• By Yuwanda Black
• Published 11/4/2011
• Article Writing

First off, let me say, I’ve been doing SEO writing since 2007, and to date, I’ve never had a client NOT pay. So it’s a rare occurrence. Recently, a fellow SEO content writer contacted me because she’d written quite a lot of content for a client (more than 60 articles). She’d gotten half of the payment up front, but the client was dragging his feet on paying the balance. She was afraid she was in danger of not getting paid. Following is some advice I gave her. Freelance Writing Advice on What to Do When You’re in Danger of Not Getting Paid I. Take Action: In this case, I told her to contact the client and give him a firm deadline about when she expected the remainder of the payment. I told her to call him because it’s hard for people to brush you off over the phone. Then, I told her to follow up with a detailed email that outlined what was agreed upon in the phone conversation. The reason you want to do this is so that you have a record of what was said and agreed upon if you ever need to take legal action.

II. Limit Size of Project for New Clients: As in, don’t take on large projects from brand new clients.

Break the projects up. Why? Read on. One of the things you have to be careful of as a freelance SEO writer is taking on bulk orders from new clients because you might not get paid. Even with a 50% up front deposit, if they order 25, 30, or 50 articles or more, that’s a lot of writing. And, if they don’t pay you the remaining 50%, then you could be out quite a lot of time, money and effort. So, limit your “new client” order to say, 20 or so articles. Let the client know that you will be happy to complete more articles once this initial job “has been done to their satisfaction – and paid for.” Or, you can take the following, more direct route, which is . . . III. Get 100% Up Front: Just be honest with new clients and let them know you limit the number of articles you take on from new clients to combat potential fraud (word it better than that, of course). Of course, you can always offer the client the option of paying the full invoice up front (eg, pay 100% before you start). Conclusion

As I said, I’ve never had an SEO content writing client NOT pay, so it’s not something I think you need to be overly concerned about. But, if you are, the advice dispensed here should help.