It’s 2023 and the game has changed. If you want to be a player in the world of SEO, you’ve got to start leveling up. It’s not going to be easy, it’s going to take hard work, dedication, and a willingness to learn and adapt. It’s not just about site audits and title tags. You have to have a wide range of skills, understand digital marketing as a whole. It’ll be key to keep your ear to the ground and stay ahead of the trends.
Do you want to be an SEO expert?
Learn the main ideas, get real-world experience and stay ahead of the curve. It’s time to rank higher than your competitors, get more traffic to your website and dominate the game.
The world is your oyster, but it’s not just going to hand it to you. You gotta go out there and grab it by the horns. So, this year, let’s make it happen. Let’s become SEO experts and crush it!
From myself as an SEO Specialist for the last 8 years and taking an SEO agency from 3 to 50 SEO strategists, we have a saying: “You have to earn your stripes” before you can call yourself an expert, and once you’re “there” maintain your skills them through tackling more challenging SEO projects, to be a constant practitioner of SEO is the key.
What is an SEO Expert?
An SEO Expert is a wizard who uses various tactics to improve a website’s search engine ranking. They work to improve different parts of your website, like its structure, content, and technical parts, so that search engines can easily crawl it and your target audience can find it. An SEO expert is an expert in keywords and keyword research, and they use this information to drive traffic to your website.
They’re a step above an SEO Specialist, they’ve done the hard yards and proven themselves through being able to drive results to website.
An SEO expert knows back to front how search engines work inside and out and uses this knowledge to improve a website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). This includes researching keywords, optimising meta tags and content, building backlinks, and analysing website data to track progress and make changes.
An SEO expert is someone that’s brought into challenging SEO problem sets, because of their expertise and auditing skills. But first, you have to become an SEO specialist, someone who knows SEO well enough to look at websites and fix their problems.
How does someone become an SEO Specialist?
Search engine optimisation is still pretty new, so most people need to go to college for four years to learn it. But there are options for people who want to become SEO specialists.
Here are some of the most common ways people become SEO specialists:
- Take a course on SEO (or several SEO courses)
- By optimising their own website, they can learn SEO.
- Work for a marketing firm.
- SEO clients to take on
- Get a degree or certification in SEO online.
- Work as an SEO person “in-house.”
SEO is always changing, so it’s important to remember that the best SEO experts are always willing to learn and change.
So, I’m an SEO Specialist now. How can I become an “SEO expert”?
As an SEO Specialist, you are already well on your way to becoming an SEO expert. To reach the next level of expertise, it’ll take those 10,000 hours of applying the fundamentals of SEO practically and being able to get websites ranking and converting high value traffic.
Realistically this may be 2 -4 years to become an SEO expert, this is purely taking what you know and practice SEO on different projects, different sized websites, and getting results.
What skills do SEO experts need to have?
Fast & Accurate Keyword Research
One of the most important things about being a good SEO expert is being able to find high-volume keywords with low competition. Keyword research is essential for any digital marketer who wants to optimize content and rank higher in search engine results.
Mastered Keyword Analysis
It’s also necessary to understand how people are searching for your product or service so that you can create content that meets those needs. But finding good keywords isn’t just about volume—it’s about quality too! This means looking at factors like competition level and keyword difficulty when selecting which words to target with your SEO efforts.
SERP Ninja
An SEO Expert able to view the Search Engine Results pages and assess what type of content needs to be created to rank for a keyword.
SEO Experts are able to see the differences between the top result and bottom of page one and clearly define why they are outranking a website, and what they need to do to get there.
HTML & Javascript Experience
An SEO expert who knows a lot about HTML can tag and structure webpages in a way that makes them easier for search engines to crawl. This makes them more visible in SERPs.
An SEO expert will be able to handle issues with javascript SEO, such as server side and client side rendering.
Create Powerful SEO Content
Copywriting skills are also incredibly valuable in the world of SEO as they allow experts to craft engaging pieces of content optimized around specific keywords and phrases, An SEO expert should be able to write content that is interesting and useful for both users and search engines. They are skilled enough to write a decent blog article that has a good chance of ranking.
On Top Of Trends in SEO
SEO is a field that is always changing, so it’s important to keep up with the latest trends and best practises.
In this current day and age, this is a daily exercise in keeping in touch with updates, news, new tools.
A great way to access this information is Twitter, there’s a massive SEO community on there, or Slack communities like Traffic Think Tank as you’ll get a real time view into what other SEO professionals are working on.
Follow SEO blogs written by experts and go to industry events to find out what’s new.
Devilish with Data Analytics
If you want to be an expert in SEO, you need to know how to measure and analyse the performance of a website. This includes knowing how to use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SEMrush, and be able to tied them together into easy to understand reporting through DataStudio or custom reports.
Proven Results
When you want to become an SEO expert, you can’t get around getting hands-on experience. You can get the skills and knowledge you need to do well in your field by doing internships, freelance work, or working for a company full-time.
Getting your feet wet in SEO might sound like an intimidating prospect, but it doesn’t have to be.
Working on an SEO client puts all your knowledge to the test.
From personal experience working on campaigns built up my expertise in SEO to be able to call myself an expert when it comes to opitmising a website:
For example, my first client was a massage clinic, which was a total shift in the direction of the business and the website. After a bad experience with another SEO agency, I came to StudioHawk for help.
I provided him with the knowledge and tools to carry out technical on-site fixes and optimise for search engines himself too.
A key action that moved the needle was actually “de-optimising pages” from keyword stuffing and removing toxic backlinks to increase the credibility and naturalness of the website,
Eventually it ranked number 1 for “remedial massage melbourne” within a few months of starting.
Passionate About Helping Others
Becoming an SEO expert can be a highly rewarding and fulfilling career path, as it allows you to help businesses achieve their goals by improving their visibility on search engines and driving more organic traffic to their websites.
As an SEO expert, you will be responsible for optimizing websites and online content to improve their ranking on search engines. It’s a heavy burden, from experience the trust that a business will give you, and invest in your expertise with their own hard earned money requires you to be passionate about helping, and driving results.
In order to be successful as an SEO expert, you have to be willing to go above and beyond in your projects to achieve results, when you help others you’ll find in SEO amazing opportunities happen!
