Writing Blog Posts for SEO: Is That All SEO Writers Can Do?
Other fun (and lucrative) projects that fit within the SEO writer job description.
New to SEO? Have you watched our free SEO writing training video?
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If you don’t like writing long-form blog posts, you can still be an SEO writer!
Writers who only write blog posts are actually limiting their income streams and opportunities.
9 lucrative SEO writing projects (besides long-form blogs).
When you’re researching whether or not to get into SEO writing, you’ll see lots of information about job opportunities writing blogs and articles for clients.
But what if you’re not jazzed about sitting down and writing long-form content? If you get into SEO writing, are blogs and articles going to be the main service you provide?
Some people simply do not like writing blogs and articles. Maybe you personally like to consume information via video or social media. Is there a place in SEO for you?
In this article, we want to open your eyes to all the amazing SEO writer job opportunities besides just writing blog posts for SEO. Spoiler alert: SEO writing is a great career to get into, so we hope you decide to take the plunge one way or another!
First, What Is SEO?
Let’s start here: If you’re not totally sure what SEO means, it means “search engine optimization.”
Search engine optimization is the process or techniques that are used to improve the quantity of website visitors coming to a site and the quality of those visitors. So, in plain speak: SEO helps a website rank higher and get more traffic to the site.
Online businesses want more people coming to their site, and they want the right kind of people coming to their site. If a business wants more of the right people seeing their free content and/or paid products or services, they improve their website’s SEO score.
These businesses don’t want the wrong people coming to their site. The wrong people – those who aren’t going to be their customers – won’t buy from them or work with them.
Businesses, including professional writers like yourself, want qualified leads and clients coming to them over and over again. SEO is the process to make that happen (hopefully).
SEO is a way to improve your website so that it gets seen by people who are either searching for products and services you offer or people seeking information in which you have extensive expertise.
An SEO writer creates content using SEO strategies.
Read this! Is SEO Writing Hard to Learn?
The SEO Writer Job Description
What role does an SEO writer play when freelancing for clients or working on a team?
SEO is a way to manipulate the content you write so that it gets picked up by search engines and ranked on the top page.
Now, we don’t want SEO to sound like a bad or manipulative thing! It’s not. It’s actually a great way to connect people with the right content, products or services they need.
When you sit down to write a piece, SEO is a skill or a set of tactics that you can use to increase your chances of ranking higher online. It’s a way for you to help more people out with great, problem-solving content.
Historically, a vast majority of SEO writer jobs consisted of writing blogs and articles. You’d write a long 500-3000 word piece, put in the keywords and call it a day.
While writing blog posts for SEO can still be a huge part of a writer’s income, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, now more than ever, there are all sorts of SEO writer job opportunities available outside of blogs and articles.
Read this! A Day in the Life of an Expert SEO Writer
SEO Writing Jobs (Besides Writing Blog Posts for SEO)
Writers who get into SEO today have the ability to work on so many different projects! And, once you understand the inner workings of SEO and can write high-performing content, these skills are transferable across various types of projects. (So, make sure you build a solid foundation and learn all the expert SEO writing tactics!)
Let’s look at a list of SEO writer jobs outside of writing blog posts for SEO. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Plus, SEO is infiltrating our online life more and more. Hooray job security!
To help you determine if any of these SEO writer job opportunities are right for you, we’ll include some information about what kind of writer might excel in each particular project.
(other SEO writing jobs besides blog posts infographic)
Video SEO Projects
Video SEO is a compilation of tactics to help videos rank higher on search engines, rank higher on video platforms, encourage more people to watch a video, encourage people to stay watching a video and encourage people to keep watching more of a brand’s content.
Video SEO is also called “VSEO,” or sometimes you’ll see the lowercase “vSEO.” Regardless, video SEO is exploding across industries, and businesses are in desperate need of video SEO writers. We actually talk about VSEO in our free writer’s training video, so sign up to learn more!
After all, creating video content involves so much more time and effort than writing a blog. Plus, it’s a pain in the butt to make changes once the video is complete. So, businesses want to make sure their video scripts and video content are done well from the start.
Now, if you want to be a video SEO writer, you don’t have to do any of the recording, splicing or video editing yourself. You can just be responsible for the script, title and how it’s promoted.
So, if you’d love to see your writing transformed into video content and that gets thousands or millions of people watching it, video SEO might be a great opportunity for you.
