Today’s post is a guest post submission from Kishen Sreehari. Kishen is the Growth Marketer and Content Strategist at Novatise. He does some freelance writing on Legiit. You can check out Kishen’s services here.
Freelance Content Writing – Is It The End of the Road?
When I attended the Chiangmai SEO Conference 2019, I was apprehensive. I was a freelance writer in the middle of all these super awesome SEO specialists. Would they talk to me? Would they even care that I was there?
I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of people, especially SEO folks were looking for freelance writers. They said, one of the biggest ways to quickly scale their business was to work with good freelancers who were not in payroll and could boost their marketing.
But they didn’t want any freelancer, they wanted somebody who could boost their SEO rankings.
Today I’ll talk about why being a Freelance content writing isn’t dead, but it’s evolving!
Freelancing gives you the benefit of being you, managing your own time, and maximizing every opportunity you can get your hands on. According to a study, most freelancers are happier and living a less stressful life from those who are stuck behind a desk.
On a popular freelancing platform alone there are 12 million registered freelancers who earn an accumulated $1 billion yearly. In the United States alone 38% roughly 56.7 million Americans identify themselves as freelancers. But with such an over-saturated market, could this be the end for freelance content writers?
Content writers are only starting to flourish in the ever-growing freelance market. Content writers earn an average of $15 to $80 per hour on freelancing platforms. And with the high demand of SEO writers numbers are sure to skyrocket in the near future.
Freelance Writers Online
We all use Google. It’s a reliable way to scour the internet for the specific information we need. Whether you’re a lawyer, a student, or a writer Google connects us all. But how does Google give us the best results for our searches? For this Google uses a variety of algorithms and criteria to judge which are the best fit.
RankBrain
It is an algorithm that filters out the thousands of content on the internet based on what it thinks is best. Think of it as a network of spiders who crawl around your webpages scanning the integrity and knowledge of your website. If your webpage is lengthy enough to show that you are an expert on the subject, if people stay on your page for a long time showing interest in your content then RankBrain will deem your page the best for the search. And one way for clients and business to ensure yous stay on their page for a long time is to secure videos on the topic.
Content writing wasn’t always a strict medium to express your creativity. Before there weren’t a lot of things you need to consider when writing your piece. But, with the constant development of the internet, we must evolve as well. With that being said, content length is now a major key to ranking high on Google searches. But you can’t just put words together and hope that you’ll be recommended by Google. You have to use keywords and longtail keywords to have a high-quality content worthy of recommendation.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is a way for the website to increase the quantity and quality of their content to make their webpage more visible on searches. These intend to improve the amount of organic and natural page visits to impress Google and have your page appear on the first page of the search engine result page (SERP)
SEO isn’t just confined to content writing, they play a major role in academic, image, and video searches. But you’d be surprised how big content writing affects SEOs.
The Growth of Videos and How it Affects Content Writers
Everybody loves videos. It is a simple way to elaborate thought and have the idea to come across to your target audience. Many prefer videos than text because frankly, most people have an easier time understanding visuals than plain boring texts. Google, one of the most popular search engines, also thinks the same.
With the increase in our dependence on the internet for information Google has taken it upon themselves to screen the plethora of webpages and information. How? To put it simply, Google employs dozens of algorithm to provide you with the best result for your searches. This being the first page on Google searches and the boxed text highlighted for you. One of the ways Google does this is by their RankBrain Algorithm.
Being in Demand and Staying in Demand
Content writing is one of the most effective marketing strategies. It emplores dozens of principles that hold the key to high ranking content. Whether you are your student looking for a freelance writing job or hold a bachelor’s degree in journalism, one thing is for sure, content writers are more in demand today with a steady chance of growing.
To maintain the integrity of freelance content writers you, as a writer, have to perform your absolute best every time. Whatever the topic may be you have to express your thoughts and opinion in a way that is relatable and interesting to capture a bigger audience. Writing creatively means you write based on heavily researched facts that normally take more time than actually writing the article. You have to figure out how to tap into the market of freelance content writers and stand out.
There are a few things you can do to stand out from the rest. First, be creative. Don’t be afraid to express yourself in everything you write. Familiarize yourself with SEO writing to
ensure the success of the pieces you write. Lastly, make sure you put yourself out there. If you have an impressive portfolio and expertise you can surely earn an honest living as a freelance content writer.
Tools and Services That Help
Utilizing tools always makes things easier, familiarize yourself with some of them to ensure the success of your piece.
Grammarly isn’t something new. Most of us who dabble in the world of writing has used or is using Grammarly to check our grammar, style, spelling, syntax, and originality. It is far easier to use, more intelligent, and proactive than other grammar checking software out there.
Copyscape, on the other hand, can help you check for plagiarism hits. The app scans thousands of online content in a few seconds to check if you have written anything that’s too similar. The good thing is that they rate how original your content is. Today it’s pretty difficult to write something 100% original but you always have to try.
Writise, is one of the best copywriting platforms in the world. All the writers on that platform are SEO experts with a penchant for artful copywriting. They use a mix of science and the creative arts to get their articles to rank on top.
Ahrefs is primarily used in SEO. It checks the integrity and quality of the content you write or on your website to see if you will rank high on SERP. But other than that they also track how organic your clicks are, how long people stay on your page.
Conclusion
Freelance content writing is all about passion and know-how. If you are well-versed in the tools of the trade then there’s no stopping you. Content writing, especially SEO writing is in everything even on Youtube descriptions. Never stop learning and improving your craft. By doing so you are securing the integrity of freelance content writers keeping us in demand no matter how technology evolves. Freelance content writing isn’t the end of the road, it’s paving the way for a new and bolder beginning.
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