How to Get Started with a Career in SEO

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I didn't "train" in SEO before my first job or get any sort of academic qualification to set me up.

In my experience, SEO is an industry with a shortage of very experienced talent but real competition to get a foot in the door.

I've advertised entry level SEO roles before that have had over 200 applications.

I'm no career coach, but I've seen an SEO CV or two (or 2,000) in my time so I know what stands out and there are other ways to get on the radar of prospective employers beyond a CV as well.

Create Your Own Website

Get your own project up and running.

This achieves a few things:

It gives you a platform on which to experiment.
It shows a genuine interest and passion for a role and for me, candidates with their own projects always have a bit of a head start
It gives you background knowledge in actually launching a website.

Then rank the website for some keywords you choose.

But the ability to show that you've launched a project and you've also started to apply some SEO principles successfully is a great advantage over most other entry level applicants.

Learn the Fundamental Theory

There are lots of resources out there to give you a basic grounding in SEO and plenty of them are completely free.

Understanding the fundamental theory again gives you a talking point in an interview.

Proactively Apply

I've hired plenty of people when they've applied speculatively without a vacancy even live.
Pop an email to the careers email address or someone senior in the organisation or even give them a call.
So if you come across an agency (or an in house brand) who you really want to work for, don't simply wait for them to list something.

Smarten Up Your CV

CVs don't need to be 'War and Peace.
Your Cover Letter!
For me, a cover letter-less job application is a cardinal sin.
It's your chance to catch attention.
- Who you are in brief
- What you've done to prepare for an entry level role (ranking personal projects, launching websites, learning in your own time)
- Why you want it
- Any pertinent work experience
Go and Meet People

There are so many small and large events in the SEO industry and many are free.
- TL;DR Version
  Short on time (or attention span – like me!
  Bad ideas happen because of
  - Poor briefs
  - Bad brainstorming
  - Insufficient raw ideas to start with
  - A lack of constructive criticism within the team
  - A lack of external validation
  You can fix it.
  - Experiment with switching out brainstorming in favour of something like
    As an aside, I’m pretty confident that the worst idea of them all is Brexit, for the record.
    In the context of content marketing, there are a ton of reason that content might fail:
    - Poor production quality
    - Poorly planned promotion
    - Insufficient resource allocated to promotion
    - Bad timing for launch
    - …and a whole host more
    But, in my experience, a fundamentally bad idea at the core of a content campaign is often to blame for failure.
    Sometimes an idea is bad at the outset.
    The most common reasons for bad ideas, I’ve found, are:
    - Poor briefs (or none at all)
    - Bad brainstorming
    - Insufficient raw ideas
    - A lack of constructive criticism
    - A lack of external validation
    So, here are my preferred techniques to overcoming those problems.
    How to Write An Ideas Generation Brief
    
    Over the past 12 months, I’ve worked on content marketing training with a number of agency and in house teams.
    It’s not good enough.
    A brief actually probably shouldn’t be that brief at all.
    The brief should include 4 key things:
    - Objectives: what are you trying to achieve?
    - Audience: Your audience is not the journalist or the influencer.
    - Examples: Share examples of other content you think has done well and achieved similar goals to yours.
    - Limitations: Approach with caution.
    Alternatives to Brainstorming – How to Have More Ideas
    
    Two of the biggest reasons I think bad ideas happen are bad brainstorming and simply not having enough ideas to choose from.
    Bad brainstorming alienates introverts.
    It’s a pretty big ask, isn’t it?
    How many great ideas do we miss because our most creative team members simply don’t feel comfortable in a brainstorming scenario?
    There are a few ways to tackle that and here are three of my favourites.
    635 Brainwriting
    
    An old 1960s methods of problem solving devised by a German academic, 635 brainwriting in its most traditional form involves the following:
    
    Participants receive a brief
    
    They then receive a worksheet with 3 columns and 6 rows
    
    In round 1, participants (working in silence) write 3 ideas on the top row
    
    They pass their sheets to the person to the left of them and now everyone has a sheet with 3 pre existing ideas on it
    
    In round 2, also 5 minutes long, participants put 3 more ideas down
    
    This is repeated and the sheets passed around each round
    
    You run 6 rounds so each participant has produced 3 ideas for each sheet
    
    That gives you a total of 108 ideas in 30 minutes.
    The idea here is that the ideas available to you on each round from other participants help to expand your own thoughts, help to inspire new ideas and make the process of generating new concepts a little easier.
    Allow Anonymity
    Let people submit ideas anonymously using a system like He then brings it back around by asking people what would need to be done to make those ideas actually feasible or actually practical.
    
