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, then 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 is someone who analyses, reviews, and implements regular changes to websites. Therefore, they optimise the sites for Google and other search engines.
An SEO specialist researches and analyzes 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. You need to be conversant with meta-tagging, H1, H2 tags and Href commands.
Also, you need to have a solid understanding of:
- Keyword Research
- 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 in case something goes wrong.
You will also need to train yourself on all the major CMS platforms out there 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 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 to identify blog posts that are 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. To be an all-round SEO expert in Lagos Nigeria, you need to know on-page SEO, technical SEO, and off-page SEO.
These days, SEO experts need to understand all 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, you need to be comfortable researching and analysing online trends and best practices. You need to develop and put in place strategies that improve your rankings in search results.
You need to spot trends and understand what they mean and develop strategies that work within them.
But, let me sound a note of caution. You need to be realistic in your expectations. SEO is dynamic. You or I will never know every single intricacy of search engine optimisation. Nobody ever will.
Your rankings in the search engines can rise and fall literally overnight. Which is why you need to be conversant with monitoring industry changes or hire an SEO specialist who is. This allows your business to respond quickly before things get out of hand.
Conclusion
As an SEO expert, I know enough to add a lot of value to your business. It is why I encourage you to outsource your search engine optimisation to Mauco Enterprises.
Outsourcing your SEO to me leaves you with enough time to focus on other vital areas of your business.
To learn more about SEO and how to be an SEO expert in Lagos, Nigeria, I encourage you to read the related articles below.
Related Article(s)
- 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)
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