One of the best ways to advance your career is to look to the experts for guidance, so we asked top SEO experts to give us the best career advice they could offer in 10 seconds or less. Read their advice below.
Also see our new SEO Salary and Market Guide to learn pay ranges and where the most SEO jobs can be found.
“Read everything, but remain focused on the big, important things and the upcoming stuff, especially social integration.”
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land
“Start blogging and give away your knowledge. It’s the quickest way to build trust and credibility and show that you know what you’re doing.”
Matt McGee, Small Business SEM
“Get involved socially, both online and offline. Read and comment on blogs and attend events because you can learn a lot and brand yourself in the process.”
Tony Adam, TonyAdam.com
“Things can (& do) change overnight. Be adaptable and stay hungry.”
Chris Winfield, BlueGlass Interactive, Inc.
“The thing about SEO is it is always changing. I think the best thing anyone can do is keep exposing themselves to new sites trying new tactics and gaining traction. Read posts, ask questions, and stay curious. SEO isn’t something you cross off the list; it’s something to constantly be working on.”
Joanna Lord, SEOMOZ
“Obviously I believe one should understand how a search engine works. So get a side interest in information retrieval. The other important element is ‘task ROI’. Always weight what you’re working on against the value you get back. This talent will take you far.”
Dave Harry, SEO Training Dojo
“Never stop experimenting with your own sites.”
Tamar Weinberg, Techipedia
“Be sure you know as much as there is to know about front-end web development. While it’s not your job, your job does rely on those people doing their work well, so you’d better learn what they do and why they do it.”
Joost de Valk, Yoast
” Find success in SEO by thinking of it as “How can I help my client 1) attract their audiences and 2) reach their goals through the search channel?” Also don’t be a dick.”
Laura Lippay, Hows your pony?
“Never stop learning. Learn new tools, techniques, and business and marketing disciplines.”
Todd Malicoat, Market Motive
“Learn to quantify SEO, communicate metrics and success, align SEO strategies to business goals, learn to prioritize, drop SEO jargon when talking to non-SEOs, and get out of the chair and walk down the hall to build meaningful relationships with your non-SEO colleagues.”
Jessica Bowman, SEO Inhouse.com
“Focus on tangible skills that go beyond core competencies of SEO and allow you to interact and engage across multiple channels. There are lots of SEOs out there today so you either need to prove you are a different package or show leadership and management skills to lead teams across disciplines.”
Tim Nash, TimNash.co.uk
“Be careful who and what you read. Believe nothing ’til you see it for yourself.”
Terry Van Horne, International Website Builders
“Become a better business person by showing the true value of SEO to business stakeholders in order to affect change. just focusing on SEO tactics without conveying the business value won’t get you very far.”
Matt Evans, Monster
“Learn programming or at least how to talk to programmers.”
Andy Beard, AndyBeard.eu
“First of all determine who are the SEO experts and weed out the posers. Read and study what great SEOs are teaching. Use analytical skills to determine what the most probable truth about something is and test your theories.”
Eren McKay, Embracing Home
“Use your brain’s critical thinking skills. Never work off of old knowledge, but try what works and what doesn’t.”
Barry Adams, Barryadams.co.uk
“Learn basic stats to know how to run successful tests to identify causations and not simply correlations with a degree of certainty.”
“Always be linking.”
Derek Edmond, KoMarketing Associates
“Trust no one. Start testing. Your career will thank you.”
Craig Fifield, CraigFifield.com
“Read my blog 🙂 SearchCap is something I’d recommend.”
Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable
“Attend events, volunteer with meetups, build teams and train people. And it’s important to determine a way to measure success that can be demonstrated to an organization’s senior leadership.”
Chris Taylor, Onward Search
What advice do you have for SEOs advancing their careers? Please leave your advice or comments below.
