Lately, I have had more than one occasion where an aspiring young writer asks me some questions about creating an invoice for their copywriting or SEO work. This page is going to serve as a dump for information about creating an invoice for whatever, and I’ll drop in a link to resource templates too, so you can skip to them if that’s all you need.

Why You Create Invoices

You create an invoice to bill a company for the work you do for them. They receive it, approve it, and put it into their payment cycle. The duration of each one is one of those things that depends on the company you are dealing with, but no matter how they handle it, many companies want an invoice to complete the project. You send this after a project to mutually agree you are finished, and you are now waiting to be paid.

They will use the invoice on their end to complete internal paperwork – assigning the value to a specific department, or sometimes a specific representative.

You will likely use it for record keeping too, but maybe just in an e-format.

Because both parties will use this document for tracking purposes, the information in it must be kept clear, and straight-forward. Offer exactly the information you need – nothing more, nothing less. The following things are going to be pretty standard things in the invoice information:

• Your company name and contact info in the header and footer. The mailing address is important – a lot of people will mail your checks to you. Also, the phone number/email is important, because if there is an error or something they need to be able to reach you quickly to sort it out. Every day the mistake exists is another you are not being paid.
• Their company name and specific contact information e.g., “Attn: Paul Jones.” The specific contact is used to identify your contact in a larger company – it is a good thing to know. They’ll often shuffle it around and get people to sign it – so be on the ball, and know where it needs to go.
• A specific invoice reference number – one that is unique.
• The description of the services/deliverables, potentially itemized. I like to keep this pretty general and simple…so something like “50 pages of original content and research @ $75/page  – $3750 total project fee” or something like that works. Put the itemized things in the left, the right column tabulates all the individual items being invoiced.
• Any additional costs/considerations/notes. If there was scope creep, delivery charges, outsourced talent or something off the grid of what you originally determined to be the project, state it if you want to get recognized and paid for it. All of the phone calls in the world don’t hold the same power as a written, signed invoice. Put it in writing.
• A total now due. Make this a very clear number using a font that is big, red, bold, exciting – make it work like a fork jabbed in their eye. There should be NO DOUBT how much they owe, and when. That is the only purpose of this document, so make it work.
• Payment preferences. You can state how quick you want the turn to be – I state net-10, meaning within 10 days of my final approval, they need to pay me. The common deal with bigger companies is closer to net-30 – this is important to know when you are just starting out. Demand all you want – but it doesn’t mean much to stomp your feet. It is truly better to wait it out, painful as that can be. Way back a long time ago, I actually had a client owe me over $10k for a month’s work because they were pushing hard quickly, and I was simply working hard to meet it – but when I balked to get paid in the middle of the second month (yeah-$10k+ is a LOT of dough, and my bills weren’t waiting), they “paused” with me to work it out and hired someone who was evidently more patient. The terms of our agreement stated I was to be paid every two weeks, yet I was 8 weeks in, and still waiting for an installment. They were never waiting for copy though – I met my deadlines, and their client loved my work. I could have simply shut-up and knew I’d get my money eventually – but I made a stand (sticking purely to the terms of our agreement) and essentially got moved aside. I got paid in a few weeks, but this was the last time I worked for them for a while. It meant more to me then – but in retrospect, the additional $10-20k I could’ve earned for another month would’ve been nice. Not to mention the additional work from this connection I likely flushed away with my indignant (however justified) “demand.” I was right according to our agreement, but who cares – I still got all-but-fired, and they didn’t call me again for almost a year (but they did – they always come back!). We made nice, and I eventually had more work on better terms with them, but it was definitely cooled-off for us both for a while. Learn from my mistake…stay on the job, get paid, and don’t leave your fences in a state needing attention. Act like a grown-up. I was mad, so handled this worse than I think I would’ve if I was not angry. It was years ago, but became a lasting lesson.

Creating an Invoice for Freelance Copywriting or SEO Work

Now that we have covered the basics in “why” you do this stuff, it’s time to look at the “how.”

Great news – you need to know nothing, and everything is free. Just grab the right template and Go.

Use this link – the big G has provided: https://docs.google.com/templates?q=invoice&sort=hottest&view=public .

When I make invoices, they are done in Word documents or Excel spreadsheets. I create them as a template (much like the Google ones), edit them with the specifics of the project and save them as a document and then create a pdf to send the client. You want to pdf them, so the client can’t change something on-the-sly before a signature or something creepy like that. It happens – sorry. But also keep it in editable format, as there might be something you need to change later and it helps you to not start over from scratch every time.

So that’s it really – use that link, and find a service-oriented invoice template you like. Save it as a template, and create all your invoices from the same one. If that is in any way confusing, email me directly, and I’ll help you sort it out.

Creating an invoice is a necessary skill to know if you are to be working for yourself at any point. But they are so frighteningly easy, it makes no sense to fear them. And needing to create an invoice is a great thing – it means you’re about to get paid!

OK, let’s start this with my personal thoughts on keyword density. That’s what we all came here for, right? 

Keyword density is typically represented as a percentage. It a measure of the occurrences of a keyphrase relative to a body of text, typically a complete webpage. If a keyword happens 7 times in 350 words, its density is 2% (7/350).  

Keyword density is a measure of SEO that has seen its ups and downs. There was a time years and years ago, where you could cram a ton of meaningless keywords into any page and get it to rank. These days the search engines are much better at what they do, so this is not such an effective tactic. In fact, it simply won’t work like that anymore.

