00:00 14 years ago I started my career in
00:02 digital marketing and throughout that
00:03 time I've built and sold a handful of
00:05 online businesses consulted for small
00:07 shops to celebrities to the Fortune 500
00:09 and I've been recognized in Business
00:11 magazines like Forbes and Inc as an SEO
00:14 expert to top it off the United States
00:16 government considers me to be in the top
00:18 one percent of my field now despite any
00:20 success I've had in digital marketing I
00:22 have also made a ton of mistakes along
00:24 the way that cost me valuable time and
00:27 money so today I'm going to show you how
00:29 I would learn digital marketing if I
00:31 could start over and I'll also share
00:33 some of my biggest failures along the
00:34 way alright so the very first thing I do
00:37 is choose just one area of digital
00:39 marketing to focus on and this is the
00:42 opposite of what I did so for context in
00:44 2009 I started my first website and I
00:47 basically spammed forms and classifieds
00:49 that eventually slowed down so I tried
00:51 paid advertising and well I wasted my
00:53 money because I had no idea what I was
00:55 doing but then social media was blowing
00:57 up so I pivoted to that and tried to go
00:59 viral with coupon codes boy was that
01:01 embarrassing but still I was making like
01:04 a solid two thousand dollars a month I
01:06 was officially a businessman so I
01:09 decided to hire a search engine
01:10 optimization company because this is
01:13 what we do and that was the turning
01:15 point for me when my fire for SEO was
01:18 ignited they scanned me for everything I
01:20 had the good thing that came out of that
01:21 though was that it fueled me with rage
01:24 so much so that I committed to focus on
01:27 learning just SEO and to get really good
01:30 at it so I wouldn't have to hire another
01:32 company and by around 2011 my company
01:34 was worth over seven figures and the
01:37 main reason is because of SEO Now by
01:39 definition digital marketing is just
01:41 marketing that happens over the Internet
01:43 so you can choose to focus on just email
01:45 marketing pay-per-click advertising
01:47 search engine optimization social media
01:50 marketing etc etc digital marketing is
01:52 just so vast that it's impossible to
01:55 become a master of all areas it's best
01:57 to focus on just one area of in internet
02:00 marketing and to get really good at it
02:02 now after you've chosen the area of
02:04 digital marketing you want to focus on
02:06 you need to make a mental commitment to
02:08 learn as much as possible now while
02:10 there isn't a single right way to learn
02:13 digital marketing what I've found to be
02:15 helpful is to learn in three stages so
02:17 for illustration purposes let's say you
02:20 chose SEO as your focus area now stage
02:22 one is to focus on understanding the
02:25 fundamentals so in SEO that would
02:27 include things like why and how SEO is
02:29 important for businesses how search
02:32 engines work and the main ways SEO is
02:34 done so that includes keyword research
02:36 link building technical SEO and on-page
02:39 SEO to name a few fundamentals may not
02:42 be exciting but they're absolutely
02:45 critical to learning whether you're
02:46 learning an instrument a new recipe or
02:49 digital marketing skills stage two is
02:52 all about making connections in how the
02:54 fundamentals work together for example
02:56 you should be able to make the
02:58 connection in SEO that content creation
03:00 is reliant on keyboard research in that
03:03 on-page SEO is connected with both your
03:05 content writing and keyword research
03:07 finally stage 3 is all about learning
03:10 how these techniques are executed more
03:13 specifically you'll want to get an idea
03:15 of workflows and tools that you'll need
03:18 to do your job for example you should at
03:20 least know that keyword research is done
03:22 with a tool like keywords Explorer and
03:24 the way people find keyword ideas is by
03:26 starting with a broad seed going to a
03:29 keyword ideas report narrowing in on
03:31 keywords with a set of filters and then
03:34 analyzing the search engine results
03:35 pages to understand if it's possible to
03:39 compete these three stages are typically
03:41 how courses are taught and for that
03:43 reason I think it's worth taking a
03:45 reputable beginners course on the area
03:47 of digital marketing you've chosen like
03:49 our free SEO fundamentals course this is
03:51 something that I was too young and
03:54 arrogant to do when I was getting
03:55 started with online marketing I went
03:57 with the unguided route and literally
03:59 and anytime someone said Advanced I was
04:02 like Pavlov's dog and I give them all my
04:04 attention I wasted tons of time and
