Is Freelance SEO Writing DEAD?

You’re about to find out if freelance SEO writing is still a good use of your time in 2023. And you’ll see how to navigate it today, whether you’re an inexperienced newbie who’s just getting started, or an experienced freelancer who commands high pay!

This post contains several parts:

1.) A written update on the state of the SEO content writing market from October 2023

2.) See how the availability of SEO writing jobs has remained consistent over time

3.) What I would do if I were starting out as a brand new freelancer SEO writer TODAY

4.) A video, “Is SEO Writing Dead?”, with more info you NEED to know if you want to understand what makes this industry tick. Every bit of it is still just as true today as it was when I first filmed it. Be sure to watch it.

5.) A peek at some of the early SEO writing jobs I received back when I was still newer to this

6.) A transcript of the 3rd video, in case you prefer reading the info

Freelance SEO writing jobs online in 2023 (for beginners to expert, on Upwork)

The biggest change to hit the freelance SEO writing market in 2023 is AI writing tools like ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, and others. While low-quality content producers will do as they’ve always done, taking every known shortcut without regard to the quality of the output, savvy business owners know that participating in a race to the bottom won’t get them very far with rankings in Google.

So, don’t let AI spook you.

AI can’t replace you because it’s no match for human creativity and experience.

The reality is that it’s no different from any tool writers use: for writers who use AI wisely, it’ll help them level up and write better, faster.

I’m not saying to let AI write everything for you. In fact, despite what certain AI gurus may be saying, that’s actually NOT the best way to use AI, and doing it that way results in generic content that lacks the secret sauce that makes YOUR writing special.

In fact, that’s the reason why you’ll see many SEO writing jobs that specifically say they don’t want AI-generated content. Take a look at this one from today:

The thing is, most clients will have no problem with you using AI as an assistant, but they will NOT want to pay you to use AI to completely take over the writing.

And as I’ve always said, SEO writing is a great stepping stone to higher paying gigs as you get more experience and your skills improve. That’s still the case today, and here’s exactly the kind of gig you’ll go for when your writing becomes expert level:

You’ll notice that they aren’t asking for someone with formal training, but they do put a lot of emphasis on SEO knowledge throughout the job posting. And naturally, they want applicants to provide writing samples to prove their skills. That type of gig is a big reason why I’ve always strongly recommended that you set up a writing services website for your freelance writing biz. Your website gives you another opportunity to show off your writing chops.

As always, the most important thing you can do is just get started—a lack of experience is simply not a barrier to entry when it comes to freelance SEO writing. The way it works now, and the way it’s always worked, is that IF you lack experience or you know your writing still needs a bit of work, you can get your feet wet with lower-paying gigs and get paid to learn. As your skills improve and you gain more experience, you can apply for higher and higher paying gigs.

The availability of SEO writing jobs has remained consistent over time

What I would do if I were starting out as a brand new freelancer SEO writer TODAY:

If I were starting out today as a brand new freelance SEO content writer, I’d still use the exact same tactics I recommended in my book, which are summarized in the video below. Everything I said in that video is just as true today in 2023 as it was on the day I recorded that … because some things really don’t change that much. ?

Start with low-wage gigs on Upwork that will allow you to impress the heck out of your clients because they’ll be amazed to get such a great article at such a low price. Impressed clients = 5-star reviews.

Next, gradually increase your rates as your experience and skill level increase.

Obviously if you’re after a get-rich-quick thing, I’m not your girl.

But yes, I am 100% confident that someone who works hard, creates quality content, and learns to write quickly can eventually earn a freelance SEO writer salary of up to $60 an hour, just as I describe myself doing in my book.

An example of a $1000+ job I did for a client

The SEO writing client I’m going to tell you about has provided me with all sorts of interesting assignments. And this experience also illustrates perfectly how you can easily increase your earnings as a freelancer.

You’ll notice in the screenshot (coming up!) that I was paid $35 per 500 words for this job in 2019. At a rate of 2 articles per hour, I’d earn 70 USD per hour.

A big part of the reason why these articles can be so fast to write (once you’ve had enough practice), is that you don’t have to think too hard: the client does the keyword research so you don’t have to, and the subject matter is usually on topics that have been written about a gazillion times before (which means it’s fast and easy to research info for the article). The main things the client cares about are that the article is informative, is well-written, makes sense in relation to the keyword, uses the keyword the number of times they asked you to, and isn’t plagiarized.

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If you want to increase your hourly earning potential by learning to write faster, check out the special training I put together for you:

And yup, even with the AI tools of today, YOU learning how to write fast will drastically improve your productivity. ?

