SEO
10 Advanced SEO Skills To Level Up Your Career
Many of us get to a stage in our careers as SEO professionals where we feel a little bit stagnant.
We’ve been optimizing sites for a while and feel pretty confident that we can do it well.. but there’s that nagging thought there’s more we could be doing.
That there is another layer of expertise that would make us more efficient, employable, and confident.
In this article, you’ll find 10 skills that can level up your SEO competency.
These aren’t necessarily essential skills for all SEO experts (you’ll find those here).
But developing these advanced SEO skills could help you go deeper within your specialism, become a more well-rounded marketer, and bump you into a new salary or freelance rate, too.
1. Intent Analysis
Intent analysis is the decoding of a user’s intention behind the keyword they enter into a search engine.
When someone types [pizza restaurant] into a search engine, what is the end result they are hoping for?
Do they want to know what pizza restaurants are nearby?
Are they in the market to open a pizza restaurant?
Are they looking for a job in a pizza restaurant?
Developing your understanding of the psychology behind what searchers want is a critical skill for those wishing to go further in their SEO competency.
This will help you both satisfy a user’s need when they land on a page and also increase your page’s likelihood of being ranked in their search.
It can’t just stop there, however.
You must also understand what the search engines perceive users to want from the content they are searching for.
For instance, from my location in the U.K., if I search for [pizza restaurants] in Google from my desktop device, I get a mixture of results.
I get the option to click through to search on other websites:
This is followed by the Map Pack and then a mix of review and editorial sites and restaurants’ websites.
If I am trying to rank a website all about the history of pizza restaurants in my country, I might struggle.
Google has identified the user intent as being either navigation – wanting to go to a local restaurant – or comparative, as in wanting to compare options in the local area.
Resources To Learn More
2. Coding
There is no question that understanding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can help you to ensure your websites are set up in a bot-friendly manner.
Although SEO experts do not need to be fully-fledged developers, having an understanding of code can help you to identify issues with rendering, indexation, and crawlability.
There are times when knowing the basics of how code is created, or being able to read code that already exists, can help your SEO.
It can aid your communication with the developers who may need to change it.
It can assist you in pinpointing incremental improvements to your site’s performance.
Learning to code is not a prerequisite for SEO, but it is arguable that knowing the fundamentals of these three commonly used languages is going to set you up well for your career.
Understanding the syntax of code, how it is formed, and being able to see how elements relate to each other can also help you get better at writing and debugging schema.
Learning Python and SQL can also help you to streamline your SEO processes by enabling you to automate labor-intensive activities such as mapping URL redirects and keyword research.
Resources To Learn More
3. Understanding Server Management
No SEO professional should really be the one responsible for ensuring that a server can handle a load of visitors to a site.
However, understanding the basics of how servers can impact the crawlability, load speed and reliability of a website can propel your technical SEO understanding forwards.
The use of CDNs instead of static servers can aid in speeding up content loading, but without understanding the limitations of fixed location servers it will be difficult for you to argue the need for a CDN.
A better understanding of how web hosting can affect a user’s experience of your site and also Google’s ability to access it is necessary for strong technical SEO foundations.
You need to understand how aspects like uptime and location can impact your site’s performance in the search engines.
This is only the beginning of how knowledge of servers can aid your SEO efforts.
Better knowledge of server codes beyond the standard 404 and 301 can help you to communicate to those in charge of your servers where there are critical issues.
Know what a 502 error is?
Encountered a 504 status code before?
If not, this might be a quick and easy area for you to brush up your knowledge.
A 5XX status usually means there is something wrong with the server that is preventing the processing of a request from the client.
A simple way to find out what status codes mean is to look at httpstatuses.com.
From here, you can identify whether it is an issue with the client or the server and find a fix accordingly.
Resources To Learn More
4. Content Writing
Understanding the process of content writing is an important element of advanced SEO.
You may not be a great wordsmith yourself.
However, in order for you to better brief in copywriting for your colleagues who are, you need to understand what goes into a good piece of writing.
It isn’t enough to know that copy needs to be compelling and have sufficient relevancy to search terms used to discover it.
