Is SEO Writing Hard to Learn? What You Need to Know Before Committing
Wondering if you could make a career in SEO content writing? What to consider before diving in.
Get deeper insights in our free SEO writing training video!
If you’ve been perusing job-bidding sites, job boards and LinkedIn, you might see a ton of jobs asking for SEO content writing – and there already seems to be plenty of SEO writers around to take those jobs. Bummer!
So, it’s not surprising if you’re on the fence about getting into SEO content writing. Is it a good career choice? Will you get enough SEO writing jobs?
But even before you think about all that, you’re probably also wondering, “Is SEO writing hard to learn?”
In this article, we’ll give you some insider insights about how hard it actually is to learn SEO. We’ll dive into what you really need to learn to become a successful SEO content writer, how long it takes, where to go for training and beyond.
What (Really) Is SEO Content Writing?
Once a hot buzzword, SEO is now an integral part of how we interact with websites online. It serves both consumers, readers and businesses – and it’s not going anywhere, ever.
Nowadays, SEO is a key factor to a website’s online success, and it cannot be ignored. But what does SEO stand for?
SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of optimizing a website so that it matches up with a person searching for information (on a search engine like Google). The goal is to connect a person with the best piece of content for them, based on what they typed into the search bar.
For example: If someone goes to the Google search bar and types in, “how to fix my ballet shoe,” they want content that will tell them exactly how to fix their ballet shoe.
They don’t want to read an article about how to fix a tap shoe. They don’t want to watch a video about how to fix all types of dance shoes. They want the answer to their exact problem in a concise, targeted article or video.
Nowadays, SEO is highly sophisticated, so you’re bound to have really targeted content show up in your Google search results. If you find tons of awesome content that answers your question perfectly, it means that those websites tried really hard to create content that fits your needs exactly.
That’s SEO. Websites optimizing and targeting their content for a specific search. And ideally, they want to be one of the top entries that pop up once you enter your search keyword. After all, the top hits will grab a vast majority of the traffic for that search, leaving entries lower on the page to get almost nothing.
Now, with a little context you might still be wondering, “Is SEO writing hard to learn?” (I know it can seem like it!) We’ll dive into all of that next.
Read this! A Day in the Life of an Expert SEO Writer
What Makes Content Optimized for SEO?
You might be wondering what exactly makes a piece of content SEO-friendly. What do websites do to make their content rank high on search engine results pages (AKA “SERPs”)? Plus, is SEO writing hard to do successfully?
SEO involves an immense amount of tactics! There is more “complicated” stuff you can do with a website: placing keywords around a site, optimizing how fast your webpages load and more. That’s all the techy, backed stuff.
However, you can also improve SEO by formulating content (blogs, articles, infographics, videos) in a certain way.
For writers, there are various things you can write on the page to make a piece of content more likely to rank high in a Google search – and again, grabbing a huge majority of the attention from Internet searchers.
Writers can even work on scripts to optimize videos! So obviously, there’s a ton of SEO work for writers out there.
Read this! Why You Should Never Agree to an SEO Writing Internship
Is SEO Writing Hard to Learn?
That’s a basic overview of SEO. While there’s plenty more to talk about, let’s look at how difficult it is to get into SEO content writing.
First off, there’s a ton of work out there for SEO writers, so that’s good. However, you may start to notice that there are also a ton of SEO writers out there. At least, so they claim to be…
While the opportunities for SEO writers are immense, many writers find themselves looking on job boards and job-bidding sites (along with a bunch of other SEO writers). This leads to high-competition and frustration when you try to land work but can never seal the deal.
But what about actually learning how to write for SEO? Is it a hard skill? Compared to other types of writing, is SEO writing hard?
SEO writing is a specific skill set that has to be learned. You can’t just blindly write a blog post and hope that it ranks high on search engines. (Spoiler: It won’t rank high.)
There are specific ways to brainstorm your topics, to format your article and to manipulate the words on the page so that it ranks high on SERPs.
So, just like with learning any new skill, it can be difficult in the beginning. But with the right guidance and enough practice, you can absolutely master SEO.
Even if you’re not a techy or a metrics person, you can still be a wildly successful SEO writer – as long as you have the right education!
What Do You Have to Know as an SEO Content Writer?
If you want to be a high-performing and well-paid SEO writer, you need well-rounded knowledge of how SEO works and the most up-to-date best practices.
For example, you need to learn all the SEO jargon and advanced practices to avoid sounding like an amateur when speaking to clients.
You need to understand what hurts SEO so that your work can rank as high as possible without you botching your own efforts.
You need to know how to craft high-performing, traffic-attracting, reader-loving SEO content while avoiding being penalized by search engines.
You need to know the effective on-page SEO tactics to help your content rank high for the right searches.
You need to know how to utilize off-page, technical SEO tactics so your content is indexed correctly and prioritized, rather than downgraded by the search engines.
You need to know how to interpret key SEO metrics so you can quickly troubleshoot and optimize your content to rank better.
And, last but not least, you need to use the best keywords so you can rank in the top spots and grab a vast majority of the traffic (and to avoid wasting time on keywords in which you have no chance of ranking for).
This makes SEO writing sound super overwhelming, right? Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of stuff you need to learn in order to make a great income as an SEO writer.
So, is SEO writing hard? The hardest part is making sure you learn everything you need to know. However, once you have all the information available to you, the actual SEO writing process is not difficult or complex. Phew!
Where Do You Learn SEO Writing?
Most people who claim to be SEO writers probably have a patchwork SEO writing education at best.
Many did the arduous task of DIY learning and grabbing whatever free information they could find. Is DIY SEO writing hard to learn? The answer is YES!
The problem with DIY learning for SEO is that most of what you can learn out there is not tailored to the needs of professional writers.
The information is tailored to business owners and digital marketers. And while you can grab some pretty good baseline information, you can rarely learn the expert SEO writing tactics from these sources.
There are also very few SEO writing courses that go deep into the complex tactics that writers need to understand. Most SEO writing courses just scratch the surface – especially because the SEO writing courses are not created by actual SEO writers.
Then, if you only decide to learn from free information and free SEO courses, these resources do not give you the full picture whatsoever!
And what about SEO certifications? Are there SEO writing certificates you can get? Learn more about SEO certifications here.
SEO Content Writing Is NOT Hard, with the Right Resources!
As you can see, getting into SEO content writing is not easy, but it’s also not impossible. Is SEO writing hard to learn if you have to find all the information yourself? Yeah.
Is SEO writing hard to learn once you know you’ve got all the correct and updated information on hand? No! That’s why utilizing awesome SEO writing resources will completely expedite your education and help you write high-performing, high-paid content sooner. Dip your toes into the world of SEO writing with our free SEO training video!
Even if you’re nervous about the keyword research, the performance metrics and the technical considerations for SEO, you can definitely learn and thrive as an SEO writer.
Your next best step is to find a comprehensive SEO writing training, one that is made solely for professional writers and one that lays out everything you need to know to be considered an “SEO writing expert” as soon as you finish the course.
