A big part of being an SEO is learning new things. If you think you are ready to become an SEO, take the time to read this 2,000-article. If you think that this is too much, I suggest looking for another profession to learn.
Search engines have been around for 30 years, but it continues to evolve to this day. Businesses have discovered that this basic tool is one of the best ways of getting leads and traffic online. But you can only gain traffic from search engines if you know how to optimize your website according to the requirements of search engine companies. When done right, search engine optimization can be a low-cost way to drive sales into a company. This is where the SEO specialist comes in.
What is a Search Engine Optimization Specialist?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO specialists help businesses gain traffic from search engines. While there are a number of such companies in the market, the reality is that Google is the one you should master. Other companies are just an afterthought. Well, Bing is in second place, but that is a distant second in terms of market share.
An SEO specialist knows the best practices for creating web pages and website content. They know what factors affect the ranking in search engines and how a website can increase its chances of getting into the first page.
Note that I used chance because, at the end of the day, that’s all an SEO specialist can do. They can only increase a website’s chances of reaching the front page.
In fact, that’s one of the best ways to know if an SEO is any good. A good SEO will tell you that there is no guarantee that your page will reach the first page. A poor SEO on the other hand, out of desperation, may give guarantees that they can make their client’s pages reach the first page.
We will talk about the different disclaimers that you may have to tell your clients or employers. These disclaimers protect you as an SEO professional and set the proper expectations among the shareholders.
What Do You Need to Know if Your want to become an SEO specialist?
To become an SEO, you need to learn skills that will help improve the ranking of your client’s websites. It starts with understanding how search engines (mostly Google search) work.
1. Understand how Search Engines Works
Assuming that you’ve used Google before, do you ever wonder what happens when you click the “search” button? Here’s Google explaining what they do:
They’ve simplified their technology to a point that a layman can understand it. But let me simplify it even further in the context of this article:
Google creates a map of the web (indexing)
They have an algorithm that chooses which pages to show
This algorithm together with Google’s entire search technology is one of the most reliable tools on the internet. That’s why people use it. With these two pieces of information in mind, let’s talk about how SEOs help businesses reach the front page.
2. Learn the Skills Needed in SEO
All the skills an SEO can be grouped into four categories:
- Keyword Research
- On-page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Link Building
You can be an SEO if you master only one out of those four. A company, for example, could choose to hire an entire team with each member focusing on one of those tasks. Now, let’s talk about these four buckets of skills:
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the task of selecting search queries to target for your SEO campaign. The queries should align with the goal of the business, and they should have enough search volume.
A big part of keyword research is understanding the search intent of people who use a keyword. In the world of e-commerce SEO for example, the most profitable search keywords are those that directly lead to sales. A sales-inquiry query with 1000 searches a day, for example, could be more profitable than another with 1 million wherein the intent of the people who use the keyword is to find out certain information.
SEOs use various tools to find these keywords. Mastering the use of these tools is one of the first steps to becoming an SEO. Follow the links below and learn more about the tools from their respective websites:
Many of these tools have free trial periods so that you can learn how to use them. My attitude about these things is that if you’ve used one, you pretty much know how the other ones work.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to the strategies SEO professionals use on the webpage they control to improve ranking in their target keywords. This could include decisions like:
- How many words to include on the page?
- Where to put keywords?
- How many times to use a keyword?
- How to use page elements such as headings, images, and links?
To be good at on-page SEO, you must know how to manipulate the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Wix. You also need to keep yourself updated on the most important ranking factors in Google. You will have to decide which ranking factors to prioritize based on your own experience and the updates that Google release. If in doubt, Google has people who entertain questions from SEO professionals and they respond directly from YouTube and some are even active on Twitter.
Link Building
Google uses a page’s link profile as a basis if the page is any good. Pages with many inbound links are generally favored. However, Google is aware that the number of links to a website can be manipulated through strategies like link buying or private blog networks or PBNs. In the SEO world, these practices are examples of black-hat strategies. If Google suspects that a website is using such techniques to fool the algorithm, it may penalize its web pages by putting them at the back of the rankings.
