Become a Search Engine Optimization Expert
answers to frequently asked "becoming a seo expert" questions
Absolutely! I recommend taking my free course on Search Engine Optimization fundamentals to learn everything you need to get started on your own.
Like any new skill, there is an initial learning curve which can be intimidating, but just set a goal of 20 hours of executing (not learning) SEO and you will get acclimated very quickly. Just remember, SEO is no longer as simple as on-page and off-page tactics, it is far more nuanced so keep learning!
Absolutely, while there are a number of skills that are now required to optimize for search engines effectively, you can absolutely do some if not all of the SEO for your website yourself.
Read this article on <a href="/search-engine-optimization-expert" title="SEO Expert Guide">search engine optimization expert guide</a>, take my free course or even join the <a href="/seo-internship" title="Apply for the SEO Internship Program">SEO internship</a> program
It took me about 3 years full time focus to get good at SEO, then 10 years to get great at it. But you can never stop learning, there are so many different specialties now inside of SEO that you should probably niche in if you are just starting out, get good at one thing working inside of a bigger team and then broaden your authority area.
Before I teach SEO to my employees or mentees, I teach them the frameworks for critical thinking, basic pattern matching skills, taxonomy and ontology. Then I stress the importance of attention to detail and profit orientation. Next, I require them to take my courses on introduction to web technology and learn HTML (hypertext markup language). With those skills as the foundation, we then learn my 6 layers approach to marketing which takes a broad look at digital organic acquisition marketing ranging from brand to content to technical to authority to community and behavior factors. This forms the base of knowledge needed to be a search engine optimization expert.
If you were to do a Google search on this, Google is now showing a knowledge panel of who they think is the top SEO's, I have met most of them and agree with most of the list but some of my greatest learnings came from speaking with in-the-trench practitioners at local SEO meetup groups who were the ones doing the testing and experimenting on a day to day basis.