When this keyword free-for-all was happening, the on-page keyword density definitely carried a little more weight. However, because it was easy for anyone to cram keywords all over the place, the search engines quickly learned to spot and filter over-stuffed pages.

And while many SEOs were saying “OK, the party’s over” and looked for other tactics, there were MANY who still believed in the power of keyword density. Personally, I have worked on projects for very well-known brands where the highly paid agency insisted on a specific (really high, actually) density per-page as the primary measure of success. Readability, tone, and even conversion were afterthoughts. Sigh.

Get On With It

…which brings us crashing into today.

Keyword density is still an SEO  measure. Yep, sure is. And some people still believe it is a necessary part of a good plan in optimizing your site. I would not agree. But just like that agency I worked for, I know that everyone has their reasons and motivations…experiences vary. If you think (or know) it is important, go ahead and triple-check it.

If you ask me (as you should), it remains a very low level concern if you are trying to improve the pull of your page. There are usually MANY things you should be doing to improve your SEO before you start worrying about tweaking your keyword density. Many things.

I have made pages rank without having the keyword in the visible text once. Density, on its own, is just a silly measure of page strength in SEO. Don’t be silly – there is work to do.

But Wait…

Let me suggest another use for measuring keyword density, one that is much more valuable to today’s search engine algorithms, IMHO: Using density checkers in determining over-optimization.

Another by-product of the keyword-frenzied days of yesteryear, is that there seems to be a filter in Google for over-optimizing your pages. I am not referring to a site that gets completely whacked because they have crossed the line, but rather, an otherwise solid site that seems to hit a ceiling for ranking for targeted keywords. 

What you might find, is that you may have inadvertently been a bit too focused on improving your keywords, and now you have gone a bit overboard  and entered a gray area. Google likes most of your site, but thinks you are trying a little too hard so they put a “soft” filter on you – like your site will never get beyond #6 or something like that. (that is my own observation and not supported by a focused, data-enriched case study or anything).

Call it the SEO filter. Google doesn’t like SEOs, so if a page looks to be manhandled by one, it could get this SEO filter applied. What it would do, is force an SEO to spin his or her tires in the sand trying different techniques to improve. But if this filter is real, they won’t see improvements until they start un-optimizing their site a little.

In this case, you can use a keyword density checker (per page) and start, very carefully, dialing it back a little. You can look at the density on each page, and work out variations that tone down the optimization efforts.

So which density is the right one? Sorry, it’s just not that easy. Good SEO does not offer simple “Do it X number of times, and you’ll win,” kind of strategies. Too many variables.

Disclaimer aside, it is more often a range you are looking for, like between 3-7%, or something like that. I will say around 7% usually reads pretty spammy no matter what you do, and 2-3% might be a little on the softer side.

If you have a reading that is climbing over 7, 10, 12% or more, it may be very likely over-optimization might be an issue for you. Maybe not. Keep testing to figure out what works best for your site – it is not the same for everybody.

Links to Free Keyword Density Tools

Allright – with all that fanfare, it’s time to see what you can do.

First, you have online options. There are literally hundreds of sites offering web-based keyword density checkers. In these tools, you just enter in a URL, enter in your keywords, and get a report in seconds. The depth, accuracy and filters available will depend on the tool you use.

Here’s a Google Search that will show you tons of free keyword density checkers. Go have fun. The math is simple and consistent, so it is the interface, speed and features that will make a difference to you in finding the best one. The numbers should be the same between them all.

Here is another tool that is a personal favorite of mine – it has been there for years.  http://www.live-keyword-analysis.com/ The big difference you’ll see in this tool, is it is not based on URLs – it is based on text you input into the text field. This gives you an ability to enter your text and tweak it – seeing the density effects on-the-fly. With three possible keyphrases, it has been a great little tool when I need it.

Bottom line is don’t think too hard on keyword density…it is simply not worth the effort as a page-strength building tactic. In today’s websites, you are much more likely to have an over-optimizing issue that a keyword density tool can help you find than you will a weak page that is bettered through a density analysis.

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/

This neat little site explorer tool was released this past week by SEOMoz.

It’ll help you to do competitive research or learn more about your own site, and where you might be able to build some power into it.

I’ll add more to this post after I have had more time to play with the tool, but it is pretty swift. Highly suggest checking it out if you are into SEO copywriting – there is a ton to learn in here.

To get a better idea of what this tool can do, Rand Fishkin, the Big Cheese at SEOMoz wrote this post full of details and explanation.

On another site, I actually asked Rand about the site metrics, which he responded to almost immediately.

My thinking, is that in time, this tool will become very popular, especially in SEO circles. Go check it out!

(tell ‘em Martypants sent you!)

Later observations:

• The tool has a really nice interface and is very user-friendly. Pretty easy to figure out, even if you have limited SEO experience.
• The clear indications of 301s and no-followed links gives some great “at-a-glance” info
• (Entry date: April 17, 2010): I am realizing I use this tool mostly for some large overview glances into competion. I do not have a pro membership, so my results from my free account are limited. They do help, and I do think of this tool in my natural work flow now. I like the look at link profiles to see where I stack-up against the people I am looking at. I don’t get much value from some of the data (seem a bit abitrary, but if used as a constant in comparison and analysis, I guess they offer some degree of competitive insight), and referred to this tool probably 3-4 times. I will give it props though – it does offer value, even at the free level. And the sales tactics used to try to upsell don’t impede anything, so it is well presented in that way. For a free tool, it is one of the better ones out there in the SEO world, to me. That said, I use my SEOBook tools much more often, and still rely pretty heavily on them.  Go figure!   
• (more to come…)