What is the greatest skill in SEO?
if you believe this tweetis patience.
While patience is a great answer, I would never say there is a “greater” SEO skill.
Because?
Because SEO requires several hard skills (things you can learn or teach) and soft skills (how you work and interact with others) to be successful.
As I’ve always found, asking many SEO professionals a question will get you a wide variety of opinions. So I asked several SEO professionals what they would consider the best SEO skill.
This is what they told me.
1. Research and problem solving
Dave DaviesMain SEO, weights and biases
“As for the biggest skills, I have to go with the stock SEO answer: It depends. In this case, though, it really does.
If the professional is focused on content, then writing skills combined with strong research skills (both SEO and topic based) would definitely top my list. If the professional is an SEO technician, then the most important skills will be diverted to technical knowledge, but even that branches out.
If they work as a contractor, they will likely need to have a broad understanding of different technologies and a strong ability to dig into details and work with developers. If they are an in-house SEO contractor or platform specific, they would likely need stronger knowledge of a specific stack and possibly deployment capabilities.
The one skill that all SEO needs is research and problem solving abilities. If they can’t do that, their career will be short. Fortunately, if you’re reading this, do your research.”
2. Critical thinking
Dan TaylorHead of Technical SEO, SALT.agency
“To me, one of the most important skills for SEO professionals to develop is critical thinking. The SEO ecosystem is full of noise and claims, with varying levels of data and anecdotal evidence to back them up. All too often , much of this content and advice is taken verbatim and applied to one’s own situations without a second thought, with the expectation that implementation will yield the same results.
A common example in SEO happens when working with a client (and other stakeholders) on a website redesign. More often than not, designs and some proposed technical implementations will be taken from other websites without considering the “other” factors that go into ranking a website. The fact that eBay, the BBC, Amazon, etc. do X, doesn’t mean X works for Bob’s Hardware or Bob’s Finance Co.
With critical thinking, SEOs should read a study online, look at the input and results, and then intentionally find other studies that contradict those results, then form their own opinions and influence their strategies with the application to the customer’s current scenario.”
John McAlpinDirector of SEO Strategy, Cardinal Marketing Digital
3. Problem solving
Elmer BoutinVP of Operations, WrightIMC
Corey MorrisHead of Strategy, Voltage
“The best skill in SEO is problem solving. It rarely goes as planned.
Adapting, finding new ways, and exploring all resources for technical, on-page, IT, UX, and off-page factors are critical to success. Using a checklist and check boxes won’t get you very far.”
4. Experimenting
Himani KankariaFounder, Missive Digital
“The best skill in SEO is experimenting. Something that works for one company or industry is not necessarily what would work for another. You can’t judge that without trying.
Also, most projects have different perspectives on audience buying and browsing, technologies for website UX, content, how we build navigation, etc. So you need to keep checking what works for your website, client or business because SEO is always. -evolving, and you can’t learn or unlearn new or outdated things without experimenting. Sometimes we learn from someone else’s experiments, so experimenting is a super duper skill in SEO.
5. Business acumen
Trond Lyngbøfounder, Search Planet
“As an SEO consultant specializing in enterprise-level SEO consulting for enterprise e-commerce companies and omnichannel retailers, I value SEO strategies that are not SEO strategies for Google, but SEO for business performance results, productivity and economic growth.
A strong understanding of business, business processes, workflow automation and cross-functional alignment pays off in this segment.”
Connie ChenSpecialist in SEO, Moving Traffic Media
“Commercial awareness (ROI) and interdisciplinary skills because you need to be able to translate the work you’re doing into a measurable impact for your stakeholders. You also need to know how to distill technical ideas into concepts that make sense to those stakeholders.”
6. Adaptability
Maria BlancaHead of SEO, Kurt Geiger
“SEO is a spectrum. As such, it’s difficult to master all skills (techniques, data, content, PR, storytelling, management, and more). These skills change as Google and search evolve. Every Google’s algorithm shapes the way we do SEO.
Given that the only constant is change, the best skill for success is the ability to adapt. Change is the norm when working at an agency: new clients, bigger clients, diverse budgets, fast pace and more. If, along with that, we add constant changes to the algorithm that involves changing the way we work, that’s where only those who have the ability to adapt will not only survive, but thrive.”
Holly Miller AndersonLead SEO Product Manager, Under Armour
“The biggest skill in SEO is adaptability. SEO is a learned skill from technique to content. But adaptability is a choice.”
7. Communication
Casey MarkeeOwner, Media Wyse
“SEO requires the ability to clearly explain concepts and goals, usually in many different ways, to many different people. Your ability to do this, professionally and without emotion, is a huge part of your daily success.”
8. Ability to learn
Chris Silver SmithPresident, Argent Media
“The best skill in SEO is the ability to learn. One constant in SEO is change: you need to learn new things and flex to adapt to new ways constantly.
9. Persistence
Ludwig MakhyanCo-founder, MAZELESS
“Persistence is the greatest skill, where you don’t get discouraged by failures and keep learning, pushing to improve, engaging with other teams and cooperating to achieve greater success for the business you represent.”
10. Cross collaboration
Jon ClarkManaging Partner, Moving Traffic Media
“Cross-collaboration is an incredibly valuable skill. SEO is one of the few skills/roles that sits at the intersection of nearly every department in an organization: design, development, content, UX, PR, marketing, engineering, quality assurance, analysis and more.
11. Understand the user
Mike GrehanSVP of Corporate Communications, NP Digital
“An SEO’s greatest skill is to fully understand an end user’s ‘information need’. They don’t start their research as a B2C or B2B consumer or customer, nothing more than a human being trying to solve a problem . Help Google help them, and Google is sure to help you!”
12. Inquisition
Mark JacksonPresident and CEO of Vizion Interactive
“An inquisitive mind. In SEO, you can be a technically gifted and very bright person or a content marketing expert, but if you don’t have an inquiring mind, you may not be looking at a project from all possible angles.
13. Ability to know what is important
Olaf Koppco-founder and head of SEO, Aufgesang
“The best skill in SEO is “ranking experience”. You can do a lot in SEO. But only 20% of it guarantees 80% success. Only with enough experience in knowing what tasks are effective, in this case makes the difference between good and average SEO.”
Joe DevitaManaging Partner, Moving Traffic Media
“The ability to stay focused on the optimization signals that matter instead of being distracted by all the noise.”
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About the author
Danny Goodwin is the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land & SMX. In addition to writing daily about SEO, PPC and more for Search Engine Land, Goodwin also manages Search Engine Land’s list of subject matter experts. He also helps schedule our conference series, SMX – Search Marketing Expo. Prior to joining Search Engine Land, Goodwin was executive editor of Search Engine Journal, where he led editorial initiatives for the brand. He was also editor of Search Engine Watch. He has spoken at numerous major search conferences and virtual events, and has brought his expertise to bear in a wide range of publications and podcasts.
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