Professional SEO Expert: How to Become a SEO Specialist or Analyst (Freelancer)

Welcome to my post about how to become a Professional SEO Expert (Specialist, Analyst or Freelancer) the DIY way. What makes me the right person to share this type of information with you is my SEO experience since early 2009 when I dived into the industry as a self-taught DIY-er.

I have been running a professional SEO services company since early 2013.

This is Joanna Vaiou, owner of this SEO business blog.

I’ve written about my tasks and descriptions as an Independent SEO business owner next: What does a professional SEO Consultant do?

Wondering “how long does it take to learn SEO?”

In short, it personally took me 4 years to start working as an SEO Expert with my own remote business.

How To Become an SEO Expert/Consultant

In my personal experience as a remote SEO business owner with my own clients from 2013, one can become an SEO Expert by constant learning and practicing what they learn through the following ways:

By working on their own case study/test websites.
By a paid/unpaid internship or a job at a company starting as an SEO junior and gaining experience as they go.
By taking one or several free and paid courses online while applying what they learn and create case studies (proof that they know how to do SEO).
By doing free or low-pay work for business owners in order to gather a decent amount of knowledge, experience, and have actual case studies that prove that someone is a Specialist since they have been able to regularly rank websites on the top page of Google for their important keywords and helped their projects make money through online sales, lead generation, email signups and more.
By combining any of the above according to what fits your character, resources, and plans.

If you have no idea where or how to start, if you are looking for some extra free or even paid courses or mentors that can help you, I suggest you join the largest SEO Group with PROs on Facebook next:

-> https://www.facebook.com/groups/superstarseo/

, and start asking questions.

SUPERSTAR SEO is a global SEO community and very helpful to people who are just starting out. You may ask for guidance and someone will definitely reply to your request if your post is clear and is not violating the group’s terms.

Wondering how much SEO Specialists make?

Choose your SEO Work Model

Firstly you need to choose between working or starting as an SEO Employee or as an SEO Freelance Business owner.

As an employee, you get to work for just one company, your employer’s.

Your employer may be an Advertising/SEO agency with many clients of their own for you to handle, or they can be any other company that wants you to take the reins of SEO for them.

The key advantage of working as an in-house SEO employee manager is the opportunity to get real hands-on experience to become generally good in many areas of SEO.

My personal SEO career path included:

3 years of learning and practicing SEO on my own projects at home.
One year as an SEO employee/director at a Web performance agency.
My own freelance SEO company where I serve my own clients as an independent contractor.

Personally, I would never trade running my own business and being my own boss, while taking all the responsibility for the future of my finances.

But this is just me.

Not all people want the responsibilities of being their own boss and running an actual business of their own.

It is completely up to your own character to choose what fits you best as a lifestyle.

Areas of SEO specialization

There are many different fields of expertise under the umbrella term “SEO” including the following:

Local SEO
On-page
Off-page
Technical SEO
E-A-T
Mobile
Keyword research (traditional and competitive) and development
Online Reputation Management (ORM)
SEO Research and Analysis
SEO Copywriting
Video SEO
Image SEO
Online PR

Educational Background

Usually, this is not a prerequisite for SEO but people who have a Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, communications and IT have better odds of being hired as an SEO expert.

Also, it is a common practice to hire SEO talents with more than three years of experience in marketing.

Having a certificate from a well know SEO training programs like ExpertRating.com, SEOpros.org, or Bruce Clay, Inc. also counts but with the recent discontinuing of the centralized SEMPO certification it is becoming of less significance without the necessary experience.

Personal Branding as an SEO Expert

Finally, you need to come up with your own personal passionate brand.

To do this, you should evaluate what made you take up SEO in the first place as well as the things that make you unique.

You need to create your own optimized website to refer your clients to and make your brand stand out from your competition through your unique personality and character.

Showcase on your personal SEO brand website the results you bring to your clients, create thorough case studies that show to your potential new clients that you are the expert.

When you bring great results to your clients, ask them to publish a public review about you on your Linkedin personal profile or your Facebook page, or your Google my Business page.

