7 things I wish I knew earlier in my SEO career

Editor’s note: With the end of 2021, we will publish a 12-day countdown to Christmas in this year’s “Search Engine Magazine”, including the most popular and helpful expert articles.

The collection is planned by our editorial team based on the performance, usefulness, quality and value created for you (our readers) of each article.

Every day before December 24, we will republish one of the best columns of the year, counting down from the 12th to the 1st. Today is number 9 and it was originally released on August 30, 2021.

Many courses, as an SEO professional, you can only learn by time and experience. Steven Van Vesum Provides good insights and information, both beginners and veterans in the SEO industry can interact with and use them to further develop their SEO career.

Congratulations Steven, and thank you for sharing your expert opinions on Search Engine Journal.

enjoy!

After five years of my SEO career, I think I am a very important person. I have gained a lot of experience, founded my own SEO agency, worked with home brands, and ranked websites in a highly competitive niche market.

But looking back now, I find that I still have a lot to learn. I am by no means a big problem (I don’t think I am one now), in fact, my learning curve is flattening.

When I think back to that time, I can do better to become a More successful SEO professionals; To promote SEO faster.

In this article, I will share the seven most important things that I will tell my 10-year-old self about SEO. I was in the acting role at the time, but most of what we will cover today also applies to internal roles.

Let’s dive in!

1. Learn how to write great content

Once, I was so focused on The technical aspects of SEO I completely ignored its importance Great content It is for SEO success.

To make matters worse, I don’t know how to create great content on my own because I haven’t worked in the trenches for a long time.

I know how to generate ordinary content ideas, what kind of headline structure to stick to, and how to best link articles internally… but as far as I know.

I spent too much time thinking about creating content, and too little time to do it. This is not how you drive organic traffic.

I will tell myself: Go back to the trenches and get more hands-on writing experience. Start by writing what you know-search engine optimization.

See what works and what doesn’t work. Learn how to ensure that content engages the audience.

At the same time, start with Good copywriting Fill this gap and focus on what they do and how they do it.

2. Learn how to get links

Ten to fifteen years ago, directory links were easy to obtain-and they were very impactful. You can successfully rank your website with them in a low-to-medium competitive niche.

Combined with the press release, this is almost my MO when I set up the link.

For a while, this worked well. So I became lazy. I still don’t fully understand what makes people resonate, or how I persuade journalists and bloggers to link to me.

Then one day, the link I used to build largely lost its effectiveness.

I’m in a difficult situation because I haven’t developed my Link revenue Skill.

I didn’t think of a new way to get links, so I slowly transitioned to a more consulting role, where I only put forward ideas about getting links.

I’ve gotten out of what is really needed to get the link.

I will tell myself: Forget what you know about establishing links. Back in the trenches.

Abandon your bad habits and take the time to understand what makes people resonate and how to get them to connect with you. Gain experience and work with public relations staff to improve your link acquisition skills.

If you cannot master it, hire someone who already has these skills.

3. Stop writing those 50-page SEO audits

I like to write detailed 50 pages SEO audit.

It feels great to send one to the customer, thinking that it definitely brings incredible value. What else does the customer want?

I have outlined the roadmap to dominate Google’s SERP!

However, the reality is that I have to put in a huge effort to implement my recommendations. Customers rarely read the 50-page audit report that I spent a few days writing, even though they already know what went wrong with the website.

It turns out that these 50-page audits are not good for me.

I will tell myself: Forget the 50-page audit and go where the customer needs you to go.

Provide them with a simple single-page machine, which contains Priority task list (The data is backed by a spreadsheet for more detailed information), expected results, and a timeline for when these results are expected.

4. Focus on long-term customers

No matter who knocks on our door, we are happy to cooperate with them.

This means that we do a lot of project-based work for clients who have no long-term commitment potential or budget.

After a while, we found out which customers would Become a long-term customer Which will not. But we still don’t have the guts to say no to the project-based revenue that will not exceed the initial project.

We thought: You must be crazy to say no to the money coming in?

But in fact, we are crazy to say yes.

For many reasons, these items:

• Work is not so fun.
• It usually doesn’t produce much result, because you have to do everything at once. And you cannot proceed to the next stage of the SEO roadmap.
• Compared with long-term commitments, profit margins are meager.

These items are not good for us or our customers.

I will tell myself: Focus on working with customers that you think are likely to become long-term customers.

These are the people you like most to work with. They will teach you the most, and they will also give you the best profit.

5. Invest in your personal brand

I have never invested too much Build my personal brand. I did not create content and share what I learned, although I often encounter very interesting situations that the SEO community would like to hear.

I’m not sure if other people will find these things interesting, so I didn’t contribute content, but lurked.

As a result, I ended up with very few followers social media. Few people know who I am.

I will tell myself: Start building a following on social media by sharing what you have learned and are interested in. Start writing again and go out in the real world.

Speak at a local party and start working from there. No matter what path you choose, this will really come in handy in the future. This investment will bring itself a thousand times return.

6. Don’t make customers obsessed with ranking

Like many customers, my Obsessed with ranking.

However, while ranking is obviously important in SEO, you don’t want the meeting to discuss the reasons why keywords have dropped from sixth to seventh.

Many times, I did end up with this discussion. This is my fault-I should help my clients exceed the rankings and look at the big picture.

I will tell myself: Explain to customers that they need to focus on trends and focus on more meaningful indicators, such as organic traffic-preferably potential customers and revenue.

In this way, you can reduce the time wasted on meaningless discussions and enjoy more time to discuss how to further develop your business.

7. Spend less time on audits and reports

I have one Thorough weekly list I will run it for every client. I will catch every problem and change, no matter how big or small.

But this consumes a large part of the client’s monthly budget. The same is true for reports.

Looking back, I think I spent 30% of my time on audits and reports.

I now know this is too much.By automatically tracking changes, apply Pareto’s 80/20 rule For manual audit tasks and simplifying the reporting process, I could have reduced 30% to 10%.

The time saved can be used for better results for my clients, which may be important when you consider the complex nature of SEO.

I will tell myself: Spend your time on tasks that will bring the greatest return on investment for your customers (and thus yourself). Spend it in the trenches and actively do search engine optimization-and reduce the time spent on audits and reports.

wrap up

Unfortunately, I don’t have a time machine, so ten years younger I will never read this article.

But you just did it!

I hope that what I have learned and shared can help you avoid some of the mistakes I made in the process, so that you can shorten the learning curve and move forward faster than me.

Countdown to 2021 SEJ Christmas:

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