Does SEO fascinate you and are you looking forward to making a career in SEO? SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is not a new concept. It’s been around for over two decades, but it’s only just begun to acquire traction as a legitimate career.
Today, universities all around the world offer official courses in digital marketing, and there are several online resources for getting SEO training and certification.
Aside from acquiring the appropriate training, there are a few things to consider if you want to start a career in SEO. An SEO professional’s work responsibilities include much more than simply putting theories learned in class into reality.
Almost every firm with a website wants to reach out to a big number of potential customers, which is why they are prepared to spend on SEO.
As a result, the need for well-trained SEO experts grows. If you’re thinking about SEO as a profession, this step-by-step SEO Guide lesson will offer you a basic grasp of what SEO is and valuable insights to help you get started.
Before diving deep into how to build a career in Search Engine Optimization, let us take a look at what is SEO?
SEO – Meaning
SEO is a kind of digital marketing that focuses on boosting a website’s ranking in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Since search engines are the most frequent source of organic (non-paid) traffic to a website, SEO is a highly competitive field: a good plan may provide a company a lot of visibility.
Search engines may frequently detect attempts to cater to the search engine rather than the user, and as a result, the site will be ranked lower. Cloaking is a technique that employs all of the essential keywords and methods to make a site appear information-rich and desirable on the surface in order to attract attention while providing no actual value to the user.
Steps to Build a Career in SEO
1. Hone Your SEO Skills
You must first ensure that you have the essential SEO expertise before applying for any SEO-related job. Spend some time learning about search engines; after all, that’s what SEO is all about: optimizing a website for search engines so that it ranks better in search results.
Learn SEO and about the many parts of the SEO process, such as technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO. Make sure you’re familiar with SEO vocabularies, such as keyword research, link building, backlinks, white hat SEO, black hat SEO, and any other words you come across in SEO-related studies.
Following an SEO course is one of the finest and quickest ways to grasp the theory. If it’s well-structured, it’ll provide you all of the information you need in one spot, saving you hours of searching on Google.
2. Improving The Writing Skills
Optimizing a page’s title, meta description, headers, and content is one of the most typical SEO chores. If you don’t have strong writing abilities, you won’t be able to complete this properly.
If English is not your first language and you want to deal with clients in the United States or the United Kingdom, you should take a course or find other ways to enhance your English writing abilities. For the time being, it may appear to be an optional step, but once you begin conducting SEO copywriting work, you will see how important it is.
3. Learn Fundamental Development Skills
To become an SEO, you don’t need to be a developer, but you do need some fundamental development abilities. You should be able to read and comprehend HTML code, grasp how a website is organized, and know-how JavaScript fits into the web development process.
You must be able to modify page names and descriptions, as well as other SEO-related settings, using a popular CMS such as WordPress (permalinks, comment settings, sitemaps, etc.). You’ll be guiding developers to make SEO-related adjustments to a website as part of your job, so you’ll need to know what to ask for.
4. Learn and Polish Your Analytical Skills
You’ll have to create reports for the client or your supervisor for any SEO work you undertake. A solid SEO report pulls data from a variety of places, including Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and SEMRUSH.
It’s critical that you have the abilities to read, analyze, and present this data in an understandable manner. It’s essential to know how to utilize programs like Excel and Google Sheets.
An analytical mentality may aid in effectively assessing the efficacy of Internet marketing campaigns and websites in order to provide insights for a more effective future course of action.
Using data analysis, SEO managers must be able to track, evaluate, and report on key KPIs and success indicators. These data will be used to inform editorial initiatives that will improve the company’s search engine rankings.
5. Get Familiar With SEO Tools
The appropriate SEO tools may make your life easier if you understand how to utilize them properly.
Aside from knowing how to use and configure the basic requirements (Google search console and Google Analytics), you should also understand how to use and configure additional SEO tools such as:
- SEMRUSH: This is by far one of the best SEO tools we’ve ever used. It’s a tool you can use every day for a variety of activities, including keyword research, link building, PPC advertising, competition analysis, and so on.
