Talent often goes unseen. Whether you’re promoting your art or selling merchandise for your website, how are you certain that everyone will watch what you make. Small business owners and future entrepreneurs often neglect engagement, but with an SEO specialist, it could help boost you to the top of the results page. Thank you, Google!
What is a SEO Specialist?
Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is rather an underrated part when dealing with different industries. Usually, when looking at SEO, you think about technology. That essentially, is what they do.
Expect responsibilities like:
- Optimizing copy and landing pages for search engine optimization
- Performing ongoing keyword research
- Researching content recommendations
If you are as interested as I am about learning more about this career, let me help you craft the way to become a SEO Specialist.
Education
If you’re in high school reading this, focus on passing Chemistry and whichever Math class you take (trust me, I’ve been there). However, if you are currently applying to colleges and need that extra bit of knowledge to lead you to learning more about search engine optimization and further developing your skills, I have just the thing for you:
- Consider the following majors: Business, Marketing, Communications, or Information Technology
- What better way to learn a new subject or topic than getting hands on training from professors and advisors that have the information themselves. (I mean YouTube works too but this would be a shorter article.)
- One to three years in online marketing
- Whether it is through a work study position or a paid full-time internship, you will help deeper the interest for the skill of online marketing.
- Knowledge of HTML, CSS, and various programming languages
- If you aren’t as tech savvy as you aspire to be, try doing a bit of research on the subjects. Take the step further by engaging yourself with workshops or webinars as well.
Experience
You’re probably thinking “this all sounds nice but how can I truly develop my skills and make sure that everyone sees my page?”
Experience takes a bit more than just learning how to program or code. But, don’t let this discourage you. Gaining the necessary experience needed could be beneficial and even fun when done the right way.
Some examples of experience include:
- Search engine marketing, or SEM, knowledge across Google, Yahoo, and Bing
- Using website analytic tools such as Google Analytics or NetInsight
When gaining experience in the field, notice the skills you gained including:
- IT skills
- Client management (for my business owners)
- Analytical processing
- Content generating
Advancement in the Career
Woohoo! You did it, congratulations. You now get to successfully pay for your own bills and mortgage. If you were hoping for a better speech, don’t look for it here.
But thanks to your new degree and new love of Google search, you wish to further build your life and career off of staring at statistics all day.
Average salary is around $45,000 a year. It may not sound like a lot as it is around the median salary for the entirety of the nation. Play your cards right and you could land a nice life in Philadelphia or Boston.
But you aren’t worried about the money (I know you are but bear with me), you’re worried about starting an awesome career of becoming a SEO Specialist.
You have all the tools you need already
It won’t be hard for you to find a nice spot in a corporate business. If you truly wish to become the best of the best, then here are a few recommendations:
- Set up and build your own website
- Master analytics (now you can use YouTube)
- Learn advanced coding skills
- Acquire skills in research disciplines such as keyword research
- Promote online pages
- Get more coaching or mentorship on building your soft skills like management or customer service
If you’ve made it this far, I hope to see more people engaged with technology. With this fast-changing environment and developments being produced each day, we’re going to need a lot more smarties out in the world that strive to further help themselves and the people around them. If you need help with anything else, Google it.
