ASK US WEDNESDAY: “Can you bluff your way through SEO writing?”

I’ve got a question about keyword research and SEO – how much should you know when a client wants to hire you and that’s part of the job? I know diddly squat – except for what I’ve tried to pick up when writing my own blog posts. Is it something you can bluff until you’ve done a few? C

I’m in the same boat in the sense that I’m self-taught, although it IS something I’ve done quite a bit as a content writer. The difference is that they hire me as a writer, not a strategist, so I’m never expected to do any strategy or find the keywords. I am generally given a template with the keywords and instructions on how they want them woven into the copy – ie, ‘every 50 words we need you to insert X word’ or that type of thing.

I’ve worked with 4 content clients who’ve all done it that way – ie, they’ve already hired a strategist or digital agency to do the preliminary work (which may be part of a larger overall strategy for the site or company), and then they bring me in to write the copy and make it sound good rather than annoyingly repetitive. (Not always an easy task especially if they are hellbent on plugging a LOT of keywords in). I’ve been asked to do the whole process once for a small building company, and it’s not hard to research the client’s rivals and use Webmaster Tools to find the keywords – but I’m no expert and for larger companies I’d probably just want to do the writing/keyword insertion part.

That said, there’s more and more call for this type of work and if you’re asked to do it as part of a content job, go for it. If you want to be more marketable in this area, and actually be available to do the strategy part as well as the writing part (which, let’s face it, would be more lucrative to package), I would definitely look at doing some training. If you’re working in digital more, anything that makes you more marketable is worth the time and investment.

List members: we’ve been asked about courses in SEO, keywords and social media many times now and it’s something we may look into organising for members in the future. Is this something you’d be interested in? If so, please leave a comment below or email us.