What to do when your SEO education plateaus?
-
Suppose you have been working in SEO for several years and learned all of the fundamentals of search engine optimization and most of the advanced tactics?
How do you continue to grow your knowledge base and maintain the sense of personal growth in your career?
-
Have you looked into digging deeper into the different search verticals? Video, Local etc.
-
While I am far from plateauing in SEO, I find knowledge growth to be the 1 thing that stimulates me more than anything so here is my overall plan (maybe it will help you.)
I went through all the jobs posted online that I would be interested in - SEO, digital marketing, marketing manager, CMO, etc. and pulled out every skill they mention. I saved each one as a unique value so if 3 jobs mentioned "keyword research" I had it in my data 3 times. Then I sorted the table by how often those skills were mentioned. I have focused my education over the last year on the ones that "most" jobs required. When I get tired of studying SEO, I look at things I don't know in PPC or analytics, copywriting, blogging, web design & UX, etc.
I also looked at the "fringe" topics on Inbound (fringe to my knowledge base.) I find those topics that "sort of" relate to what I'm doing and get better. I want to increase my programming knowledge, my database skills and my sales psychology. I don't have to do every job myself but it definitely helps to understand the basics and sometimes the intermediate levels of each.
Some of the skills I have been working on this year from the list: Dashboarding, ROI analysis, PPC, link building, branding, social media strategies, B2B sales, press release writing, Adobe suite, Adsense/Adwords/Analytics, Hootsuite & Twitter tools, WC3, CSS, PHP, eDM, and specifically, I'm studying the FMCG industry because of my limited experience in it and desire to work in that sector one day.
Hope that helps - when I'm bored, I change data sources, as well. I read about 300 blogs in Google Reader, about 50 in Flipboard and I read Inbound.org daily. Between the three, I get a LOT of great stuff to read. I also follow about a billion people on Twitter so I see a lot of new content as it's being released. Just figure out your incoming and change it up a bit if you're bored of it.
~Matt
-
Thanks Irving. I definitely don't know it all, but it is getting harder to find knowledge gaps and learn new things. I like the idea of learning to program but have never been able to actually get very far.
-
Agreed. The programming and technical education alone could occupy many for a long time.
-
I have heard that a good remedy is to invite @tomcritchlow to play a game of chess.
-
I bet i could stump you hehe
i just stay up to date with the latest SEO changes since it's constantly evolving and Google is continually coming out with new products. also learning programming code as it relates to SEO practices is good because it helps you communicate better with the dev team.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Anyone use a white label SEO company?
I work on my own and beginning to get more clients than I can handle effectively so this is my first look into outsourcing some of the work. Does anyone have a good resource for white label SEO? Do you have any experience with the following? Others? Sky Diamond Media
Industry News | | Masbro
Webimax
Imprezzio (local)
Posirank
OrangeSoda
Profit By Search0 -
Anyone know of any forums for agencies or those individuals engaged in Internet Marketing, SEO, Integrated Marketing, etc.?
Moz.com is the best forum I have been a part of. There is a local forum I really like but spend less time on (we have staff who live on it.) I am interested in a forum where everyone is agency related. Does anyone know of a good one? If not, would anyone have an interest?
Industry News | | RobertFisher1 -
Real-Life Negative SEO Study
This isn't so much of a question as an offer The Offer first, then the story. We are currently the target of a sustained negative SEO. This was only discovered in the last 3 or 4 days (Webmaster reports impressions down from 15,000 to 1,600!). I'm not asking for help, I believe we know what to do in order to combat it. My question is whether anyone at MOZ would like to use it as a real-life ongoing case study. We are not a new company and have never dabbled in black hat SEO. All current thinking suggests that this shouldn't have been possible given our age and reputation. A summary of our company/site below: 9 Year old domain $3m annual sales Previous Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Company 25,000 Facebook fans Hundreds of natural links including CNN.com, Washington Post, Inc.com I'm not the best writer and I'm not that technical. I would gladly give the right person full access to anaylics, webmaster tools, sales reports, interviews. Given that this is still ongoing (and there's always a chance we might not recover!) I suspect this would make a great case study for the community given the right author. gfbM8kV
Industry News | | experiencedays1 -
How to Find A SEO Guru?
How to find a SEO Guru I am a looking for a SEO to take over our SEO needs for our website.I am not interested in learning SEO and would rather leave it to the pro's.We already have great traffic 800K+ monthly but we need to take it to the next level and beyond. I have searched through SEOMOZ and read articles everywhere and done all that, I think I am more confused now than when I started on how to find a great SEO. While their are plenty of great SEO guys out their a lot of them I don't feel comfortable putting our business in their hands.Their are some smaller SEO's and some shady SEO's that won't work for us.Then some just don't have the credentials or background for us to hand over our hard earned money and have the future of our businesses in their hands. We want someone who has worked on big projects and had great success and is a industry leader but is willing to work with me and be hands on just not send me reports and suggestions. I am Trying to find SEO guru who knows his stuff and knows it well.I know i will pay good money for this but would like to find some up and comers so I don't have to sell unborn children to afford their services. What would be a good way to a great seo maybe even a guru? Finding the right SEO has become a daunting task.
Industry News | | chrisyak0 -
What is the best place to learn reputation management, with regards to SEO
I have a new client that needs help with a bad review. Of course it may not be able to be deleted, but I have started to scratch the surface on how to help 'push it down' using SEO. Can any offer advice on a definitive source of learning reputation management? Many thanks!
Industry News | | adell500 -
How do I "link" up with USA based SEO's
After 28 long years of wait this year I finally made it to the United States of America. I grew up on "The A Team" , "Knight Rider" and Mcdonalds cheese burgers from 2 years onwards. I am as American as a English person could possibly be. It wasn't until I arrived in Florida and spent two weeks in the great country that I understood the difference in the minds and mentality of people. People were nicer ! People on the whole had a can do mentaily. If your a success people congratulate you for it . Unlike the UK.... Plus people were not scared to make a fool of themselves... (People jumping up and down at traffic lights with advertising boards) Now to my question - I loved it so much I want to go back and I figured me and my wife and 3 year old may have a extended break next time where I can work on vacation maybe over a month or so. I would love to get to know as many SEO's and people based in the USA as possible please and introduce myself etc. Hey who knows maybe SEO Moz can change my future (fingers crossed) Thanks to all the people that get in touch !
Industry News | | onlinemediadirect0 -
What is the best seo software?
This question is in relation to doing site audits and creating branded reports for clients. Do seo agencies create there own software or do you use one that is accessible for all? Also what do you think is the best general seo software?
Industry News | | paulbaguley0 -
SEO sites were blasted by Panda
Just noticed that lots of SEO sites were blasted by Panda... http://trends.google.com/websites?q=webmasterworld.com&geo=all&date=2011&sort=0 http://trends.google.com/websites?q=seomoz.org&geo=all&date=2011&sort=0 http://trends.google.com/websites?q=digitalpoint.com&geo=all&date=2011&sort=0 http://trends.google.com/websites?q=forums.seochat.com&geo=all&date=2011&sort=0
Industry News | | EGOL3