SEO isn't just a skill set. It is a gut instinct. You learn the basics of SEO when you start writing content, like this article. But over time, you start to get a sense of the website you are working on, what keywords it can take, and how to react to changes in positioning. But the most important thing to realize when you learn SEO is that you can't control everything that happens. Let's take a look at how long it takes to learn SEO. As a career, it takes about three to five years to master it.
How Do Most SEOs Get Their Foot In the Door?
There is no single path into SEO. In my experience from years in the industry, most people come in one of a few ways:
- They started their own websites early on and learned SEO to grow them.
- They picked up SEO because it was required for their primary role, such as marketing, web design, or development.
- They moved into it to change careers, often from writing, project management, or sales.
The field is also more diverse than it used to be. Some of the most insightful SEO advice today comes from women who host podcasts, run agencies, or own large ecommerce stores and blogs, many of whom built their skills through sheer hard work or moved into SEO from project manager roles.
A lot of people got their start in SEO as a content writer. They started their job as a content writer after college and then moved into more senior SEO positions.
Do You Need to Get a Degree To Do SEO?
No. In recent years, some colleges and universities have started offering digital marketing programs and SEO courses. There are also strong data and analytics majors out there that are available. But you do not need a degree in SEO, or a degree at all for that matter, to do SEO.
Many people who have learned SEO have no degree at all and learned it so that they could focus on their businesses a little bit better.
How Long Does It Take To Learn SEO?
You never fully finish learning SEO. But if you want to take a guess at how long it takes, my experience with SEO was that I learned the important stuff within three to five years. You can learn the basics in a few weeks to a few months. Here are the things that I learned over that timeframe:
- Basic SEO: Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, Site Structure, Internal Linking. I learned those things as a content writer.
- Off-Page SEO: This is the hardest component of SEO. It takes a lot of time and blood, sweat, and tears to learn how to get backlinks to your website.
- Technical SEO: This includes how to diagnose a website's errors. Things like canonicalization. I'm still learning these things and sometimes, if I don't know the answer, I have to go find it out.
What Skills Do You Need For SEO?
If there were one skill set that you need to master SEO, it's the power of an analytical mind. You have to think deeply about things. When you offer SEO to clients, you have to become an expert in their business to understand how people will find things on the Internet. Here is a rough breakdown of the skills you need for SEO:
- You have to know Google Analytics and Search Console.
- You have to know at least one SEO tool.
- You have to know how to access a CMS.
- You have to install codes and snippets on websites.
- You need to know the very basics of HTML.
- You should know how to use AI tools like ChatGPT so you can draft content and automate things yourself.
What Breadth of Skills Do You Need to Know?
If you have a gut feeling of how much you know about SEO, you can probably assign a percentage to it. In my rough estimate, the average business owner knows about 15% of the necessary skill sets. To work with bigger clients, you should know about 75%. Breadth of knowledge means that you can look at a website and the numbers and get a sense of what's wrong.
Should You Learn SEO?
If you run a business with a website, you should at least know about on-page optimization. You should know how to promote your brand and do certain things, like run a Facebook page. You should have at least tried to do some Google Ads or have gotten some help.
Should you learn how to sell SEO? Yes. It's a value add for your clients in whatever space you work. And it helps you grow your business, too.
Will SEO Become Obsolete?
No. As long as there are websites, people will use some sort of search platform to find them, whether that's Google or an AI assistant. These websites need to have content created for humans by humans. And SEO will always be a good skill set to have. You will spend your whole career learning and mastering SEO if you choose to make it your field.