04:06 money because for some reason I
04:09 subconsciously thought it would be more
04:10 rewarding to figure it out on my own now
04:12 as you go through this learning stage
04:14 and consume content there's going to be
04:16 a time when you feel like yeah this all
04:19 makes sense but I can guarantee you that
04:22 when you actually get to doing it it's
04:24 not going to feel so straightforward
04:26 anymore and that's why the next thing I
04:27 recommend is to commit to actually
04:29 practicing what you've learned in my
04:31 opinion there's no better way to learn
04:34 digital marketing than to get first-hand
04:36 experience and the best way to do that
04:38 is to create your own site this way
04:41 you'll have a safe place to practice
04:43 whatever and however you want now as you
04:45 commit to actually doing something I
04:48 highly recommend doing two things number
04:50 one cut yourself off from all new
04:53 content you should have already consumed
04:55 enough through a course or whatever
04:57 resources that you use to have a high
04:59 level view of what it looks like to
05:01 execute on the marketing area you've
05:03 chosen by cutting out new content you'll
05:06 be able to stay laser focused on
05:08 actually practicing the fundamentals
05:10 that will be an essential building block
05:13 to your career and number two don't
05:15 obsess over things that aren't moving
05:17 your progress forward for example if you
05:20 decide to build a hobby site so you can
05:21 practice SEO don't spend hours trying to
05:24 fine tune your logo your fonts or blog
05:27 layout as an SEO you're going to want to
05:30 focus on driving organic traffic through
05:32 high rankings in Google Now if you're
05:34 able to actually put all these things
05:36 into practice you'll learn very quickly
05:39 how to actually get results with SEO or
05:42 social media or email marketing or
05:44 whatever area you choose to focus on now
05:46 if you want to know the fastest way to
05:48 accelerate your growth and to put this
05:50 doing stage into overdrive then I
05:53 recommend getting a job or internship at
05:56 an agency when you work at an agency you
05:58 get the unique experience of being able
06:00 to work on a diverse group of projects
06:03 not only is the exposure grade but it
06:05 forces you to stretch that creativity
06:07 muscle and to apply your learnings in
06:10 various scenarios now perhaps the
06:12 biggest advantage to working at an
06:13 agency is that you get to be in the
06:16 trenches with people who are ahead of
06:18 you in their digital marketing career
06:19 you can ask them questions watch them
06:22 solve problems and in some cases people
06:25 may be willing to Mentor you thriving
06:27 agencies are usually fast-paced
06:29 environments which obviously make them a
06:32 great place to learn digital marketing
06:33 fast if that's your goal now while you
06:36 obviously want to learn a new skill as
06:38 fast as possible don't make the mistake
06:40 of taking shortcuts to get there and I'm
06:42 talking from experience here early in my
06:44 career I took an SEO shortcut that cost
06:46 me seven figures so my first company was
06:49 an e-commerce store and I was driving
06:51 the majority of my traffic through SEO
06:53 now one of the hardest the most
06:55 important parts of SEO is getting
06:58 backlinks to your pages and back in 2010
07:00 in 2011 backlinks were pretty much all
07:03 you needed to rank a page high in Google
07:05 so I came across a private blog Network
07:07 called build my rank where I could buy
07:09 virtually an infinite number of
07:11 backlinks and without fail throwing a
07:14 handful of Links at each product page
07:16 would boost it to the top of Google for
07:18 queries that were converting into tens
07:20 of thousands of dollars every single
07:23 month the thing is buying backlinks was
07:25 and still is against Google's webmaster
07:28 guidelines now while I was making a
07:30 healthy living I was getting ready to
07:32 cash out but without warning I lost like
07:35 85 percent of my traffic and a ton of
07:37 Revenue so when I sold the site a few
07:39 months later instead of getting a low
07:42 seven figure buyout I ended up getting
07:44 much much much much much less now had I
07:47 focused on Learning Link building so I
07:49 can build backlinks whenever I want Not
07:52 only would I have had a much nicer exit
07:54 but I would have been able to apply
07:56 those skills to pretty much every other
07:58 SEO driven business since I created
08:00 bottom line avoid shortcuts because they
08:03 can be costly and you'll only realize
08:05 that in hindsight now another thing I
08:07 would do differently is to actually
08:09 build relationships with people so for
08:11 like the first eight years of doing SEO
