I Failed at My First SEO Writing Contract and It’s Your Fire to Keep Going

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

“Just because we didn’t measure up to some standard of achievement doesn’t mean that we don’t possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. Just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn’t change its worth or ours.” — Brene Brown

Have you ever had a dream and felt like you just don’t know how to get there, you suffer from imposter syndrome, and kind of feel like you’re a failure because putting one foot in front of the other seems near impossible?

Yeah? Me too, like every day in all my roles.

But have no fear, my friend, because I am here to tell you, remind you, instill in you that you’ve got something to share and you’ve got work to do and you can’t take “no” for an answer.

My story is a quick one. I was a freelance writer, turned one million other things, then into a mom with a lasting maternity leave of 6 years (4 kids, yes I’m nuts.) During all of this madness and brain switchery, writing has always been my one constant thing, but in my quest for career moves, personal gratification, and projecting goodness into the world, I just wasn’t sure how to use it or break back into the freelance writing sphere. So.. my first attempt, I landed myself a shitty little SEO gig for a dental office thinking, “I use to write anything, I can finagle this.” HA.

Let me be utterly frank here, writing SEO for a freaking dentist office is not my forte, and if I can bet, it’s probably not yours either. Unless, you just really, really, really like teeth, in which case — good 👏 for 👏 you 👏.

I’m just not as into teeth as say.. brushing my own teeth (sans flossing,) so hitting the SEO tally for dental words and the like, is like — excuse the pun — pulling teeth.

However, I got this “opportunity” and I felt like I needed to pounce on it because like you, I want to live my dreams of being a writer, and this was my “getting back to the writing world” writing gig. Unfortunately, (or is it?) I just did not have enough fire to write…