That you’re reading this shows you’re looking to learn everything you can about search engine optimisation. You’re wondering what steps you need to take to become an SEO expert, otherwise known as an SEO specialist.
You want to learn how to increase your website traffic or achieve higher rankings in Google for targeted keywords.
About 76% of B2C and 88% of B2B marketers say that they use content marketing for their business, so competition is fierce for the upper slots on the SERPs.
Whether your business is a small, one-person company or large multinational or somewhere in-between, if you rely on targeted traffic to your website for sales and marketing, you need to know search engine optimisation or hire an SEO expert or an SEO specialist.
What is an SEO Expert?
A Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Expert or SEO specialist analyses, reviews, and implements regular changes to websites. Therefore, they optimise the sites for Google and other search engines.
An SEO specialist researches and analyses the trends and best practices online to develop and implement strategies that improve search results. An SEO specialist needs to spot trends, understand what they mean, and develop strategies that work within them.
The goal for an SEO specialist is for your content to reach the coveted number one spot on one of Google’s SERP (search engine results pages) or a SERP feature.
She also needs to be proficient in optimising copy and landing pages for search engine optimisation. Her tasks include performing ongoing keyword research, discovering new keyword opportunities. An SEO specialist must also be capable of researching and implementing content recommendations for organic SEO success.
Anyone can learn how to do search engine optimisation. But becoming an SEO expert in Lagos, Nigeria or anywhere else takes time and a lot of hard work. Therefore, hiring an SEO expert is not cheap!
The cost of hiring an SEO expert with years of experience is usually prohibitive for small businesses.
76% of B2C and 88% of B2B marketers say that they use content marketing for their business, so competition is fierce for the upper slots on the SERPs. Click To TweetIt is why some small business owners who appreciate the importance of digital marketing in growing their business learn all they can learn about SEO.
If you want to be an SEO specialist for your website, you need to train yourself in basic HTML editing. It would help if you were conversant with meta-tagging, H1, H2 tags and Href commands.
Also, it would help if you had a solid understanding of:
- Keyword Research
- Google Analytics
- How Google search works
- Link building
- Content Marketing
- Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs)
- User Experience
- Page Rank
- How to Create Great Content
- How to analyse search engine rankings
- Competitor Analysis
- How to write great blog posts
- Responsive Design
- How to craft keyword-rich domain names
- Competition Research
- Marketing Strategy
- How to use the right keywords and title tags in your content
- Copywriting
- Social media marketing
- Website Analytics
- Content Strategy
- Web Development
- Online Marketing
- Email list building and email marketing.
They say practice makes perfect. So you need to find a website you can use to practice. In most cases, this will be your website – yikes!
But please, for heaven’s sake, make sure you practice on your ‘staging site’ rather than on your live website.
Then transfer whether works on your staging site to your live website. Also, ensure you keep several backup copies of your website if something goes wrong.
You will also need to train yourself on all the major CMS platforms like Drupal, Joomla and WordPress.
With about 33% market share, WordPress is the most popular platform for building websites.
30% of Internet users rely on voice search to perform a Google search. So, you need to know about optimising for voice searches. Click To TweetSo it is likely that you will build your website on WordPress. Thus, it will do you a lot of good to know something about best practices for optimising WordPress sites.
Also, you need to subscribe to and read blogs like The Mauco Blog. You also need to watch SEO expert how-to videos on YouTube, SEO industry webinars, and conferences and get certified.
According to a Cision report, 82% of all traffic will be video by 2021. So you need to know how to optimise your video.
30% of users rely on voice search to perform a Google search. So, you need to know about optimising for voice searches, which is also gaining momentum in recent years.
Becoming an SEO expert in Lagos, Nigeria, requires two main things: content creation skills and analytics skills.
These two skills will help you create great content that ranks high in Google or identify blog posts losing organic traffic. Then you can optimise them to rank higher in search engines.
Becoming an SEO expert in Lagos, Nigeria, requires two main things: content creation skills and Google Analytics skills.
These two skills will help you create great content that ranks high in Google or identify blog posts losing organic traffic. Then you can optimise them to rank higher in search engines.
Becoming an SEO expert is not an overnight endeavour. As mentioned above, it takes time to know the ins and outs of search engine optimisation and the major search engines available. To be an all-around SEO expert in Lagos, Nigeria, SEO consultant, you need to know on-page SEO, technical SEO, and off-page SEO.
These days, SEO experts need to understand all aspects of digital marketing and social media marketing beyond the surface level. It will be a bonus to you if you know the psychology of humans, the specific culture to whom you’re marketing, the social media landscape, web analytics, web design and development, viral marketing, content, product, business models and more.
As an SEO specialist in Lagos, Nigeria or elsewhere, you need to consider different aspects of SEO and be comfortable researching and analysing online trends and best practices. You need to develop and put in place search engine marketing strategies that improve your rankings in search results.
It would help if you were comfortable with search engine algorithms, spot trends, understand what they mean, and develop strategies that work within them.
But, let me sound a note of caution. It would help if you were realistic in your expectations. SEO is dynamic. You or I or any other digital marketing agency or SEO company will never know every single intricacy of search engine optimisation. Nobody ever will.
Your search rankings in the search engines can rise and fall overnight. Therefore, you need to be conversant with your key search terms and monitor industry changes or hire an SEO specialist. Hiring a search engine optimisation specialist will save you time and money because you don’t need to go through the rigours of SEO training and understanding search engines and search algorithms. You will not need to bother yourself about the intricacies of a search query or creating compelling content or high-quality content, or an SEO strategy. This allows your business to respond quickly before things get out of hand.
Related Article(s)
- Find Out If Your Site is Ready for SEO
- Why SEO for Business Owners in Nigeria Is Important
- 10 Myths about SEO That You Should Stop Believing
- Why and How to Start Using Search Engine Optimisation Now
- Importance of SEO Sites in Lagos Nigeria
- How to Explain SEO to Someone Who Knows Nothing About It
- SEO for Small Business Websites
- Influence of Social Media on SEO
- PPC or SEO – Which Do You Need? (UPDATED)
- How to Speak to Your Audience Using AIDA and Digital Marketing
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