Thread by @GiordMarco96

One of the most important tips you could ever receive is about differentiation.

How to differentiate yourself and/or your career in a saturated market like #SEO?

A huge thread about differentiation and other arguments to make you think. 🧵

Let's start from scratch. You should offer a solid value proposition, why should I invest in you?

What can you offer that I am very unlikely to find elsewhere?

Start thinking about what you can do or what you can potentially learn.

Disclaimer: for niche websites on anything related to Display Ads and even affiliates, the US is always going to be the top choice.

This thread is referred to other scenarios, as you can build websites from wherever you like.

Many new SEOs think starting from the impossible or learning side skills like #Python.

Why should you start w/ data if you don't have the SEO knowledge in the world?

It's useless to think about data w/o some clear goal in mind.

The same goes for patents or other complex information.

Sure, some of them are very useful and take just a few hours to learn.

Nonetheless, you can just start from the super basic stuff and then move to advanced topics.

Before defining what's your value, you should know something.

If your journey's just begun, then this thread is not the best for you.

The reason is that you have to try different flavors of SEO first. It would be nonsense to decide before you even practice.

There are different ways of differentiating yourself.

You can pick any market/niche/SEO subset combination and focus on that.

Don't go too niche, be sure to select something that has demand.

Don't just say something so banal like "I am an On-Page SEO" >>>

>>> I doubt that you can only learn some stuff in 2022.

Plus, some distinctions are very old and I am not seeing them anymore.

Focus on business or technical problems instead, so you shift your mindset to solutions.

People don't want to pay someone because they have skills.

They want solutions, you should be able to satisfy their needs and find the correct audience.

I will go through some examples that can help you to forge your path.

A very common example is provided by SaaS SEOs.

It's a very "particular" industry with its own metrics and a lot of interesting details.

Needless to say, you need to know the SaaS world to do SEO in this niche.

That's not all tho.

B2B and B2C SaaS are different (of course). Here you can notice another distinction within the SaaS realm.

I am just starting w/ some SaaS projects and I admit it's a refreshing experience.

Still, it takes quite some time to get used to something so particular.

One idea could be to specialize in B2B SaaS SEO just for French and Italian languages.

It's not so specific actually, but you got the idea.

English is not the only language in the world, folks.

A short thread I loved on the topic is this one by
@darth_na.

https://twitter.com/darth_na/status/1480560497338597379

@darth_na Another example is the (in)famous dyad content/technical.

You can be extremely technical or you can lean towards the content marketing side.

You can do both as well, no one is going to stop you.

It's always better to focus more on one of the two tho.

@darth_na Saying that you love content is not enough to differentiate your career.

Then why aren't you a content manager? You need something more to succeed.

I don't buy the "SEO optimized content" fairy tale, it's so generic and inflated.

@darth_na Every SEO knows (or should) the basics, so it's not something you can leverage.

The most effective lever involves domain knowledge. If you're an expert in something it's a good way to capitalize on what you know.

Yes, your background does help.

@darth_na SEO is a non-academic subject but you can enrich it with what you studied.

This is quite similar to #DataScience, as most of the stuff you find in this thread can be applied to it.

Domain knowledge and a diverse background are factors that can help you succeed.

@darth_na There are certain industries where you need to know what you are talking about.

It's not enough to do Keyword Research and stop.

No way this is going to work for advanced B2B industries lol

@darth_na Coding and copywriting are related subjects that can help diversify yourself.

The same goes for UX and even Design, everything is good if you can find use cases and an audience.

Don't disregard what you already know, complement it.

@darth_na The biggest learning mistake that most people do when studying at uni is to avoid combining skills.

I won't go into the causes, I just want to bring up this topic.

Combine and merge what you know to create your niche.

@darth_na Now let's start with more examples, this time about my career.

I started w/ BA and then switched to CS to diversify my CV. I noticed that traditional BA was outdated and had bad job prospects.

This is when I started to rethink my SEO game too.

@darth_na I wanted to be super technical at first, so all the Webmaster things and a solid grasp of web servers and even CMSs.

However, my main passion was Data Science, it would be too much to focus on all these topics.

I gradually started to abandon that type of IT knowledge.

