My SEO Writer's Life

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How I Took the Leap from 9-5 to Supporting My Family as an SEO Content Writer

It’s True: You CAN Make $250+ per Day Writing Simple Articles

It truly is possible to make a real living as a free-lance writer. The kind where you can quit your day job and support your family. The kind where your income will be $52K or more a year within just a year.

How do I know? Because I’m doing it myself? I’m a free-lance Web and SEO content writer who bought Yuwanda Black’s book How to Make $250 Per Day — or More — Writing Simple Articles back in late 2007. Since then (it’s now January 2010), I have quit my full-time job (September 2009) and am now supporting  my family of three working full-time as a Web article writer.

I’m a real person. Check out my SEO content writing site: www.thecontentscribes.com.

And it’s not been hard to get here. It’s not been completely easy peasy, snap my fingers and I’m making in the mid-five figures. But I WILL be making $52K by the end of 2010. I intend to double that by the end of 2011.

Below is some of the content from Yuwanda’s own landing page for this terrific e-book. The testimonials she offers below are real.

If you’ve ever had the dream of making a real living as a free-lance writer How to Make $250 Per Day — or More — Writing Simple Articles works. It really works.

Buy Now

The text below is from Yuwanda:

What if I told you that 30-60 days from now, you could easily be making $1,000 to $2,000/week? You probably wouldn’t believe me, and I wouldn’t blame you. But, unlike others who promise “riches,” you have to work for this. It is not promoting affiliate products or a revenue-sharing program or any other get-rich-quick, make-money-online scheme.

Finally, A Real Way to Make Money as a Freelance Writer
This is a real way to make money as a freelance writer — that surprise, surprise — you have to actually do some writing work. What is this opportunity?

SEO writing. And, I’ve been doing it since the fall of 2007. Within a couple of months, I had other writers under me. These days I routinely bill $200-$500/day — sometimes more. And, these are normal, run-of-the-mill weeks.

What is SEO writing?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. This niche involves writing content in a particular way to drive traffic to a website and/or blog. It’s quick and easy to do, and it pays handsomely!

Start Bringing in Clients in Less than 1 Week — Really!
In this ebook, I detail how I went from 0 clients to 4 paid projects in less than one week writing SEO articles — at $25 per 500-word article. I now charge $35-$50/article for 350-word articles, and occasionally bill as much as $100 per article.

(From Jean: this is true: I typically send out 20 queries — just two hours’ work — and I get at least one, often two, new clients!)

FYI, these articles take me 20-45 minutes to write, translating into a salary of $40-$75/hour. Did you know that on the low end of $40/hour, that equates to an annual salary of over $70,000 ($40/hour x 35 hours/week x 52 weeks/year)?

If you want to start making $100, $200 or more per day as a freelance writer — pretty easily — this ebook is for you!

Buy Now

Prime Example: When I initially wrote this page on 12/17/07, I clicked over to refresh my inbox and the client I landed during my first week of marketing had just sent me 10 more articles — which I completed in 5 hours or less — for a grand total of $250. This is from one client. At the time, I had three more clients in the pipeline who wanted me to start on projects in January (2008).

As you can see, SEO writing is very lucrative — and it’s relatively easy to get — if you know how to market for it. In this ebook, I detail exactly how I get clients and why, after being a freelance writer since 1993, it is now my most lucrative niche.

Why the SEO Writing Field is Wide Open!
SEO writing is a new type of writing — and it’s hot right now. Getting your foot in the door NOW before the field becomes oversaturated is key. Why?

Because once clients use you, they’ll rarely jump ship to another writer. As long as you continue to turn in quality work at a rate they can afford, you’ll soon find yourself with more work than you can handle.

(From Jean: Also very true. I’ve had a few clients for almost two years now. No one wants to find new writers — they’re too busy doing SEO work for their own clients to want to hunt down a new writer. Get ‘em, do good work and they’ll love you — and send you assignments — forever.)

In fact, when I was researching this field, I found that many SEO writers stopped accepting new clients because they couldn’t handle the workload from existing clients; many outsource the work they get from clients.