- Yoast SEO: The most widely used SEO plugin available. Knowing how to utilize Yoast SEO does not make you a professional SEO, but you can’t be a pro unless you know all there is to know about Yoast SEO.
- Ahrefs: Ahrefs is one of the most used SEO tools on the internet. When it comes to the major website crawlers, it is only second to Google. Ahrefs’ Site Audit function is the greatest SEO analysis tool available, and SEO specialists can’t get enough of it. The tool will show you which areas of your website need to be improved in order for it to rank higher in search engines.
- MOZ Pro: Moz Pro, an SEO software, keeps coming up as one of the best SEO tools that professionals actually use. Moz is a full-service powerhouse that can help you with keyword recommendations or a site crawl. You can learn a lot about how well your website is performing as well as how to improve it.
6. Extensively Understand Google Webmaster Guidelines
The Google Webmaster Guidelines are a collection of regulations established by Google. They describe everything there is to know about their quality standards and policies in this document.
If you are unfamiliar with Google standards and guidelines, you may do anything that will result in your website (or worse, the client’s website) being penalized, which would result in a loss of ranks and traffic. This is something you could be questioned about in an interview, so take the time to study and grasp the guidelines.
7. Get Hands-On Experience and Expand Your SEO Knowledge
As previously said, an SEO’s work responsibilities are not restricted to understanding SEO principles and theory but are mostly practical.
To become a successful SEO expert, you must practice SEO and demonstrate to your prospective clients or employers that you can enhance a website’s SERPS ranks, whether you have a formal degree or an SEO certificate.
A firm or SEO agency will hire you based on your experience and talents to improve their rankings, which will result in more organic traffic and customers.
The greatest method to gain SEO experience and understand SEO is to put it into practice. This is your first step if you don’t already have a website. Choose a topic, conduct keyword research, and launch a website as soon as possible.
Improve your website’s SEO and aim to rank for as many keywords as possible. There will undoubtedly be roadblocks in the way. Don’t give up; learn from your failures and persevere until you get satisfactory outcomes (in terms of organic traffic). This may be your ticket to landing your first customer or employment as an SEO.
8. Google Ads Certification Can Boost Your Career in SEO
Paid Search Advertising (PPC) is a component of search engine marketing, and Google Ads is the most widely used PPC platform. While learning SEO should be your primary goal, understanding how Google Ads works can help you gain a better knowledge of Google’s operations.
Google Ads appear on top and below organic results on a normal search results page, and it’s important to understand what criteria and conditions cause an ad to appear higher than organic results for a particular phrase.
SEO and Google Ads complement each other nicely, and it’s another way for you to demonstrate your knowledge and provide a diverse variety of digital marketing services to your clients.
9. First Client
You should initially get SEO skills by creating and optimizing your own website. It’s time to take it a step further and get your first customer after you’re confident that you know what you’re doing and have some positive outcomes.
Your main aim at this point is to put your abilities to the test in a real-world situation and to add practical experience to your CV. Register for a freelancer account on sites like Upwork, Fiverr, and PeoplePerHour.
On a daily basis, these platforms advertise hundreds of SEO jobs. Sort through the requests and apply for SEO tasks that you can do with your existing skills and expertise. To get a few contracts, keep your rates modest.
Remember that your aim at this point is to gather experience and prepare for forthcoming job interviews, not to make a livelihood as an SEO freelancer.
Conclusion
It is believed that you should choose a job that both stimulates and satisfies you. When you decide to pursue a career in SEO, which is a subset of digital marketing, you will have the chance to work in an industry that is rapidly expanding.
Remember that the expert of today was once a beginner who was learning how to use SEO growth hacks. So begin your career in SEO by enrolling in prominent SEO courses and certifications, and grow into an experienced domain leader.