With the demand for SEO professionals higher than ever, it is clear that getting good at SEO is a financial incentive. SEO also has plenty of longevity ahead of it as the digital age is just beginning. Along with it, SEO is also for people who just want easy money or a work-from-home job. But with no colleges offering degrees in SEO, it’s up to you to understand the system behind SEO and carve your path in the industry. You will have to understand, that becoming an SEO expert is not a walk in the park, but requires commitment, and experience like any other field.
In this article, you will learn how SEO works and how can you kickstart your journey to becoming an SEO expert:
1.Understand the Basics of SEO
To become an expert, you need to start with the basics. Try to understand how audiences interact and search engines work, and how can you optimize content effectively. Learn the types of content that users want, expect, or need. Understand how search engines really work and find out the tools and techniques needed to optimize websites. The thing that makes you more interested is when you get into more advanced aspects of SEO.
2. Build Your Websites
Once you understand the basics of SEO, it’s time to use them so building your website and working on it helps a lot. Many experts admit that they learned SEO by building sites and testing them. By learning HTML, tags, and the latest SEO updated it is very easier to create content.
3. Learn WordPress
About 35% of the new websites are built with WordPress, so knowing it well can help you tenfold in SEO. WordPress is perfect for functionalities that directly and indirectly affect SEO performance. Don’t depend on ads too much as you may suffer from click fraud.
4. Learn Google Analytics & Google Search Console
SEO experts use a wide variety of tools to optimize content and measure their effectiveness. Knowing the workings of Google Analytics and Google Search Console are essential to becoming an SEO expert.
5. Read About SEO Every Day
Using or even measuring the SEO results can improve your work a lot. Updating yourself with the latest changes made in SEO will have a huge impact on your rankings.
6. Understand How Search Engines Work
You should remember that there are bots making decisions about the quality and relevancy of your content. Knowing search intent, relevance, content quality, links, and usability will help you better grasp why the algorithms operate the way that they do.
7. Read Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines
For an even more in-depth look, study Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines. In short, you will have to be familiar with EAT, which means Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google has people to rate websites, the raters are not SEO professionals but they are everyday people so ensure you know how this works.
8. Look at the SERP
You will have to know how SERP is composed, what content do they display? and your competitors who are doing it well? Google is changing the intent behind those queries and serving up content in a format that it thinks users want the most, so look at the SERPs.
9. Learn About Technical SEO
Technical SEO is something that you do to make your site easier to crawl by Google bots. Technical SEO involves a lot of things such as mobile usability, site speed, structured data, JavaScript, and all the mechanisms that influence how a website works to keep these things in mind.
10. Learn About Content Strategy, Optimization & Creation
Understanding content will help you improve the user experience, time on site, tags, links, and so much more. Content needs to be optimized in a way so that it can help search engines understand how to categorize it. That content also needs to be supported by a promotional strategy such as social media, email.
11. Use Link Building Tactics That Work
Link building is one of the important things you will have to learn when studying SEO. To benefit from link building, you need quality links, not just lengthy content. Getting there requires a mixture of good reporting and relationship-building. Relationships are super important for link building.
12. Don’t Develop Checklist Mentality
You should focus on a checklist mentality when you are following a strategy that is uncertain working. Search engines are changing all the time so you need to be adapted, and not on updating your checklist daily.
13. Join Facebook Groups
Facebook is full of active, helpful groups for SEO professionals go joining one or two of the most popular ones can help you a lot. Don’t just look for SEO groups but also look for groups that post marketer updates, successful content creators, and social media pros.
14. Follow SEO Experts on Twitter
Following SEO experts on Twitter can help you get the latest updates and Google secrets adding to your wealth of knowledge. Use Twitter to keep up with the latest news, join conversations, and get ideas on Search Engine Optimization. When you follow the experts on Twitter, it helps you sharpens SEO knowledge and connect with opportunities.
15. Attend SEO & Marketing Conferences
Conferences are excellent platforms for learning more about specific aspects of content marketing and overall SEO. Attending webinars and meeting experts in the event can give you a chance to hear directly from industry experts. Some of the presentations feature expert guidance on the topics that are recently acquired by SEO pros.
16. Listen to Podcasts
Podcasts are gaining popularity today, and some podcasts even cover SEO. Listen to the relevant podcasts during your daily routine and find ways to feed your brain while SEO knowledge. Podcasts like The Search Engine Journal Show reveal a lot of great insights and tips from the well-known experts in SEO today.
17. Grow Your Personal Network
Some SEO experts in JavaScript know nothing about link building. Other people are amazing at content strategy, link building, and promotion, but terrible at some technical aspects of SEO. At some point in time, you are going to need help from someone else in the industry so grow your personal network.
15. Take Advantage of Free Courses
One of the great things about SEO is that free information is available to you. Though there are also plenty of free courses from highly respected companies and instructors, you can easily learn all the SEO tactics through the internet.
16. Keep Learning & Growing Your Skill Set
You should know that there’s no endpoint to becoming an expert as there are many other skills that are related to SEO that make you more effective. Studying web development, copywriting, or even graphic design can help you a lot in making yourself more valuable.
17. Learn from Your Mistakes
Never stop learning and improving. SEO experts learn through a lot of trial and error. Mistakes are made but by learning and taking in the challenges you may find something that works best.
17. Be Patient
Becoming an SEO expert takes time and patience. Stay with the latest algorithm changes and to search for tools to make sure you are still an SEO expert.
SEO experts open up a world of opportunities for new joiners in the industry. You can play a vital role in launching a startup or help upgrade the online presence of a 50-year-old company or help a retailer reach its sales goals. You should remember that once you master these SEO basics, you’ll be well on your way to mastering advanced topics which will make you an SEO expert.
