How to learn SEO
Now that you understand more about what SEO is and how it works – how can you learn more?
Reading (or, if you prefer, watching or listening to) the latest SEO news, research, best practices and other developments should become one of your regular habits, whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly. You should also invest in attending at least one or two events per year.
The expectations and behavior of searchers are constantly evolving, which means algorithms are constantly changing to keep up. That, in combination with new breakthroughs in technology (look no further than the explosive rise of ChatGPT in late 2022 and the sudden addition of generative AI to search results in 2023).
Here are some trusted resources and tips to help you grow as an SEO professional.
Search Engine Land’s SEO resources
Search Engine Land has been covering SEO since 2006. In addition to news stories written by our editorial staff, Search Engine Land publishes contributed articles from a diverse group of subject matter experts featuring helpful SEO tips, tactics, trends and analysis.
We’re biased, but we highly suggest you sign up to receive Search Engine Land’s free email newsletter featuring a roundup of the latest SEO news, and insights every weekday.
Search Engine Land also has multiple categories on topics dedicated to specific areas and platforms which you may find helpful:
- All SEO
- Bing SEO
- Content SEO
- Ecommerce SEO
- Enterprise SEO
- Google: E-E-A-T
- Google algorithm updates
- Google Search Console
- Google search features
- Link building
- Local SEO
- News SEO
- Technical SEO
Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO
(Editor’s Note: We are currently updating this guide, with the goal of having the chapters completely updated in the first quarter of 2024.)
Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO walks you through the fundamentals of optimizing for search so you can develop a solid strategy to drive organic traffic to your website.
Our guide explains these factors in more depth, and highlights tactical tips from experts on search engine optimization that will help your website get more visitors from organic search.
- Chapter 1: Types of Search Engine Success Factors: These are the on- and off-site factors that can affect your search rankings. We’ll also look at niche verticals in SEO and toxic SEO tactics to avoid.
- Chapter 2: Content & Search Engine Success Factors: Keep these elements in mind to create high-quality content that search engines and your target audiences will love.
- Chapter 3: Site Architecture & Search Engine Success Factors: Let’s go behind the scenes and look at the aspects of your site that make it easy for search engines to access and influence user experience.
- Chapter 4: HTML Code & Search Engine Success Factors: HTML tags and structured data help organize information on your site and help search engines understand your content.
- Chapter 5: Trust, Authority, Expertise & Search Rankings: How your users engage with your site, as well as its reputation and authority, helps search engines determine if it’s worthy of showing to users.
- Chapter 6: Link Building & Ranking In Search Engines: Why backlinks are still important and what they tell search engines about your content.
- Chapter 7: Personalization & Search Engine Rankings: These are the user-specific elements, such as location and intent, that can affect the results users see.
- Chapter 8: Toxins & Search Engine Spam Penalties: Beware of SEO “shortcuts.” Getting caught using these tactics can potentially result in a manual action penalty or even get your site delisted from the search index.
- Chapter 9: Emerging Verticals in Search: Voice, local, image and video search represent new ways for users to find what they’re looking for. While they each provide nuanced opportunities for brands, they’re still based on the fundamental principles of SEO.
Google’s SEO resources
- Google Search Essentials: In this guide, Google discusses technical requirements, spam policies and key best practices.
- SEO starter guide: An overview of SEO basics, according to Google’s best practices.
- Search quality evaluator guidelines: This document explains how Google instructs human raters to evaluate the quality of its search results by examining the experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of content and websites.
Developing your SEO skills
One of the best ways to learn SEO is to experiment. Hands-on experience is one of the absolute best ways to advance your skills and deepen your SEO knowledge.
Build your own websites – and make them about topics you are passionate about. Try out various tactics and techniques. See what works and what doesn’t.
SEO requires many other skills. Dig deeper into some of those in 13 essential SEO skills you need to succeed.
Another way to advance your career is by attending a search conference. The Search Engine Land team programs the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) conference series, which has a dedicated SEO track that dives into various aspects of SEO and features some excellent speakers and presentations. SMX Advanced takes place in June and SMX Next in November.
Beyond that, there are several other options (free and paid) to learn SEO:
- Websites, blogs and publications.
- Books and ebooks.
- Videos.
- Podcasts.
- Webinars.
- Conferences, events and meetups.
- Courses.
- Training and certification programs.
- Groups (e.g., social media, Slack).
- Newsletters.
- Following experts on social media.
- Forums.
Just be careful. While there are many reliable resources, you (or your clients) will discover some outdated or wrong SEO information at some point.
Bottom line: there are no “universal” truths or some big secret to SEO. The truth is, you have to put in the work in all the phases of SEO to grow your visibility, clicks, traffic, authority, conversions, sales and revenue.
