How to Become an SEO Lead (10 Tips That Advanced My Career)

A fewer years ago, I was an SEO Lead managing endeavor clients’ SEO campaigns. It’s a elder relation and takes a batch of enactment to get there. So however tin you bash it, too?

In this article, I’ll stock 10 tips to assistance you ascent the adjacent rung successful the SEO vocation ladder.

Helping caller hires successful the SEO team is important if you privation to go an SEO Lead. It gives you the acquisition to make your enactment skills, and you tin besides stock your cognition and assistance others larn and grow.

It demonstrates you tin explicate things well, supply adjuvant feedback, and amended the team’s modular of work. It shows you attraction astir the team’s success, which is indispensable for leaders. Bosses look for idiosyncratic who tin bash their enactment good and assistance everyone improve.

Here are immoderate applicable examples of things I did aboriginal successful my vocation to assistance mentor inferior members of the squad that you tin effort as well:

• Hold “lunch and learn” sessions connected topics related to SEO and stock lawsuit studies of enactment you have done
• Create process documents for the inferior members of the squad to amusement them however to implicit circumstantial tasks related to your work
• Compile lists of your favourite tools and resources for inferior members of the team
• Create onboarding documents for interns joining the company

Wouldn’t it beryllium large if you could look astatine each azygous SEO Lead’s resume? Well, you already can. You tin infer ~70% of immoderate SEO’s resume by spying connected their LinkedIn and societal media channels.

Type “SEO Lead” into LinkedIn and spot what you get.

I utilized this method to recognize however my favourite SEOs and radical astatine my institution navigated their mode from a inferior relation to a elder role.

For example, erstwhile the Head of SEO astatine the clip Kirsty Hulse, joined my team, I added her connected LinkedIn and realized that if I wanted to travel successful her footsteps, I’d request to commencement by getting the relation of SEO Manager to basal immoderate imaginable accidental of starring SEO campaigns similar she was.

The progression successful my institution was from SEO Executive to Senior SEO Executive (Junior roles successful London, UK), but arsenic an outsider coming into the company, Kirsty showed maine that it was imaginable to leap consecutive to SEO Manager fixed the close circumstances.

Using Kirsty’s and different SEOs’ profiles, I decided that the adjacent measurement successful my vocation needed to beryllium SEO Manager, and astatine immoderate point, I needed to get immoderate acquisition with a bigger media bureau truthful I could enactment my mode up to starring an SEO run with bigger brands.

Sadly, you can’t conscionable stone up to a monthly gathering and commencement starring a large marque SEO campaign. You’ll request to beryllium yourself to your enactment manager first. So however tin you do this?

Here’s what I’d suggest you do:

• Create a beardown way grounds with smaller companies.
• Obsessively stock your wins with your company, truthful that elder absorption volition already cognize you tin deliver.
• At your show review, archer your enactment manager that you privation to enactment connected bigger campaigns and instrumentality connected much responsibility.

If there’s nary anticipation of moving with a large marque astatine your existent job, you mightiness request to see looking for a caller occupation wherever determination is simply a recognizable brand. This was what I realized I needed to bash if I wanted to get much experience.

Being captious of your accomplishment gaps tin beryllium hard to do. I recovered the champion mode to place them aboriginal successful my vocation was to inquire different people—specifically recruiters. They had cognition of the manufacture and were usually reasonably honorable arsenic to what I needed to improve.

From this, I realized I lacked acquisition moving with different teams—like PR, social, and improvement teams. As a inferior SEO, your caput is focused 99% connected doing SEO, but erstwhile you go much senior, your integration with different teams is important to your success.

For this reason, I’d suggest that aspiring SEO Leads should person a bully moving cognition of however different teams extracurricular of SEO operate. If you instrumentality the clip to bash this, it volition wage dividends aboriginal successful your career:

• If determination are different teams successful your company, inquire if you tin bash immoderate onboarding grooming with them.
• Get to cognize different squad leads wrong your institution and larn however they work.
• Take grooming courses to larn the fundamentals of different disciplines that complement SEO, specified arsenic Python, SQL, oregon contented creation.

Sometimes, employers usage accomplishment gaps to wage you less, truthful it’s important to get the skills you request early on…

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Examples of different accomplishment gaps I’ve noticed include:

• SEO forecasting and gathering beardown concern cases.
• Communicating with elder stakeholders successfully.
• Negotiating for accrued fund for SEO.

Tip

If you deliberation you person a batch of accomplishment gaps, past you tin brushwood up your skills with our SEO academy. Once you’ve completed that, you tin fast-track your cognition by taking a people similar Tom Critchlow’s SEO MBA, oregon you tin effort to make these skills done your job.

As a inferior successful immoderate company, it tin beryllium hard to get your dependable heard amongst the elder crowd. Ten years ago, I shared my wins with the squad successful a play radical email successful the office.

Here’s what you should beryllium sharing:

• Praise from 3rd parties, e.g. “the lawsuit said they are impressed with the enactment this month.”
• Successful show insights, e.g “following our SEO change, the lawsuit has seen X% much conversions this month.”
• Examples of the enactment you led, e.g. if your enactment and decision-making led to bully results, past you request to share it.

At Ahrefs I support a “wins” document. It’s conscionable a elemental spreadsheet that lists feedback connected the blog posts I’ve written, the links I’ve earned and what newsletters my station was included in. It’s utile to person a papers similar this truthful you person a grounds of your achievements.

One of my archetypal large wins arsenic an SEO was getting a nexus from an outreach run connected Buzzfeed. When I went to Brighton SEO aboriginal that twelvemonth and saw Matthew Howells-Barby sharing however helium got a Buzzfeed link, I realized that this was not thing everyone had done.

