What education is needed to be an SEO specialist?

Selecting a career as an SEO specialist is an amazing choice for new grads and even for experienced professionals looking to switch fields. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, offers a lot of golden opportunities to work with a lot of professionals in many different industries and fields.

What is SEO?

“SEO” means “Search Engine Optimization.” It is the process of improving the visibility of a business website or a personal website over search engines. This benefits one as an individual to draw attention and attract the perspective of existing customers and even create new opportunities for business.

Who can be an SEO specialist?

A person who is taking up responsibility for evaluating and analysing a website’s development by making necessary adjustments to webpages to optimise them for Google and other SERP(Search Engine Results Page). An SEO’s main motive is always to improve the rank of a website in the SERP(Search Engine Results Page) to improve the site’s visibility and generate organic growth and traffic in the process of SEO.

SEO opportunities are knocking on the door.

Most freshers who are SEO specialists usually start working for a variety of industries to gain experience and learn the aspects of every particular industry. The most common option for an SEO specialist is to work for a marketing agency as a junior SEO officer to gain experience. After a couple of years working for different clients and industries, an SEO specialist can decide to start his/her own SEO/marketing agency or become a freelance SEO expert.

Where to Start?

There are three generic ways to start an SEO career.One can start his/her career as a full-time SEO executive for one company and optimise all their online platforms while working on the company payroll.Starting their own agency: This can be an option for a person to start their own SEO agency where they can try managing SEO projects for different clients. This also benefits one individual to learn about different sectors of an industry or even work for different industries to get a wide variety of experience.Freelancing: It can be the most difficult at the outset, but with time it is possible to succeed without much experience. This gives you the option of handling a variety of clients on your own and even working as an individual contractor for different agencies.

Skills to Acquire for Being an SEO

Before applying as an SEO specialist for any company or approaching any industry, one needs to acquire some required SEO skills. There are many free resources and even courses available to help you build a solid foundation of SEO expertise. There are even a lot of courses available over the internet which can help one learn easily while being at home. Basic Programming/Development Skills: One needs to learn some basic programming skills to implement technical SEO optimizations. so that one can be able to read and understand HTML. These days, there are plenty of paid and free sites where one can learn basic HTML programming. A basic knowledge of HTML programming is necessary because one needs to understand how a website is structured and even a basic knowledge of Java script is required. One needs a degree, whereas any formalised education in the SEO field is not a necessity, but mostly for the position of SEO specialist, which requires a bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, information technology, or communication. SEO experts need to know networking basics, namely a basic degree in business, marketing, or communication, so that he or she can be prompt enough while presenting themselves as SEO specialists. Required knowledge and experience: The skillsets are necessary to be an eligible SEO expert, but more than validation via certificates, one needs experience and knowledge in the field of SEO. One can really gain experience by doing online research. There are many blogs, articles, and case studies that can help in learning it. Offline workshops and online courses can also be an effortless way to get education online.