There’s a phrase from a earlier in this chapter, which is doing a lot of work:
…produce a strategy that, based on your experience, will lead into quicker returns, or have a frank discussion about which digital marketing channels will have to carry the weight until you can ramp up…
“Based on your experience.” This is a big deal for SEO strategy — you need to have a good idea how different tactics will play out in the ecosystem, and of course, it’s not like you have access to the inner workings of Google’s algorithm. So you’ll need to get a feel for what works, and how much, how quickly, and why.
There are some shortcuts here:
Industry conferences
Digital marketing conferences feature speakers and content at the cutting edge of the field. Not every talk you hear will apply directly to you or your work, but there is no better way to absorb the energy and ideas of the brightest minds in SEO than to be right there in the room with them.
The real value, though, is not in the scheduled talks. They only set a common starting point for the bit that you can learn the most from, which is networking with your peers, getting face time with those you admire most, and learning about new tools and tactics make the best marketing conferences well worth the ticket price.
Many conferences now offer virtual attendance options, which will save you some cash and trouble (although attending in person still has its considerable advantages). Of course, we’re biased, and think MozCon is a great choice for beginners and experts alike, but there’s a full slate of SEO-focused conferences around the world each year for all specialties and levels of expertise.
Regular reading
News sites, blogs, and newsletters that feature regular updates on SEO are some of the most reliable ways to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry. It’s easy to miss a bit of news in a field that moves and changes as quickly as SEO does, but checking your favorite sites each week or subscribing to a good newsletter will keep you in the know. The Moz Top 10 is a good jumping-off point as it sends a roundup of the most relevant recent articles to your inbox and acquaints you with some of the more respected outlets in SEO.
Community engagement
While there’s always been a rich community of SEOs congregating on various social networks and web forums — we are a digitally native bunch, after all — the social distancing requirements of the COVID-19 pandemic pushed communities in most industries even more solidly into virtual spaces. Platforms that allow you to interact with your SEO peers in near real time are more valuable than ever, and it’s now nearly impossible to be fully “where the action is” without engaging with at least some of them.
As with journalism, advertising, and other industries that revolve around up-to-the-minute commentary and iteration on current events, the tech sector and especially digital marketing is full of heavy Twitter users. Addictive and often toxic as it may be, SEO Twitter is the place to find shared articles, hot takes, and conversation around the issues of the day. If you’re joining in, you’ll get more traction from actually contributing to and sharing others’ threads rather than simply scrolling and reading.
The front page of the internet is often the best place to find human answers to complex questions, and those abound in SEO. The subreddit r/marketing is the largest digital marketing community on the site, but not all content there will be specific to search. r/SEO and the slightly smaller r/bigseo are more specifically targeted, and there you’ll find your peers asking and answering questions and sharing their experiences with tactics you may be considering.
The sharing and engagement functions on LinkedIn feel a bit more disconnected than on Twitter or Reddit, but the business-focused platform is still fantastic for networking. Professionals with “SEO” in their job titles are likely to receive an inordinate number of connection requests from strangers and unsolicited sales messages, but you can keep your connections list more manageable by changing the primary button in your profile from a “Connect” CTA to a “Follow” one (do this in Settings & Privacy > Visibility > Followers and toggle the “Make follow primary” button to Yes).
You will want to seek out connections with people on your team as well as others you’ve worked with either directly or tangentially. Consider connecting with the SEO experts at the tools you’ve demoed, even if you didn’t buy their products. Folks you’ve met at conferences or who are working on projects to which you’ll be contributing are also great connections.
Slack & Discord
Shared Slack workspaces and custom Discord servers exploded as virtual water coolers during COVID-19 — spots where people with shared interests can hold near-synchronous conversations in ever more esoteric subthreads. If there’s a social media-based community around a topic, you can be sure there are one or more Slack or Discord communities dedicated to it as well. Women in Tech SEO on Slack is a great example for female-identified search marketers, and you can find dozens more in roundups across the web. Few other platforms offer as much opportunity for crowdsourcing opinions and gaining personal access to the who’s who of SEO.