Google generally wants website linking to happen organically. A good link builder knows how to attract natural links to a web page. For instance, some have created networks in the webmaster community, and they can use these connections to organically get links. Some SEOs know how to get organic links by building useful informational pages and online tools.
If you want to connect with me for this purpose, feel free to DM me on LinkedIn.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers to tasks that ensure the website is crawled, indexed, and found in the search engine result pages. It also refers to tasks related to improving the website architecture to make pages easy to crawl.
The list of essential technical SEO skills expands as Google adds more ranking factors. Since Google officially made page speed a ranking factor in 2018, optimizing for speed has become an important skill in the SEO world. When people started using smartphones to connect to the internet, it has become essential to make all web pages mobile-friendly.
Learn Different SEO Skills
1) Learn SEO on YouTube
The easiest way to learn SEO is by learning from the pros. While there are many paid SEO courses available, you may want to start with the free courses available on YouTube.
Here’s one from AHREFs:
Being an SEO requires a lot of reading and learning new stuff. It’s best to learn things as you go.
2) Start an SEO project
Many SEO concepts are difficult to understand. The best way to learn SEO is to apply your skills as you learn them. Most of you reading this probably don’t have a website to practice on. If this is the case, you may want to create a website and apply your learnings to it. If you can make this website rank, you can even present it as a part of your portfolio.
If you know business owners with websites, you can also offer your SEO services. This will allow you to work on live websites. If you do a good job in making pages rank, the website owners may become your first source of positive reviews.
3. Get Free SEO-related Certifications
Certifications will help legitimize your claim that you are an expert in SEO. HRs and clients alike prefer hiring people with certifications because it gives them proof of training in the trade.
There are a number of paid SEO classes but the best ones are those that come from well-known institutions. Here are a few classes you may take to get certificates:
Free:
Google Analytics
Google Marketing Fundamentals
Paid:
When you write your resume or create profiles on job websites, make sure you add your certificates.
Start a Freelance Career
After building your project website, the next step is to offer your services as a freelance SEO. Start by creating a profile in all freelancing communities such as Upwork and Fiverr. You will be competing with SEOs from other countries. Most of them will be more experienced than you and already have a lot of client reviews.
On these websites, you will have a chance to offer your services to potential clients. Send out applications every day to increase your chance of getting hired. When you find a client, try to do a good job and take care of your relationships with them. If they are satisfied with your work, they may keep hiring you.
While you are freelancing, be mindful of learning new skills and strategies in SEO. You will learn a lot of practical SEO skills if you work with different types of clients from different industries. Try to find clients in the e-commerce, SaaS, and small business industries. It’s best to have websites in these industries on your portfolio because they are the most common types of businesses that hire SEOs.
Freelancing will also allow you to practice your client management skills. Most clients will go to you because they do not understand how SEO works. In most cases, you will have to educate them to set the proper expectations.
Your time freelancing is also a great time to develop your skills in creating marketing reports. Clients expect this to be done regularly.
You can stay on these freelancing websites until you can start working in a marketing agency. If your freelancing profiles are profitable enough, you may even choose to stay as a freelancer forever.
Apply to a Marketing Agency
Working in an agency has a lot of perks but the biggest advantage you will get is the things you will learn from the people you will work with. You will learn what tools to use and strategies that you have never thought of yourself.
You will also gain connections in the industry. This can be useful in the future when you are looking for better opportunities.
Lastly, being employed in an agency is generally more stable than staying in the freelance world.
Follow SEO Updates
Search engines are always updating their algorithms and results page features. Sometimes the strategies we use become obsolete with every update. A good place to start is to follow Google Search’s YouTube Channel. They release videos regularly, answering questions SEO professionals may have about ranking in search.
Here’s one video to start:
Being an SEO professional is all about learning new things and practicing what you learn. Take the time to apply what you’ve learned here today.