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And even if you don’t write as fast as I do (yet!), you can still make darned good money.

Say you only do 1 article per hour… at that rate you’d still be raking in 35 USD per hour.

And if you were really new to this and it took you 2 hours to write a 500-word article, you’d make 17.50 USD per hour, which is well beyond minimum wage in most places.

Also worth noting is that in the short span of 5 years, I successfully increased my rates by 700%! (As you read further down the page, you’ll see an invoice from 2016 where I was billing a client $27 per 500 words. And my very first job in 2014 paid only $5 per 500 words.)

Here’s an example of an invoice where I made over $1000, at a rate of $35 per 500 words:

An important caveat (plus more jobs!)

This takes time and hard work. Rather than make fake promises to you that will doom you to failure, I tell it like it is so you have a realistic idea of what’s involved in a proven path to success.

Here are the kind of freelance SEO writing jobs that are waiting for you if you’re willing to hustle, hone your skills, and work your way up. Check out these 2 slideshow images of a really sweet job posting from April 2020 that took me no more than 5 minutes to find:

And here are a couple of screenshots from my 2019 update video:

Watch the videos above to see even more clients looking for a freelance SEO writer – it’ll take you about 17 minutes to watch the 2020 update video, and 16 minutes to watch the 2019 video.

It took me only 5 minutes to find the (SEO) freelance writing jobs I showed you in the 2020 video, for example, and (as you’ll see from my findings in 2020 and 2019) there’s still a very healthy demand for everyone from beginners to experts. 🙂 For the record, I didn’t even take screenshots of all the jobs…there were loads more that you won’t see.

Here’s an unsolicited SEO writing opportunity that landed in the inbox of my writing biz site in early 2020:

I didn’t have time to do this job, so I turned him down. But if I’d had the time, clients like this who order in bulk and have recurring work are the best ones to have, because you earn a larger chunk of money at once and won’t need to juggle as many clients to meet your monthly earnings targets.

Anyway, the above examples aren’t enough. You also need to know WHY the demand for people in this line of work isn’t going anywhere. So after you finish with the ones above, check out this next one below, too.

Is freelance SEO writing dead? (video + transcript)

My freelance SEO content writer jobs in fall 2016 – take a sneak peak at some of my actual client orders

I love it when other people share behind-the-scenes looks into their income, so figured this might be of interest to you given your interest in SEO writing. What follows is a short-and-sweet peek at some of my freelance SEO content writer jobs from Fall 2016.

This one from September was my record-breaker: the largest single order I’ve ever gotten.

For October, I figured I’d give you a sample of a more modest order pattern – these next three were all from the same client (someone I’ve also been working with for about a year).  This client rarely places large orders – instead, they tend to make more frequent, smaller orders.

And this next example is for an order from the first client I ever got via cold e-mailing back when I first started SEO writing a few years ago.  Keep in mind that if you ever get a monstrously huge order, you can negotiate the deadline.  He initially asked for 2 weeks, but I got him to give me a month.  This helps me to spread out my workload better between multiple clients, writing books, etc.

So that’s that! I hope it inspires you to give SEO article writing a whirl because great things can happen once you get it up and running!

Read the video transcript for “Is freelance SEO writing dead?”

This week’s video is about whether or not the SEO writing ship has sailed. Is it still possible to be successful as an SEO writer? Or is this industry dead?

I would argue that it’s still alive and kicking, and I don’t think it’s going to be dead for a long time.

Why freelance SEO writing isn’t going anywhere

First of all, there are tons of websites out there. There are hundreds of millions of them in fact.

A recent study was done on the top million websites in the world (based on traffic), and the data was compiled by Alexa.com … Anyways, of the top million sites for traffic 43.1% of them were from the United States.

Now, as you know, the SEO writing clients that I talk about, the kind that I have experience with, the kind that I am so excited about because of the potential for people like us that start out with no experience, no credentials, no contacts… these SEO writing clients are primarily looking for people that write in English and are native English speakers. And the fact that 43.1% of the most highly trafficked websites are in the United States (an English-speaking country) is to me, very, very encouraging.

You can imagine that with all of these websites in the U.S. there’s a ton of opportunity for SEO article writing.

And even if you forget about the top websites in terms of traffic, there’s a whole ton of other websites – an even larger number – that don’t get a lot of traffic, but still need content to get leads for their business. Real estate agents, exterminators, plumbers, dentists, plastic surgeons. You name it, there’s all kinds of people that are looking for traffic and those people need content. Many of those people are going to hire SEO agencies to help boost their rankings in the search engines. And who do those SEO agencies turn to when they want content? Typically it’s an SEO writer.

