As the title subtly suggests, I’m now in my second month of working within SEO and PPC. When I first got the job offer, Shane told me that there was going to be a steep learning curve (or at least I think he told me that), and boy oh boy was he right. I’d be lying to myself and to you if I said that I came into this job with realistic expectations – I genuinely thought that SEO and PPC were simple, I’ll be an SEO specialist within a year I told myself. I was wrong, so incredibly wrong. So, other than learning that I’m yet to grow out of my youthful naivety, what else have I learned?
1) Learning will never stop
Every time I feel like I have a grip on things and a thorough understanding of everything Shane sends my way, something new comes along to shatter my dreams of having a nice and easy day. There’s always something else I can learn, a next step I can take to develop my abilities, and another article I can read several times to try and understand what on earth it’s talking about. Being in this industry for such a short time, I feel like I’ve learned a lot – from auditing and reporting to completing landscape assessments and setting up Adwords campaigns – although it feels like I’m bursting with new knowledge and skills, I’m fully aware that this is just the top of the iceberg and it’s a very very large iceberg.
2) Hire a professional
If you’re a business owner and want to improve your organic ranking or perhaps give Google Ads a shot, I beg you, save yourself the headache of trying to do it yourself and hire a professional (unless of course you’re experienced at it). I promise you, it’s nowhere near as simple as you’d think it might be. The smallest aspects can be all the difference between ranking on the first page or the second, and optimising websites or PPC campaigns takes a lot of time; more time than any successful business owner will have.
3) This is definitely the Industry for me
Not a week has gone by that I haven’t found myself learning how to do something new and that’s exactly why I love this job. I’m constantly being pushed to develop my abilities and take on more responsibility. Marketing, SEO, and PPC seem like the ultimate weapons to have in your arsenal in this day and age – the number of opportunities that these open are incredible. For example, you can combine these skills with your other passions in life. I managed to combine my interest in investing and creating side incomes for myself with PPC. Since I am young and like investing my money, I obviously have some dough stored in cryptocurrencies. One of the projects that I have an interest in is called Presearch – It’s a decentralised search engine. The reason I mention this is that I have written a blog article about this website, exploring whether it’s worth a shot for PPC advertisers or not; and since I think that the risk involved is low, I have put my money where my mouth is and started a few campaigns of my own. I took something I was already interested in and combined it with my work; I doubt this is possible for anyone working in compliance for example (for anyone working in compliance who’s reading this, don’t lie to yourself, reading GDPR laws is not fun, I know because I’ve been there).
My recommendations for anyone wanting to break into this industry
First off, realise that this isn’t an easy industry to enter. Not only is there a massive demand for SEO, PPC, and marketing jobs but it’s often necessary to already have some experience. So if you’re genuine about your interest and want to go out there and find an entry-level role of your own, you’re going to have your work cut out. I would recommend that you do three things:
1) Hit the books a.k.a online courses
You will not be able to lie your way into this industry; if you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about you will stick out like a sore thumb. I recommend starting with some Hubspot courses in marketing and SEO. You can then move on to more advanced SEO and PPC stuff.
2) Knowledge is useless unless it’s applied
Find a way to gain some experience – I’m sure there are many ways to do this but here’s how I done it: I volunteered as a digital marketing executive for a charity and I worked on side projects such as a CV/portfolio website for myself and some of my friends. I figured this would be best because I would learn from more experienced marketers in the volunteer position and I would be able to showcase my design, content writing, and SEO skills via the websites.
3) Don’t be passive
By this I mean don’t be passive with your job search – don’t simply apply and wait for a response. Instead, try to reach out as much as possible and to an extent, be a pain in the backside. For example, when applying for this position I was ready to apply on Indeed before I checked out Shane’s LinkedIn and saw that he get provided an email address there (It might have been on the Indeed Job posting too). I decided that he would be far more likely to view his email inbox than his flooded Indeed applications list so I emailed him explaining how I believed I fit the role, listing out all the necessary attributes and how I demonstrated them. Then, for peace of mind, I also sent him a message on LinkedIn, and another, and another (Apologises Shane). Long story short, I’m pretty sure I stood out.
Summary
So to summarise, I’m pretty much just your average entry-level marketer, navigating his way through this industry in absolute awe. The first 2 months have been incredible and I hope the next two are just as good. If you would like to connect with me on LinkedIn or for whatever reason have a chat, feel free to pop me a message on https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-stasiak/