with your words.
Also, if you’re not creating the images yourself, make sure you’re not wading into copyright issues with the ones you pick out. Use a website that offers free copyright-free images like Unsplash, and get to grips with the ins and outs of image copyright.
Avoid bulky file sizes
Believe it or not, large image file sizes can wreak havoc on your website speed. And few things piss people off more than a website that takes ten business days to load (hmm, except popups and shoddy navigation…).
Save yourself the trouble right off the bat by reducing your image file sizes before you upload them. Don’t worry, it’s not as technical as it sounds.
Ideally, though it’s not always possible, your images should be below 100kb. The best way to cut down size first is by changing the file dimensions in your go-to image editor. You shouldn’t really need anything wider than 1000px, so cut it down.
If the file size is still too large, use an image compressor like Optimizilla. It can degrade the quality of the image though, so use it wisely.
Be descriptive with filenames and alt text
Do your image filenames look something like this: IMG_76539byt.jpg?
Go sit in the corner – you’re on an SEO timeout.
Your image filenames are meant to provide context for search engines and visitors to actually understand what your images are about. They need to be descriptive and, when necessary, SEO-friendly.
Let’s use this image as an example:
(I will use any opportunity to look at pictures of cute dogs #sorrynotsorry)
I’ve named it: /brown-and-white-english-bulldog
Though some websites will urge you to use your keywords in your image filenames, I don’t usually find it relevant to do so. Unless I’m including a screenshot or graphic that highlights a particular action, e.g., “Screenshot of doing keyword research in Moz” I’d just be keyword stuffing, which I like to avoid.
Lastly, that little box titled ‘alt text’ isn’t just there to be ignored. It’s extremely important for accessibility purposes – it’s used by screen readers for visually impaired users, so it needs to describe the image properly.
For the above image, I used the alt text: “A brown and white English bulldog sitting on dead leaves in a forest”.
As with the filename, you shouldn’t be trying to overload your alt text with keywords. Just describe what’s there and leave it at that.
👉 Make your content readable and optimised
Integrate your keywords (naturally!!!)
Thought we were done talking about keywords? Yeahhhh they’re basically the star of the show when it comes to SEO. There’s just no escaping them.
You don’t just need to use your keywords in your headline and headings, you’ve also go to sprinkle them into the actual content or copy.
Search engines need to know what your content or copy is about to make sure it aligns with people’s search intent, and keywords are one of the ways you can help them out.
Fortunately, this is a pretty easy thing to achieve. If you’re looking to rank for “luxury three-wick candles”, for example, you’re probably going to use this exact, or similar, phrase as you write (without even trying!).
It is a fine line though, as with most things. Make sure you’re using your keywords naturally. Don’t jam them into a sentence when they’re not actually necessary.
If you’re using WordPress, Yoast SEO can help you measure your keyword density. Alternatively, you can just use a good old-fashioned CTRL+F to see how often you’re using your keywords.
Keep it engaging
Does your writing look something like a cross between a dissertation and a 1950’s newspaper? Unless someone’s getting paid to read it, no one is willingly subjecting themselves to that horror.
Huge blocks of text with no images or headings are a surefire way to increase your bounce rate (what’s the opposite of woo hoo?). Nowadays, you’re lucky if someone spends more than five seconds evaluating a website page. If you can’t snag their attention in that time, they’re unlikely to return.
So, how do you make your content and copy readable?
- Shorter is better. Switch out long-winded sentences for short, concise ones that will engage your readers quickly.
- Avoid heavy jargon and complex language. Unless you’re targeting a super niche industry, stop confusing your readers.
- Use headings and subheadings to break up sections of text and make it easier for visitors to jump to sections they need.
- Break up your text. Add bullet point lists, tables, and visual elements like images, infographics, and videos to make your content more digestible.
- Use whitespace, it’s your friend. Leaving room around text, images, and headings makes reading more effortless and helps you avoid that cluttered look.
- Keep things active. When you can, opt for an active voice over a passive one, e.g., instead of “The content strategy was launched by the team”, it would be “The team launched the content strategy”.
👉 Add links
Links are a fundamental part of SEO for freelance writers. Use the right internal and external links in your content and copy and you can not only improve your rankings, but also improve readability and user experience.
Internal links
Internal links help to connect pages on the same website to each other. This helps search engines navigate through your content more efficiently, and improves user experience by directing visitors to more relevant content.
They also help to pass what’s known as link juice (not one of my favourite SEO phrases, I’ve got to say) to other pages. What this means is that links can pass SEO value from one page to another, helping the linked page gain authority and, potentially, improve its search engine ranking.
