You’ve heard the acronym — SEO — but is it really important to the success of your marketing efforts? Consider this: Most of your digital marketing efforts are tied to increasing the discoverability of your website and moving a consumer down the conversion funnel.
With that said, it’s important to learn SEO and make sure you know more than enough to be dangerous. As a marketing professional, it’s your responsibility to understand where to invest marketing budget and time to improve your SEO efforts so that you can ensure that you are reaching potential customers.
In one of the earlier blogs, we spoke about what SEO is and how you can improve it; in this blog we intend to break down the process and reasons for why you should learn SEO.
Why Is It Imperative for Every Marketer to Learn SEO?
Learning SEO can prove to be extremely beneficial, especially at a time when most businesses are moving online. For example, imagine that you have a really nice store in a shopping complex but nobody can find it because it’s buried in the back of the mall.
It’s the same case with websites. Having a website or a webpage is the beginning and not the end. You have to ensure traffic (or footfall)! If you want to get noticed by your audience then you will have to leave some sign-boards or cues that can help people find you on Google.
SEO results in organic/ unpaid/ earned traffic. Not only this, it can also complement and enhance your paid traffic, if done effectively.
How Can You Learn SEO on Your Own?
If you are just starting your career in the field of Search Engine Optimization then MOZ is a great place to learn the basics. It’s free and has a detailed Beginner’s Guide to SEO. Just go through this once and you will have a fair idea of “What SEO is.”
You can also try your hand at some highly recommended books like “When Search Meets Web Usability” by Shari Thurrow and Nick Musica. This book is slightly technical but is easy to understand for beginners. Some experts recommend it even to experienced SEO professionals.
Read as much as you can about the history and evolution of Google as a search engine. This will help you understand its algorithms and see some past trends.
Learn Advanced SEO
If you already have some basic knowledge then it’s time to put theory into practice. Unfortunately, SEO isn’t instant; it takes time to rank in SERPS and doesn’t work on a one-size-fits-all policy. As an SEO professional, you’ll be expected to dig deeper to create a strategy that is appropriate for attracting the right audience that will drive conversions.
Additionally, if you want to create a solid SEO strategy then learn how to optimize your search engine presence through on-site and off-site activities, including how to develop your target keyword list, optimize your website UX and design, and execute link-building campaigns.
All of this can be learned through an in-depth study of the concept and hands-on projects. Udacity’s Digital Marketing Nanodegree program provides just that.
Learn SEO and complete a project that will give you real-life experience in conducting an SEO audit. As a part of the project, you’ll audit a Udacity website or your company’s website and recommend actions to optimize its ranking in search engine results.
You’ll recommend a target keyword list, evaluate the design and the UX of the site, and recommend improvements. This project will help you understand what it means to be a full-fledged SEO expert. Not to mention, you can always flaunt it on your resume!
