A Newbie’s SEO Journey in Three Months

Hey everyone, it’s İlksu Derin Özkan! In this blog post, I will give a glimpse of my first ever experience in SEO and BoostRoas. But first, let me begin by telling you a little about myself. 

Who is İlksu?

I started working at BoostRoas as an intern in the SEO department around 3 months ago. While working at BoostRoas, I was also an engineering major at university. Although this packed schedule had its difficulties in terms of managing, it taught me a lot. 

What I’ve been up to at BoostRoas?

Here’s what my 100 days at BoostRoas looks like:

• Done 10 presentations and covered 32 main topics and many sub-topics (also means I talked a lot),
• Attended educational seminars,
• Attended several internal off-work activities such as BoostFridays,
• Met over 30+ people and had several meetings with them (all remotely),
• Had many non-work-related meetups with my colleagues.

First time in SEO

As I was a student in university, thinking about my future career, I had plenty of ideals (typically young and greedy phase). Throughout my university life, I had the privilege to do several internships. The funny thing is that they are entirely different from each other (in terms of departments and industries, they are not even close).  

I found BoostRoas through my university’s internship unit. I have always wondered about the immense world of digital marketing, and because of that exact reason, I decided to apply for the job.

The company was aware of my lack of SEO skills during our interviews. That is why I start with the DMT (Digital Marketing Training) program, which requires no skill or background whatsoever. Thence, I found a place in the incredible SEO team and began my 12-week DMT programme.

How was learning the SEO process?

It is crucial to understand the logic behind any topic and concept, and when it comes to professional life, it is vital. My communication abilities and hunger to learn new things may have gotten me where I was, but obviously, it is not what it all takes to succeed. These abilities have to be blended and cultivated with theoretical knowledge and terminology.

DMT is what rookies exactly need to kick things off. It is basically a program where you learn the fundamentals of the dedicated topic. In my case, it was, of course, SEO and its basics and staples.

I presented at the beginning of each week over 12 weeks, outlining what I had learnt the week prior. Everything I needed to know was already arranged in a playbook to guide me in the right direction and ease the whole process.

I started with the most fundamental topics such as “How Google Search Works?” and “How Search Algorithms Work?”. After getting a grasp on the fundamentals, I worked my way up to meta tags, sitemaps, robots.txt files, canonical tags and many more! Even myself just realizing now how many topics I have covered, how much research I’ve done, how many hours I sat in front of this laptop trying to figure and understand the concepts… like it is just wow. Knowing that this was just the beginning and there are many more to discover is a bigger WOW.

The struggle is real!

Every path has its own ups and downs, and here’s my case:

When I started my internship, I quite liked the concept that I was researching. After a while, I began to question whether I actually enjoyed what I was spending my days on. The starting point was my curiosity about SEO. But, the more time I gave into this topic, the more I realized that this was not the career I wanted to pursue. Yet, it was a perfect starting point. It took me a good minute to recognize and accept the fact, but it is what has kept me going.

After that enlightening moment, I gave my best to complete my DMT process, get my certificate and most importantly, learn about search engines.

Here are some pieces of advice I can give while learning the fundamentals of SEO:

• Google is your best friend, so is John Muller. It is the official source; dig into it! Especially the Google Developers website and John Müller’s Hangout sessions.
• Get out of your comfort zone. Even though the playbooks are very well prepared, they can never be enough. The amount of study you do determines how well you learn is remembered.
• Take copious notes. You’ll have to go back and double-check your notes and start all over again.
• Keep up with the updates. Keeping your knowledge up to date is highly crucial in a world as wide as SEO. Even the slightest bits can completely change the next day.
• In addition to the clause above, try to understand the logic behind the tools. Semrush might have been here for a while now, but it doesn’t mean it will be the point guard forever. Therefore, do not memorize things without understanding them.
• Have subscriptions on well-known websites. Make sure you acquired your information from the websites you studied and that you enjoyed what you read.
• Practice your knowledge if you can. Go on Screaming Frog, Semrush, DeepCrawl, Ahrefs. Don’t forget that Google’s many tools such as Google Search Console, Analytics, PageSpeed Insights are free to use.

Add your personal touch to the presentation template. Having to prepare a presentation each week can be demanding. Even if the company has a template to follow, you can jazz it up a bit. Having a “theme” not only makes everything look more professional but eases the process as well.

On a brighter note

I have completed my DMT process successfully after 3 months. It has been a journey that has impacted me a bunch. It made me decide my next step, where I want to go. Moreover, now I can confidently say that I am knowledgeable about SEO.

Every journey begins with a small step, and everyone’s experience is one of a kind. I found my starting point and, most importantly, what I’m actually passionate about at the end. Now I will be chasing my goals even more eagerly than before. And, of course, I will take my SEO knowledge along the way with me.