Making Money as an Online Freelance Writer
Understanding the Importance of Keyword and Keyphrase Repetition
Aug 5, 2009
Whether one is looking to supplement an existing job or to eventually transition from the brick and mortar job to a work at home method of earning a living, becoming an online freelance writer can satisfy either goal. There is no monetary investment and the ability to make money from home as a writer is limitless.
The trick to earning money online is to remain focused and understand the nature of the online writing arena. Writing online content is a much different animal than writing for printed publications, college dissertations or even business writing for that matter. The difference with online writing versus off-line writing is keywords and repetition.
Online Writing and Keyword Repetition
Before discussing the reasons for keywords, it's best to explain what keywords are. Keywords are the words readers use when searching for answers online. For example, someone searching for ways to save money on a teen's auto insurance rate would use words like "reduce teen auto rate" or "lower auto insurance premiums" or even "how to get low auto rates." Therefore, the author, if writing an article on the topic of reducing auto insurance rates for policies with teen drivers would incorporate those exact phrases in the article.
Repetition is necessary to help the search engines find the article and rank it above other articles on similar topics. Therefore two articles on the same topic, but article A uses the keyword phrases three to four times throughout the article while article B only uses it once, article A stands a better chance of ranking higher in the search engine results than article B.
The trick to writing a quality article is to strategically place the keywords within the article several times in a naturally flowing way. The reader should not be able to tell which keywords the article is targeting. The freelance writer has to write the article to appeal to both the reader and the search engines. Search engines bring in traffic and traffic increases the chances of making money.
Hidden Keyword Helpers
As one learns how to gracefully insert targeted words and phrases into an article, the author has to be careful not to over stuff the article with the key phrase. Too many instances of certain words is considered spam and the search engines will penalize the article by categorizing it as such. Therefore, online writers must be mindful of keyword density.
Free tools such as David Naylor's keyword density tool provides basic information for the novice and advanced information for the veteran.
There are, however, hidden keyword helpers such as images and titles. Online writers soon learn the power of properly naming images to help improve search engine ranking. Depending on the site on which the online article is placed, the writer may (or may not) have creative control of where images are placed and how many can be used. It would behoove any online writer who is serious about making money from home to learn basic HTML skills. With basic coding skills, writers are able to maximize their keyword opportunities.
For example, the image in this article is named "make money from home." Additionally, by hovering over the David Naylor hyperlink, the title of the link "Keyword Density Tool" displays. Those are two ways in which a writer can add additional targeted words to an article without fear of overusing the phrase.
Making Money with Keywords
No matter what the subject matter, anyone looking to make money from home as an online freelance writer must learn how to properly utilize keywords to bring in traffic. No one wants a top notch article to sit on the 4,456,125th page of a search engine because proper keywords were not used.
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