For more than 20 years, search engine optimization has existed as a cornerstone for online brand management, marketing and recognition. Being able to attract attention through search engines is immensely valuable given its passive nature – but earning this attention is now harder than ever. While it was easy enough to rank for select keywords and searches in the past, today, copious amounts of work is often required.

There is much to learn when mastering the art of SEO, but what you learn isn’t necessarily the first step. How you learn can determine whether or not the information absorbs and how skilled you’ll be at pursuing your endeavors.

As such, let’s look at some recommended tips that’ll help you learn SEO properly.

Learn SEO in Spurts

There’s no denying just how complex the entirety of SEO is: it is akin to learning a dozen different skill-sets and combining them for effectiveness. As such, the feeling to learn as much as possible, as quickly as possible can be overwhelming. What’s likely to be even more overwhelming is if you cram too much information at once.

By learning in pieces and taking your time with absorbing information, the likelihood of retaining what you do learn is increased. While it may take longer to learn the entirety of the art in this manner, what you do learn will be likely to make more sense and ultimately be more useful as your knowledge base grows.

Utilize in Real Time

Practice definitely makes perfect: if all of your SEO learning remains academic for weeks or even months on end, the you’re missing out on valuable opportunities. From pinging search engines with new, optimized content to building links, take the information you are currently learning and find ways to utilize it as soon as possible.

As you continue learning, you’ll uncover better and more efficient ways to use those strategies alongside combining multiple tenets of SEO. However, there’s no reason to wait until you’ve mastered a variety of SEO-related topics: find ways to practice and begin experimenting immediately.

Plan Out What You Wish to Learn

While the best SEO strategists have a command of virtually every topic and strategy involving the art, it’s not realistic to expect yourself to learn this in a short period of time. Because of this reality, it is recommended that you make a plan of which specific SEO strategies you’d like to master first.

Obviously on-page SEO is a major concern for most, as is link building and keyword research. However, there are dozens of individual aspects to SEO and figuring out how many you can learn at once – then making a plan for when and how to learn them – will maximize your chances of success.

As with any new subject, practice makes perfect. By using your skills in real time, planning in advance which specific topics you wish to learn and not cramming too much information too quickly, your chances of learning, improving and retaining SEO skills will be high. Before long, you’ll be pinging search engines with links and content that’ll help you dominate within your niche!