Beginner’s Guide for Freelance Writers to Develop SEO Skills

Content is a big part of the World Wide Web now and it is only rising in significance. This means that presently there is an ever-expanding demand for content writers. Consequently, the number of people looking to work as freelance writers keeps increasing.

To stand out, one must sharpen all their skills in a way that suits the needs of the market. Working on grammar, punctuation, spelling and research forms an essential part of striving to be a good freelance writer. But this job has some more specific requirements.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one such important requirement. In order for the content to gain more visibility and audience, it has to be constructed in a way to show up high in the search result ranks.

SEO skills are not hard to develop, nor are they time consuming. It is important to remember that all the resources needed to educate oneself on this topic is only a click away. Google will provide the answers to most questions.

That said, a comprehensive guide to help develop SEO skills for novices may be very useful.

• UNDERSTAND HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK Technical knowledge of Google’s algorithm system for its search engines is not needed. A basic idea of which keywords to choose, what stands out and how that applies to a given situation will go a long way in this case. Search engines are used largely to find the answers to questions. Therefore, the relevance and importance of the content will influence its position in the search results.
• PAY ATTENTION TO SELECTING KEYWORDS Keywords are of utmost importance. It is important to select keywords carefully. In case you’re confused about which to choose, you can take help from sites like Google’s Keyword Tool and Ubersuggest. But it is customary to get a basic understanding of this concept. Use the keywords abundantly throughout the body of the content but wisely so as not to be mundanely repetitive. Use keywords in the title and the tags as this raises the chances of Google taking notice.
• WRITE FOR THE AUDIENCE, NOT FOR THE SEARCH ENGINES Search engines are known to rank articles by importance, and more often than not importance is determined by popularity. The more popular a page, the more credible it is found to be. Therefore, by writing content relevant to the audience, one can ensure that their articles will have more readers. Make the article rich and informative; make it easy to understand but do not underestimate your readers. As the traffic rises, so will the rank. Quality trumps quantity. Whatever you write should be organized and appealing to the readers, otherwise it defies the entire purpose of the platform.
• USE SOCIAL MEDIA Integrate social network with your content. Most social networking sites have made this easy by providing plug-ins for free. Social media has great influence over SEO as these help greatly in bringing in more readers at a very fast rate. By incorporating social networks with the content, you are allowing your readers to easily share it with their peers. This rapidly expands the market.

Ultimately, the goal of a freelance writer is to ensure that their client’s webpages are ranked as high as possible on search engines. To do this, some amount of research on the topic of search engines will be extremely useful. However, for beginners with little experience these tips would be of much help.