By Joe Wallace

In the month of May, only about 2,000 people used Google to search for the phrase “freelance magazine writing”.  Compare that to the some 33,000 who searched for “freelance writing jobs”.

Interesting stats, especially if you’re trying to monetize a blog about freelancing. One of the keys to making money online with any blog is picking up search traffic, and freelance blogs have it especially tough because the search volume on terms related to freelance writing is very competitive and low-volume compared to searches of more popular temrs like “acai berries”.

Another revealing factoid–the phrase “freelance jobs” got nearly a quarter of a million searches. Of course, a large chunk of those searches include job seekers for coding and other technical freelance jobs, as opposed to just freelance writing and editing.

If you want to make money on a freelance writing blog, it’s important to find new ways to make yourself visible to the right searches. How to do this? It’s really a combination of three things–use the right keywords for search engine discoverability, have fresh and relevant content, and try to tie your writing to current events when possible. That sounds like a no-brainer, but discussing relevant topics in the news as they relate to your blog increases your discoverability in Google and other search engines. The trick is to do it without trying to pander to Google–keep it relevant and readable.