Tip 1: Don't believe everything you read

Now here's an insider's tip from the world of freelance SEO writing.

There are a lot of freelance sites which have advertisements from companies looking for freelancers to do short SEO pieces for them. Some pay as little as $3 or $4 for a 500 word piece which they expect to be Search Engine Optimized, high-quality, and interesting.

Since I was desperate for work at the time, I went along with it for about a month. At least the group paid me (some people have gotten ripped off by site advertising for freelancers). I eventually quit because it just wasn't worth it.

Here's the thing, though. I tried to produce high quality work, which is probably why it wasn't worth it to me at less than 1 cent per word. That's low even for a beginning freelancer. I was assigned various posts, all intended to sell some kind of product--some were intended also as tips of the day, factual posts, etc.

I did my research, as best I could. But even though I was trying to write good stuff, I know I didn't do as well as I could have if it had been a real freelance piece. I mean, why bother? I was getting paid so little.

All that leads up to today's tip of the day: Don't assume an author knows anything about their subject. Don't assume they've done their research.

There are some bloggers or other internet writers who really care about what they do. It's their passion, or perhaps they're being paid well. But there are plenty of posts written by people who need to keep churning them out if they're ever going to make it worth their while. And these churned out posts--not something you want to rely on.

And a bonus tip for you--don't take one of those jobs. It's not worth it.