There was a popular poll in SEO Signals Lab yesterday where over 400 voted.
I have an unpopular opinion to share.
Most SEOs are too busy on client projects or building affiliate sites that they fail to set aside some time each month to improve the asset that’s most important: themselves.
But here’s the good news.
If you spend 100 hours on a skill that’s very specific, you can actually become very proficient. Your new skills will compound your success in ways that might not be immediately clear to you.
I brainstormed a little bit and compiled a shortlist of skills that complement but extend beyond SEO. I think these skills, combined together, can make for a great digital marketer.
- Study the public relations skillset. This stretches beyond getting links with HARO. Get familiar with journalist outreach, story pitches, angles, and big media placements.
- Get a good handle on how to optimize pages for conversions. There are big communities built around mastering conversion optimization. Most SEOs know very little about this space. Traffic x Conversion % = Revenue. It’s a fundamental part of the equation we play in yet is very rarely discussed.
- Become adept at rich media content creation. Video and audio content are starting to play larger roles in SEO.
- Can you hack together code with PHP? You’re awesome. Can you code SEO tools with Python? You’re a legend (in my book, at least.)
- How is your copywriting? I know SEOs that can’t stand writing because they think they’re not good at it. However, this is a skill like any other that can be improved. Of all the skills here, I would say this is one of the most important, if not the most important.
- Paid ads. Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, Quora, AdWords… Need I say more?
The knowledge to master any of these skill sets is out there and either free or very cheap. The hard part is fostering the desire to learn and sticking to it.
