How I do SEO research as a freelance writer in 2024

Search engine optimization (SEO) research is a non-negotiable part of what I do as a freelance writer in 2024. That’s because my clients increasingly understand the importance of visible, high-quality content.

My SEO research process has been tweaked and refined over the course of several years of in-house and freelance work, and it consistently helps me rank helpful, original blog articles. In this guide, I’ll detail my process from start to finish and provide some SEO tips along the way. But first, let’s address the two biggest SEO “fears” that I find tend to get in the way of freelance writers producing their best work.  

• Need to brush on the basics of SEO terms and definitions first? Check out this blog and SEO checklist. 

Wait—will SEO ruin the quality of my content?  

When I meet freelance writers who are resistant to learning SEO, they’re typically either afraid SEO will ruin their writing or they think it’s a waste of time. The truth is these fears aren’t totally unfounded. But instead of avoiding SEO, we should use these fears to inform how we conduct SEO research. 

SEO Fear #1: SEO will ruin my writing 

I get it. As a writer, I can’t stand the thought of writing a fluffy piece stuffed with the same repetitive phrases. And as a human on the internet, I can’t stand scrolling through paragraphs of useless information to find the answer to my (probably pretty simple) question. 

It doesn’t have to be this way—and it shouldn’t be. Verblio’s 2024 State of Digital Content Report reveals over half of marketers think content marketing (which often relies heavily on SEO) is getting more effective year over year. Yet, 79% of the same respondents believe it’s getting harder to create “good” content.

So, optimizing your writing doesn’t mean you have to ruin it. Instead, you can use your SEO research as an opportunity to learn more about your (very human) readers and make improvements to your piece that benefit them (and bring you more success as a writer along the way). Stay tuned—I’ll do my best to show you how I do this. 

SEO Fear #2: SEO is dying anyway 

The marketing industry loves to hand out premature death certificates. SEO isn’t dead, nor is it dying—it’s just changing. In fact, according to Hubspot’s 2024 State of Marketing report, 32% of responding companies said they plan to incorporate “websites, blogs, and SEO” as a part of their 2024 marketing strategy (the only channel that beat SEO was email marketing at 33%). 

Keeping up with these changes is necessary, but it doesn’t have to be overly complicated. If you’re consistently researching your pieces and serving your human reader first, you’ll be able to navigate the ups and downs of the Google algorithm.

How this guide works 

In this article, I’ll show you how I conduct SEO research for specific articles I’ve been assigned. The goal is to increase my content’s visibility on Google via “on-page content,” like keywords and headings. This guide does not teach you how to develop an entire content strategy. It also doesn’t dive too much into off-page or technical SEO (think: backlinks and website architecture)… but we’ll include some additional resources at the end. 

I recommend reading the entire guide for a crash course in my SEO research process. Then, you can use the table of contents to refer to specific steps as needed.

Without further ado, here’s how I conduct SEO research in 2024:

My 5-step SEO research process

I follow a similar 5-step process every time I write a piece of content. It looks like this:

No matter where I am in the process, I have one rule:

The human reader comes first. 

Each step has its own set of goals, but if I keep my rule top of mind, I avoid sacrificing quality for the sake of visibility. Remember: our goal is visible, relevant, and high-quality content. You’ll see this rule woven into each of the steps below:

Pre-work: Honing the topic

Some clients assign topics, while others request pitches. Either way, I want to make sure both the client and I have an understanding of how the chosen topic a) serves the audience and b) fits into the overall content strategy.

Some questions I may ask include:

• Do you have any content that covers a similar topic? How will this article be different? 
• Is this article intended to educate your audience or sell to them? 
• What’s your ideal call-to-action? 

Then, I take this information with me into the SEO research process. Sometimes, I find we’re already on the right track. Other times, I find I need to adjust our content idea to fit the reader’s needs. But before I dive into the Google landscape, I’ll need to use the first question bulleted above to kickoff the first step: familiarizing myself with the client’s existing content.

Step 1: Get familiar with the client’s existing content

Part of my SEO research is forming a deeper understanding of how the article I’m writing fits with my client’s existing content. 

I don’t want to duplicate anything, but, ideally, there is some existing related content to link within my blog. I use two tools to check on this: 

The client’s website

I do a quick site search of the keyword (or a broader, related keyword). 

Hopefully, there’s no exact matches. If there is, I might suggest we refresh the existing piece of content instead of creating an entirely new piece. 

