Tug Agency SEO Team advice on how to land your first SEO job
Neil
Do it yourself.
Make your own website and learn some code.
This isn’t essential when you’re starting out in SEO but I feel learning basic HTML and creating my own website to test on was one of the most influential things I did when first starting out that A) Helped me to get my first job in SEO and B) Gave me skills that I still use today and the basis to develop those skills.
For an employer this demonstrates how keen you are to get into SEO, it demonstrates pro-activeness and it also demonstrates that you already have an understanding of basic SEO.
Finally (and massively geeky) getting your first search engine ranking for something that you created from scratch is something you’ll never forget.
Carlo
Be humble, SEO knowledge is huge
There is no worse thing than giving the impression to your interviewer that you know everything of SEO, just because you read Moz.com everyday. In your SEO career you will stumble across thousands of particular website issues you will have to solve and great ideas to target customers with off-page activities.
Go to SEO industry events you can find on Meetup
If you want to connect with real SEOs from executives to managers you may want to attend a meetup event. This will also allow you to find out job opportunities while learning more about the day to day agency or in-house processes. Everything you read on Moz.com is sold as consultancy work with deliverable documents to the clients.
Be enthusiastic
There’s no cooler industry than SEO. You will never stop to learn in this job and if this is your objective you are heading the right way. Show your enthusiasm to your interviewer and you are already in the right direction.
Verena
“Having had no previous experience in an SEO-related role, I started this job as a fresher to the industry. Previous experience in customer and client-related roles has proven to be very helpful in this job as I’m constantly in touch with bloggers and sometimes clients too – so communication skills and confidence, as well as a professional approach, are very important! If you are new to SEO it is always helpful to read through a lot of blogs and websites in order to keep up with industry news (hello Rand Fiskin, Matt Cutts & Co!) and to make a good first impression.”
JonJon
First tip from JonJon would be to increase your typing & clicking speed. Working in any job would require bullet-quick speed in typing as well as clicking. Here is a great place to familiarise yourself and get those fingers trained well http://10fastfingers.com/ .
When you have your fingers trained well you can start moving onto reading the beginners guide on moz.com, it acts as a great starter pack. It has all the essentials put into one place and is a great reference guide made from a leading industry community
http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo.
Third tip is to always keep yourself up-to-date with the latest search trends. This is because working in search you’ll find that everything is fast-paced and is constantly changing all the time, here are few great resources for updating yourself.
http://searchengineland.com, http://searchenginewatch.com, http://www.seroundtable.com,
Alyssa
Start a blog and engage with the community through social media. There is a saying I learned while interning at a newspaper: “Show, don’t tell”. You can say you know all about SEO but to have a blog, run it effectively and know the major players in the blogosphere speaks louder than anything you can say.
Realize that your first job will not be your dream job. Fact.
Speak another language. Many clients need SEO work in multiple markets in different countries. Here at Tug, we work in French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Portuguese and Italian.
Mark Pitt
Know Your Stuff – Follow the top leaders in the SEO world such as Moz, Search Engine Land and Distilled. Read their blogs and follow their twitter feeds. Do your homework.
Get some relevant experience – if you are lacking SEO experience, try creating a website, freelance writing or working as an intern. This could provide a platform in order to break into the industry.
Have confidence in your ability to add value to any company. Know what your best attributes are – is it your enthusiasm, technical skills, presentation abilities? Know your strengths and this will help you find your ideal job position and sell your strengths effectively in an interview situation.
Read more about Jorja’s SEO graduate scheme experience at Tug. You may also want to know how to explain SEO to non-SEO friends.