Learn the Essentials to Start a Career in SEO

Search engine optimization or SEO, as it is commonly known around, is the practice where the website is optimised so it can rank higher on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo. SEO practices are carried out so the website can get organic traffic from search engine result pages (SERPs). 

The most popular search engine, Google, has a market share of 98.11% in India. People go to search engines to look for answers. With so many results on SERPs people find their answers, but who determines what article related to the searched topics would rank on the first page, second page and so on? It’s SEO!

Role of SEO:

SEO plays a crucial role in optimising a website by improving the keyword ranking and increasing the organic traffic derived on the website. Only an expert would know how a website would be ranked on the first page of a search engine, and that expert is known as an SEO specialist. 

An SEO specialist is familiar with the terms of the field and is equipped with the required knowledge and skills necessary to optimise a website. SEO is a promising career choice if people are looking to start their careers in the digital marketing industry.

If you are looking to make a career as an SEO specialist, you should know the basics of how it works. The first thing you should know about is the types of SEO:

On-page SEO:

On page SEO focuses on directly optimising the website by ensuring the visibility of the website is improved by focusing on various elements. The elements that we are talking about here have a direct impact on how the website is ranked on SERPs. These elements include, keywords research, URL structure, meta description, headings, internal linking, content among others. 

Off-page SEO:

Off-page SEO focuses on the external elements that help optimise the website. The external elements include, blog posting, link building, social media engagement, local SEO and others. 

Technical SEO:

Technical SEO focuses on the technical aspect of the website that needs improvement so the website visibility can be improved in terms of ranking on search engines. Some of the technical aspects includes, website structure & navigation, crawlability & indexing, site architecture & internal linking and many more. 

Local SEO:

Local SEO covers the aspects related to the geographical location. The website is optimised in the local areas first so the people of the same location can visit the business on their own. Local SEO is important for businesses like hospitality, services, and retail stores. 

Working of a search engine:

Optimising a website to gain organic traffic depends on how the search engine works. The in-depth knowledge of how it works could be gained by doing a course in SEO. Here is a general overview of how a search engine works:

• Search engines list web pages according to their relevance to the users by what they are looking for on the internet. 
• Multiple factors impact the ranking of a website on the search engine, including, domain age, URL, internal and external linking, page speed, technical SEO, mobile-friendliness, user experience among others.  
• The more effectively the website meets the ranking factor, the higher it ranks on the search engine. 

There are 3 essential steps that search engines follow when ranking a website:

Crawling:

Search engines have bots or web crawlers/spiders that discover the content on the internet systematically and add it in its index, this is called crawling. The URLs or page addresses are stored in the engine and one sees the results to what they are looking for in terms of the relevance of the website with respect to what has been searched. 

Indexing:

Index is a database in which information is stored after the content is analysed on the basis of texts, images, visuals and graphics. The process of analysing the content to find pages and then storing them is called indexing. 

Serving search results:

The results that are shown on the search engine after someone searches for a topic, they are shown the highest ranked content based on various factors. The results are personalised on the basis of location, language and search history. 

Why is SEO important?

You would not want to step into a career path unless you do not know its importance in the industry. Understanding the importance of SEO will help you make decisions that would impact your career. 

SEO has suddenly risen to the height of popularity. But is it really so sudden? No, SEO has existed in the industry for decades now, yes, SEO history has come a long way; but only now have people realised the importance of optimising a website. Apart from optimization, SEO also has other benefits, like:

Increase in traffic and visibility:

Visibility is the main aim of business on the internet and SEO helps you improve the visibility of your website that will drive more traffic as well. SEO will help you get organic traffic.

Cost-effective:

SEO is a cost-effective way to advertise your business. SEO will help you in the long run when your website will rank high you do not have to do paid advertising. 

Targeted traffic:

You can target specific keywords that will help you get targeted traffic to your website, the people who are interested in your business. 

Enhanced user experience:

Website optimization will help your users have an enhanced experience. A user-friendly website is always going to let you win customer engagement and increase conversion rates. 

Credibility and trust:

High ranking websites are proof that they consist of relevant information for their users. Top ranking websites are often perceived as more trustworthy and credible by the users. 

Insights into customer behaviour:

A business can get insights into customer behaviour such as trends, demographics and their preferences. They can tailor their content based on the information that they collect so they can provide what their customers need. 

Competitive edge:

SEO helps you stay ahead in this competitive world where everyone is in a hurry to climb the highest of the ladders. But only the businesses who have invested in SEO can get the competitive advantage. 

Measurable results:

SEO will help you track the results accurately. Analytics tools can help you to monitor the websites’s performance that would let you make data-driven decisions beneficial for your website. 