Otherwise, I’ll make notes of the related content to link to within the new article: 

In this example, my client asked me to write a roundup of the best diaper bags in 2024. So, I started by using Google to search my client’s site for any pages related to “diaper bags.” I found pages that sell or promote my client’s product, plus a blog article about packing a diaper bag. All of these pages offer something unique to the reader, so I will simply want to link to them in my “best diaper bags” article (and make a note to add a link to the new article within the packing guide once it’s completed): 

Google Search Console 

Google search console (GSC) is a free tool that can help me see how my client might already be ranking for “best diaper bags” or other related keywords. In this example, my client was already ranking for a number of “dad diaper bag” keywords. 

I don’t want my client to compete with itself for these keywords. Instead, I want to boost the ranking for the pages that are already seeing some success here. I’ll do this by inserting the keywords into the body of my article, using them as anchor text for links that will connect my article to the pages that are already ranking for something like “dad diaper bag.” 

Note: I’m also not going to mention all of these keywords in one blog article—that would verge on “keyword stuffing,” which involves cramming as many related keywords as possible into an article, at the expense of its readability.

Instead, I’ll pick 2-3 I want to try to give a boost. For this article, I chose to focus the most on “best diaper bag for dads.” 

The goal: Form an understanding of how my article fits within my client’s existing content. 

The trap: Avoid producing content that overlaps with existing content without a unique angle. 

Step 2: Keyword selection

My idea—or my topic—is how I think about a subject. Keyword selection helps me understand how my audience thinks about the subject. In the SEO industry, we often think of keywords in terms of numbers (the more readers, the merrier!). This isn’t wrong, but I like to think of keyword selection as the first step you take to ensure you find the right set of readers for your client, brand, and/or topic.

There are a few criteria that let me know I’m on the right track:

• The keyword has at least some search volume:
  • I don’t have a “minimum” here. Some articles will naturally attract more readers. But if there’s nothing, it’s a good indication that I’m not thinking about the topic in the same language my audience uses—back to the drawing board. 
• My client can compete with the web pages and domains currently being served: 
  • Checking out a “keyword difficulty” estimator can help you figure out how competitive a keyword is. If my client has established an authoritative, trusted presence in their industry, I’m not too worried about this metric. But if I’m working with a new-to-the-scene client, I’ll try to find keywords that have less competition. One trick here is to narrow the scope of your article. You might sacrifice some traffic, but that traffic isn’t yours anyway if you can’t rank for it. 
• My client “fits” with the web pages and domains currently being served: 
  • I write a lot of parenting blogs. Sometimes, my topics venture into the medical realm. If I see that a keyword only produces results from Johns Hopkins medical center and similar institutions, I’ll typically try to find a different keyword. 

Here’s how I find my keywords: 

Start googling

I start by googling my topic with language I think my audience might be using. I like to use the Keyword Surfer SEO Chrome extension because I can see the estimated monthly search volume with every Google search, plus related keywords. 

In this example, I started by simply googling “best diaper bags”:

I can see pretty quickly that there’s a high amount of search volume, along with a few alternative keywords. Plus, I get a quick view of who has already produced content for this keyword, which can give me an idea of how competitive it will be (spoiler: Forbes = competitive). 

Use an SEO tool 

Then, I use an SEO tool to confirm what I’m seeing in Google. 

In this example, I’m using Semrush’s “magic keyword” tool to confirm search volume for “best diaper bag.” This tool also provides a list of related keywords—plus their monthly search volumes and estimated keyword difficulty:

Use my brain to make a selection

I know that sounds a bit tongue-in-cheek, but this is an essential step. Semrush tells me the estimated keyword difficulty for “best diaper bags” is only 20%, which means it should be pretty dang easy to rank in the top 10 for this keyword. But seeing “Forbes” in the top spot lets me know Semrush might be underestimating how challenging this could be. 

My client is well-established in the parenting industry, so I felt good about pursuing “best diaper bags,” but I noted some other keywords, with less search volume, to target as well—like “best diaper bag backpack.” These are secondary keywords. So, I won’t work them into the site title or even the introduction, but, in this example, I planned to use them in H2s as categories for diaper bags.

Once I make my selections, I note them in a document with their search volume. 

The goal: Identify a primary keyword that attracts an audience and that’s a good fit for the client. 

The trap: Avoid selecting an overly broad keyword with high-stakes competition. 

Step 3: SERP Analysis 

SERPs—or search engine results pages—are what you see when you Google a keyword. 

I’ve met freelance writers who claim they don’t look SERPs before they write an article. That’s because one (bad) SEO strategy is to look at SERPs and replicate what you see. 

But I personally think avoiding SERPs altogether is just as big of a mistake. You don’t need to replicate everything you see (nor should you), but SERPs can be a valuable source of information. 

