Note from Jennifer: Today is our last post in  Mridu Khullar Relph’s guest post series on content marketing. Mridu is offering a fantastic course on content marketing (Content Marketing for Journalists) starting next week and wanted to share her insight with my readers as well. She is offering a discount to my readers (see below for details.) I highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to take their content marketing career to the next level. Registrations close on April 27, 2015.

Mridu Khullar Relph is the founder of The International Freelancer, a website that teaches globally-minded writers and bloggers how to navigate the world of freelancing so they can tell meaningful stories, have fulfilling careers, and find financial freedom.

 

Businesses care about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They care about it a lot.

If they care, you should care because as a content marketing writer, if you can deliver that extra value of having your content be optimized for search engines, you not only become irreplaceable, but also get to be in the wonderful position of commanding higher rates.

Corporations and agencies usually have teams to work on SEO but if you work with—or are looking to work with—small business clients (see the three types of client types in the first part of this series – LINK), delivering SEO friendly content can help your client achieve targets faster and see results sooner.

So, what is SEO and why is it so essential for you to learn? Here’s a primer.

Why Businesses Need Good SEO

Increasingly, businesses that operate through their websites and care about it enough to invest money in content marketing, are focusing on SEO and making sure their sites and their content is optimized for search engine traffic. This is really important for several reasons:

1. SEO can help businesses find new targeted prospects and customers. People who have plugged in that search term into Google or another search engine to arrive at their website. That can lead to very easy sales for small businesses and they don’t want to miss out on that opportunity.

2. SEO, for most small businesses, can mean the difference between spending $500 a month on Google Adwords or getting free traffic instead because of high (or top) search engine placement for relevant keywords. I’ve seen many businesses work really hard to make sure their content ranks higher than their competitors and this helps them eliminate their Adwords spend altogether, saving them money in both the short- and long-term.

3. Being found on the top of the search engine results—or even on the first page—for relevant keywords helps build credibility for a business.

4. And finally, let’s think of what we writers do when we’re looking for sources and companies to feature on a certain topic. Yep, we plug a search term into Google and see what comes up. If a relevant business pops up and we like the look of them, we e-mail them to see if they’d like to be featured. Being in the top results on search engines no doubt helps businesses get more media coverage as well.

For all these reasons and more, businesses love writers who can create content that will aid in their individual SEO efforts. And as the person responsible for this content, if you can work in tandem and move the needle in the right direction, you’re gold.

And doing it is super simple. Here’s how.

Simple Steps to Providing Basic SEO Services to Your Clients

I’m not saying you have to take over your client’s social media strategy. That’s not your specialty and you’re most likely not going to be asked to do that. However, if you can create content that ties in with their social media efforts, it can be a real boost to the business and can make you invaluable.

The good news is that doing this is so easy that you could incorporate it in your work starting today.

Here’s what you need to do:

Step 1: After you finish writing a piece of content, make a list of ten related search terms that people could potentially be searching for regarding this topic. Now hop on to the free Google Adwords Keyword Planner tool and make a note of how many times in a month those search terms were used.

Step 2: Pick the top 3 and write headlines for each of them incorporating those search terms.

Step 3: Send all three options to your clients along with the search numbers when you submit your piece.

Step 4: Revisit the content and try to make sure that the search terms you’ve selected appear in the content a couple of times. (Don’t overdo this. Once or twice is enough if that’s all you’re able to do.)

Step 5: If you want to go all in, also provide social media status updates that encompass those search terms and a one-line summation of the article or blog post that can be pasted into the “description” section of their SEO plugin if they’re using one.

That’s it. Super basic and it won’t take you more than 15 minutes, fewer once you start getting the hang of it. And for that extra 15 minutes, your clients will love you forever.

SEO Helps You, Too

Once you’re done learning SEO for your clients, don’t forget about yourself.

You’re a niche content marketing writer (you have followed Jennifer’s advice and niched down, have you not?), so make sure to use your niche to be found online.

Are you a technology writer? That’s not specific enough. What kind of technology do you specialize in? Finance? Is that personal finance, the stock market, or start-up capital? Maybe it’s all three. That’s great. Mention it on your website. Be specific.

Not only does niching down help potential clients understand what assignments you’re going to be truly good at and what they can hand over to you without a second thought, but you’re going to use these niches on your website and optimize pages of your website so that you come up in search engine results when someone types in “content marketing personal finance.”

Get really specific. It will help you.

In my Content Marketing for Journalists e-course, we get more in-depth with SEO and other skills that will help you stand out from the crowd. We also talk about getting really specific with your niches and finding clients in those unique areas.

You can sign up here if you’re interested. Once again, as a thank you to Jennifer for hosting this series and for all of you for sticking with me these last few days, I’d like to offer a 30% discount to readers of this blog. Simply use the coupon code “jennifer” when you sign up.

 

Registrations close on April 27, 2015.

 

 

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BIO: Mridu Khullar Relph is the founder of The International Freelancer, a website that teaches globally-minded writers and bloggers how to navigate the world of freelancing so they can tell meaningful stories, have fulfilling careers, and find financial freedom.

 

Check our her free 10-part series on content marketing writing at http://www.theinternationalfreelancer.com/guide-to-content-marketing/