What You Get in This Ebook: An EXACT Roadmap to SEO Writing Success
Sales Query: I’ll send you the exact marketing letter I sent out that garnered me a 25% response rate.
Website: I’ll tell you exactly what to put on your web page to make it bring in new clients 24/7.
Create a Niche: I’ll tell you exactly how to sell yourself to clients via niche marketing.
Writing Samples: Don’t have any? It’s okay. I’ll tell you exactly what to do to get around this — bringing in as much work as someone who has tons of samples.
How to Market for Clients: I’ll reveal to you the exact methods I use to find clients. It’s free, quick and easy.
Writing the Articles: I’ll tell you exactly how to actually write SEO articles. I’ll give you the tricks I use to turn them out on subjects I don’t even know about in 30-45 minutes.
Interacting with Clients: I’ll tell you exactly what to expect when a client contacts you, how to be knowledgeable (even though you’re just starting out), and how to give them what they want so they use you over and over again.

And more!

I’ll also go over billing, what to charge, how to charge, tools you’ll need to get started (if you have a computer, you’re practically there already) and much more.

I’ll also show you actual correspondence from clients sent in response to the marketing queries I sent out — and how I responded to them. You’ll have all the tools you need to start making money as an SEO copywriter almost immediately.

P.S.: Free Ebook! You get the ebook, The Small Biz Owner’s Complete Marketing Kit!, absolutely free with your purchase. Following are the case studies and testimonials.

-End of Yuwanda’s comments- To read all of her comments and the testimonials of real people who have purchased her book, followed her instructions and landed clients, click here to view more details.

I can’t say enough about how much Yuwanda’s book has changed my life for the better. I’m typing this on my laptop in my home office with a cat on my lap. It’s storming outside, but I’m cozy and happy inside. I’ll be here when my daughter gets home from school. In five days I’ll be traveling to California to visit my elderly parents (I’ll work while at their home). I could not have done that at my old job. I also plan to do considerable traveling this summer with my husband and child. When I want. Where I want. For as long as I want.

If you’re a writer who has dreamed of making a real full-time living as a freelancer, I urge you to purchase Yuwanda’s books. Do so, follow her steps, and you — like me — soon can be living your freelance dream.

Warmest regards,

Jean

Buy Now

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Why I Turned Down Web Content Work

It wasn’t easy, let me tell you! I tossed and turned about it some last night and made my final decision this morning. I turned down (what I consider to be) low-paying Web content work: $15 per 600-word keyword optimized article.

I’ve been sending several queries this week and one company I found mentioned it was always looking for content writers. The company, in fact, had a separate page on its site where potential content writers could apply.

I bit and sent in my info, including my usual query plus some information about my background that’s not in my query letter.

The SEO company e-mailed me back that day and told me they would have steady work (yay!) at the pay rates I describe above (far from yay, for me).

I told myself going in that I would never work for less than a certain amount for each article, even at a bulk rate.

But the lure of steady work.

But the pay rate far below my minimum.

But the lure of steady work.

But the lagging pay rate.

I bit the bullet and told them no thank you.

It feels good to stand up for what I know I’m worth.

The company is legitimate and professional.  If you’d like its URL, e-mail me at henshawjean (at) gmail.com and I’ll send you the company’s link.

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The Beginning

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been a free-lance writer off and on for years. I even did it full-time back in the early 1990s when I was single and fancy free.

I’ve also worked as a journalist — I was a feature writer — for a daily newspaper in the San Diego area.

I loved the freedom that working as a free-lance writer gave me. I’ve done many of those “values” tests that give you several values in a list and you are to circle the ones that resonate the most with you. “Freedom” always has been at the top of that list.

Not that I want to be free from obligation. No. It’s more that I want to live my life on my terms, fulfill my obligations in my own way.

I’ve had jobs I’ve loved — my favorite being as a recruiter for a graduate university in California.

But when I became a parent (my husband and I adopted our daughter from Russia when she was 8), more and more I wanted to be able to control my own calendar.