    I used it slightly differently.
    
    A Lack of Honest Feedback Lets Bad Ideas Through
    In the context of content marketing, we often have to sell ideas to people or critique those of others.
    Being honest about ideas is imperative.
    That said, building a culture of honest and constructive criticism is vital to stopping bad ideas from getting through your processes.
    I believe it’s important to put in measurable metrics against which to judge ideas.
    Validate Constantly
    
    “Can’t see the wood for the trees!
    That’s a syndrome I suffer with in content marketing.
    Furthermore, when you have sold an idea to someone (like a boss or client) you’ve also convinced yourself even more of its worth and value, which makes it harder for you to ever spot the flaws.
    Build yourself a team of external people who you can bounce ideas off and try to include publishers or journalists in this.
    Some of the best paid for consultancy I’ve ever had is from journalists (no, they won’t accept payment to publish your content – you can do better than that!
    Embrace the Lightbulb Moment
    
    My deck above talks a lot about techniques you can incorporate into a process for ideation.
    Embrace the lightbulb moment and make those externally devised ideas a part of your ideas development process.

How to Write An Ideas Generation Brief

Alternatives to Brainstorming – How to Have More Ideas

635 Brainwriting

Allow Anonymity

Validate Constantly

Embrace the Lightbulb Moment

MacNaught Digital

Free Small Business SEO Clinics in Oldham

How does it work?
We've made 3 slots available each month for local businesses.

Who's it for?
This is intended for small businesses who need help driving sales, enquiries or footfall using SEO tactics - the types of business for whom outsourcing to a specialist agency isn't really viable or practical.

Is this a dressed up sales pitch?
Nope!
So the businesses that tend to benefit are those who would actually probably never look to hire an outside agency anyway.

And you promise there won't be a sales pitch?
You have our word.

How do we book?
We keep a day per month back for this sort of activity so we can open up a handful of appointments.

How to Get Started with a Career in SEO

Create Your Own Website

Learn the Fundamental Theory

Proactively Apply

Smarten Up Your CV

Go and Meet People

MacNaught Digital

Free Small Business SEO Clinics in Oldham

How does it work? We've made 3 slots available each month for local businesses.

Who's it for? This is intended for small businesses who need help driving sales, enquiries or footfall using SEO tactics - the types of business for whom outsourcing to a specialist agency isn't really viable or practical.

Is this a dressed up sales pitch? Nope! So the businesses that tend to benefit are those who would actually probably never look to hire an outside agency anyway.

And you promise there won't be a sales pitch? You have our word.

How do we book? We keep a day per month back for this sort of activity so we can open up a handful of appointments.

How to Get Started with a Career in SEO

Create Your Own Website

Learn the Fundamental Theory

Proactively Apply

Smarten Up Your CV

Go and Meet People

How to Write An Ideas Generation Brief

Alternatives to Brainstorming – How to Have More Ideas

635 Brainwriting

Allow Anonymity

Validate Constantly

Embrace the Lightbulb Moment

How does it work?
We've made 3 slots available each month for local businesses.

Who's it for?
This is intended for small businesses who need help driving sales, enquiries or footfall using SEO tactics - the types of business for whom outsourcing to a specialist agency isn't really viable or practical.

Is this a dressed up sales pitch?
Nope!
So the businesses that tend to benefit are those who would actually probably never look to hire an outside agency anyway.

And you promise there won't be a sales pitch?
You have our word.

How do we book?
We keep a day per month back for this sort of activity so we can open up a handful of appointments.