SEO Content Writing Rates: 7 Tips on How to Set Yours to Earn $50,000 to $75,000 Per Year

Dec. 19, 2012 - PRLog -- SEO content writing rates are all over the place. When I first started out writing this content in 2007, it wasn’t uncommon to see rates from the ridiculously low, eg, $1 for 500 words; to the moderate, eg, $25 for 500 words; to what some might call high, $75 for 400-500 words.

SEO Content Writing Rates: Where They Stand Today

While there are still a lot of the crazy low-balling rates around (you’ll find them mostly on bid-for-pay sites like Elance and Guru), SEO writers are routinely billing – and getting -- $25-$50/per article, or more. In my opinion and experience, this seems to have become somewhat of an industry floor; an industry norm for writing search engine optimized copy.

At my SEO writing company (http://newmediawords.biz/), we sometimes get as much as $100 or more for an article (usually for writing copy in high-paying niches like tech, medical, legal, etc.).

When I first started out, I charged $25 per SEO article. While some freelance writers lamented that this was “too low” and was bringing down the industry rates for all freelancers, I quickly started to earn $100-$250 (or more) per day. This was more than enough to pay my bills.

How to Earn $50,000 to $75,000 Per Year as an SEO Content Writer

As a freelancer, it’s up to you how much you earn. I always approach everything from a numbers perspective. So, following is the formula I use – and some additional tips -- to reach my income goals.

1. Break It Down: For Example, $50,000 is approximately $962 per week ($50,000 divided by 52 weeks). So, that would be your target income.

2. Calculate How Much to Charge: Run the number to see how many articles you’d have to write per week at different price points, eg, $25 per article, $35 per article, $45 per article, etc.

If you charged $25 per SEO article, you’d have to produce 39 articles per week (5-day work week considered) to earn $962 (actually 38.48 articles – always round up). That’s almost 8 articles per day (7.8).

If you charged $35 per SEO article, you’d have to produce 28 articles per week to earn $962. That’s almost 6 articles per day (5.6).

And so on and so on.

3. Determine the Workload: After you do the above calculations, you have to determine if you can realistically handle the workload. If not, outsource – which bring us to our next tip.

4. Outsource Content Writing: Even though you may be earning less per invoice, you earn more over time because you can spend more time marketing for new clients – and less time doing the actual writing.

This is how I exponentially grew my SEO writing firm – going from a one-person writing shop, to a full-fledged web content writing company.

5. Bundle Services: This works really well, as many clients like the convenience of it – and the price breaks they receive.

For example, you could offer a monthly “pack” of blog posts and web articles for “one low price.” So instead of having clients order just a couple of one-off blog posts, they’d order a month's worth of content. This increases the size of the invoice – which adds up and gets you closer to your income goal.

6. Raise Your Rates: The easiest way to earn more as an SEO writer is to raise your rates. So if you start out at $25 and you get too busy, raise your rates. While you may lose some clients, you will land better-paying ones if you market consistently, which brings me to my last point.

7. Market Consistently: One freelancer wrote to me and told me that he started his SEO writing business in the fall of 2010 and he was on track to earn six figures his first year. How did he do it? He marketed consistently. He said he hired his nieces to contact at least 100 companies per week and he was consistently landing 1-2 clients per week doing this.

Setting Your SEO Content Writing Rates: Conclusion

While what you charge is important, the most important tip listed here is to market consistently. Why? Because no matter what your freelance SEO writing rates are, if nobody knows you exist, you won’t earn a dime.

Learn everything you need to know to earn $50,000 to $75,000 per year as freelance SEO writer in this SEO copywriter training (http://www.seowritingjobs.com/seo-copywriting-training/) course.
________________________

About the Author: Yuwanda Black heads New Media Words (NewMediaWords.biz), an SEO writing company. She's the author of numerous ebooks on writing search engine-optimized copy, as well as the creator of one of the leading SEO content writing courses online. The course teaches everything you need to know about not only how to write SEO content (http://www.seowritingjobs.com/seo-copywriting-training/) but how to earn $50,000 to $75,000 per year – your first year – as a freelancer. FYI, you can take the course online or in person -- in Jamaica!