Get familiar with the process your copywriters go through in researching, writing, and editing their work.
This will help you to better ideate your own requests for copy.
Editing
Editing is another good skill to develop when working with content.
In many organizations, it is the job of the SEO specialist to take content created by others and optimize it further for the search engines.
In practice, this sadly can often result in well-written copy being butchered.
Adding keywords into the first couple of paragraphs to make them more keyword-rich might help you a bit with your rankings, but it could destroy your conversion and brand loyalty.
Learn how to take well-written copy and enhance it, not ruin it.
You may also benefit from having a conversation or two with your SEO copywriters and asking them for details of their process.
Better understanding how they go about copywriting could improve your abilities.
It could also streamline your processes when working together.
Resources To Learn More
5. Reporting
Being able to expertly communicate your progress, results, and reasoning behind your SEO work is crucial to being successful in the industry.
As an SEO expert, you are always juggling the needs and expectations of stakeholders, whether you’re working in-house, agency-side or freelance.
You will find gaining buy-in and budgets considerably easier if you know how to demonstrate the impact of the work you do.
Reporting isn’t just a case of adding labels to a graph or even noting down the cause of increases and decreases.
Truly good SEO reports allow readers to understand the context of the results, draw conclusions and make business decisions from them.
SEO professionals need to get really good at helping stakeholders understand the priorities and limitations of the work they recommend (as well as mistakes to avoid when reporting).
They also need to help their interested parties recognize how the work will benefit them via data visualizations and their objectives in the long run.
All of this can be achieved through well-constructed, clear, and truthful reports.
Resources To Learn More
6. SEO Forecasting
Similar to the need to be good at explaining past results, experienced SEOs need to develop the ability to calculate likely outcomes.
SEO forecasting is a complicated science.
There are a lot of external factors that are hard to isolate and predict.
A change in competition, the market, or political situations could all cause well-thought-out estimations to go awry.
We should not be putting pressure on ourselves to accurately predict the exact volume of traffic, or visibility, our work might gain.
However, being able to put reasonable estimates and likely ranges into our recommendations can make the budget-holders a lot more reassured by the work we are proposing.
It isn’t enough to shrug our shoulders and cross our fingers when asked about outcomes.
We’re often requesting a lot of time, money and resources go into the activity were recommending.
SEO forecasting is a skill that will not only set you apart when looking for new roles or opportunities, it will also significantly improve the quality and reliability of your work.
Resources To Learn More
7. Log File Analysis
Log file analysis is the process of understanding the records of who or what has accessed your website.
They can tell you when people have visited a page as well as what device they were using to do so.
They can also tell you when bots access your website.
This is particularly helpful in understanding Googlebot and other search engine crawlers’ behavior on your site.
By analyzing log files you can better understand what pages search engine bots can or can’t access.
You can identify where there may be spider traps on your site or the frequency at which certain sections of your site are being crawled.
Log files can appear daunting if you have not spent much time around them.
Thankfully there are some great tools available that make analyzing them a lot simpler than just wading through the naked log files.
Understanding what to do with the information once you have it is the real skill. If you know that a certain area of your site is rarely crawled by Google that should inform your technical SEO next steps.
It should raise questions about your internal linking structure.
Getting familiar with log files is a great first step but to improve your skills make sure you are analyzing the files and drawing actionable conclusions from them.
Resources To Learn More
8. Website Migrations
Getting good at planning and executing website migrations is not easy. It really does take experience.
Many SEO professionals who have worked exclusively brand-side may find they simply have not had the opportunity to carry out that many website migrations.
If you face a particularly complicated one, such as multiple websites merging, it can be very daunting.
Chances are if you have spent any length of time in an SEO agency, you will have migrated a website or two.
It may have been a smooth process but more likely there were unforeseen complications that made the processing time and resource consuming.
There are not really just one or two skills involved in website migrations.
They are usually a complicated mix of stakeholder management, communication, planning, processes-driving, technical understanding, and knowing when to say no.
But the skills you develop during website migrations will help you enormously with the rest of your SEO career.
Participate in one if you get the chance.
It can give you a great (albeit high-pressured) opportunity to see multiple moving SEO parts in play at once.