Advantages of becoming an SEO expert:

SEO is a field that could turn out to be a fruitful career path for you. If you are planning to become an SEO experts here are a few advantages that you will enjoy:

Increase in demand of SEO experts:

From the moment SEO has come to the limelight, the people with essential skills who can work around SEO have increased rapidly and are still on the rise. Businesses are hiring professionals to optimise their website to get competitive advantage. 

Profitable career:

SEO expertise has been in high demand making it a lucrative career choice. SEO specialists get competitive salaries and benefits. Even an entry level job in SEO will offer rupees 1.8-2.8 lakhs per annum. And a specialist with experience can get up to rupees 8 lakhs of salary per annum in India. 

Continuous learning:

The field of SEO has a lot to offer. It is a dynamic field that keeps on evolving and an expert has to keep up with the changes that occur frequently in the industry. A career in SEO provides opportunity to the SEO experts to engage in continuous learning to keep up with the latest trends and techniques. 

Work opportunities:

SEO is a diverse field with diverse opportunities to work in. You can apply for jobs or get freelancing projects that would help work according to your will. You can filter the projects that would help you create a reasonable income and give you growth opportunities. The field of SEO also provides people with opportunities to work remotely. 

Networking opportunities:

A career in SEO helps to build a strong network that would build connections with like minded people in your industry. These connections can help you to collaborate and give opportunities of mentorship and career advancements. 

Entrepreneurship:

SEO expertise has entrepreneurial potential which can lead you to start your own consultancy or agency where you can provide services to your clients and cater to their needs. 

Responsibilities of an SEO expert:

An SEO expert would have multiple responsibilities to fulfil in a day at their work. You will deal will various tasks associated with SEO including:

Optimization:

• The most significant responsibility of an SEO expert is optimisation of the website that includes both on-page and off-page SEO.
• While working on on-page optimisation, an SEO expert will work on content creation and its optimisation, keyword research and placement, URL structure, user-experience. 
• Off-page optimization would want an SEO expert to work on guest blogging, link building, enhancing traffic on the website and content creation. 

Mobile optimization:

Optimization of the website is done by keeping in mind the mobile-friendliness. Most of the user searches are done on mobile phones and if the website is not optimal to use on the phone, the business would find it difficult to rank their website higher. An SEO expert works on optimising the website so it is mobile friendly. 

Keyword research:

Keywords are an essential aspect of SEO. An SEO expert will ensure that they have targeted the optimal keywords for which they will research into the subject deriving results that would play the basis of content production. 

Analytics:

Analytics is the major part of SEO. An SEO expert will use tools to measure the performance of the website and make data-driven decisions. Regular tracking and analysis would help to optimise the performance of the website driving organic traffic. 

Constant learning:

An SEO expert has to keep up with the industry trends so they can work on optimising the website according to the latest trends. For this an SEO expert will have to focus on constant learning to have an insight about the rapid changes in the field of SEO. 

Teamwork:

An SEO expert will have to work with a team. You would be dealing with the marketing team to strategize for the marketing process. You would have to share the data analysis with them to help them better understand the performance of the website and how their strategies can align interest of the user as you, as an expert, must have researched the user behaviour on your website as well. 

How to become an SEO expert:

An SEO expert would possess all the required knowledge and essential skills. These need to be applied in the practical setting of the industry. The expertised in a technical field is not a child’s play so if you are looking for career prospects in SEO you will have to:

Enrol in a course:

Enrol yourself in a course that provides SEO learning that will help you become an SEO expert. A comprehensive course about SEO will help you get systematic knowledge and practical skills that are needed in the industry. You will get a certification after the completion of the course that will help you kickstart your career in the field of SEO. 

The course in SEO will help you:

Learn the fundamentals:

SEO has many elements that need to be studied in the journey of becoming an SEO expert. But before that one needs to have a basic understanding of all the fundamentals of the subject that makes up the structure of SEO. The SEO course helps you learn the basics of optimisation techniques and it implementations. 

SEO strategies:

SEO is a vast subject with various concepts and each concept works with different strategies. Moreover the strategies do help come up with effective ideas that will generate favourable results for the business. 

Skills and training:

The course in SEO will help you participate in training for the practical world. The practical training will teach you how to use your skills in a practical setting. You will enhance your skills by working on projects that will get you hands-on experience of the practical world. 

Learn essential tools:

SEO is carried out by using some tools that need technical understanding. An SEO course helps you learn and understand the working of the tools to use in your professional life as an SEO expert. 

Conclusion

SEO experts are in high demand and businesses are looking for professionals who can help them optimise their website so they can increase the visibility of their business. An SEO expert makes sure that the website is optimised and ranks high to get organic traffic among other responsibilities.

Your best shot at starting a career as an SEO expert is to start looking for SEO courses. An SEO course will provide you with the essential skills and knowledge applicable in the practical field of SEO.