• By Yuwanda Black
• Published 10/9/2011
• Article Writing

I’ve been a freelance writer since 1993, but only dipped my toes into the SEO writing waters in 2007. And boy, was I in for a ride. It’s a fast-paced, lucrative freelance writing niche; one where you have to stay super organized, as a fretful fellow writer found out. She wrote to me seeking advice because a client wasn’t pleased with her work. But, it wasn’t her fault. Her email disclosed the dilemma. She wrote: Question from an SEO Writer I provided service to an SEO writing company. When I completed a project, I cc’d my client and his client. A couple of weeks ago, my client asked me to stop sending his client my work and send it directly to him. Apparently, he had someone to make changes to the content that I wrote. The client wasn’t happy with the work that was submitted. When my client sent me his client’s comments and corrections, it was someone else’s mistakes and not the original work I submitted. His client is under the impression that I wrote the poorly written content. Should I explain to his client that I wasn’t the one who wrote the poorly written content? This SEO Copywriter’s Problem Clarified

This may be hard to understand if you’re not an SEO writer, so following is this freelancer’s problem in a nutshell – this freelancer’s client has a client who was unhappy with the content submitted. But, it

wasn’t this freelancer’s fault because it’s not the content she originally submitted. To avoid problems like this, I came up with some guidelines early on in my SEO writing career because the jobs can come fast – from different account execs within the same company. 2 Tips for Tracking SEO Articles You Send to Clients So, a fail-proof tracking mechanism is key to protecting your reputation when it comes dealing with clients. To this end, following is the main thing I do to make this happen. 1. Keep copies of all SEO content you send to clients. After you send clients content, don’t revise it – no even one word. While it may sound obvious, it bears pointing out. Why? if they ever request the content again, you’ll have it – exactly as you gave it to them the first time. 2. Tag every piece of content: I keep the following file on every SEO article I write and send to clients: (i) keyword phrase written on; (ii) date copy was requested; (iii) by whom; (iv) date it was turned in; (v) to whom; (vi) word count of each article; (vii) date invoiced for; and (viii) date paid. And of course, I keep email correspondence surrounding each piece of content. This makes it easy to remember the parameters of a project if you have to go back months later.

While this may seem like a lot, it’s really not. It becomes second nature – especially if you’re writing three, five or 10 SEO articles a day – which is entirely possible for a busy SEO copywriter.

Yuwanda Black, an SEO copywriter, blogs about this freelance writing niche at SeoWritingJobs.com. Learn more about how to stay out of hot water with clients as an SEO writer, so you build a solid roster of repeat clients, which will make it easy to earn $250+/day — or more — as an SEO article writer.

by Yuwanda Black