SEO is a complex strategy that requires you to understand what SEO is, how search engines work, and how they rank websites. Let’s learn where to start becoming an SEO expert.
- What Is SEO?
- Core SEO Skills
- Google Algorithms
- Expertise in SEO Tools
- Client Handling
- Get Google Certified
What is SEO?
SEO is the process of getting the visibility of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs) through the organic results or unpaid placement (i.e., Google Ads – without having to pay money) of web pages on search engines.
You’ve come to the right place if you’re new to SEO and wondering what it is. In this article, we’ll take a look at the following:
- Understanding How Search Engines Work
- Understand the 3 key ranking factors
- Essential Core Skills for SEO Experts
Understanding How Search Engines Work
Search engines are a lot more complicated than most people think. But once you have a basic understanding of how they work, you can use that knowledge to make your website more visible to search engines—and, therefore, more accessible for people to find.
Search engines always help users find the relevant information they need online. When you type a specific query, like “how to do technical seo?” into Google, the top results will be about how to do a technical seo audit and fix issues.
They aim to help users find what they want online by ranking web pages based on keyword/query relevancy and popularity.
Crawling
Crawling is the first step in the SEO process and involves a Google bot that searches for new pages and content on your site. A web crawler is an automated program that “crawls” around the internet, collecting data about what’s out there.
They use this data to determine which websites should appear at the top of their search results – based on what people are looking for most often.
As a result, crawlers play an essential role in helping search engines find new web pages and content.
Indexing
Indexing is the process of adding a web page to the search engine’s database. The search engine will then crawl the page and collect information, storing that data in its index.
The more authoritative a website is by Google standards (i.e., high-quality content, white hat backlinks, good site structure, etc.), its ranking signal will be higher. The higher your website authority score, the better your chances of ranking well on Google results pages (SERPs).
Understand the 3 key ranking factors.
You can only become a successful SEO specialist by understanding the basics of Google Algorithm’s 200+ ranking factors. The main components of this algorithm are relevance, authority, and trust (RAT).
Relevance
Relevance is the measure of how well a web page matches the needs of a user. It can be determined by informative content and meta tags, but the most crucial element is how closely that content relates to the search query.
The search engine result set differs for each user based on their location, device type, and query terms used when searching.
A simple search for “best SEO agency” will yield different results on mobile or desktop devices for different locations.
Authority
The importance of authority in SEO can’t be overstated. Authority is a combination of many factors, but it’s essential to know that it’s one of the three key ranking factors:
Trust: How much do users trust your site? Do they think you are a reliable and high-quality service provider?
Reputation: How well-known and respected is your site within its niche? Based on reviews and feedback.
Links: How many authoritative links are pointing at your site from other websites and directories?
You can use various tools to measure your website’s authority, including Mozbar, Aherfs, SEMrush, and Authority Labs.
Trust
Trust is the most critical factor in SEO. You can only build trust if you have a relationship with your users first, and that relationship starts with trust.
You must deliver on your promises and maintain consistent results.
Essential Core Skills for SEO Experts
The first step to becoming a successful SEO expert is to build an understanding of the core skills that are needed for you to be able to perform on a professional level.
The following list includes some of the most essential and fundamental skills that you should have as an SEO expert:
- SEO audit
- Keyword research
- Technical SEO
- On-page SEO
- Link building
- Paid search campaign management (PPC) & ad writing
SEO Audit
You’re familiar with the term “SEO audit,” but do you know what it is or how to do one?
SEO audits are done to test a website to see if it is performing well in search engines and how much you could improve it.
We should conduct an SEO audit to ensure that website is set up correctly so that we can reap the rewards of hard work when Googlebot crawls through and indexes it.
Top SEO Audit Tools:
- SEMrush SEO Audit [PAID]
- Aherfs Site Audit [PAID]
Keyword Research
Keyword research is finding the right keywords to target in your SEO campaign, leading to higher rankings and more traffic.
Keywords are the words/queries people use to search for things online. Keyword research begins with identifying what you want to rank higher in search results and then narrowing down those terms until you find the ones that work best for your business or website.
Top Keywords Research Tools:
- SEMrush – Keyword Magic Tool (PAID)
- Ahrefs – Keywords Explorer (PAID)
- Google – Keywords Planner (FREE)
- UberSuggest (FREE)
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is optimizing your website based on search engine algorithms. Knowing how this work is crucial to ensure your content is presented in a way that gives visitors the best experience possible.