Resources to learn more:
9. Optimizing For Other Search Engines
If you truly want to advance your SEO skills, you might want to look further afield than Google.
We can often fall into the trap of thinking only about the traditional search engines when discussing SEO skills.
If we limit our training and experience to just these then we could be missing out on a much larger opportunity.
Traditional International Websites
Many search engines work on similar principles, but with their own specific nuances.
Traditional search engines more prevalent outside of your home region may be unfamiliar to you.
There are some great resources available to get you started in understanding the differences between them and the search engines you’re more familiar with optimizing for.
Nothing beats practice, however.
If you want to refine your knowledge and understanding of unfamiliar search engines then you need to try to rank a site in them and see what works and what doesn’t.
YouTube
For search engines like YouTube, the mechanics may be more familiar to you.
You will, however, still need to learn more about the algorithms in play to ensure you are carrying out the right activity to optimize your video content for the platform.
Other Non-traditional Search Engines
Don’t just stop at YouTube if you’re really wanting to advance your SEO skill set.
Take a look at some other search engines, like Pinterest and TripAdvisor.
These sites may not fit into your current remit as an SEO expert.
They are however still search engines that you can influence the success of your content in.
Resources to learn more:
10. International SEO
One of the most complicated projects an SEO might be involved in usually includes international elements.
It’s a complicated task because there are a lot of factors at play.
To optimize your website for international audiences you will need to employ technical SEO, digital PR, and on-page optimization skills.
There will be a range of questions you’ll need to ask yourself when you are considering expanding a website to international audiences.
These will include questions around the structure of the site – separate sites, sub-folders, or sub-directories?
Do you want to translate or localize the content? Do you want to target geography at the site or page level?
There are a lot of strategies and technical knowledge required to get international SEO right.
You may also need specific language skills or local knowledge resources.
Google has helpfully created an introduction to managing a multi-region website. It is a good place to start to identify the sorts of questions you should be asking.
You can also use it as a jumping-off point for further training or research.
This can help deepen your knowledge of the subject and sharpen your skills.
Resources to learn more:
Conclusion
These are just a few of the skills you can develop to become a more pragmatic SEO professional.
Even if you don’t want to learn all of them, it helps to have an understanding of what they all are.
Even more so, how they can help round out your skill-set as an SEO expert.
More resources:
Featured Image: Alexander Supertramp/Shutterstock
SEO
Google Clarifies Vacation Rental Structured Data
Google’s structured data documentation for vacation rentals was recently updated to require more specific data in a change that is more of a clarification than it is a change in requirements. This change was made without any formal announcement or notation in the developer pages changelog.
Vacation Rentals Structured Data
These specific structured data types makes vacation rental information eligible for rich results that are specific to these kinds of rentals. However it’s not available to all websites. Vacation rental owners are required to be connected to a Google Technical Account Manager and have access to the Google Hotel Center platform.
VacationRental Structured Data Type Definitions
The primary changes were made to the structured data property type definitions where Google defines what the required and recommended property types are.
The changes to the documentation is in the section governing the Recommended properties and represents a clarification of the recommendations rather than a change in what Google requires.
The primary changes were made to the structured data type definitions where Google defines what the required and recommended property types are.
The changes to the documentation is in the section governing the Recommended properties and represents a clarification of the recommendations rather than a change in what Google requires.
Address Schema.org property
This is a subtle change but it’s important because it now represents a recommendation that requires more precise data.
This is what was recommended before:
“streetAddress”: “1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.”
This is what it now recommends:
“streetAddress”: “1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Unit 6E”
Address Property Change Description
The most substantial change is to the description of what the “address” property is, becoming more descriptive and precise about what is recommended.
The description before the change:
PostalAddress
Information about the street address of the listing. Include all properties that apply to your country.
The description after the change:
PostalAddress
The full, physical location of the vacation rental.
Provide the street address, city, state or region, and postal code for the vacation rental. If applicable, provide the unit or apartment number.
Note that P.O. boxes or other mailing-only addresses are not considered full, physical addresses.
