Understanding search engine optimization (SEO) can seem like a daunting task. While there are college classes and online courses to learn about SEO, these can be nonviable if you are out of college, time consuming, and sometimes costly. Fortunately, there are many resources available to teach you SEO: Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Webmaster.
While this will require time and discipline, you have the advantage of working it around your own schedule, and finding resources that are suited to your learning style. There are several ways to self-teach SEO, but these are a few good starting points.
1. SEO Beginners Guide
To understand SEO, you will need to star with the basics, which means you need to find an SEO beginners guide. There are books and websites which can serve as beginner guides to SEO, for example, “Beginner’s Guide to SEO” by Moz.
This guide is free and will educate you in what SEO is, and how you can best use it. You will also need to have a basic understanding of how search engines operate if you want to maximize your SEO. As such, learning about how Google and Bing’s search engine algorithms work is vital to your education.
You can find many resources that explain the nature of these algorithms for free, through articles and through videos. If you can understand how these search engines rank their results, then you can begin to optimize your website to appear closer to the top.
2. SEO Mentor
Sometimes, the best way to learn SEO is to have an SEO mentor who can help you understand the concepts. While you can teach yourself many things, and possibly everything you need to know, some people learn better with an expert to guide them.
Finding someone who is knowledgeable about SEO can be difficult, but it is not impossible, it just requires some networking. Ask friends and family if they know anyone with SEO skills who has time to teach, search on the internet, attend business networking events, and visit business workshops.
Bear in mind, these people tend to be busy, so you will still need to be self-reliant, but it will be useful to have an SEO mentor who can give you help when you need it.
3. SEO Group
Having a support network is always smart, and there are SEO groups that meet in person and on the web who can provide support in your pursuits.
Like finding a mentor, finding an SEO group will take time, but search around on Google, in local newspapers and magazines, and on Craigslist and you will eventually find one. Alternatively, if you know people who are also interested in learning about SEO, then you can start a group of your own.
Whether you find a group or make one, you can have a place to share each of your insights and experiences with SEO to strengthen your own skills, and each other’s. Join a local web development group and pray they have some SEO sense.
4. SEO Practice
Once you know the basics, sometimes the best way to learn is through practical application. You can find numerous tools to help out in your SEO practice, and many of them are free to use.
Play around with them, and learn what features and benefits they provide. Experiment with keywords to see which ones are more effective than others. Use the tricks you learn along the way, and even create a simple website to play around with. You need to practice your SEO techniques in order for them to improve.
Once you start to have a handle on onpage and off-page SEO, get your structured data chops up.
Good Search Engine Optimization
Learning good SEO practices will require patience. The information might seem like too much when you start, but take your time and you will eventually have a solid foundation for your knowledge.
Once you learn the basics, you can move on to more advanced techniques, and eventually, many of the things you learned will begin to feel natural.