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106 viewsAre you still stuck in your old corporate job despite your good SEO knowledge? The world has shifted to SEO freelancing, and companies are now looking for SEO freelancers—whether generalists or niche specialists—who can help their brands get good visibility.
But why should you become an SEO freelancer? Freelancing, especially in the SEO domain, has tons of benefits.
You can work at your own pace, do not have to worry about attending the office, work from anywhere you want, have multiple clients, and the biggest of them all: EARN MORE!
Yes, freelancing SEO can earn you much more than your corporate job. You have the freedom of an independent professional and can structure your working hours and projects.
But how do you become a freelance SEO expert? That’s what we are going to discuss today!
Step-by-step Guide On Becoming An SEO Freelancer
So, are you excited to become a freelance SEO expert? Well, have some patience, as there are some steps that you need to follow to become the best freelancer SEO.
1. Understand SEO
Before you portray yourself as a freelance SEO expert, you need to understand the various aspects of SEO—meaning you need to brush up on your basics. Whether you are an experienced SEO freelancer consultant or a beginner, it is essential to have a strong foundation.
You can learn SEO for free through various methods, such as online courses, informational blogs, video tutorials, etc. However, we suggest you take a certified SEO course, as it adds credibility and helps clients feel more confident in your skills.
2. Discover Your SEO Niche
Now, SEO is of various types:
…and so on.
One cannot be an expert in all formats of SEO, as each of them requires different skill sets, training, and tools. So, select your freelance SEO niche—maybe you want to be an on-page optimization specialist or focus on technical SEO for electronics—and start polishing your skills. Moreover, while niching down, you must undergo extensive training and possess the desired skill set to attract clients.
3. Create a Portfolio
You must have a portfolio of your best work as a freelance SEO expert. Most beginner SEO freelancers do not have a proven work record, but you can always create a mock portfolio.
A mock portfolio is the same as an actual portfolio, except the former is just a sample work showcasing your skills in SEO. You can take up any brand you like—say, an independent electronics business—and present how you can optimize their website and the impact it will bring.
Clients want to know if you have the proper SEO skills before signing a deal, and a mock portfolio will convince them.
4. Personal Branding
Wherever you look, professionals are marketing themselves, and that’s the best method to put yourself out there as a freelancer SEO. As a freelancer, you must build a solid personal brand to be seen as a trusted and knowledgeable SEO specialist.
LinkedIn is a platform for finding clients and marketing your services. Start posting about your SEO knowledge, trending updates, client success stories, earnings milestones, and tips on search engine optimization.
5. Pricing Strategy
Here comes the tricky part: How do you decide the service charge? There is no hard and fast rule in the freelancing SEO domain.
The best advice is to charge what reflects your skill level and value. Categorize your services—keyword research, technical SEO, optimization audits, or analytics reporting—and decide pricing for each. A rate card would best display your offerings and set clear expectations.
6. Design A Website
Having a good website can help you a lot as an SEO freelancer.
You won’t have to send the clients separate folders for samples and pricing when you can easily send your SEO freelance website link. WordPress or Wix SEO CMS would be the best option for designing a freelance SEO website that showcases your certified credentials, service offerings, and client testimonials.
Ensure the website includes professional contact details and straightforward navigation to your portfolio, case studies, and reporting samples.
7. Networking
You must have good communication and networking skills as a freelance SEO expert.
Let’s say a prospect is impressed by your portfolio and books a call to discuss your services. But you could not convince them over the phone, and they chose someone else. To avoid such scenarios, improve your communication and sales pitch.
Besides, we suggest you network with professionals from different industries, including start-ups, electronics, real estate, and e-commerce, through both online and offline modes. Attend seminars, industry events, and meetups to increase visibility.
8. Remain Updated
Finally, keep learning about SEO to stay ahead. As a freelance SEO specialist, staying informed about Google updates, new optimization methods, and trends in analytics and reporting is essential. Knowing the latest freelance earnings benchmarks can help you set the right goals and grow your income.
What Are The Major Tasks Of An SEO Freelancer?
Now that you know the steps to become an SEO freelancer, it’s essential to understand your actual responsibilities.
Keyword Research
One of the major tasks that a freelance SEO expert needs to do is conduct thorough keyword research.
Keyword research helps you identify search queries of the target audience that you can incorporate into your client projects and improve their site’s rankings. We would advise you not to go for manual keyword research, as it takes a lot of time and effort. The best option would be to use RankWatch’s free keyword research tool.
RankWatch’s keyword researcher analyzes your inputs and presents an extensive list of keywords along with essential metrics like CPC, keyword difficulty, and search volume.
