SEOChallenge.

co

24 CORE
SEO SKILLS

Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com) @AZARCHICK

SEOChallenge.co Keyword/Intent research

Competitor research

On-page SEO

HARD SEO
Technical SEO

Mobile SEO

SKILLS Link building

Google algorithms

HTML

CSS

JavaScript
Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com) @AZARCHICK
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Curiosity

SOFT SEO Critical thinking

SKILLS
Strong communication skills

Networking

Responsibility

Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com) @AZARCHICK

SEOChallenge.co Google Search Console

Google Analytics

Google Tag Manager

SEO
Google Data Studio

Google Sheets/ Excel

TOOLS Screaming Frog

ADDITIONAL

Moz

Ahrefs

SEMrush

Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com) @AZARCHICK

 SEOChallenge.co
Hard SEO skills are actually not that hard (pun intended) when you master them. They’re all essential to your
success as an SEO.
Keyword/Intent research
It’s very important not just to look for keywords
but for topics that will match user intent. User
intent is what a person expects to see when
they’re looking for this online.
Are they looking to buy? Get more information?
Looking for directions?
Understanding user intent and aligning your
recommendations with it is the key to ranking
pages.
Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com)
HARD SKILLS
Competitor research
While you don’t want to copy your competitors,
you need to be aware of the tactics they are using.
It will help you see how to improve your strategy.
Note that a competitor is not necessarily
someone who has the same business, products or
services as you do. Websites ranking for your
main keywords in just one or a few areas are still
your competitors (even if their core business is
different).
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On-page SEO
Your website is something you have full control
of.
You need to understand how to optimize it using
best practices as well as experimenting and
seeing what works for you or your client.
Mobile SEO
Google now cares only about what it sees on the
mobile version of the website, not the desktop.
As an SEO, you need to know how to check if your
or your client’s website will perform well
considering the mobile-first approach.
Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com)
HARD SKILLS
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is essentially about helping Google
crawl what it should and helping it to stay away
from the content that should not be crawled.
To do that, you need to master your
understanding of things like crawling, indexing,
canonicals, meta tags, etc.
Link building
Links are still important in SEO.
You should know how to earn them using white-
hat tactics as well as how to analyze backlink
profiles of websites.
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Google algorithms
Google releases a few hundreds of algorithms per
year. You don’t need to know each one of them
(most are not even announced). But you need to
understand the main ones and be able to analyze
if your or your client’s website was hit.
JavaScript
With the rise of technology, there’s a fine line
between creating a great website that ranks well
and a website that Google can’t even see.
As an SEO, you should be able to properly check if
JavaScript content is properly indexed by Google
and know what to recommend if it’s not.
Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com)
HARD SKILLS
HTML
You need to understand basic web standards
such as how links are added to the pages or how
images should be placed on a page so that
Google sees them. Knowing HTML also ensures
that you’re not scared to inspect elements on the
page and look at the page source code.
You don’t need to code pages from scratch as an
SEO (though it’s a nice skill to have!).
CSS
Knowing what CSS is and understanding how it
helps create and style pages is important.
But you can relax, you don’t need to add CSS or
style pages from scratch as an SEO.
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 SEOChallenge.co SOFT SKILLS
Mastering hard skills is what makes you good at SEO.

Mastering soft skills is what helps you show that you’re good at SEO as well as continuously grow as a
professional.

Curiosity Critical thinking

SEO is a very dynamic sphere. If you want to stay As an SEO, you need to be able to use your own
on top of it, you need to be eager to learn judgement first of all versus relying on anyone
something new every day. else’s.

You will have to solve complex problems and There’re many ‘it depends’ in this industry, and
develop unusual solutions. So you need to be able your task is to transform one of these ‘it depends’
to analyze data, see patterns and understand into actionable steps in a particular scenario.
what’s working and what’s not.

Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com) @AZARCHICK

 SEOChallenge.co
Strong communication skills
First of all, being able to communicate your
thoughts is valuable in any sphere.
In SEO, you’ll need to be able to explain your
strategies to non-tech people so that they
understand and listen to you. And you will also
need to explain things to tech people (e.g.
developers) so that they implement what you’re
recommending.
You’ll need to convince both.
Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com)
SOFT SKILLS
Networking
Again, this skill never hurts no matter what sphere
you’re in. It’s always great to meet new people and
have someone by your side.
The SEO community is very welcoming and fun!
Responsibility
You need to understand that as an SEO, you
impact the whole business. The website is usually
the main source of leads and sales for all online
businesses. You should be aware of it and be
responsible for your actions.
As an SEO, your goal is to create a long-term
positive impact.
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 SEOChallenge.co TOOLS
The tools are your friends that will help you on your way to optimizing websites.

There are plenty of SEO tools and it’s easy to be overwhelmed by them. You don’t need to use 10-20 tools. You
need to start with must-haves. Find them below.

Google Search Console

GSC is the best place you can find first-hand data
on your website right from Google. If you want to
be a good SEO, you need to master it.
Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager helps you track meaningful
actions on the website that are then reported in
Google Analytics (see above).
Google Analytics
If you can’t track it, you can’t optimize it.
© Yours truly
As an SEO you must be able to look at the default
and custom GA reports, slice data as you need to
find nuggets that will point you in the right
direction.

A good SEO can set up at least basic GA event

tracking that can be used for creating goals in
Google Analytics.

Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com) @AZARCHICK

 SEOChallenge.co
Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is an awesome free tool that
helps you create evergreen reports.
Gone are the days when you’d need to go use
multiple GA reports and manually go through
Google Search Console to find the right numbers
to put into your monthly report.
Now you can just connect the needed sources
(like Google Analytics and Google Search
Console) and build a report that will be up-to-date
24/7.
I know this sounds like an ad but it isn’t. I just love
this free tool from Google
Created by Kristina Azarenko (marketingsyrup.com)
TOOLS
Google Sheets / Excel
Google Sheets (or Excel) is the best friend of every
SEO. You can export information there, use add-
ons to add GA and GSC data, and build reports.
You don’t need to be a Google Sheets master, but
you can at least be able to sort lines and remove
duplicates.
Screaming Frog
This tool is especially great to have under your
belt if you choose to go the technical SEO path.
Screaming Frog crawls websites and shows you
valuable data so that you can quickly spot issues.
There are other alternatives like SiteBulb,
JetOctobus and others as well.
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GOOD LUCK,
FRIEND! If you Want to know More about these essential skills and SEO,
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Kristina Azarenko