STARTING OUT NEW DIGITAL SKILLS (2)

Being an SEO Specialist

It’s our second post on SOUNDS this month, and if you missed the post on graphic design, I suggest you take a moment and just visit it, especially if you’ve got a thing for the arts. In this post, we’ll be talking something different, something less eye catchy but still visibility-focused; we’re talking Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

In this post, we explore what SEO is, what it takes to be an SEO specialist, types of SEO, and why you should consider, seriously consider learning SEO, whether on the side or as a full-time career job.

"The best place to hide a dead body is on the third page of a search engine" – Anonymous

If you were ever grateful to Google for giving you just the perfect answer to something you searched online, someone you should have given credit as well, but you probably didn’t acknowledge is an SEO specialist. If on the other hand, you once searched for a thing on a search engine and didn’t find it, there’s a high chance it’s because an SEO specialist hasn’t gotten there yet.

So, what is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as the name indicates, is the optimising of a website page to appear high on the ranking of a search engine. With increasing online market sales, as global e-commerce rose from 4% in 2018 to 21% in 2021, according to Morgan Stanley, there has been a steady increase in demand for producers to put their goods and services online.  SEO is aimed at providing visibility for businesses, helping them create leads that can be converted to customers through search engines.

The search engine market is dominated by Google, as they control over 92% of the worldwide search engine market share; the two closest rivals make up less than 4% of the remaining. It is, therefore, safe to say that optimising your page for Google is as good as optimising for the search engine market.

Some Facts You Should Know about Google

1. Google processes an estimated 63,000 search queries per second. This is about 5.6 billion searches daily and over 2 trillion searches yearly
2. More than 50% of Google searches end without a click
3. 14% of Google searches are a question
4. More than 90% of web pages receive zero organic traffic from Google. Just about 5% receive 10 visits or less each month
5. Searching talkwithwilly on Google would bring out all you need to know about us
6. Talk with Willy first appeared on Google less than nine weeks after take-off

Types of SEO

There used to be only the traditional SEO for search engines as we know them, but with the increased growth of social media platforms, there are now two kinds of SEO:

1. Direct Search Engine SEO

This is the classic use of Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. to find information on desired topics. It works using the RIR (Read-Index-Retrieve) formula. They make use of keywords and keyword sentences to find and provide results to meet user search query demands. Today, search engines have been developed and modified to also feature results from social media search engines.

2. Social Media SEO

Social media platforms today such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter have their own search engines within their platform. This enables users to find information within their platform without having to look outside. With millions and billions of users, their search engines are programmed to respond to keywords mainly in the form of usernames, topics, and hashtags.

The increasing noise in the social media space has greatly reduced the time users spend on irrelevant pages, so to capture the attention of users when they carry out searches, your profile and posts have to be well optimised. Research has shown that posts with five or more hashtags can get up to 10 times more impressions than posts without hashtags.

Why Bother about SEO?

If the stats above didn’t stir something inside you, maybe this will:

According to Google, every dollar a business spends on Google Ads doubles itself. This means that Google has shown that if you can put $1 million into Google Ads, you can expect a $2 million return. If you want this kind of result, then SEO is your channel.

Imagine if Google was a market and you wanted to go shopping, you already know that, unlike your physical market, you can just look up what you want and have it appear. All you would just have to do is tell Google what you want, Google brings it and you make payments and get your order, wouldn’t this be great?

The truth is that this is already happening. Google has been set up to handle your search needs as much as possible and it goes through painstaking efforts to ensure that you get what you absolutely need. This is wonderful news for the customer, but not so good news for the seller. This is because due to Google’s high standard, only qualified results can appear on its search engine results. The criteria for qualification are never revealed, but as a general guide, Google requires that you set your page to be as helpful as it can be to the visitor, and here is where the SEO comes in.

In traditional marketing, shops that do not meet required standards are closed. Well, Google doesn’t close your store; it only hides the store and obscures your business, preventing customers from coming.

