I do a lot of SEO writing for people all over the world. Most jobs are pretty easy, a few are sort of difficult, and nearly all involve one complication or another.
When you’re working with people across different languages, time zones, and currencies you’ll often run into some interesting things. Here are a few of my adventures in SEO writing.
When you’re working with people across different languages, time zones, and currencies you’ll often run into some interesting things. Here are a few of my adventures in SEO writing.
Keywords
I always have to take keywords into account when I’m writing SEO articles, blog posts, web pages, or other internet content. There are several ways to put keywords onto your site correctly, and quite a few ways to do it horribly.
- Density: Everyone I work for knows that you should be putting your keywords into your content at a certain density. I always tell people that 1% to 2% is a good ratio for them, but many think this is too little. Instead they’ll give me a big list of keywords and tell me to put as many of those in there as I can. Oftentimes the keyword density will get well above 5%, which I think it too much. That’s what they want though, so that’s what I give ‘em.
- Variations: There are plenty of keyword variations you can use when you’re SEO writing on a particular subject. Even taking the ‘s’ off of a word can change the amount of times it gets a hit in the search results. Some of the most interesting keyword variations always come from people I work for in Asia, specifically India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. I try not to work for people in these countries very often, mainly because they’re so damn pushy. But when a small job comes through that will only take me 10 minutes it’s hard to resist. Unfortunately these jobs often involve making so many variations on one word that the article becomes pure rubbish for readers.
- Word Counts: There’s this widely-held belief out there that you need to have 500 words for each and every one of your blog posts. I’m not sure where this idea came from, but I wish it’d go the way of the Dodo. I’ve never seen anything magical happen when a blog post gets up to 500 words, even if it’s a SEO blog post. Again, this is something that most people in eastern countries seem to think is critical. Most of my western employers don’t care about this as much. Still, I myself use to always shoot for 500 words on my own blog posts. Now I don’t do that so much, although as you can see, many of my posts are closer to 1,200 to 1,500 words these days.
Employers
I work for a lot of interesting people. Most people in western countries will tell me what they want, leave it up to me how it gets done, and pay promptly. Most people in eastern countries will have very little idea of what exactly they want, pester me constantly and ask for frequent changes when this doesn’t match their ‘vision,’ and do just about everything in their power to not pay me, or at least cheat me heavily. Here are a few of my favorites:
The Lottery Guy
Several months ago I got what I thought would be a quick job from this guy in Florida. He needed about four, 1,000 word SEO articles on different lottery games in Florida. It took the job late one night hours after I should have gone to bed, and I nearly fell asleep while writing.
My main keywords were things like ‘Florida Lottery’ and the names of the specific games, like ‘Super 8.’ This was a terribly boring job and one where I had to write ‘Florida Lottery’ about 100 times. I’m sure Google’s dinged him big time by now.
My main keywords were things like ‘Florida Lottery’ and the names of the specific games, like ‘Super 8.’ This was a terribly boring job and one where I had to write ‘Florida Lottery’ about 100 times. I’m sure Google’s dinged him big time by now.
The Boudoir Lady
A while after the Lottery Guy I had the pleasure of working with the Boudoir Lady. This was an assistant or representative for some big-time boudoir photographer, or at least one that wanted to be big-time. The job called for about 3 to 4 articles on boudoir photography to generate interest and traffic for an upcoming boudoir photography workshop.
I researched the subject and also the big-time photographer. I quickly found out that this photographer treated her models like dogs and had tons of websites complaining about her. I knew it was a losing job from that point on; after all, if someone has been so upset by your workshop that they make a website specifically to bitch about you, well, no amount of SEO writing is going to clean that up.
I researched the subject and also the big-time photographer. I quickly found out that this photographer treated her models like dogs and had tons of websites complaining about her. I knew it was a losing job from that point on; after all, if someone has been so upset by your workshop that they make a website specifically to bitch about you, well, no amount of SEO writing is going to clean that up.
The Bike Moron
One day I woke up to find a job offer in my inbox. It was from a guy in America asking for 50 SEO bike product descriptions. I knew about the job because a day or so earlier I had typed up a sample description for him based on the website he gave me. I didn’t hear from him again until he gave me the job. He said he needed it urgently so I got right on it, going back to the site he had given me to rewrite a lot of product descriptions with SEO.
Well, I got 42 of the descriptions done when he finally got hold of me. He explained that none of the bikes I had written about were what he was selling. He couldn’t understand why I had gone ahead and done all that work. I explained when people tell me they need something now I give it to them yesterday. He didn’t like that and refused to pay me. I ended up only getting half of the payment for that job, which was certainly better than nothing.
Well, I got 42 of the descriptions done when he finally got hold of me. He explained that none of the bikes I had written about were what he was selling. He couldn’t understand why I had gone ahead and done all that work. I explained when people tell me they need something now I give it to them yesterday. He didn’t like that and refused to pay me. I ended up only getting half of the payment for that job, which was certainly better than nothing.
The Motorcycle Adventurer
Not all of my SEO employers have been bad. Probably one of my favorite jobs to have worked on was for this guy in Colorado. He had a website that allowed people or groups to rent a Harley Davidson motorcycle for 12 days and cruise around the Rocky Mountains. He didn’t need a lot of keywords, most people in America prefer quality content to keywords anyways, so the job was pretty fast.
All I had to do was load up Google Maps and follow the proposed routes, writing about the mountains and rivers they’d pass by, the roads and towns they’d use. It was one of my better SEO experiences, and I wish I could write more SEO content like that. Remember, it’s not all boring work, much of it can be quite interesting.
All I had to do was load up Google Maps and follow the proposed routes, writing about the mountains and rivers they’d pass by, the roads and towns they’d use. It was one of my better SEO experiences, and I wish I could write more SEO content like that. Remember, it’s not all boring work, much of it can be quite interesting.
The Cooking Guy
I worked for a guy in Australia several times writing SEO cooking product descriptions. I started with knives, writing about 12 of them out. Then I moved up to pots and pans. By the time I’d had enough I had graduated to home bar accessories.
The work was easy, only about 150 words per descriptions, but it just got so damn boring that I had to stop doing it. Plus I was getting paid in Australian dollars and I didn’t like the exchange rate, which was causing my actual payments to be even less than what we had agreed on.
The work was easy, only about 150 words per descriptions, but it just got so damn boring that I had to stop doing it. Plus I was getting paid in Australian dollars and I didn’t like the exchange rate, which was causing my actual payments to be even less than what we had agreed on.
Those are just a few of my adventures in SEO. The thing is, each one of those jobs, whether good or bad, taught me how to write SEO articles and content so much better. SEO writing is just like anything else; the more you do it the better you get at it.
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