Updating SEO Skills: Strategies for Staying Current and Relevant

Learning is essential, but only for finding the door that you should open with practice.

You can test various methods and fail before finding the one or two things that work for you. In addition, SEOs often adapt and c hange generic methods according to the specific preferences of each project.

Most experts are practitioners. Through practice, we can both improve our working memory of the skills we learned, and discern what strategies are successful through trial and error.

Marketing books are the foundation

Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Elon Musk are always reading. Books contain deep knowledge that other resources can’t provide. Book authors usually spend anywhere from a few months to a few years writing a book. Then 5-10 editors simplify the content for audience consumption.

Compare that amount of effort to the process of writing an article, which only takes a few hours or a few days.

SEO is more related to traditional marketing than ever because Google ranks content using AI and sophisticated algorithms. However, even if you recognize something that works well, Google can improve this system to satisfy users’ intent.

Neil Patel, Brian Dean, Tim Soulo, and Rand Fishkin read marketing books as much as possible to be the best experts in the SEO niche.

One problem is that there are so many books out there, and not all of them are well-written. How can we choose the best books for our purposes?

Search on Google for the best marketing books, and find some lists compiled by prominent authors. They’ll often give brief synopses and reviews which can point you in the right direction. Add them to your list and start reading.

Personally, I love the following authors:

1. Joseph Sugarman
2. Drew E. Whitman
3. Seth Godin
4. Robert Cialdini

You don’t have to stay confined to just SEO books. Books in other genres also consist of writing that is the foundation of web content. So the more you read, the more you know how to write great texts that help get high-ranking positions and results.

Read blog articles

I use feedly.com to add all my favorite blogs in one dashboard. This way, you can check them out daily or weekly.

Google is also a great search engine for finding top SEO blogs. Here are some of my favorite blogs:

1. Search Engine Journal
2. Search Engine Land
3. Ahrefs
4. Semrush
5. Moz
6. Neil Patel
7. Search Engine Roundtable
8. Hubspot

Audio podcasts

The audio podcast format is growing because it’s simple to consume and provides the opportunity to learn from a conversational format. I listen to various podcasts while walking with my dogs, cooking, training, driving, and relaxing. You can take a break from the blue light of your screen by listening instead.

Check out some of the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis:

1. Believe you can because you can! I’m actually plugging my own podcast. I invite great experts to learn from them something new and unique.
2. GaryVee
3. The marketing book podcast

Social media posts

All great experts post content on social media, including Elon Musk and Bill Gates. Social media has new and emerging data that blog posts and books often cannot provide.

Follow SEO influencers on social media and learn from them. It’s a great way to build relationships with them if you leave meaningful comments on their content. Almost all influencers read their audience’s input on their posts.

Watch YouTube videos

Videos are a preferable way of learning for Gen Z and Millennials. For example, Fery Kaszoni, one of the top PR experts, shares that he watches YouTube videos about PR daily. His main recommendation for learning is to watch 100 hours of videos before putting something into practice.

Here are my some of my favorite SEO channels:

1. Anatolii Ulitovskyi
2. Ahrefs
3. Neil Patel
4. Olga Zarr

Choose a format that works for you

There are many other suitable formats: live streams, ebooks, discussions on social media groups, events, etc. I have no time for all formats and don’t recommend trying to consume everything at once. Choose the format you find most comfortable for learning.

Take notes

Take notes or share on social media if you learn something new. It helps to cement new skills in your memory and grow your audience by sharing value.

Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are all the most suitable platforms for SEOs, but be open to teaching others on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest as well.

I don’t recommend using all social media; it’s better to achieve great results with one social media platform. Repurposing content for other platforms works well if you have a team who can help you or a loyal audience who can engage with the audience.

Most social media posts die quickly, from a few minutes to a few days. That is why I’m against being a perfectionist about nice-looking design and editing. So, for example, I edit my content for social media on Grammarly and get extra attention from proofreaders if the content is going to a blog post or SEO course.

Practice more than learn

If you ask me the ratio between learning and acting, I advise learning 20% of the time and acting 80%. It’s useless to read blog posts, listen to audio podcasts, read books, watch videos and work hard, but then skip the learning moments of implementation.

Remember, learning only shows the door and helps to update some methods of acting, but over-learning will waste your time.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve given you a good jumping-off point to start finding learning resources which will work for you. It’s important to have discipline with your learning and create a consistent schedule. For me, I prefer to take some time to delve into learning resources in the evening, after all my daily tasks are finished. Others prefer to learn first thing in the morning. Whatever works for you, don’t forget this valuable component of your marketing success.