A lot goes into starting a business. In addition to your regular operations, you need a website. That means that you need to attract traffic to the site. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is an effective and affordable way to attract an audience. In a Search Engine Journal poll, 49% of digital marketers said that organic search resulted in a higher ROI than any other digital marketing method.
If you’re hoping to hit the ground running, you probably wonder, “How long does it take to learn SEO?” While you can learn basic elements of SEO in a month, it takes much longer to become proficient. Moreover, you need to stay on top of the latest practices because algorithms and technology are continually evolving.
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How Long Does It Take to Learn SEO?
Learning SEO is an ongoing process that depends on several elements. The following factors play a major role in answering the question, “How long does it take to learn SEO?”
What’s Your SEO Goal?
Your goal for learning SEO plays a significant role in determining how fast you learn it. Some of the most common SEO goals are as follows:
- Basic SEO – Learning the fundamentals of SEO is helpful if you’re starting a blog as a hobby or with intentions of growing it over time. Understanding the basics will also help you write effective social media captions and hashtags. This can take one or two months.
- Entry-level SEO specialist – To get a junior-level SEO job, you need more than surface-level knowledge. Spending three to six months applying your skills to an actual website gives you hands-on experience.
- Self-employed entrepreneur – Whether you’re creating a portfolio of authority websites or running an e-commerce business, you need exceptional SEO skills if you plan to earn your income from this method alone. Much of your learning will come from experience. You may need several years of SEO education and practice to succeed in this sector.
- Expert-level SEO – An SEO expert can make money by implementing SEO practices for other companies. It often takes several years to achieve this goal.
How Comfortable Are You With Technology?
If you struggle to use shortcuts to copy and paste or navigate new websites, you will likely spend more time learning SEO than someone comfortable with technology. Writing code and making a site mobile-friendly are challenging feats if you’re not tech-savvy.
Someone hesitant around computers may need to start by taking basic technology courses to gain a secure foundation. Focusing on SEO might not be a good choice if you don’t develop an interest in technology while learning these fundamentals. Grasping these concepts may be a waste of time. In cases like this, it’s often best to hire an SEO professional so that you concentrate on what you do best and avoid burnout.
But if you have worked with digital technology in some capacity, learning SEO might not feel difficult.
What Resources Do You Have Access to?
You don’t need a degree to do SEO work. In fact, no degree is directly related to SEO. If you want a formal education supporting a career in SEO, you would likely study marketing or business management.
But several free and paid resources are available online to help you learn the fundamentals of SEO. Making use of these resources can guide your process. But there are so many valuable resources for learning SEO that it can be difficult to determine where to start.
Working through Google’s SEO Starter Guide will give you a well-rounded understanding if you have some basic knowledge. But this document could be confusing to someone completely unfamiliar with SEO. Plus, having the self-discipline to learn and apply the information methodically is a challenge.
SEO beginners might do better with a more structured approach. Some of the most reputable online SEO courses include the following:
- Semrush SEO Courses – Semrush offers several free learning series that address different aspects of SEO. It would only take about eight hours to complete the SEO learning path offered by Greg Gifford.
- Neil Patel’s SEO Unlocked – This free course is intended to be conducted over seven weeks. However, you can move through it at your own pace.
- Yoast SEO for Beginners – Watching the videos for this course takes about two hours. Implementing the material can take 10 to 20 hours, depending on your current level of expertise.
- LearningSEO.io – A Roadmap with Free Guides & Tools
- Moz Learning Center – Learn everything you need to know about SEO fundamentals to grow your business and advance your career.
Best Practices for Learning SEO Quickly
How long does it take to learn SEO if you’re particularly dedicated? You can speed the process along by following the tips below.
Read Something About SEO Every Day
Once you grasp basic SEO concepts, you can implement them for every piece of content and web page you create. Dedicate at least 20 minutes to reading about SEO every day.
If you find an SEO resource that resonates with you, bookmark it so that you can delve deeper. However, if you find a particular resource to be confusing, look for a different one.
There are numerous podcasts that can help you learn SEO quickly. You can listen to these when you’re walking the dog, running errands or cleaning your house. You may be surprised by the understanding that you gain from listening to different experts discussing various aspects of SEO. The following podcasts and YouTube channels can help you grasp SEO principles so that you know what you’re doing when it’s time to apply them:
- The Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing Podcast
- The Recipe for SEO Success Show
- Local SEO Tactics and Digital Marketing Strategies
- Ahrefs
- Backlinko
- Chris Palmer SEO
Structure Your Learning
By reading, watching, and listening to SEO resources, you’ll get a good sense of what it takes to learn SEO. But you could listen to countless podcasts and still be unsure where to start when applying your learning to your website. Speed up the process by outlining the essential topics and delving more deeply into them. You can focus on one topic each week to solidify your knowledge.
Some of the most important SEO topics include:
- How search engines and rankings work
- Keyword research
- Metadata creation
- Site speed and mobile friendliness
- Navigation
- Image optimization
- Search channel optimization
- Link building
- Local SEO
- Content creation
- Guest posting
- Analytics and Reporting
Apply SEO to Your Own Website
Putting what you learn into practice solidifies your skills and helps you internalize them so that you can repeat them. Set up a website to experiment with the strategies you learn from reading articles, listening to SEO podcasts, and watching videos.
This could be a personal website that expands on your interests and hobbies. You could help a friend optimize their website. This is a great time to create an authoritative website. You can monetize the website to earn a passive income if you get enough traffic.
Ask Questions
As you experiment with SEO, you’ll likely encounter challenges and have questions. Google has community forums and a help center where you can search for answers to your questions or post a query. Other SEO forums connect you with people who are in the same boat as you, and you can find specific solutions to your questions.
An excellent way to fine-tune your SEO and ensure it’s effective is to work with a dedicated SEO company. At SEO North, we eat and breathe SEO. We’re happy to answer any questions that you have about the subject and audit your site to ensure that it’s as efficient as possible.
It’s still valuable to learn SEO for yourself. However, if you have other projects on your plate and feel like your SEO attempts aren’t achieving the desired results, turning to professionals is often more cost-effective and powerful than trying to do it all yourself. If you’re ready to boost traffic, expand your audience, and outperform your competitors, contact us to learn more about how we can help.
FAQ
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Published on: 2022-09-11
Updated on: 2024-02-28