Every internal link you include should be relevant to that specific page, use descriptive anchor text (instead of “click here” it should be something like “freelance copywriter rates”), and feel completely natural.
External links
You also want to include some external links to other websites. You might think it’s a bad idea, as it can direct your visitors to other websites, but it does have many SEO benefits.
Links to authoritative websites, like research studies, industry experts, and news sites, can add credibility to your content and build trust with your target audience. Search engines see it as a sign of well-researched, thorough content or copy, which does wonders for rankings.
You should choose high-quality, relevant sources for your external links, avoid linking to competitors, and not overload your content with them.
👉 Don’t let the robots win
ChatGPT can do your whole content and SEO strategy. ChatGPT can write a blog post in two minutes. ChatGPT…is never going to replace content writers and copywriters.
Sure, it can be pretty useful for the ideation phase of new content and copy. Ask it to come up with some topics, general keyword starters, or a basic structure for a blog post and it’s not half bad.
Ask it to do anything more complex and you’re going to end up with something that’s chock-full of plagiarism, awkward sentences, and an inconsistent tone of voice. Even if you’re particularly proficient with your prompts, AI-generated content (for now anyway) still doesn’t come off as being written by humans.
By all means, use ChatGPT to speed up your ideas process, but don’t fall into the trap of getting it to do your job – your clients, target audience, and search engines will know better (and punish you accordingly).
| One AI tool that I do like to use frequently with my research-based content and copy is Perplexity AI. It can pull useful statistics and data with accompanying sources, which saves me doing a lot of the search engine legwork myself. |
👉 Skyscraper that s***
Have you seen competitors ranking well for a piece of content or copy that’s pure s***?
Just because a website ranks #1 or #2 for a certain keyword doesn’t necessarily mean that they deserve it.
Pick out a high volume, competitive keyword that you want to rank for and look at the top ranking pages. They might be performing well, but are they lacking in readability, clarity, or depth? Do they actually provide value to readers, or align with their search intent?
If you think you could do better, you can try the Skyscraper Approach. It’s an SEO tactic that can help you snatch away the best rankings and improve your backlink profile at the same time.
How does it work?
It’s pretty simple really. All you need to do is create a page that is better than the one currently ranking. This could mean including up-to-date statistics, more comprehensive information, or better visuals.
It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use more words, either. You’re meant to provide value, not volume.
Once you’ve published it, you can even work on your backlinks. You can reach out to the websites that have linked to the work you’ve improved upon (you can use Moz’s free Link Explorer tool to check this) and encourage them to link to yours instead.
Of course, if your content or copy is as good as you think it is, people will start to link to it without being asked. It just might take a few months, or more!
👉 Include questions
Last, but far from least, on how to optimise your content is frequently asked questions (FAQs).
This is something I’ve included in a lot of my blog content over the years and I’ve definitely found it to be effective for a few key reasons:
- More keywords. FAQs allow you to include a lot of relevant short-tail and long-tail keywords that your target audience is searching for.
- Higher chances of ranking. Google likes to pull concise, well-researched answers in their “People Also Ask” section, and keyword-rich content often ends up in the feature snippet.
- Better user experience. No one likes having to scroll for ten years to get an answer to a question that’s been bugging them. FAQs give people quick and easy answers.
- More time on page. Your visitors are less likely to bounce when they find what they’re looking for, plus they’re more likely to return if they view you as an authority on a specific topic.
SEO for freelance writers…in a nutshell
I’m finally done with my long-winded rant about SEO for beginners 🎉. We’ve covered the main fundamentals on how to optimise your content in detail, but if you’re too exhausted to look back over it, here’s a quick recap:
- Figure out your target audience’s search intent before you start writing
- Identify key topics of interest and use keyword research tools to find short- and long-tail keywords
- Use your keywords in your headlines, headings, title tags and meta descriptions, URLs, and copy (but avoid keyword stuffing)
- Keep your images below 100kb (if possible) and be descriptive with their filenames and alt text
- Make your content readable by keeping things short, simple, and visually engaging
- Add a combination of internal and external links to improve user experience and website authority
- Avoid using AI tools like ChatGPT to write content or copy for you – it won’t fool anyone
- Use the Skyscraper Approach to rocket past s*** content and steal their spots in the SERPs
- Include an FAQs section (when relevant) to up your keyword density, get a spot in the PAA box, and improve user experience
For more content and SEO tips, head on over to the Crying Over Copy blog and if you have any questions just leave them in the comments section!
Leave a Reply