Is 30 Too Old to Learn SEO?

Exploring a career change can be intimidating, especially if you’ve already established yourself in another or need to learn an entirely new field. There’s good news though: it’s never too late to learn SEO. Digital marketing is a continually growing field and the demand for experts in search engine optimization (SEO) is consistently high. This article will explore how you can learn SEO efficiently so you can make your career transition as seamlessly and quickly as possible. 

Why Learn SEO at 30?

By the time you reach your thirties, you’ve probably gotten an associate's or bachelor's degree and reached a mid-level role in a related field. Perhaps that field is marketing and you’re an accomplished social media marketer or email marketer. In that case, learning SEO can help propel you to the next level in your career, allowing you to take on new tasks or move into a managerial role. 

If your degree or current career are in an entirely different field, learning SEO can provide you a pathway to starting over. If you’re a programmer or web developer, you’re especially well-suited for a transition into SEO. As a developer, you know how to keep code clean and efficient; create a UX-focused website; easily optimize images, code, redirects, and improve load time; leverage sitemap implementation within technical SEO; and use redirects properly. Even if you’re from an entirely different field, skills like adaptability, strategy, and creative brainstorming will all be useful in SEO. 

By the time you’re in your thirties, you have a better understanding of the field you’ve chosen, and if it’s actually the right fit for you. Midlife career changes are common and switching in your thirties means you still have enough time to establish yourself in a new field and work your way into a leadership role. The demand for SEO professionals is forecasted to increase by 22% between 2020 and 2030, with the SEO services market predicted to grow to $217,846 by 2030. While a career change may seem overwhelming, there’s never been a better time to become an SEO expert. 

How Long Will it Take to Learn SEO?

Some say that you can learn the basics of SEO in a few hours with an online course, but it can take several weeks to a few months to learn how to use SEO for your website. Within three months, you can typically master the fundamental theories and principles, including learning how search engines work, the importance of SEO, and how crawling, indexing, and ranking work. You’ll also learn the distinction between the three main types of SEO:

• On-page SEO: creating the actual content on the website, utilizing relevant keywords and optimizing headlines, images, headers, and meta descriptions.
• Technical SEO: includes website and server optimizations to ensure stellar website performance and easy crawlability and indexing.
• Off-page SEO: includes the tactics applied outside of your website like link-building, social media posting, mentions, podcasts, reviews, and guest posting.

Most introductory courses can be completed in three months or fewer and will cover all the above mentioned topics, giving you first-hand experience through real-world projects. Learning the basics in three months will set you up for success in learning more advanced techniques later; by mastering the fundamentals, you can begin working in SEO, gaining on-the-job experience that can lead to improved skills and increased knowledge. 

Ways to Make Learning SEO Easier and Quicker

The quickest and easiest way to learn SEO is through a live class. You’ll be able to receive feedback and troubleshoot any difficult projects in real-time with an expert instructor and learn from a top-notch curriculum developed by industry professionals. You’ll also have the chance to connect with other students and other SEO experts through networking opportunities. Plus, scheduled class times and due dates offer a level of accountability that most students find highly motivating.

Live classes are available in two formats: part time and full time. Part-time classes are typically offered in the evenings or on weekends, allowing you to maintain your current 9-5 work schedule. Because you’re only learning in the evenings or on the weekends, attending part time usually takes double twice as long as attending full time. Full-time courses will be more demanding of your schedule, as they’re often held during regular business hours. Think of a full-time course like being enrolled in school again. Your learning will be your entire focus, but the major benefit is that you can master SEO in the shortest amount of time. 

Full-time classes and part-time classes may differ in how comprehensive they are as well. Some part-time classes, in order to save on time, may not cover as many topics as a full-time course. Plus, a full-time course offers a more immersive experience, as you’ll spend less time being pulled away from your studies to deal with other work or life responsibilities.

With all that in mind, below are some questions you should ask yourself when deciding which is right for you.

• Are you between jobs or able to take vacation time to complete a full-time training course? 
• Are you only free in the evenings and need a class that can accommodate your schedule?
• How quickly do you need to master SEO?
• How immersive do you want your program to be?

Live SEO Training 

Noble Desktop offers a variety of classes, both live online and in-person in New York City. Their SEO Bootcamp covers the fundamentals of SEO with hands-on lessons in search engine optimization and competitive keyword analysis Led by an expert instructor, this class offers small class sizes, setup assistance, and a free retake should you wish to revisit any of the material. The course also includes a seven-day free trial of SemRush, the top keyword research tool.

If you’re looking for something more robust, Noble also offers a UX & UI Design Certificate that covers design concepts, industry tools like Figma, and research methodologies for creating successful user experiences. UX (User Experience) focuses on designing apps, websites, and other products that are easy and pleasant for people to use. UI (User Interface) focuses on the appearance of apps, websites, and other products, so they are beautiful and visually effective. UX/UI and SEO are complementary fields; having a better understanding of the user’s experience can help guide your SEO strategy. 

Additionally, their Digital Marketing Certificate will provide you with a holistic understanding of all parts of marketing, including SEO. You’ll develop an actionable, multi-tiered campaign and optimize it through search engine optimization (SEO), social media, paid search, content marketing, and email marketing. You’ll also learn to increase your return on investment by using technology to determine key performance indicators, monitor web analytics, track conversions, and create reports with Google Analytics. Tracking your successes and failures will be hugely important as an SEO professional. 

Google Analytics Bootcamp will teach you how to use Google Analytics and its applications for marketing, including tracking data, interpreting reports, and optimizing performance. Google Analytics is often used by SEO experts to help identify content and pages on a website that is ranking well or getting shared a lot. This course will cover setting up an account and understanding what you should be tracking. You’ll also discover the exciting features of GA4, including its data model and advanced methods for tracking events that matter to you. (This course is part of the Digital Marketing Certificate, but can be taken as a standalone course.) 

While not specifically focused on SEO, Web Development with HTML & CSS is a valuable course for any SEO professional, as they’ll often have a hand in website development. This class offers hands-on experience coding websites from scratch, all the way through uploading to make the site live. You’ll learn best practices for structuring and tagging the content of your webpages with HTML, and styling the content with CSS. Using HTML, you’ll learn how to create webpages with text, images, and more. With CSS, you’ll style the content, create centered page layouts, add background images, style navigation, and make the page responsive. Optimizing HTML and CSS is paramount to ensuring not only an attractive design but also excellent SEO performance.