Learning SEO has been an incredible ride that never stops! Here is how I became interested in such a technical and time worthy effort.
For those of you who don’t know me, it may surprise you to learn that I’m a professional writer. I have written 10 books in total and have contributed to many more via big publishing houses like Andrews McMeel, Lucent Books, and Greenwood Publishing. I loved those days, researching and writing about interesting topics.
But here’s the truth: Writing doesn’t pay very well, and when you’re raising a child with one income, money becomes very important to the career person turned mother. Nobody told me that having a child would make us poor, so I tried everything I could to get more bucks in the bank. Babies sleep a lot and as my daughter grew up, she learned that one hour per day, Mommy was working. That’s how my writing began.
But what I learned is that nobody pushes your books but you. So, that’s how this whole Internet Marketing/SEO/Web Design, etc. happened to me. I wanted to sell my books and I thought online was a great idea. But the more I learned about marketing and the Internet, the more in love I became with the whole schlemiel. That was 20 years ago, and you can just imagine how much the Internet has changed since then. What we knew then to work for SEO will NEVER work today.
Learning SEO Begins at OE
I started to learn SEO from a program called Web CEO. It was really great for its time. It not only helped you to improve your pages for SEO, but there was a whole SEO course that came with it. I read everything there that I could and learned quite a lot. But still, I needed way more to become an expert.
So, I started working for Tellman Knudson’s company, Overcome Everything (OE). It was five of the best years of my life. I got to work with great kids. Yes, they were all MUCH younger than me. I was 54 when I started and they were in their 20s and early 30s, but they never allowed that to matter. We were all in it together for better and better.
And Tellman was all about learning. He’d say, “Educated yourself for an hour and then, implement what you learned for an hour.” And he’d constantly buy educational materials for us. He set me up with StomperNet. Back in the day, it was the BEST SEO learning experience online. Brad Fallon and the late Andy Jenkins really crushed it with this. I learned so much from them that I was ready to go. SEO became my main interest. My old boss became one of my heroes. I stayed with the company until 2011, when I started MagnaSites on my own.
Branching Out
And then, I found SEMRush. It started with a small program called SEO Quake, which I recommended to everyone I coached. It still exists. It’s a browser extension that can evaluate any page regarding your page health in regard to SEO. It’s still as amazing as it was back then. So, I continued to work with OE and learning about SEO.
I can’t remember how it happened, but the editor of SEMRush’s blog contacted me and asked if I’d write for them. SURE! Of course! I couldn’t wait to get started. I started writing an article a week, but once the blog got going, I cut it back because people were begging to write for them. It wasn’t an issue.
That was a lot of fun, but the day-to-day of running MagnaSites overtook my time and SEMRush was out. Yes, I still respect what they do and how much they give to the SEO community. You can’t even find my articles there anymore. SEO changes at the speed of sound, and much of what I wrote then no longer applies. It’s crazy! What’s “Last Contentful Paint”? Has Google gone mad with its Core Values? E-A-T? That stuff never mattered until now.
Start Learning SEO NOW!
I don’t know how old you are, but it’s NEVER too late to do something you really love. I’m 70 now, and not ashamed about my age at all. I have traveled a long road in life from managing bank branches in the early 80s to being an antiques & collectibles dealer in the late 80s, a design artist and crafts teacher in the early 90s to being a writer in the late 90s to the early new Century, to what I do now.
I have lived in four different states, and have had a rich life. Still, all things computing are still my biggest interest. We just started an online art gallery at MarcelloGalleries.com. At MagnaSites, we have been able to help so many people to get the presence online they were looking for. But if you have any inclination to become an SEO or just to learn about it for yourself, SEMRush is a great place to start. In fact, they have a great beginner’s course called “SEO Principles: An Essential Guide for Beginners.“
Even if you don’t want to be known for your SEO chops, it’s still the MOST important thing you can do for your pages to rank in search. You will get more organic traffic (traffic that comes from a search engine), and it converts SO much better than advertising. Once you have the SEO dialed in, you may not have to pay for advertising at all. How cool is that?
Pop on over and check it out. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did. Learning SEO is a blast!