So erstwhile I did negociate to go an SEO Lead, and my squad won a prize successful Publicis Groupe for our SEO performance, I made definite everyone knew astir the enactment we did. I adjacent wrote a lawsuit survey connected the enactment for Publicis Groupe’s intranet.

I’ve worked with immoderate incredibly talented people, galore of whom person helped maine successful my career.

I beryllium my large interruption to Tim Cripps, Laura Scott, and Kevin Mclaren. Without their enactment and encouragement, I wouldn’t beryllium wherever I americium today. Even earlier that, David Schulhof, Jodie Wheeler, and Carl Brooks fto maine mastermind immoderate bonkers contented campaigns that were fortunate capable to succeed:

Some of the sum I got for a stag and hen bash client, backmost successful the day.

I wasn’t adjacent an SEO Lead astatine that point, but they gave maine the reins and trusted me.

So, however tin you find your tribe?

• Speak to recruiters – they mightiness clasp the summons to your adjacent imagination job. I spoke to galore recruiters aboriginal successful my career, but lone 2 recruiters delivered for me—they were Natasha Woodford, and Amalia Gouta. Natasha helped maine get a occupation that filled my accomplishment gap, and Amalia helped maine get my archetypal SEO Lead role.
• Go to events and SEO conferences, and speech to speakers to physique connections extracurricular of your company.
• Use LinkedIn and different societal media to interact with different companies oregon individuals that resonate with you.

Many elder SEO professionals walk astir of their online lives connected X and LinkedIn. If you’re not utilizing them, you’re missing retired connected juicy opportunities.

Example of a recruiter connection I got conscionable aft I joined Ahrefs.

Sharing your expertise connected these platforms is 1 of the easiest ways to summation your chances of getting a elder SEO role. Because, judge it oregon not, sometimes a occupation connection tin beryllium conscionable a DM away.

Here’s immoderate circumstantial ideas of what you can share:

• Share your thoughts connected a trending topic – similar the latest Google algorithm update.
• Share what you learned during the people of a campaign.
• Ask the community for their thoughts connected a definite topic.

I’ve precocious started posting connected LinkedIn and americium impressed by the scope you tin get by posting infrequently connected these topics.

Here’s an illustration of 1 of my posts wherever I asked the assemblage for assistance researching an nonfiction I was writing:

And present is the contented show crossed the past twelvemonth from posting these updates.

I’m intelligibly not a LinkedIn expert—far from it! But arsenic you tin see, with conscionable a fewer months of posting, you tin commencement to marque these platforms enactment for you.

Godard Abel, co-founder of G2, talked connected a podcast astir conscious leadership. This struck a chord with maine precocious arsenic I realized that I had practiced immoderate of the principles of conscious leadership—unconsciously.

You tin commencement practicing conscious enactment by asking yourself if your actions are supra oregon beneath the line. Here are a fewer examples of supra and below-the-line thinking:

If you privation a elder SEO role, I’d suggest shifting your mindset to above-the-line thinking.

In the satellite of SEO, it’s casual to blasted each your hunt motor woes connected Google. We’ve each been there. But a batch of the time, elemental changes to your website tin marque a huge difference—it conscionable takes a spot of effort to find them and marque the changes.

SEO is not an nonstop science. Some stakeholders people get tense if they consciousness you aren’t definite astir what you’re saying. If you don’t get their enactment aboriginal connected past you autumn astatine the archetypal hurdle.

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To go much persuasive, effort incorporating Aristotle’s 3 persuasive techniques into your conversations.

• Pathos: usage logical reasoning, facts, and information to contiguous water-tight arguments.
• Ethos: found your credibility and morals done results.
• Logos: marque your reports archer a story.

Then sprinkle successful connection that has a precocious level of modality:

Some radical volition beryllium capable to bash this people without adjacent realizing it, but for others, it tin beryllium an uphill struggle. It wasn’t casual for me, and I had to larn to accommodate the mode I talked to stakeholders early on.

The strongest mode I recovered was to entreaty to emotions and backmost up with data from a level similar Ahrefs. Highlight what competitors person done successful presumption of SEO and the results they’ve earned from doing it.

When I started successful SEO, I had zero connections. Getting a occupation felt similar an intolerable challenge.

Once I’d got my archetypal SEO Lead job, it felt stupidly casual to get different one—just done connections I’d made on the mode successful my SEO journey.

I erstwhile got stuck connected a delayed bid with a elder subordinate of staff, and helium told maine helium was truly into Google Local Guides, and helium was connected a definite precocious level. He said it took him a fewer years to get there.

Local Guides is portion of Google Maps that allows you taxable reviews and different idiosyncratic generated content

When helium showed maine the app, I realized that you could easy crippled the levels by uploading tons of photos.

In a “hold my beer” moment, I wide downloaded a clump of photos, uploaded them to Local Guides and equaled his Local Guide level connected the bid successful astir fractional an hour. He was seething.

One of the photos I uploaded was a half-eaten Subway. It inactive amazes maine that 50,974 radical person seen this photo:

This wasn’t precisely SEO, but the quality to find this ‘hack’ truthful rapidly impressed him, and we struck up a friendship.

The adjacent period that idiosyncratic moved to different company, and past different fewer months later, helium offered maine an SEO Lead job.

Final thoughts

The roadworthy to becoming an SEO Lead seems straightforward capable erstwhile you commencement out, but it tin rapidly go agelong and winding.

But present equipped with my tips, and a bucket load of determination, you should beryllium capable to navigate your mode to an SEO Lead relation overmuch quicker than you think.

Lastly, if you privation immoderate much guidance, you tin ever ping maine connected LinkedIn. 🙂