This is repeated in the section for address.streetAddress property
This is what it recommended before:
address.streetAddress Text
The full street address of your vacation listing.
And this is what it recommends now:
address.streetAddress Text
The full street address of your vacation listing, including the unit or apartment number if applicable.
Clarification And Not A Change
Although these updates don’t represent a change in Google’s guidance they are nonetheless important because they offer clearer guidance with less ambiguity as to what is recommended.
Read the updated structured data guidance:
Vacation rental (VacationRental) structured data
Featured Image by Shutterstock/New Africa
SEO
Google On Hyphens In Domain Names
Google’s John Mueller answered a question on Reddit about why people don’t use hyphens with domains and if there was something to be concerned about that they were missing.
Domain Names With Hyphens For SEO
I’ve been working online for 25 years and I remember when using hyphens in domains was something that affiliates did for SEO when Google was still influenced by keywords in the domain, URL, and basically keywords anywhere on the webpage. It wasn’t something that everyone did, it was mainly something that was popular with some affiliate marketers.
Another reason for choosing domain names with keywords in them was that site visitors tended to convert at a higher rate because the keywords essentially prequalified the site visitor. I know from experience how useful two-keyword domains (and one word domain names) are for conversions, as long as they didn’t have hyphens in them.
A consideration that caused hyphenated domain names to fall out of favor is that they have an untrustworthy appearance and that can work against conversion rates because trustworthiness is an important factor for conversions.
Lastly, hyphenated domain names look tacky. Why go with tacky when a brandable domain is easier for building trust and conversions?
Domain Name Question Asked On Reddit
This is the question asked on Reddit:
“Why don’t people use a lot of domains with hyphens? Is there something concerning about it? I understand when you tell it out loud people make miss hyphen in search.”
And this is Mueller’s response:
“It used to be that domain names with a lot of hyphens were considered (by users? or by SEOs assuming users would? it’s been a while) to be less serious – since they could imply that you weren’t able to get the domain name with fewer hyphens. Nowadays there are a lot of top-level-domains so it’s less of a thing.
My main recommendation is to pick something for the long run (assuming that’s what you’re aiming for), and not to be overly keyword focused (because life is too short to box yourself into a corner – make good things, course-correct over time, don’t let a domain-name limit what you do online). The web is full of awkward, keyword-focused short-lived low-effort takes made for SEO — make something truly awesome that people will ask for by name. If that takes a hyphen in the name – go for it.”
Pick A Domain Name That Can Grow
Mueller is right about picking a domain name that won’t lock your site into one topic. When a site grows in popularity the natural growth path is to expand the range of topics the site coves. But that’s hard to do when the domain is locked into one rigid keyword phrase. That’s one of the downsides of picking a “Best + keyword + reviews” domain, too. Those domains can’t grow bigger and look tacky, too.
That’s why I’ve always recommended brandable domains that are memorable and encourage trust in some way.
Read the post on Reddit:
Read Mueller’s response here.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Benny Marty
SEO
Reddit Post Ranks On Google In 5 Minutes
Google’s Danny Sullivan disputed the assertions made in a Reddit discussion that Google is showing a preference for Reddit in the search results. But a Redditor’s example proves that it’s possible for a Reddit post to rank in the top ten of the search results within minutes and to actually improve rankings to position #2 a week later.
Discussion About Google Showing Preference To Reddit
A Redditor (gronetwork) complained that Google is sending so many visitors to Reddit that the server is struggling with the load and shared an example that proved that it can only take minutes for a Reddit post to rank in the top ten.
That post was part of a 79 post Reddit thread where many in the r/SEO subreddit were complaining about Google allegedly giving too much preference to Reddit over legit sites.
The person who did the test (gronetwork) wrote:
“…The website is already cracking (server down, double posts, comments not showing) because there are too many visitors.
…It only takes few minutes (you can test it) for a post on Reddit to appear in the top ten results of Google with keywords related to the post’s title… (while I have to wait months for an article on my site to be referenced). Do the math, the whole world is going to spam here. The loop is completed.”