I have four goals when looking at the SERPs: 

1. Tap into user intent: By looking at the blogs being served in the top ~5 spots, I can see what Google thinks people want from the content. This helps me confirm the fit between my topic and the selected keyword.
2. See what’s working: For example, I’ve recently noticed short article introductions with top-level summaries succeeding in the SERPs. This makes sense to me as a human, because it’s usually what I prefer to read. 
3. Identify what’s missing: Is there something missing from the top five SERPs that I think would be valuable? This is mostly about satisfying the human reader (although it can give you an SEO boost as well). Most often, I find the existing content is missing nuance. It’s somewhat easy to write “hot takes” that rank—but they often lack the nuance I need as a human reader. 
4. Hunt down cool things I may not have thought about: Any creative that claims to have 100% original ideas all created in a silo is lying. Again, I don’t want to replicate the SERPs, but I am looking for inspiration.  For example, I decided I wanted a table in my “best diaper bags” roundup after conducting my SERP analysis. 

Here’s how I make that happen:

Scan the first 5-10 organic results [note: if the web result is labeled “sponsored,” they paid for that spot–that’s not what I’m looking for]

I note the top five-ish SERPs in a Google doc with a link out to the content. I also include quick notes about what the piece of content contains, does well, or misses, so that I can refer to it later: 

For example, here’s my note about Forbes:

Notice that I make a note about the “filler content” at the end. I’m not necessarily criticizing that content here. I know it’s probably necessary to include some information about how the products were tested to rank for this keyword, but I think I can present it in a way that’s more valuable for the reader. We decided to survey the client’s email list and provide some interesting data points.

 Make a note of any SERP features

Are there videos, images, or forums included within the top 5 SERPs? I note this for two reasons:

• I’m not just competing with other web pages. I’m also competing with these features, and it’s helpful to see what else will be taking up space at the top of the search. 
• It can give me ideas about supplemental content to create that may also rank for an image search or help get the written blog article featured. For example, can I create a chart, visual, or video that will help serve the reader? 

After I’ve reviewed the SERPs, I use what I’ve learned to create an “SEO angle.” 

The goal: Learn more about the reader and their needs through the existing SERPs. 

The trap: Avoid replicating content for the sake of ranking an article. 

Step 4: Develop an SEO “angle” 

Using all the information I’ve gathered, I decide how I’m going to approach my article. I literally write this down in the form of a short, informal paragraph. It helps me keep the angle top-of-mind. 

Here are things I cover in my “angle”: 

• How will I provide something different than what’s already out there? 
• What do I need to be sure to include in my article? 
• What do I want to avoid/leave out? 
• What graphics, videos, links, etc. do I want to include? 
• How long should my article be? 

Step 5: Write, refine, publish, repeat

Finally, it’s time to do what I do best—write. 

My research process is mostly done (for now), but I still consider implementing the research as part of my process. It’s also the hardest step to show. 

Hopefully, at this point, I have a better understanding of who my reader is and what they need. I also have some keywords that generate traffic to target. But I still need to write as if I’m writing for a human first. This means I’ll break an SEO “best practice” rule if it means improving the quality of the piece. 

Generally speaking, though, here are a few things I always doing during the writing phase:

• Optimize the site and blog title to contain my primary keyword 
• Check my links
• Optimize my images and write (actually useful) alt text
• Include the keyword in the introduction
• Optimize my H2s
  • Note: this is a great example of where I frequently break “SEO rules.” I find repetitive H2s that are entirely comprised of keywords (or frequently asked questions) are somewhat obnoxious. So, I’ll use some keywords in my H2s, but I also make some headings just… what they should be. 

Finally, I make a note to check on the piece at regular increments, so we can refresh as needed. 

Note: If you’re curious, this is the “best diaper bag” article that I wrote. As expected, it’s currently ranking higher for the more niche keyword “best diaper bags 2024,” but it’s drawing traffic from several of my targeted keywords:

What about AI? 

A lot of my research process is human-driven. That said, here are a few ways I use AI to supplement or speed up my work:

• Use a content generator tool
• Ask ChatGPT to produce an outline (that I’ll check and modify)
• Use AI-assisted tools to check my progress (think: Yoast) 
• Use AI-enhanced SEO tools (like the Keyword Magic Tool I mentioned earlier)

You can read more about AI-assisted content here. 

More resources

My time here is coming to a close, but if you’re interested in learning more about SEO, here are a few additional resources:

• SEMrush: What is technical SEO? 
• SEMrush: On-page SEO checklist
• Hubspot: The Ultimate Guide to SEO in 2024