10 Essential SEO Skills for Marketers
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2024 9:36 am
Congratulations! You have finally stepped into your dream marketing career. You have undoubtedly embarked on an exciting journey where you will have immense opportunities to connect with customers, create and tell compelling stories, learn about new trends, and have the freedom to experiment. However, on the other side of the coin, you may face some challenges when you start working on your marketing campaigns, such as fully understanding the changing needs of customers, entering a new market, acquiring new customers, and much more.
The chart given below highlights the top marketing challenges-
Top Marketing Challenges
Source : Vitaldesign
Fear not! By learning SEO skills, you can easily overcome most of these challenges.
If you are wondering which of the various SEO skills you should master to create a rewarding trajectory for your marketing career, this article will help you. Let’s get started!
#1. Research Skills
There is no standard set of codes and guidelines in search engine optimization. Activities argentina phone number resource based on gut feelings or guesswork will not make your SEO campaigns successful.
Therefore, it is important for marketing professionals to develop and strengthen the following research skills.
Keyword Research
The keywords you choose directly impact your website’s ranking on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), traffic, and conversion rate, so it’s important to nail your keyword research.
An in-depth and meticulous knowledge of search intent and search engine algorithms will help you research the right, low-competition, high-global-volume keywords for your blog, website, and social media posts. It will also help you create an effective content strategy that increases organic traffic.
Competitor Research
Keeping track of your competitors' content strategy, backlink profile, keyword targeting, and optimization strategy is crucial to strengthen your SEO strategy and outperform your competitors.
Wondering how to identify your competitors? You can do this by searching for your main/target keywords in any search engine. All websites/domains that rank at the top for similar keywords are your competitors.
You can also use an AI-powered keyword ranking tracking tool to gain insight into your organic competitors .
AI-powered keyword rank tracker tool by Accuranker
Statistical Research
You need relevant figures, statistics, and data to support your current SEO strategy or plan a new SEO campaign. This is where research skills come into play.
#2. Content Writing and Optimization
Do you know what the backbone of SEO is? Keywords.
Content allows you to include long-tail and related keywords, strengthening the backbone of your SEO. Remember, content should be high-quality and interactive.
A study by DoubleVerify shows that global online content consumption will double by 2020. According to Demand Metric , businesses with blogs generate over 67% of potential customers each month. These statistics highlight how important it is for a marketer to learn the intricacies of content writing and optimization to make a big difference in their SEO efforts.
Understand how you can use different content formats to focus on user experience and increase the likelihood of ranking in SERPs.
#3. Social Skills
The Digital 2024 Global Outlook Report by DataReportal states that active social media user identities have reached 5 billion (equivalent to 62.3% of the global population).
The increasing popularity of social media has made it vital for marketers to learn about various social platforms and use them to gain search volume and clicks on targeted keywords.
Social Skills- How social media supports seo
Source: Lyfemarketing
Here's how social media can take your SEO efforts to the next level-
Search engine spiders crawl and index the content you post on Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms. So, if any of your social media posts go viral, the positive effects on the SERPs can be seen.
If your post has more social media shares, your website will gain more relevant backlinks, which will increase your domain authority, thus earning you more brownie points from search engines.
As a marketer, you must understand the importance of social media analytics and learn this skill to develop effective SEO-based social media strategies.
#4. Critical Thinking and Analytical Skills
Marketers with critical thinking skills can better understand customer response to an SEO strategy and make informed decisions to further improve the strategy.
Critical thinking combined with analytical skills allows you to analyze your competitors, gain a deep understanding of your niche, and understand the competitive landscape. You can understand the weaknesses and gaps in your competitor’s strategy and identify opportunities. Use this information to create your own strategy and beat the competition.
Excellent analytical skills also help you leverage online SEO tools to the fullest, decipher cause-and-effect relationships, track and measure set KPIs, and identify areas for improvement.
#5. Presentation Skills
The success of your SEO strategy depends on its effective implementation. And your team plays a major role here. So, as a marketer, you must have good communication and presentation skills to align your team with the SEO plan.
An impressive visualization of SEO roadmap and digital marketing KPIs will guide your team on the right track and give them a better understanding of their own roles and the organization’s expectations. Also, present milestones and achievements to keep team members motivated.
Good presentation skills also help you convince the management team to provide the necessary support for you to implement the proposed SEO strategy or to purchase you an SEO tool for better analysis and reporting.
For all these reasons, consider mastering this skill as well.
#6. Prioritize
Conducting research, optimizing metadata, checking broken links, creating high-quality backlinks, analyzing user behavior and website traffic using Google Analytics, and so on – the list of SEO tasks is extensive. However, not all tasks yield fruitful results. Therefore, you need to have prioritization skills to decide which tasks to do first (based on difficulty level and impact) to make the SEO campaign successful.
Some tasks are high impact but require a lot of time and resources so it is important to perform them on priority. For example – building backlinks.
A marketer with good prioritization skills is responsive and can quickly adjust their SEO strategy in response to updated search engine algorithms, evolving industry trends, and changing project requirements.
#7. Web Coding
Web coding skills are often attributed to web designers, but basic coding knowledge like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML is a must for marketing professionals. In addition, you’ll also need to know how to manage redirects, optimize title tags, and implement schema markup.
