How to Become an SEO Expert – YouTube
How to Become an SEO Expert: A Guide Brian Dean’s YouTube video “How to Become an SEO Expert” outlines a four-step process for mastering search engine optimization. The video emphasizes mastering SEO fundamentals and then putting them into practice, either on one’s own website, with clients, or at an agency. Dean stresses the importance of experimentation and learning from those experiments, highlighting that correlation does not equal causation. Finally, the video advises scaling SEO tasks like content production and link building through systematic and personalized approaches. The video uses examples from Backlinko readers to show the effectiveness of the suggested methods.
Mastering SEO Fundamentals
To become an SEO expert, it’s essential to
master the fundamentals of SEO. Many people skip this step, which can be detrimental to their progress. It’s important to avoid pretending to understand SEO without truly grasping the core concepts.
A good starting point for understanding how search engines work is Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO. For learning about SEO best practices and how they fit together, the SEO Marketing Hub at Backlinko is a valuable resource.
It is like a basketball player attempting half-court shots without knowing how to dribble. It’s crucial to drill down on the fundamentals to build a solid foundation.
Someone new to SEO might add keywords to a page and expect immediate ranking improvements, but it is important to have comprehensive knowledge.
Putting SEO into Practice
To excel in SEO, practical application is crucial.
Hands-on experience is more valuable than passively watching videos. There are three main options for practicing SEO skills:
- Working on your own website: This allows for rapid changes and immediate observation of results. The cycle of testing, learning, and improving accelerates significantly when working on your own property. Running your own site also provides insights into various aspects of website success, such as website design, copywriting, social media, and email list building.
- Working with clients: Even without being a complete SEO expert, you can offer your services to small business owners who need help with SEO. It can be considered an apprenticeship or internship, with lower initial pay.
- Working in-house or at an agency: This provides an environment surrounded by SEO professionals, facilitating faster learning.
Readers of Backlinko have found success by testing on their own websites. One reader was able to quickly grasp SEO by testing on his own real estate website. Another reader grew her website, which helps kids learn math, to 200,000 visitors per month through SEO.
Experimenting and Learning
A key differentiator between SEO experts and newbies is the constant experimentation.
SEO experts are always testing different strategies. However, SEO testing can be tricky, so it’s important to keep a few things in mind.
Focus on testing the right things, such as title tags, meta descriptions, content optimization, and internal linking. More advanced testing can involve link-building strategies, content formats, and paid social media promotion.
It’s important to remember that correlation does not equal causation. Just because your rankings change after you make a change doesn’t necessarily mean your change caused the shift. Google makes over 3,000 changes to its algorithm every year. Therefore, observe changes and look for big, consistent results.
To ensure accuracy, implement the same change across multiple pages or different websites. If they all react the same way, you can be more confident that your change is responsible for the improvement.
Scaling SEO Tasks
Knowing how to optimize a title tag is different from optimizing 70,000 title tags on an e-commerce site. Scaling SEO tasks is an important aspect of becoming an expert. Two tasks that often need scaling are content production and link building.
Scaling good content requires a system for topic finding, keyword research, outlining, writing, editing, and design. One approach involves finding keywords with tools like KW Finder and Ahrefs, sorting them by search volume, and filtering out those with high keyword difficulty. The skyscraper technique model can then be used to create and optimize the content for SEO.
Scaling link building, especially white hat SEO, requires personalization. Personalizing outreach emails improves conversion rates significantly. Prioritizing personalization and understanding the client’s industry can lead to more effective outreach.
By implementing these strategies for mastering the fundamentals, practicing SEO, experimenting, and scaling tasks, you can enhance your expertise and achieve better results.