Search Engine Optimization or SEO understanding is imperative in todays digitally-driven world. It is a concept that has driven an influx of jobs in almost every career vertical. With over a billion websites today, each and every one of those is competing for the coveted spots on search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and more. Why shouldn't they? Ask yourself this question, if you have to look for something as simple as a salon or barber in an area that you are not too familiar with, the natural first step is to grab you phone and type in "best salons near me" or "Barber near me". Google cards whip up multiple suggestions and most people pick between the first five suggestions displayed to them. A whopping 75 per cent of users don't go past the first page of search results. So, as a business,
Now, think about large organizations or corporations. They spend exorbitant amounts of money to ensure visibility on search engines since it ultimately drives eyeballs to their website / brand, which generates sales. Having SEO understanding – knowing and mastering the algorithms behind search engine results – is an indispensable skill that is valued in just about any company on earth! In fact, SEO is still valued higher than digital marketing worldwide, according to Google Trends. There are several career verticals for people with SEO skills to enter, including Search Engine Marketing, Business Marketing Consultant, Digital Marketer, Content Marketer, SEO Manager, SEO Analyst, and the list goes on. In 2017, an approximate boost of 20 per cent was recorded in SEO-based jobs across the globe.
Additionally, SEO jobs are quite future-proof since the amount of computational power it would require for AI to run SEO systems is massive. However, AI is changing how SEO experts do their jobs. Due to developments in AI, Black Hat SEO techniques are being killed off , and content optimisation is what people need to work on, especially for voice search. Plus, images and videos will need to be optimised as well to account for AI ranking sites that do this well. Overall, user experience on websites will be the most important thing, in order to get good rankings in search results, since AI will be able to easily sift through and discard those offerings with less user-friendly options.
AI will also help SEO experts make design decisions based on stats and analytics, and everything will be more data driven. However, we should never ignore the human touch, because AI typically sucks at human-EQ (emotional quotient) and thus cannot develop things that humans can relate to. Not yet at least…
If you’re a digital marketer who wants to rise to the next level with SEO understanding, there are several free SEO certification courses you can do online. However, some of the best SEO certification courses online are paid such as Digital Vidya, who is Google and Microsoft India’s official SEO training partner. Meanwhile, there are also training courses available across several cities in India such as PromozSEO, LIPS India, The SEO Training Institute, and more.
If you’re vying for an SEO job, HTML and static web creation abilities are integral. Don’t let these intimidate you since you will, once again, find a cornucopia of courses surrounding these online and around your area as well. Creating plugins and sitemaps for your website are also other important skills you must train yourself in. Most importantly, one needs top be flexible and willing to learn new things, given how fast things can change in the SEO world.
Even if you do not work in the SEO field, SEO training can be very beneficial indeed, because most companies hire external SEO 'experts', and find themselves needing someone who works within the company to interface with the aforementioned experts. Sometimes, companies need a trusted employee to tell them if the 'experts' are indeed experts, or just another of millions of hacks who fill up the SEO scene in India.