It really helps to build your trust and credibility factor in Google and peoples’ eyes.

Top SEO Industry Blogs

If you wish to become an SEO Expert, you have to regularly keep up with the latest trends and news on this highly dynamic industry.

Failure to do so will result in your techniques and skillset becoming obsolete.

One of the best ways to bring you up to speed with every little detail of the market is to be on the lookout for new blog posts on the top SEO industry blogs to read online for free.

Here, you will be able to get the latest developments and techniques so that you can give your clients a relevant and effective solution within the bounds of the best SEO practices and industry standards.

1. The Moz.com Blog

Moz is a real-life world famous SEO firm based in Seattle which has been a hub for search marketers for a long time.

It is now providing all manner of tools, knowledge, and resources to marketers for a fee.

However, you can read the blog posts at moz.com/blog for free and get some real tested advice and skills from the best in the business.

Moz.com is the ideal site to visit if you are looking to acquire knowledge of value about how search engines work, basic SEO tactics, and get all the education you need to start out as an SEO PRO.

You can visit this site to learn the fundamentals of search engine marketing from the world-famous top SEO agency based in Seattle and get all the support and tools you need for a fee.

They also give you the free PRO S.E.O for 30 days trial period when you can try out the exceptional training for free.

2. The SearchEngineLand.com Blog

This is one of the most frequently updated blogs there is.

With more than thirty posts weekly, the search engine land blog has several posts every day that goes by containing important news, advice, tips, and actionable how-to guides for experienced SEOs and rookies alike.

You can reach the site at searchengineland.com.

3. The Neilpatel.com/blog/

With an outstanding online reputation, Neil Patel is a one-man army force to reckon with when it comes to his fame and influence in the world of SEOs. According to the Wall Street Journal, he is one of the few top influencers on the internet.

You can read about six articles from nielpatel.com/blog every week.

4. The SearchEngineJournal.com Blog

This journal will provide you with daily in-depth coverage of news and reports as well as heated debates about social media marketing, paid search, and entrepreneurial and SEO Companies’ life.

Here, you will have over 30 informative posts to benefit from every week making SEJ one of the top SEO industry blogs.

5. The AHREFS.com Blog

For the best SEO strategies out there, AHREFS has a powerful blog for you to get acquainted with the latest news, tips, and case studies for the whole SEO field. They also have an amazing YouTube channel with so much free golden information available to consume. It is a real gem!

6. Backlinko.com blog of Brian Dean

Brian Dean is one of the most reputable global SEO Experts and shares his insane knowledge, tips, guides for free on his blog backlinko.com. Stay up to date with Brian Dean’s blog and YouTube channel, he is doing a great job educating people about how SEO works and how it evolves.

Summing up what you need to learn SEO

👉 Get acquainted with a Google Search Engine Optimization friendly, content management system (i.e WordPress)

👉 Get a self-hosted website/blog to apply every SEO theory you read online, this is the only way to learn

👉 Choose a niche for your blog that you are passionate about and are excited to create digital content around from the depths of your heart, I can’t stress how important this is, otherwise, you will quit FAST

👉 Follow and put to practice my own personal SEO self-education recommendations that I have used since early 2009.

Summing up how to become a Professional SEO Specialist/Expert

👉 Document your wins

👉 Build case studies

👉 Confidently & comfortably promote/present yourself

👉 Always consume the top SEO industry blogs and stay updated on what is constantly changing on Google

If you follow through with my advice shared in this article, you’ll be ready to start:

👉 A new job as an SEO employee

👉 Your own SEO business if you want more for yourself (responsibility, freedom, money)

OR

👉 You will be able to apply what you learn to your own business, whatever that is so you can save the money you would pay a Consultant SEO Expert to run your SEO.

To your SEO Expert Career success!

~ Joanna Vaiou

Check the following relevant resources:

Relevant Resource: Brian Dean has written an excellent guide on this too here. Make sure to also check out Danny Goodwin’s article on Search Engine Journal here.