This guide is intended for those thinking about writing, editing, and analyzing with _fficient, but you might find it interesting for other reasons too. …Or not. Is it a role explainer, a philosophy piece, or onboarding material? Yes.
I’ve been doing this SEO thing for others since 2004; it’s time to ramble about starting a relationship with a new SEO comms teammate. I’ve written about optimizing hiring and applicant screening, but that article doesn’t help me prepare would-be SEO writer team members. This one will!
What to discuss first with a prospective SEO writer?
This gig is more ‘content maven’ than ‘writer’. A substantial chunk of the work involves improving and fleshing existing content through the SEO lens. Furthermore, this role revolves around you learning how to decide what to change, expand, consolidate, or ignore based on clear reporting. Writing is the execution layer. We’ll provide documentation and training empowering you to choose what to work on, and how to work on it.
This role assumes you can tolerate ambiguity, quickly learn to infer expectations without being spoon-fed step-by-step instructions, and reason from documented principles and data viz. AI can help you evaluate ideas faster, but LLMs can not think for you.
If those who know you wouldn’t call you a problem solver, this gig likely isn’t a good fit for you. Those who excel in this role use data to surface messaging problems and react by shaping the brands’ use of words, with emphasis on intralinking. Writing is the vast majority of the work, but it is evaluated on decision quality, not prose alone. Our primary goal is to move needles.
Our screening triage aims to find those with an affinity for data-backed comms. If you came here from a job posting, and after reading this piece, you’re like, “They don’t want a resume or portfolio? How do I reply? What the $%#* do they want?!” …This gig might not be for you. We’re looking for deeply strategic communicators, or those who might quickly become one!
Often, the work is not glamorous. For example, if you’re writing for a headphone manufacturer month after month, eventually you’ll realize there are only a few dozen different types of articles worth writing. There are only so many guides, how-tos, and top-fives one can reasonably muster without performing ‘original research’. While that’s not true for all accounts, being aware of potential ‘running out of topics’ frustration ahead of time is a good discussion. I outline strategies to avoid it when possible and to deal with the dread of the alternative. If a writer burns out and can’t possibly write about headphones, mesothelioma, industrial lubricants, or whatever, for another month, I’ll try to accommodate by finding another burnout in the _fficient content corps with whom to do an account swap. It’s important to note that some writers stick with accounts for many years.
There are other struggles, especially at first.
- SEO writing is an odd nexus of technical and creative writing; many good, seasoned writers aren’t accustomed to SEO-writing peculiarities.
- Some would-be SEO writers struggle to come up with article topics; we’re willing to coddle that writer’s block for only so long.
- Many struggle to wrap their heads around the fact that they are not being hired to sell or pitch or promote products or services. Most of this writing focuses on informing and engaging humans and bots alike.
- Imposter syndrome is normal; nobody expects you to be an expert on a new topic for the first few months.
- We train SEO writers in SEO analysis and content planning. Most SEO outfits don’t. Being responsible for some strategic decisions is great for self-starters– but more challenging than being spoon-fed every detail of monthly marching orders.
- Those who rely on AI to land this gig typically get filtered out within one or two paid training sessions. If you already know this likely isn’t for you, please opt out.
- Etc.
I might also share several anecdotes about current and past writers who’ve struggled with various other elements of the gig and how we did or didn’t overcome those challenges.
Remember to mention the good stuff about SEO writing.
I’m fine if you want to stay on a single account, or if you want to gradually grow to foster content for a dozen clients. The pay’s decent. The compensation is better on some accounts, if you’re qualified. Assignments are due 30 days after I send’em, so you have plenty of time to sneak the work into your schedule. You can work in your pajamas while enjoying a Paso Robles red blend or chewing gum. I don’t care if you work for other people. And so on.
If you’ve “done SEO writing” before, expect some curveballs—this gig goes deeper than typical SEO writer roles.
Have I scared you off yet? No?
Send SEO writer candidates articles to review:
- A boilerplate mutual non-disclosure agreement, the same one I send to potential clients. E-signing is easy. A few clicks later, and we’ve protected top-secret proprietary classified documents. (Whew!)
- SEO Writing 101 – A gripping piece about a wooden AI and its lust for great content? Written for a general audience, but most of it’s relevant to the _fficient content maven position.
- Titles and Descriptions Guide – A love letter to Matt Cutts or a rant about John Mueller? No need to dive deep into it until you decide you wanna work with me.
- The official _fficient SEO writing guide. (Requires permission. No access for you, Jane Q. Public!) Far more pedantic than the blog post linked above, and includes boring administrative stuff like: How to invoice. How to cite this gig on your resume. How to communicate about work. And other edge-of-your-seat zingers.
- …Like a lorem ipsum example of a typical deliverable. (No link for you, John Q. Public!)
- And the dense and detailed Focusing On-Site SEO manifesto (Also private. No perms for you unless I’m also paying you, sorry.) …About different ways one might choose to optimize. It delves into how to find actionable information in SEO-reporting data and explains how to use it move those SEO needles.
Time to reflect, expound and ask questions. Are you still on board? Yes? Awesome. We do a call if desired, and then…
Send more stuff!
- Client’s website URL
- Credentials to _fficient reporting console + a link to the reporting quick guide
- Project GDocs nexus, which contains links to documentation, like historical topic tracking, style guide, and so on.
- Links to hemingwayapp and grammarly.
- Links to ChatGPT and Gemini – so we can discuss AI-assisted writing. It can’t do the job for you, but knowing the strengths and weaknesses of artificial intelligence saves time and improves your output. (If you’re not willing to use AI, this gig isn’t for you.)
- I send examples of documents from the previous writer/s, always noting something along the lines of, “Just because this passed muster in the past doesn’t mean it’s best practices now.” I’ll often send predecessors’ first documents instead of the later, more refined deliverables, because the fledgling stuff is more heavily marked-up by me and the client with helpful feedback.
- I note that I’ve written about a bunch of other SEO bits on this blog, emphasizing that much of it’s not relevant to SEO-writing tasks and that reading it is neither required nor encouraged unless it seems stimulating. Also, some of it’s old and dated
- The first assignment. It’s in your lap now. What’s next?
We usually have another conversation here, running through M.O., questions, answers, and more eyelid-exercising free-form rambling from me.
Writers send an in-progress draft of their assignment reflecting a few hours’ effort. We review it to make sure we’re meeting minds, and punt it back to you to finish. When we get the completed assignment, we edit, send it to the client for review, and share the feedback with the writer. Rinse and repeat.
Closing vetting notes:
We sometimes screen writers via a shorter, paid tryout before officially assigning you to an account. Clients in regulated industries like financial, legal, medical, gambling, or organizations with esoteric, subtle, or confusing topics, or even brands that are particular about their messaging for other reasons, need to sign off on any team members and sometimes review every word, every month. Conversely, some clients give us carte blanche with all SEO writing. It depends.
Every relationship is different.
Want to jump the gun? Next-steps SEO writer finalists have received in the past. And here’s perhaps the best spoonfeeding in the whole piece: You were sent here to solve one or more problems. Are you the person to solve them? Dan Dreifort consults on SEO and UX. He’s trying to find a national campaign finance reform organization for whom to volunteer professional services. Please network with him, and/or try to tolerate some of his noise at synthband.com.
Dan Dreifort 