This knowledge helps marketers collaborate with web designers and ensure that the website is designed with all SEO requirements in mind. It also allows them to solve SEO issues such as content presentation, site structure, etc. on their own without taking help from designers.
The chart given below highlights the top marketing challenges-
Top Marketing Challenges
Source : Vitaldesign
Fear not! By learning SEO skills, you can easily overcome most of these challenges.
If you are wondering which of the various SEO skills you should master to create a rewarding trajectory for your marketing career, this article will help you. Let’s get started!
#1. Research Skills
There is no standard set of codes and guidelines in search engine optimization. Activities argentina phone number resource based on gut feelings or guesswork will not make your SEO campaigns successful.
Therefore, it is important for marketing professionals to develop and strengthen the following research skills.
Keyword Research
The keywords you choose directly impact your website’s ranking on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), traffic, and conversion rate, so it’s important to nail your keyword research.
An in-depth and meticulous knowledge of search intent and search engine algorithms will help you research the right, low-competition, high-global-volume keywords for your blog, website, and social media posts. It will also help you create an effective content strategy that increases organic traffic.
Competitor Research
Keeping track of your competitors' content strategy, backlink profile, keyword targeting, and optimization strategy is crucial to strengthen your SEO strategy and outperform your competitors.
Wondering how to identify your competitors? You can do this by searching for your main/target keywords in any search engine. All websites/domains that rank at the top for similar keywords are your competitors.
You can also use an AI-powered keyword ranking tracking tool to gain insight into your organic competitors .
AI-powered keyword rank tracker tool by Accuranker
Statistical Research
You need relevant figures, statistics, and data to support your current SEO strategy or plan a new SEO campaign. This is where research skills come into play.
#2. Content Writing and Optimization
Do you know what the backbone of SEO is? Keywords.
Content allows you to include long-tail and related keywords, strengthening the backbone of your SEO. Remember, content should be high-quality and interactive.
A study by DoubleVerify shows that global online content consumption will double by 2020. According to Demand Metric , businesses with blogs generate over 67% of potential customers each month. These statistics highlight how important it is for a marketer to learn the intricacies of content writing and optimization to make a big difference in their SEO efforts.
Understand how you can use different content formats to focus on user experience and increase the likelihood of ranking in SERPs.
#3. Social Skills
The Digital 2024 Global Outlook Report by DataReportal states that active social media user identities have reached 5 billion (equivalent to 62.3% of the global population).
The increasing popularity of social media has made it vital for marketers to learn about various social platforms and use them to gain search volume and clicks on targeted keywords.
Social Skills- How social media supports seo
Source: Lyfemarketing
Here's how social media can take your SEO efforts to the next level-
Search engine spiders crawl and index the content you post on Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms. So, if any of your social media posts go viral, the positive effects on the SERPs can be seen.
If your post has more social media shares, your website will gain more relevant backlinks, which will increase your domain authority, thus earning you more brownie points from search engines.
As a marketer, you must understand the importance of social media analytics and learn this skill to develop effective SEO-based social media strategies.
#4. Critical Thinking and Analytical Skills
Marketers with critical thinking skills can better understand customer response to an SEO strategy and make informed decisions to further improve the strategy.
Critical thinking combined with analytical skills allows you to analyze your competitors, gain a deep understanding of your niche, and understand the competitive landscape. You can understand the weaknesses and gaps in your competitor’s strategy and identify opportunities. Use this information to create your own strategy and beat the competition.
Excellent analytical skills also help you leverage online SEO tools to the fullest, decipher cause-and-effect relationships, track and measure set KPIs, and identify areas for improvement.
#5. Presentation Skills
The success of your SEO strategy depends on its effective implementation. And your team plays a major role here. So, as a marketer, you must have good communication and presentation skills to align your team with the SEO plan.
An impressive visualization of SEO roadmap and digital marketing KPIs will guide your team on the right track and give them a better understanding of their own roles and the organization’s expectations. Also, present milestones and achievements to keep team members motivated.
Good presentation skills also help you convince the management team to provide the necessary support for you to implement the proposed SEO strategy or to purchase you an SEO tool for better analysis and reporting.
For all these reasons, consider mastering this skill as well.
#6. Prioritize
Conducting research, optimizing metadata, checking broken links, creating high-quality backlinks, analyzing user behavior and website traffic using Google Analytics, and so on – the list of SEO tasks is extensive. However, not all tasks yield fruitful results. Therefore, you need to have prioritization skills to decide which tasks to do first (based on difficulty level and impact) to make the SEO campaign successful.
Some tasks are high impact but require a lot of time and resources so it is important to perform them on priority. For example – building backlinks.
A marketer with good prioritization skills is responsive and can quickly adjust their SEO strategy in response to updated search engine algorithms, evolving industry trends, and changing project requirements.
#7. Web Coding
Web coding skills are often attributed to web designers, but basic coding knowledge like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML is a must for marketing professionals. In addition, you’ll also need to know how to manage redirects, optimize title tags, and implement schema markup.
This knowledge helps marketers collaborate with web designers and ensure that the website is designed with all SEO requirements in mind. It also allows them to solve SEO issues such as content presentation, site structure, etc. on their own without taking help from designers.