Good technical SEO also includes:
- Ensuring your website loads quickly and accurately across different devices.
- Enabling user access to critical information (like contact info).
- Ensuring images are optimized for search engines.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
It includes all the elements you can control on a web page, such as title tags, meta descriptions, internal linking, keyword density, heading tags, alt tags, structure data, and body content.
Link Building
Link building is the process of building relationships and convincing web owners to link to your website. We can build via manual outreach, guest posting, business listing, press release, etc.
It is important because Google considers positive link juice signals based on authority and relevance – something every SEO strategy needs.
You can also audit backlinks using different tools like SEMrush:
The process will also make it easier for Google to understand what type of content you’re providing on your site, making it easier for them to rank you highly with their algorithm based on that understanding.
Paid Search Campaign
Paid search campaigns are advertising that allows you to pay for each click on the ad. In this way, paid search gives you more control over how much your campaign costs and how often people see it.
Paid advertising can drive your website traffic and boost sales by generating more leads.
Paid search ads show up in different places depending on which platform they’re being served on:
Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords) uses text ads at the top of search results pages, and related websites based on what people are searching for—all of this happens in real time!
Bing Ads shows ads alongside results from Bing’s partner sites like Yahoo! Search Engine or AOL Search Engine. Users won’t even realize they see an ad when they search using either one of those engines since it blends seamlessly into their results page layout!
Understanding Google Algorithms
Google constantly updates its algorithms within a few months, which means we all need to stay up-to-date with the latest changes.
You also need to understand how these updates impact your website’s rankings.
You should know what factors are essential for getting a good score in Google’s algorithm (such as having high-quality content and backlinks) and how these factors affect your site’s overall performance on search results pages.
Google Panda
Google Panda is a Google algorithm launched in 2011. It was designed to lower the rank of low-quality websites so that high-quality sites could be more easily found.
Google Panda uses page quality as a ranking signal and affects the ranking of content farms and sites with poor UX.
Google Penguin
Google Penguin is a search quality algorithm update launched in April 2012, aimed at decreasing search engine rankings of websites that engaged in link spamming, especially those involving buying and selling links to make money.
Hummingbird
Hummingbird is a search algorithm developed by Google in 2013. It is the third generation of Google’s core ranking algorithm and was created to handle ambiguous or incomplete queries.
Hummingbird helps Google understand conversational searches better, especially if you’re looking for information on a specific topic but can’t think of the exact words to use.
You might have heard some people talking about “the Hummingbird update,” which refers to this change in how Google handles particular types of queries.
Why did they develop Hummingbirds? Because they wanted their search results to be more accurate and relevant. They also want users to find more information than what usually appears when searching for keywords like (e.g. “how to make pasta?”).
The results will be like this:
Get Expertise in SEO Tools: Free & Paid
Free Tools
There are many free SEO tools out there that can improve your website’s search engine ranking.
Some of these tools include:
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics
- Google Tag Manager
- GMB
- Yoast SEO
- Screaming Frog
Research and find the ones that will work best for your website.
Paid Tools
There are many different types of paid SEO tools available on the market. These include:
- Moz
- Ahrefs
- SEMRush
- SpyFu
Learn to deal with Difficult Clients
You will see clients who want to change your recommendations as a specialist. Please don’t be upset about this–it’s part of the process. But preparation for a response will allow you to move forward with the project.
If a client wants to change something that would impact your strategy, try asking them why they want it changed and what value it adds to the business.
If there isn’t an obvious benefit, tell them no and explain why their request isn’t working for them or their business goals.
Get certified to show you are an SEO Professional.
The Google Analytics, Tag Manager, and Fundamentals of digital marketing Certification exams are widely accepted and have helped many of our students land their dream job. You can also get certified as an SEO expert by passing an exam.
These certifications will show prospective clients that you are a professional in the field, making it easier for them to trust you and work with you on their website’s SEO strategy.
Conclusion
A good SEO expert should be able to find the right keywords and phrases, optimize your page to rank better in search engines, build quality links and earn traffic. These are all significant parts of the job, but many other things must be considered when running an SEO campaign. It’s essential not just for your clients but also yourself as an expert in this field if you want it to continue growing.