On top of that, it also has “top question terms” disclosing famous question-based queries, which, if implemented, increases the chances of being in featured snippets and Google passage rankings.
Competitor Analysis
No SEO freelancing project is complete without SEO competitor analysis.
As an SEO freelance expert, you need to conduct regular competitor analysis to understand competitors’ tactics, uncover essential insights, and design strategies. The best way to do this is by using a reliable competitor analysis tool like the one from RankWatch.
It uncovers your client’s top competitors in the industry and helps you understand the current position of your client’s website.
On top of that, the competitor analysis has separate sections, like Ad Copies, Local, and Organic, to help you determine how your client’s website is performing in these sections as compared to their competitors.
On-page SEO Optimization
On-page SEO optimization is extremely crucial for companies, irrespective of their domains, and you, as an SEO freelancer, must have adequate knowledge of it.
We know that the on-page SEO checklist is vast, and it can get tiring while optimizing each of the factors. That’s why we suggest you use the SEO IQ feature of RankWatch, where you will get a detailed on-page SEO checklist with suggestions, comparative analysis, and comparison graphs.
Implementing the suggestions improves the SEO IQ score of the website, ultimately increasing the site’s SERP rankings chances.
The on page SEO checker also has a separate “Content Recommendations” section, which discloses long-tail keywords similar to the page’s seed keyword, its usage throughout the web page, and suggestions to improve it.
You can also edit and optimize the website content on the go with SEO IQ’s “Content Editor.”
It provides both optimization and question-based suggestions, which, after implementation, improve the optimization status and readability score of the content.
Off-page SEO Optimization
The next thing you need to pay attention to is the off-page SEO optimization of a website.
Now, off-page SEO optimization has various aspects, like
- Link building
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Guest posting
…and much more..
Amongst all the above-mentioned off-page SEO factors, link building holds the most importance. If your link-building game is not strong, it can cause serious problems in establishing website authority.
That’s why make sure to use a reliable backlink checker tool, like that of RankWatch, that can dissect your client’s link profile and provide in-depth insights.
Moreover, you can also use it to spy on your clients’ competitors’ link profiles and discover link-building opportunities.
Website SEO Optimization
Better known as technical SEO, website SEO optimization refers to rectifying the technical issues prevailing in a website.
If you aim to be a technical SEO freelance expert, you must have thorough knowledge in this genre. On top of that, you need to have a site audit tool that can uncover all underlying technical issues of your client’s website.
RankWatch’s site auditor will be your savior here. The tool analyzes a website on various technical SEO factors and presents a site score depicting the site’s performance.
Moreover, it also categorizes all underlying issues found on the website so you can resolve them as per their priority level.
Project Management
Handling multiple clients is a skill that every SEO freelancer must have. Even if you are a beginner SEO freelancer, you must know how to multitask. RankWatch’s Agency Dashboard can help you view all of your client projects in one dashboard, along with their current progress.
The Agency Dashboard also categorizes various projects per their ranking position, Alexa rank, backlink count, and other important metrics.
Tools Required To Become An SEO Freelancer
Apart from the tools we mentioned above, there are other important tools that you, as an SEO freelancer, must know.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is one of the most important tools for a freelancer SEO expert.
GSC helps you identify all the search queries for which your client’s website is ranking. However, the major disadvantage of GSC is it only shows up to a thousand search queries. But we have a better alternative for you.
The RankWatch Console surpasses the limitations of GSC and provides you with data for up to a million search queries for which your client’s website is ranking.
Integrate your GSC account with RankWatch Console, and you can avail of all the tool’s benefits.
Google Analytics
Another important tool an SEO freelancing expert must have is Google Analytics.
Google Analytics will help you understand how your client’s website is performing. The number of impressions, clicks, conversions, and engagement your client’s website receives is displayed on Google Analytics.
The tool also lets you know the bounce rate and dwell time to help you understand whether the content is reaching the targeted audience.
However, you can get all of this, plus more, with RankWatch Analytics.
Integrate your client’s Google Analytics account with RankWatch and uncover important details such as the website’s popularity in different search engines, visitors from different countries, unique visitors, conversions, profit, and much more.
Freelancing SEO is the Future!
Companies, especially start-ups and SMEs, are shifting towards SEO freelancers for the benefits they bring to the table.
With SEO freelancer experts, businesses get more value and expertise from the SEO freelancers, are able to discover their target audience across different platforms, and have personalized solutions for each of their SEO-related problems.
So, if you think being an SEO freelancer has no future or is saturated, think again!
The entire SEO freelancing domain is thriving, and you can too!
So, go ahead and implement the tips and tricks, and upgrade yourself as the ultimate freelance SEO expert!
All the best!
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