The field of professional Website Search Engine Optimization is no different.

Guaranteed SEO is not just a technical approach to get you on the first page of Google for a certain keyword or key phrase.

If your business approaches it from that angle you might never see the importance of Internet search engine optimization or achieve anything close to organic targeted web traffic.

Think of proactively marketing yourself online as creating little pieces of dust floating around online eventually connecting directly to your brand or business.

If you connect all those little pieces of dust they all funnel down to your website creating many little pathways to your website, the bigger the network of dust the more opportunity for really becoming visible online in front of your target audience. This network takes some time to build but once it is built, a website can see a nice steady stream of traffic and if done correctly, it will be qualified targeted website traffic.

This approach should not be viewed as just something technical to manipulate search results but rather as a long term internet marketing plan with the goal of rankings as a byproduct but not the only byproduct. Perhaps this misunderstanding is a hangover from the “meta tag” stuffing days of the late nineties and early 2000’s when this practice could rank a porn site for the word “Smithsonian”.  Nowadays much more effort is required for professional SEO.

As with most things in this world if you have a way of prioritizing what to do and when, instead of trial and error then you optimize your efforts and reap the results sooner.
SEO will always take time to really ramp up and work correctly, so it is important to realize that it is a strategic investment of time and money not dissimilar from many other marketing or business investments.

Investment into an online presence or business website is very important.  Equally as important to an offline “bricks and mortar” business investment.  It will bring returns if its done correctly and not just in the form of search engine rankings,  which many think is the way to gauge if your online marketing campaign is actually working.

Real rewards come from bloggers writing about your business and products or perhaps potential customers contacting you via social networks for example.  This will bring a huge increase in your website activity and does not happen by accident, it will be as a direct result of your SEO efforts and the time for rankings to of been ‘awarded’ from the search engines.  It is critically important to realize that search engine optimization is a long term approach that does require some patience and ability to think outside the box.

In this post, I want to go a step further and answer the question: what if all aspects of your freelancing work were done online?

In this Becoming a Freelance Web Worker series of posts I’ll be outlining a complete guide to becoming a web-only freelancer: how to find clients, how to work completely online and how to run your freelancing business from anywhere in the world.

Why I think you need this guide

At the end of January I’ll be a web worker in the purest sense of the term: my freelancing and income will be completely online based. I find clients online, I work online and I get paid online.

I’m still coming to terms with what this means for me. Working as an offline freelancer is already more flexible than almost any job you can name: you have the power to work for who you want, when you want.

Working as an online-only freelancer takes this flexibility to another level. You can work for who you want, when you want, in any state or country in the world (all you need is an internet connection and a computer).

Traveling — as wonderful as it is — no longer needs to be a money sink. You could be working from an internet cafe in London, a coffee shop in Tokyo or a library in New York and your clients wouldn’t know the difference.

Another advantage of web freelancing for non-US based freelancers is that the primary currency of web work is the US Dollar, which will almost always equate to more in your home currency.

If being paid in US dollars and having the freedom to work (and get paid) anywhere in the world appeals to you, this series will explain how you can make that dream a reality.

1. From finding all your work online…
   There are a number of strategies you can use to source-out future clients online. As long as you’re still getting clients through offline methods you’ll stay tethered to one particular location. In the next post in the series I’ll explain how you can attract a steady stream of potential clients through the web.
2. … to working through the web
   Web work is a unique freelancing environment with a lot of opportunities (and some potential pitfalls you should avoid). Part 3 of the series will explain how to effectively do all your freelancing work (and get paid for it) online.
3. … anywhere in the world.
   Part 4 of the series will outline what you need to do freelance work as you travel interstate or internationally.

Give some thought to your own situation and how becoming a web-only freelancer would (or wouldn’t) benefit you. Feel free to share your thoughts below. I’d also be interested to hear what you’d like included in the rest of the series, if you have any specific questions or requests. Stay tuned to learn how to source-out all your clients online.

Part 2 of the series will be online tomorrow, you can also read more from Skellie at her brand new blog Anywired