Keyword Article Writing: Yes or No?
For many freelance writers, keyword article writing is where they start. Generally speaking, these articles are pretty easy to understand. They are articles based around a “keyword” as to help with search engine rankings. Since more and more people are hoping to make money online, more and more keyword articles are going to be needed.
The question is: does writing these articles make you a freelance writer? To me, the answer is a resounding YES. Some will tell you that you are doing nothing more than wasting your time with keyword articles; the reason being that you will not get paid a lot of money. But in my opinion, just because you are not earning $1/word from a national publication does not make the writing any less important.
What type of money can keyword article writing bring in? From my experience, this can differ greatly. Early in my career, I was writing these short pieces for as little as $3 an article. While this would be a time waster for me right now, back then I was happy to be generating income; no matter what it was from. I still write keyword articles from time to time, and I usually earn anywhere from $15 to $20 for 400 words or so. Again, this may not seem like a lot, but look at it this way. If a client orders a batch of 20 articles at $20 each, that is a $400 project. Five of these projects a month and you are earning $2,000. Not bad, right?
All in all, keyword article writing is far from copywriting. But with that being said, it is a viable way to make money. There are tens of thousands of webmasters who are willing to pay writers a decent rate to produce a high quantity of keyword articles. Don’t overlook this income stream if you are interested in becoming a freelance writer.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I used to write articles like this, and was happy with the money I was making. In my opinion, places like Digitalpoint give people access to tons of “writers” who are charging half a penny per word, which drives down the high quality writers, because everyone wants to pay 10.00 for the same size article we’re charging 30-40 for.
But yeah, Keyword article writing can be lucrative, especially if you like to write and it comes easy to you.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
What gives? I’ve been browsing jobs on elance and getafreelancer and the offers people are making, before accepting bids, are just awful. This applies to keyword sensitive articles and otherwise. “I need 100 articles, but since I’m offering you bulk work I won’t pay more than $3 per article.” ?? Insanity.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Interesting point of view. I used to ask people to write articles that are keyword oriented, they are pretty good for search engines, and they are cheap, so this means they are bringin in the highest ROI. But you need high quality articles for a successful website.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Keyword articles can definitely help as far as SEO is concerned. After all, they must do something if so many webmasters are paying for them.
Deborah - I know what you are going through. Many of the jobs on those bidding sites are extremely low paying. It can be tough to find the good ones, but they are out there!
October 12th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Deborah, I agree. I too have noticed this on getafreelancer and it makes my blood boil, but as long as writers give in to it, they’ll continue to pay such unfair rates.
On getafreelancer, I have my account set-up for them to send me an e-mail on all the data entry job postings (this is the category where I find companies looking for writers). Anyway, I scan through the alerts and skip the ones with the budget set at the $100 minimum.