Being an SEO Specialist

An SEO specialist is a person who has been trained to consistently create, review, edit, and format web pages for optimisation on search engines. Tasked with this duty, the SEO specialist is expected to have some technical knowledge of the brand in question, and knowledge of HTML, keywords, tags, and link building.

The specialist should also be adept at setting up and running ad campaigns on search engines.

5 Must-Haves for an SEO Specialist

Just like our graphic design post, being an SEO specialist has its requirements, and while some are similar, we would share your needs as tailored for an SEO specialist

1. Get a Passion

SEO is long-term, I repeat, SEO is long-term, and it also requires consistent effort. Results and changes in SEO could take weeks or months to reflect, and with an ever-changing algorithm used by search engines, you have to be ready for constant tweaks to your content: your landing pages, ads, etc.

If you want to be an SEO specialist, you’ve got to get down, get technical, and prepare your mind for it.

2. Get a Device

Unlike graphic design, SEO doesn’t really require high-powered devices. You can use any basic phone or computer to serve your SEO needs and I’m pretty sure even the device you are reading this with right now is a great tool to start with, barring any hardware defect.

3. Get Your Preferred Tool

Even though you can do the job with any device, you cannot just use any platform to do SEO. There are numerous tools that can be used for keyword planning and page SEO audit and analysis. The only subtle catch is this: good SEO tools aren’t free; your money has to go in.

If you have the resources to cover the bill, the top SEO tools you should use are:

a. Moz

b. SEMrush

c. Ahrefs

d. SEOptimer

e. Yoast SEO

Most of them come with free or trial packages but they are very limited if you aren’t paying.

Helpful free tools include:

a. Google Trends

b. Keyword planner

c. Seobility

d. GTmetrix

e. Lighthouse

The above listed would do a decent job for a rookie but if you are required to do advanced SEO, the paid tools are king.

4. Get Learning Materials

Just like I said last week, I firmly believe that I am my first and best teacher on anything I want to learn, and so should you. You only have to stir up this teacher by acquiring materials necessary for learning. There are abundant materials on the internet and in physical libraries on how to acquire some basic knowledge of SEO and best practices. With the right passion, you can upskill yourself and learn at a faster rate.

You should also get conversant with search engines, study and observe trends, and note patterns. Google can give you sufficient insight as to its working pattern and this could be enough to guide you as you start your SEO journey.

5. Get a Tutor

Another thing to repeat from last week: You might take free classes online and that’s fine, we even have a post on where you can learn digital skills for free online, but you absolutely NEED a tutor. A tutor isn’t just a teacher; a tutor is a mentor, a coach, and an expert in the field who is there to hold your hand as you learn.

Free online classes are not tailored to a particular audience, they are for anyone and it’s a good place to start. A tutor is one who especially attends to your needs, personally tracks your progress, and of course, helps you learn in the best way possible.

Starting out on SEO by yourself can be very frustrating, especially if you are already handling live projects as a newbie. There are a lot of black hat practices that desperate newbies can engage in because they want to get results, drive traffic to their page, and convert leads into customers. A lot of them do not know that this usually achieves the exact opposite: their site could get blacklisted by Google forever. A tutor would expose you to some of these practices to avoid and also show you the latest global best practices to engage in.

You can have physical or online classes with your tutor, and it is best you take as many paid courses as possible from such a person, because that’s where the true and absolute value lies. You can ask anyone who has taken free and paid courses, and they would tell you the difference.

So, we are through with SEO for beginners. If you’ve read this, and you now realise that your online identity needs a professional touch from an SEO specialist or you want to know how we were able to rank on Google in less than nine weeks, seven weeks ahead of the expected time, feel free to drop a comment or send me an email. If you want exclusive coaching classes or training, you can also let me know, preferably by connecting with me on LinkedIn, I’ll be swift to respond.

Until I bring you another post next week, stay smart.