Since I’ve decided to pursue my future in writing, it occurs to me how little I know. Thankfully I enjoy researching. I believe we are always better off for having learned new things and this is no exception.

As with so many potential directions, it can be hard to know where to begin. Since I am pursuing gigs in the digital space, I consistently see information regarding SEO. The birds-eye view of the concept is just to get specific words into your content to better rank you in search results. Better placement in results means more traffic. This seems like a relevant strategy from a bystander’s point of view. I can count a handful of times where I got beyond the 2nd or 3rd page of search results and it was only because I wanted to learn every possible thing about a topic.

The first page results told me all I needed to know. Every page beyond that was a casualty of too much information.

The places I am applying to appear to be content farms who are aiming at optimizing their place in this pecking order. The blog posts will be targeted at targeting. The entire purpose of these posts will be to rank higher than the competition and as a result of the traffic, make more sales. What they are selling? Who knows. Most of the work will be ghostwritten, so my name won’t be attached to it. For better or worse, no one will know I was involved except me.

This does make it feel like the work is cheap or even meaningless, but I know this is part of the “hard work” in this field. I’m not afraid of hard work and at least I’m going to get paid for something I create. Chalk it up to necessary evil.