Unpopular Opinion: SEO Writing Internships Are a Total Waste!
Why you don’t have to (and shouldn’t) do hours of unpaid work just to gain SEO experience.
Watch our free training video: “How to Land Tons of Exciting, Stress-Free SEO Writing Work - without the Low Rates, High Competition and Burnout”
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It’s normal to believe that you need to do unpaid work (or very low-paid work) as a newbie. But luckily, you don’t!
I never did an SEO writing internship – or any writing internship for that matter – and it never prevented me from becoming a 6-figure writer.
The Ugly Truth: Many experienced writers will tell you that internships are a great way to start, especially if they themselves can offload some of their work onto you.
There are ways you can still learn everything about SEO, but it’s on your terms and for your benefit. It’s you working for your own business, not for someone else’s profits.
So you want to get into SEO writing, but you don’t have the skills (or they are underdeveloped) and you don’t have experience. How do you break into SEO content writing in your situation?
You may turn to SEO writing internships, even the unpaid ones. While it’s totally normal to believe that you need to do some unpaid work (or very low-paid work) as a newbie, I’m here to tell you that you don’t.
In this article, I’ll explain why SEO content writing internships are a total waste of your time and completely unnecessary for you to land great work at great rates from the start.
And here’s a spoiler for you: I never did an SEO writing internship – or any writing internship for that matter – and it never prevented me from becoming a 6-figure writer. (And I hit 6-figures about 3 years into my career.)
Why Writers Get into SEO Writing Internships in the First Place
SEO writing is a great career to get into, and the skills you learn can benefit your clients’ websites and your own.
However, many writers get the sense that SEO is complex, mysterious and very competitive. That’s probably because – while there is a ton of information about SEO out there – very little is tailored to the needs and skill sets of writers.
So, if you want to become an expert SEO writer who knows all the tactics to create successful content, you’re sort of on your own…
Read this! What You (Really) Need to Learn if You Want to Become an SEO Writer
That’s why many newbies think that they should get an SEO content writing internship to help them learn the skills and gain experience – even if that means they’ll go unpaid, work for cheap and/or work like a dog while another writer or company gets the credit.
They think that these SEO writing internships are the only way to get real world experience and that they’re the best way to learn everything about SEO writing.
And I get it! When you’re just starting out, you’re often stuck in a terrible cycle of no experience and no clients, and you need experience to get clients.
I don’t want you to feel bad or “stupid” for thinking that you need an SEO content writing internship to be successful. Many experienced writers will tell you that internships are a great way to start, especially if they themselves can offload some of their work onto you.
But let’s talk about what you can do instead of an SEO writing internship.
There are ways you can still learn everything about SEO, but it’s on your terms and for your benefit. It’s you working for your own business, not for someone else’s profits. (That is, until you start landing paid work for clients. That’s something you want!)
What to Do Instead if You Want to Get into SEO Writing
Now, instead of working for cheap or working for free under a more senior SEO content writer, let’s talk about how you can learn SEO writing, create samples for your site and continue to fuel your own business, rather than another writer’s. For more details, check out our free SEO writing training video.
Your SEO Writing Education
First off, you do need to learn how to optimize content for SEO. That’s essential. It would be a total waste of time to write content without some sort of strategy behind it.
So, you will need to find SEO writing courses and trainings that help you understand the ins and outs of expert SEO writing.
Although, I do want to warn you: Most of the SEO writing trainings out there can be problematic, mostly because:
They are not taught by actual SEO writers.
They teach generalized SEO principles.
They only scratch the surface of SEO writing – most of which is common sense if you’re already a writer.
(If they’re free), they are even less in depth.
They don’t teach you how to land work as an SEO writer (that’s a whole different skill set).
I know the list above may make you feel even more lost. But that’s why it’s exceptionally important to vet any and all SEO training you come across.
Your SEO Writing Experience (Before Clients)
Just like with any writing specialty, newbie SEO writers often get “stuck” before they land their first set of clients.
They have no experience, but clients want them to have experience before they agree to hire them. So what are you supposed to do? (This is when SEO content writing internships start to look appealing!)
Below is a list of non-internship things you can do to gain experience as an SEO writer. And again, these things are all about you working for you. You growing your own brand and making content that is centered around what you need – not what a more experienced writer needs from you.
Plus, you’re not roped into a 6-month or 12-month internship. You can do these things and take on work as soon as it becomes available.
How to Create Your Own SEO Writing Experience Before You Have Clients
Start a blog on your own website. The benefit here is that you are working on building up your own SEO content – and this content can get indexed and rank on search engine pages (if you’re doing it correctly). If you have awesome SEO content on your own site, you can start attracting clients automatically.
Use SEO copywriting tactics on your site. Aside from SEO content tactics, you can learn and take advantage of SEO copywriting tactics on your homepage, about page, contact page, etc. SEO copywriting is used for guiding potential clients to move forward with you and book a call.
Guest post on reputable sites. Even though you are writing content for a different website, guest posting enables you to use your own byline. Anyone who reads that post can see who wrote it and ultimately navigate back to your site. Plus, guest posting usually involves way less work than an ongoing internship.
As you can see from the list above, these things help you maintain ownership of your own content, rather than ghostwriting for another writer who will take the credit.
Your Ability to Land SEO Writing Clients
All of the content you create through the methods we mentioned before can be used as sample work too! You can show potential clients that you know how to write content and that you have published work already.
Plus, you can pull real SEO metrics from your content since you’ll have access to the statistics on your website host. So, not only can you show a potential client what you wrote, you can show them how it performed!
Another downside of SEO writing internships is that they usually just stop at the content writing itself.
Unless you’re also getting career coaching, you won’t know how to successfully land work via pitching and live discovery calls.
So even though you may learn “how to write SEO” during an internship, you will leave that internship with no real interpersonal performance skills that will compel clients to work with you at the rates you want.
You want to make sure that you also find an SEO training program that teaches you how to land work as an SEO writer. Because after all, you can’t be a successful, well-paid writer without clients!
Learn SEO on Your Own Terms and for Your Own Benefit
Are you ready to dive into the exciting world of SEO? (As an SEO writer myself, I’m here to tell you that it’s amazing!)
Feel free to watch the free SEO training video we offer here at the Ambitious Writer Society. Everything we do is tailored completely to writers: what they need, how they work, what jobs they’ll be getting, etc. No non-writers allowed!
