If you asked me back in college what I wanted to be, “I don’t know” was as straightforward an answer as you’d get. Writing is all I’m good at, which prompted me to pursue a career in journalism. I hoped to land a newspaper or TV desk job after graduation, seeing that it was only fitting for my liberal arts degree.
That never came to pass. Nevertheless, I needed a job—hence, SEO.
Roughly a decade into this career path, I’m still writing SEO-friendly content (in addition to NO-BS Marketplace’s blog posts). It’s far from a glamorous job, at least when compared to a doctor or lawyer, but it has its uses. When a business owner can’t spare the time or effort to make an article, that’s where folks like yours truly come in.
Still here? I’m going to assume that you’re exploring your career options and considering SEO as one. I won’t tell you how to live your life, let alone pick your career, but I’ll explain what to expect in this line of work.
There’s No SEO Degree
A news writer can graduate with a journalism degree, just as a Certified Public Accountant does with an accounting degree. For an SEO specialist, though, anything goes.
SEO is one of those skills not taught in colleges or universities, and for a good reason. For starters, the search engine algorithm changes too quickly to keep sticking to any textbook. Imagine learning about keyword manipulation in class, only for Google to roll out a major update that bans the practice or phases it out.
You can argue that history and medical books can change with recent discoveries, but the change isn’t as fast. We later learned that Cleopatra was ethnically Macedonian (traced back to Ptolemy I, who ruled Egypt), yet pop culture still largely portrays her as Egyptian. You can’t afford to be this slow in understanding an algorithm that updates almost daily.
At most, colleges or universities can only lay the foundation for learning the craft later on through practice. While no specific course exists, some courses can give you the edge in learning SEO in-depth, such as:
Communications: These graduates would be the industry’s content specialists tasked with creating SEO-friendly content for business websites and publishers. Anyone can write, but a communications degree can teach you ways to do it right.
Information Technology (IT): These graduates would get into the weeds of SEO, evaluating websites down to their code to look for SEO issues. While technical SEO holds less weight than content, every bit of optimization helps.
Marketing: These graduates would plan a brand’s SEO campaign, from the type of content to run to approaches to promoting the brand. A psychology background is beneficial, as it helps understand how humans think.
Don’t be discouraged if your chosen degree doesn’t fall into any of the three. Some of NO-BS’s content writers didn’t graduate with a communications-related degree. One of them even just got their chemical engineering license.
You Need Patience—Lots of It
While an SEO specialist is expected to keep up with the rapidly changing algorithm, the same can’t necessarily be said for their clients. In some cases, they might insist on less effective (or sometimes prohibited) techniques.
It’s hard to blame them for that, though, for two reasons. First, with how SEO changes, it can be difficult for them to accept new rules when they’ve only understood the old ones. We’re still talking about long-outlawed techniques like keyword spamming (or overusing keywords) because some websites still practice them.
Getting them to change becomes harder when the technique has served them well for a long time. In this case, mentioning keywords over and over had been the norm until 2011, when Google decided it wasn’t user-friendly.
Second, businesses enlist SEO specialists so they don’t have to do SEO themselves. It may be that they want to focus on more important activities, or they neither have the manpower nor the resources to do it in-house.
Professional SEO services are a form of business process outsourcing (BPO), and they’re all too common where I live. They involve communicating with clients, just as typical BPO services do, but they also deliver outputs like SEO-friendly content and code. And like BPO services, they’re no stranger to client horror stories.
We’re past the era that insists that “the customer is always right.” Blindly consenting to the client’s wishes leaves both the client and the service provider to suffer the consequences. An SEO specialist should know when and how to push back, but they also have to keep a cool head while doing so. It’s like what retired Marine general James Mattis said:
Source: Reddit
I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but please don’t kill your clients—like, literally.
As for explaining SEO to clients, you only need to avoid making promises you can’t keep. Even if you do the techniques by the book, the results you want aren’t guaranteed. Make realistic goals and keep realistic expectations. It may not be the results your clients want to hear, but it’s better than empty promises.
If they remain unconvinced after all that, you’ve done enough. We can’t please everyone.
Prepare to Feel Stupid
A Chinese proverb goes: “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. He who doesn’t ask is a fool for life.” I was convinced that it was as solid advice as it was actual, with some sources crediting it to Confucius. Then I stumbled upon some threads claiming that it was a loose, if not bad, translation of the source material.
I believed that quote for years. Now, I’m not so sure anymore.
The feeling is mutual in the SEO profession. No matter how much you learn, you’ll miss a few things—and it isn’t your fault. For starters, it’s impossible to learn everything because search engines keep their algorithms a closely-guarded secret. All that the industry knows about SEO comes from either knowledge that is publicly available or independent studies.
If you think it’s just search engines being businesses, that’s only part of the reason. Making the entire algorithm public carries the risk of black hats exploiting parts of it to circumvent the rules. It’s a matter of “appearing strong when you’re weak,” a phrase originating from a real quote from Sun Tzu, another great mind.
Even if a professional stumbles upon a secret or parts of it today, there’s no guarantee that it’ll still be viable tomorrow. As I mentioned earlier, algorithms update too quickly.
Because of this, expect to commit a lot of mistakes in this line of work (more so if you want to go freelance). That said, there are ways to reduce your chances of doing so.
Sign up for newsletters: Read as many SEO-related newsletters as your time and effort allow. This way, you can keep up with the latest industry trends.
Work for an agency first: Instead of going freelance, consider finding a job at an SEO or digital marketing agency. Spend at least the first few years there.
Take up training courses: Certifications help build your credentials. Search for online training courses and take them if you have the money and the time.
Feeling stupid may not feel good, but it’s a step toward success. Many successful people, whether in SEO or other fields, did so by “being the dumbest person in the room.” It’s fine (or even better) to not know everything because learning is a never-ending process.
The Path of the SEO Specialist
An SEO career will be uneventful compared to the likes of law or medicine. That said, entry is much easier because it isn’t restricted to a specific college degree. And over the course of the career, it’s important to stay cool when solving problems and motivated to learn.