Honestly, I just don’t see this going anywhere anytime soon. If you’re worried that this ship has sailed, that you missed the boat, that you’re too late to get into this, personally, I would shove those worries aside and just plunge on ahead because even the US Department of Labor (per their recent stats) says they believe the demand for writers is expected to remain steady. Between that and the huge number of websites out there, and the fact the bulk of them (a huge percentage anyways) are based in the United States and require English content, there’s a plentiful number of paid freelance SEO writing jobs online.

You’ve got to know where to look for (SEO) freelance writing jobs (for beginners to experts!)

The trick is knowing where to look and having the persistence to keep going until you land a few clients. Because all you really need is a handful of clients. You don’t need a ton of them. (Unless you’re planning on making $100,000 a month or something like that, which most of us are not planning on doing…) If you’re like most people and you just want to earn an extra few hundred or a couple thousand extra a month, freelance SEO writing, in my opinion, is still going to be around for a long time as an option to provide that as long as you’re willing to hustle and you have the persistence to keep at it until you land enough clients to provide regular ongoing income.

Now, maybe you’re more ambitious than that, and that’s totally cool too. Look at a guy like Carlo, whose video interview you may have seen that I did a while back (you can access that video by buying my book, Turn Your Computer Into a Money Machine, and signing up for free membership in the Money Machine Inner Circle). He’s cracked the five figure a month mark. If you’re willing to put in enough work you can do very, very well.  If you’re starting off out of the gate as an amazing writer you obviously are going to get off to a quicker running start compared to someone whose writing skills are rusty. Either way, I think hustle, persistence, and willingness to learn can take you far in this industry. And I think it will continue to take you far in this industry for a long time to come.

Summing up the situation for freelance SEO writing jobs online

In a nutshell, I don’t think the ship has sailed. I don’t think it’s too late to become an SEO content writer, so please don’t let that fear stop you. In my mind, the only thing that should stop you from getting into SEO article writing is if you just don’t like writing, you can’t stand it, you hate it, and you despise the idea of having to write articles on random topics. If that sounds horrible to you then don’t try any SEO content writer jobs. There are plenty of other things you can do to earn a buck.

But if SEO article writing jobs don’t sound half bad to you then I still highly recommend trying this out. These are some of the best freelance writing jobs for beginners – i.e. for someone who’s inexperienced, or who doesn’t have any experience, as was my case. For someone who doesn’t have any credentials, someone who doesn’t have any contacts, SEO writing is still a perfect way to get into writing with as a little friction as possible.

If you have any other questions you can go to my website and reach out via my contact form. Send me a message as to what kind of questions you want me to answer in a future video or comment beneath this video with your questions. I will read every single one and file it away into my list of things to cover. It’s quick and easy. Send me your questions and I promise to read every single one and collect them for answering in these videos.

I look forward to talking to you again next week. Please do continue to take action in your SEO article writing business. Don’t stall. Don’t get stuck. Don’t get discouraged. Just keep taking steps one at a time. Baby steps is all it takes and they all add up eventually. If you keep that up long enough I have complete faith in you that you can pull this off. Talk to you soon.

(SEO) Freelance writing jobs for beginners – 2023 updates for video #2

Re: U.S. Department of Labor statistics – the most recent stats I can find today (last updated October 16, 2023) indicates the job outlook for writers will remain unchanged. That’s not half bad considering everything that’s been going on in the world over the past few years, is it!

Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Labor doesn’t have stats narrowed down specifically for freelance SEO writing specialists.

However, my suspicion is that if they did, the numbers would be even better.

Why? Because the pandemic forced a lot of businesses to improve their online presence and ensure their websites show up prominently in Google search results. One key to accomplishing that is to have lots of search-engine optimized content on their website. And since most business owners are too busy running their business to write a bunch of blog posts, they’ll be looking to outsource this task to SEO writers like you and I. In fact, here are a bunch of websites that will pay you to write.

Next steps

1.) Make sure to use a good proofreading software, because a key to landing – and keeping – good clients is to produce problem-free articles they don’t have to fix.

See the FREE proofreading software programs I use for all of my client work here.

2. Get up to speed on how AI is impacting the writing world. Whether you love the idea of AI or are worried it’ll become the Terminator, it’s a good idea to learn how it works, it’s strengths and weaknesses, and so on.

So, without further ado, here is the lowdown on AI tools for writing.

2.) Know anyone who could this info? Please share it with them! 🙂

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Are you unsure about how to write a proper SEO article and what it should look like?

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