Reddit Post Ranked Within Minutes
Another Redditor asked if they had tested if it takes “a few minutes” to rank in the top ten and gronetwork answered that they had tested it with a post titled, Google SGE Review.
gronetwork posted:
“Yes, I have created for example a post named “Google SGE Review” previously. After less than 5 minutes it was ranked 8th for Google SGE Review (no quotes). Just after Washingtonpost.com, 6 authoritative SEO websites and Google.com’s overview page for SGE (Search Generative Experience). It is ranked third for SGE Review.”
It’s true, not only does that specific post (Google SGE Review) rank in the top 10, the post started out in position 8 and it actually improved ranking, currently listed beneath the number one result for the search query “SGE Review”.
Screenshot Of Reddit Post That Ranked Within Minutes
Anecdotes Versus Anecdotes
Okay, the above is just one anecdote. But it’s a heck of an anecdote because it proves that it’s possible for a Reddit post to rank within minutes and get stuck in the top of the search results over other possibly more authoritative websites.
hankschrader79 shared that Reddit posts outrank Toyota Tacoma forums for a phrase related to mods for that truck.
Google’s Danny Sullivan responded to that post and the entire discussion to dispute that Reddit is not always prioritized over other forums.
Danny wrote:
“Reddit is not always prioritized over other forums. [super vhs to mac adapter] I did this week, it goes Apple Support Community, MacRumors Forum and further down, there’s Reddit. I also did [kumo cloud not working setup 5ghz] recently (it’s a nightmare) and it was the Netgear community, the SmartThings Community, GreenBuildingAdvisor before Reddit. Related to that was [disable 5g airport] which has Apple Support Community above Reddit. [how to open an 8 track tape] — really, it was the YouTube videos that helped me most, but it’s the Tapeheads community that comes before Reddit.
In your example for [toyota tacoma], I don’t even get Reddit in the top results. I get Toyota, Car & Driver, Wikipedia, Toyota again, three YouTube videos from different creators (not Toyota), Edmunds, a Top Stories unit. No Reddit, which doesn’t really support the notion of always wanting to drive traffic just to Reddit.
If I guess at the more specific query you might have done, maybe [overland mods for toyota tacoma], I get a YouTube video first, then Reddit, then Tacoma World at third — not near the bottom. So yes, Reddit is higher for that query — but it’s not first. It’s also not always first. And sometimes, it’s not even showing at all.”
hankschrader79 conceded that they were generalizing when they wrote that Google always prioritized Reddit. But they also insisted that that didn’t diminish what they said is a fact that Google’s “prioritization” forum content has benefitted Reddit more than actual forums.
Why Is The Reddit Post Ranked So High?
It’s possible that Google “tested” that Reddit post in position 8 within minutes and that user interaction signals indicated to Google’s algorithms that users prefer to see that Reddit post. If that’s the case then it’s not a matter of Google showing preference to Reddit post but rather it’s users that are showing the preference and the algorithm is responding to those preferences.
Nevertheless, an argument can be made that user preferences for Reddit can be a manifestation of Familiarity Bias. Familiarity Bias is when people show a preference for things that are familiar to them. If a person is familiar with a brand because of all the advertising they were exposed to then they may show a bias for the brand products over unfamiliar brands.
Users who are familiar with Reddit may choose Reddit because they don’t know the other sites in the search results or because they have a bias that Google ranks spammy and optimized websites and feel safer reading Reddit.
Google may be picking up on those user interaction signals that indicate a preference and satisfaction with the Reddit results but those results may simply be biases and not an indication that Reddit is trustworthy and authoritative.
Is Reddit Benefiting From A Self-Reinforcing Feedback Loop?
It may very well be that Google’s decision to prioritize user generated content may have started a self-reinforcing pattern that draws users in to Reddit through the search results and because the answers seem plausible those users start to prefer Reddit results. When they’re exposed to more Reddit posts their familiarity bias kicks in and they start to show a preference for Reddit. So what could be happening is that the users and Google’s algorithm are creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
Is it possible that Google’s decision to show more user generated content has kicked off a cycle where more users are exposed to Reddit which then feeds back into Google’s algorithm which in turn increases Reddit visibility, regardless of lack of expertise and authoritativeness?
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Kues
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