Do you want to become an SEO specialist in 2024? Probably yes and that is why you landed on this blog. It is a commonly asked question by marketers who want to learn this popular digital marketing technique.
AHREFS recently conducted a survey that revealed 60 percent of SEO experts have been providing SEO services for less than five years. And 13 percent have been working in the field for 10+ years.
We have found these figures to help you see the full picture of the SEO landscape. It’s hard to say how much time it takes for someone to become an SEO ace, however, you can accelerate your learning process. And the purpose of this article is to help you do this.
So buckle up as we will discuss what is search engine optimization and how you can gain proficiency in this field in a reasonable time.
What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization refers to optimizing a website and its pages for search engines like Google. It involves a range of techniques that can be divided into three segments — on-site, off-site, and technical SEO.
SEO aims to help your site get noticed by Google, crawled, indexed, and ranked higher for targetted keywords. As simple as it sounds, it has become a complete science. SEO strategies can help your pages rank higher in search engine results for some time. Luckily, we have a variety of tools available that help in SEO.
What Does SEO Do?
Let’s talk about the three ways in which you can perform SEO:
i. Technical SEO
Technical SEO relates to a site’s technical elements and how they influence online visibility. SEO pros check a website’s infrastructure and backend to enhance search rankings and performance.
It deals with assessing and optimizing several technical elements like code, structure, and server configuration. They help search engine bots crawl pages easily and index them.
ii. On-Page SEO
On-page SEO tackles everything you do on your website to drive traffic and boost rankings. Content, internal linking, and HTML source code are a few on-page elements to make your site more descriptive and relevant to both audience and search engines.
iii. Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO deals with the optimization practices you perform outside of your website. It includes generating backlinks, developing shareable content, engaging with online followers, and optimizing social profiles.
A strong backlink profile shows google that you are an authority in your field which increase your chances of ranking higher in search results.
Average Time That Takes to Become An SEO Specialist
People with experience in SEO believe it typically takes 1 to three months to ace the essentials of search engine optimization and 1 year or more to learn the strategies completely.
Here are a couple of factors that affect the length of time to learn SEO:
1. Time You Dedicate
We recommend before you start taking formal education/training to learn SEO, you should consume online free material available as much as you can.
It will provide you with a solid foundation that helps you start applying the practices quickly and effectively.
And the more time you spend doing that, the less time you will have to spend in learning the practicalities. You can read articles, watch youtube videos, and listen to podcasts to learn the tried and tested techniques of SEO and how to avoid doing mistakes.
2. Live Classes Vs Individual Learning
It is also a factor that can increase or decrease the timeline in which you become an SEO master. Some people like to learn at their own pace without enrolling in a course.
Some are quick learners and figure out half the things by benefiting from the free material available on the internet. It depends on your preference.
You can choose to learn on your own but it might take more time without a mentor and other students. Or you can become part of a live class, ask queries right away when you have difficulty, and solve issues with other fellow learners.
3. Practice Is The Key
Search engine optimization is a practical branch of knowledge. It means the real learning starts when you get outside your class and start applying the processes on websites and other platforms.
You might have heard of the obstacles that come your way while optimizing a business’s digital presence for search engines. But when you come into action, only then do you see them and how to best tackle them.
4. Organization To Win
Another thing that influences the pace of your learning is your ability to organize things. Organization is crucial to learn any skill and SEO is no exception.
Take one step at a time. Start from the basics and then build up from there towards the more sophisticated SEO methods.
5. Nurture Your Curiosity
How to nurture your curiosity? Ask a lot of questions. Don’t keep any questions in mind. It will speed up your learning, and you will become an SEO specialist in less time.
Stay shy, and you just increase your learning timeline. The choice is yours. Prepare a list of questions whenever you apply an SEO practice and face a difficulty.
Ask them out in live class, from a mentor or friend studying with you.
6. Avoid Burnout
As it is important to practice as much as you can with learning, avoiding burnout is equally important. Don’t try to allocate 16 or 18 hours to learning and end up giving up altogether out of mental and physical fatigue.
Yes, we know you want to plunge inside the industry as early as you can. And it’s possible financial limitations are pushing you.
But keep your focus on the big picture. Don’t try to go so rapid that you forget what you learn previously.
7. Set Doable Goals
This one relates to the previous one. You must set achievable objectives if you to want to become an SEO pro quickly.
Someone might tell you they learn all SEO techniques in 6 months or one year but remember this isn’t a competition. You are only competing with yourself.
So, be easy on yourself and set daily, weekly and monthly goals that you can achieve with other aspects of your personal and professional life.
8. Develop A Knowledge Base
Google Analytics, Moz Keyword Explorer, and SEMRush are tools that make SEO’s foundation. Make sure you ace these tools as quickly as possible.
They gather the information you require to view if your digital advertising campaign is going in the right direction. And they help you tweak your strategy if it’s not. Furthermore, watch tutorials to learn how to employ these tools to optimize a website or signup for a course to focus your energies.
9. Direct Your Attention to the Big Wins
There are many SEO approaches, some give you small results that add up to make a big impact while some actions can offer you the biggest perks. The simplest course to earn considerable results is by developing valuable SEO content.
Keyword research and then optimizing pages for targetted keywords can help you quickly drive traffic and engage the right audience.
10. Other Aspects
Don’t forget that these are not the only factors while you attempt to increase your SEO learning pace. Surely, you need to kick start your journey by mastering the basics and keyword research and analytics tools.
Determine what works for you and practice more of that first. Learning to pitch to high authority domains and get backlinks is critical to winning this skill. We recommend you build your website and start optimizing it.
Bottom Line
It’s a great thing that you have decided to specialize in SEO. It’s one of the most rewarding digital marketing approaches that help businesses build authority in the online world.
You need to invest time, money, and effort to be able to start offering professional SEO services to businesses that want to establish a strong digital footprint.
Today, online visibility has become essential for business success. It means SEO specialists have a lot of enthralling career opportunities to explore. There is no magic potion that you drink and suddenly become an SEO master, however, you can learn pretty quickly with hard work, perseverance, and a burning desire to learn.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Q. Who is an SEO expert?
Ans. An SEO expert is someone with experience and expertise in the field of SEO. These professionals have ample knowledge of search engine optimization strategies which they apply to boost rankings in search engine result pages.
Q. Are SEO online courses expensive?
Ans. To learn search engine optimization, you need multiple skills, but some essential ones are:
- On-page optimization
- Keyword research
- Link building
- Technical SEO
- Content marketing
- Analytics
- Communication
Q. What soft skills do I need to gain proficiency in SEO?
Ans. You may need these soft skills to master SEO — Critical thinking, creativity, adaptability, time management, collaboration, communication, and problem-solving.