SEO Content Strategy
Are you a planner or big-picture thinker? Other SEO writers like you also do SEO content strategy. While they may or may not write the actual blogs or articles, they help clients and marketing teams plan out what content will be engaging and informative to a specific target audience.
Content strategy is a very broad SEO writing project that could include researching the target market, finding topics, coming up with article titles and crafting campaigns to connect with people across the customer journey – from first impressions with a brand to retaining existing customers.
SEO Keyword Research
If you love looking at stats and analytics, you could consider getting paid to generate keyword lists for clients. And, with an SEO writing education, you’d be able to provide a uniquely valuable skillset.
When conducting keyword research, you could help the brand pick keywords to rank for across the entire site and/or smaller keywords lists for every single webpage or piece of content they put out.
This type of SEO writer job blends data, stats, keyword research and an understanding of what topics the target market is searching for (and when).
SEO Copywriting
SEO copywriting is another exploding skillset that more and more clients are looking for. If you don’t know what copywriting is, “copywriting” is another word for marketing writing. Basically, whenever a company is trying to get a conversion from their customers, they need copywriting.
Businesses want great copywriting on their website to compel site visitors to take action with them. This could be to book a discovery call, buy something or get on their email list. More and more clients want a mix of copywriting tactics and SEO tactics to help their pages rank and perform.
So, if you’re tasked with SEO copywriting, it’s your job to include relevant keywords and make sure the site visitor gets to where they need to go.
Since SEO copywriting requires both copywriting and SEO training, you can really make big bucks if you play your cards right. Clients love SEO copywriting!
FAQ Pages
A little background: FAQ pages serve a few different purposes on a company’s website. Since people tend to type full questions into the search engine boxes, websites can funnel those people towards their site by including full questions somewhere in their content.
This is a really good opportunity for you as a writer. These pages can help a business rank significantly better and help site visitors find out valuable information. This makes FAQ pages valuable to a business, and they are often willing to pay an SEO writer to get it done.
But luckily, FAQ pages are often very simple. Usually the client already knows several FAQs that they get asked, and they know the answers. This project turns into a short call or email conversation with the client, and you just clean up everything for clarity and flow.
Paid Ads
Any SEO writer with a background in marketing may love doing paid ad projects (AKA “PPC” or “pay per click” ads). Even though paid ads are very different from writing blog posts for SEO, they can (and should) use certain SEO principles in order to convert well.
Writing paid ads does involve some serious marketing savvy, but they are very short snippets of writing. Plus, you can often get some clear-cut stats from them, which is great to add to your portfolio.
Website Restructuring
This involves all sorts of backend, slightly techy aspects of improving SEO. While even non-techy people can learn these tactics, those who enjoy backend website stuff would thrive in this SEO writing opportunity.
As a professional SEO writer, you’d have so many skills to help clients rank better, even without you having to write long form content. These types of projects involve quick fixes and sprinkling keywords throughout a website in both consumer-facing and backend locations.
Social Media Growth
Love social media and love trying to boost engagement? Each social media platform is almost like its own mini search engine and can use many of the same tactics that help content rank on Google or Bing.
As the writer, you’d be focusing on crafting messages that resonate with an audience and compel people to follow for even more engagement. If you happen to love creating video posts, static posts, lives, etc. on socials, this may be a great project for you, especially if you’re not into writing blog posts for SEO.
Search Page Optimization
Not to be confused with “search engine optimization,” search page optimization involves improving how a website or webpage appears on a search engine result page (AKA “SERP”).
Clients should use professional SEO writers for this since it can help them rank higher on the SERPs and help them funnel huge amounts of traffic towards their website.
The projects themselves usually involve perfecting a website’s title tags and meta descriptions – which can be a really fast and easy project for writers. So, if you thrive writing short, eye-catching headlines and building up a person’s desire to read more, writing title tags and metas might be a great SEO writer job opportunity for you!
Writing Blog Posts for SEO: It’s Your Choice
As you can see, you can do so much more than just writing blog posts for SEO! Plus, there are even more SEO writer jobs than what we covered here.
SEO is an industry that continues to grow and continues to permanently settle into our online society, so it’s not going anywhere. And even better news? There is a desperate need for trained, knowledgeable SEO writers.
There is so much opportunity for SEO writers out there – whether you want to be writing blog posts for SEO or not. Watch our free SEO writing training video for more details!