With fits and starts I started free-lancing again. At first I considered offering marketing services for small businesses, but I soon found out I’m not really a “marketer,” so much as I’m a writer.

I once had a college professor in one of my writing classes say that “Jean doesn’t have much to say, but she knows how to say it, while (name of classmate I’ve forgotten) has much to say but doesn’t know how to say it.” Of the two of us, I’ve always preferred my “failing.”

I’d heard about content writing for awhile. But I’d also seen at the bidding sites such as Elance that people were offering to write 500 word articles for $5. That was NOT for me.

And then I came across a blog post by SEO content writer Yuwanda Black that discussed how she had discovered this post by Christine O’Kelly of www.selfmadechick.com. Titled “How I Made $100,000 by spending 25 minutes and $0 on Marketing,” the post details Christine’s “discovery” of contacting SEO companies directly and offering her writing services.

“Ah, hah!”  said Yuwanda. Who tried it, loved it, made a killing at it. And wrote an e-book about it.

“Bingo!” I said, as I purchased Yuwanda’s e-book, How to Make $250+/day Writing Simple, 500-word Articles, and followed her instructions to the letter.

Click here to view more details

“This,” I say to myself all the time, “is the writing niche for me.”

I now wake up every day raring to go on my content writing business (www.thecontentscribes.com). Today I finished up an assignment for one client, and sent 20 queries to SEO companies.

Tomorrow, I’ll wake up around 5:30 a.m., go work out, see my husband and daughter off to work and school (my husband works as a substitute teacher for the time being), read the paper and will be sitting at my laptop by 8 a.m.

My daughter returns home at 3. My day/work pretty much ends then, unless I can squeeze in some time later in the day, as I am now as I write this post.

I am FREE. I am happy. I am excited. I know I will end up making more money than I ever have doing something at which I excel, and I will be have the freedom to live the life I wish in the way I wish.

Anyone who has ever dreamed of being a free-lance writer, whether you have never published anything in your life, or you’re a journalist who has seen his or her career turned upside down by the economic downturn and the coming death of print, I urge you to check out SEO content writing. I know you’ll be glad you did.

Click here to view more details

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I did it. I quit my job. Now let the real living begin!

Two weeks ago I sat in a chair at a job for which many people would kill.

Well, maybe not kill, but I sure was the envy of many.

Great benefits, as in almost all of our health care paid for. A pension (a pension!!!). And no layoffs or furloughs in sight.

Perfect for most people but not so for me.

I won’t go into details here, but it just wasn’t a good fit. I wanted out. Big time. I was miserable. As in, I would cry just about every time I saw my company’s building as I rounded the corner on my way to work.

Many people are miserable at work. But I’m lucky — I have options.

I’ve been a free-lance writer off and on for years. How many, I won’t go into. But a couple of decades would be accurate.

Two years ago I read Yuwanda Black’s blog about how she had found a new writing niche known as SEO content writing.

I purchased her book and I’ve never looked back.

Click here to view more details. (Yes, it’s an affiliate link. Bear with me.)

I’ve been free-lancing with my site www.thecontentscribes.com part time for about two years now. I planned to build the business up to where I would feel comfortable leaving paid employment on my own terms. While things were going very well, I still hadn’t built a deep client base because I didn’t have time, what with the full-time gig and all.

But when things just became too…much…at work, I discussed with my husband for weeks and finally just quietly quit.

I’ve been so very happy ever since.

Still, here’s another kicker: I was the main breadwinner for my family of three. My husband lost his own job a while back,  so the health insurance, the income, came from me.

But I’m not worried.  SEO content writing is so lucrative and so in demand, I’m already — just two weeks since I left the 9-5 world — becoming very busy.

With this blog, I hope to be an inspiration to any writer out there who dreams of becoming a full-time freelancer. I know it can be done, quickly and relatively painfully. If I can do it, anyone can.

I’m going to post at least twice a week. I will chronicle my successes, my failures, how we’re navigating purchasing our own health insurance, and so on.

Thank you for visiting.

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