@darth_na The main reason is that I've always worked with devs, so I didn't even need to touch servers but twice in my life.

People will still ask the IT and not you in most cases, even though a solid Technical SEO is overkill.

Still, I didn't like it.

@darth_na Since I've always worked with blogs and publishers, content has to be one of my specialties.

There is no reason to drop it, I am quite confident in saying it's my specialty.

My path started shifting again towards content and not Technical SEO.

@darth_na As I started to study more and more Data Science and Machine Learning, I was more convinced than ever.

Data skills are my sword and I have to capitalize on them.

There is a solid argument behind this simple choice...

@darth_na I wanted to be a Data Scientist at first and the road was going to be extremely hard.

You compete against the best in class people in Switzerland, especially Zurich, which is the European Silicon Valley.

I've never received good DS offers, the competition was super tough.

@darth_na I decided to refocus on SEO because I had more practical experience.

I prepared a small portfolio and a great CV with SEO and DS together.

It worked super well and that's how I jeopardized my knowledge.

@darth_na My specialties are mostly content and data, referred to as analysis and other complex tasks.

You have to dig deeper into your specialties and do better than those who don't specialize.

That's the entire goal.

@darth_na Countries w/ super high salaries are tough for academic subjects.

You graduate and compete against super prepared people from all around the globe.

I noticed that SEO is not as developed as other industries (don't consider the US).

@darth_na For this reason, European countries w/ high salaries and top life quality are ideal choices.

My advice for fresh graduates is to avoid competing with your degree and focus on skills and networking instead.

Diversify your portfolio of potential countries too!

@darth_na I hope these examples will help you to launch your career.

Again, don't throw away your other skills, combine them instead.

Don't restrict yourself to English, leverage everything you've got.

@darth_na The above tweet is of course invalid if you want to build a career in niche websites.

There is almost no reason to pick other markets than the US unless you're sure you're going to dominate imho

@darth_na It's impossible and boring to be a jack of all trades. Know the basics of everything but specialize in some subsets.

Find what you love and create a path to be the best. That's what I am doing every day and the journey will be quite long (if not infinite).

@darth_na In some countries, SEO is not so developed.

This is a good chance to be a pioneer and find a lot of untapped opportunities.

@darth_na If you've followed my past threads, this means you can replicate what's been done in other markets.

Arbitrage is the key to using your language skills.

@darth_na On the other hand, you can work remotely on any website you wish to.

So yes, it all depends on your path and what you want to achieve.

You can live in one country and work on foreign websites, as that is quite common!

@darth_na I don't think that the choice agency/freelance/in-house is necessarily a way of differentiating yourself.

I mean, it is. Nonetheless, you can fit in all of them and still do fine.

I am more for a demarcation based on markets/skills.

@darth_na The choices are infinite, it's up to you.

Be reasonable and sensible, don't position yourself in saturated niches.

Work on finding the perfect sweet spot.

@darth_na There are people w/ better situations that can be considered privileged.

Others cannot boast the same luck and have to work more to get the same results.

I started in the second group years ago, sometimes effort is not even enough.

@darth_na Diversification can solve most of your problems if you manage to identify what you need.

The job market nowadays is tough and many Millennials will agree with me.

Don't look for saturated markets, focus on what people don't talk about.

@darth_na Mixing different subjects is the apotheosis of being a pioneer.

If you know how to do it and how to sell your services you will always win.

This contributes to creating a diversified market that is beneficial for us and our customers.

@darth_na If everyone started doing the same stuff over and over there would be no innovation.

And I have to say this, some countries have an outdated SEO game because there is a lack of innovation.

Most of the threads you read are translated from the US >>>

@darth_na >>> and that is great if you tell me that they are different countries lol

What's in the US is different from what you see in Germany or Sweden.

@darth_na If you are in the new generation of SEO professionals it's extremely convenient to focus on new/unexplored areas.

This should happen after you learn the SEO basics and have some level of proficiency.

Still, there is a strategic reason for what I am proposing.

@darth_na Veteran SEOs cannot always catch up to new changes or have trouble understanding new technologies.

That's where you can help and boost your career. You don't even have that much competition.

Times have changed.

@darth_na Follow me for threads, tips and case studies (coming soon) about SEO, content and #Python/data.

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