08:13 I literally didn't talk to anyone about
08:16 what I did because most people just
08:18 didn't understand and it was lonely and
08:20 I was really just stunning my
08:22 professional growth so what I would do
08:24 differently if I could start over is to
08:26 try and network with two different
08:28 groups of people so group one would be
08:31 like-minded people who are trying to
08:33 learn the same area of digital marketing
08:35 as you they're basically a safe place
08:37 where you can share your ideas
08:39 experiences and insights without fear of
08:42 judgment and not only can you learn from
08:44 each other but you'll also find
08:46 motivation from each other to get better
08:48 at your craft in fact this is what Mr
08:50 Beast did with a group of friends in his
08:52 early stages of his YouTube career and
08:54 in interviews he frequently attributes a
08:57 success to having this group of people
08:59 to grow with and the second group of
09:01 people I network with are people you
09:03 respect in your Niche all it really
09:05 takes is an email or DM saying hey just
09:09 wanted to let you know that I really
09:10 admire work thanks for all that you do
09:12 now that might sound weird but at the
09:14 end of the day we're all just regular
09:16 people in fact in 2017 when I started
09:19 sending these kinds of emails I reached
09:21 out to Tim solo CMO at ahrefs to just
09:24 say that I respect what he's doing as a
09:26 marketer No Agenda whatsoever to which
09:28 he replied you've made my day fast
09:30 forward one year and I ended up working
09:32 at ahrefs relationships in digital
09:35 marketing are important in social media
09:37 these are people who can help amplify
09:39 your work on YouTube these are potential
09:41 collaborators and in SEO they're a
09:44 critical part to link building now as
09:46 you continue to build your own sites
09:48 work at agencies or other companies and
09:51 network with like-minded people you're
09:53 going to come to a crossroad where you
09:55 need to decide what's next and I see
09:58 three ways this can none of which I
10:00 think are wrong or right so option one
10:03 you can continue to stay a generalist in
10:05 your focus area this means that you'll
10:07 continue to build your knowledge and
10:09 experience in most areas of your
10:11 specific field in digital marketing the
10:14 pros with this is that generalists often
10:16 become managers and leaders within
10:19 companies because they get more or less
10:21 every part of what's being done the con
10:24 is that you never really become an
10:26 expert in anything which obviously has
10:29 its own set of limitations option two is
10:32 to Niche down further in your focus area
10:34 so as you gain more knowledge and
10:36 experience in your focus area you're
10:38 going to realize that there's too much
10:41 information to become a true expert in
10:43 your field and for that reason you may
10:46 want to consider niching down further
10:48 because each digital marketing strategy
10:51 breaks down quite a lot for example if
10:54 you've chosen to focus on social media
10:55 you may decide to focus strictly on
10:58 Facebook marketing or perhaps you want
11:00 to go more Niche and choose Facebook
11:02 group marketing for software companies
11:04 now the pro of niching down is that it's
11:07 much easier to become recognized as a
11:09 niche Authority because there's less
11:11 competition and if you're viewed as that
11:14 Authority your reputation will likely be
11:16 lasting and you can typically demand
11:19 higher wages the con is that there's
11:22 usually less demand and option three is
11:24 to expand into other areas of digital
11:27 marketing and this is kind of the route
11:28 that I've gone the way I recommend doing
11:30 this is to expand into areas where your
11:32 skills are complementary and
11:34 transferable for example starting from
11:36 SEO an expanding tube content marketing
11:39 is complementary and the skills from SEO
11:42 are totally transferable and even
11:44 something like going from SEO to search
11:46 ads would also be complementary and some
11:49 of those skills are transferable too now
11:52 being 14 years into my digital marketing
11:54 career I can confidently tell you that
11:57 I'm still learning all the time and
11:59 that's largely because I'm practicing a
12:01 lot of the things that I just shared
12:03 with you I work with a ton of smart
12:04 people at ahrefs in various departments
12:07 who I love learning from I've had the
12:09 opportunity to meet really smart people
12:10 at conferences through social media and
12:13 even from random cold emails and I go
12:16 through seasons of intentional learning
12:18 followed by intentional doing now while
12:20 I've screwed up in many ways I don't
12:23 look at anything as a waste of time
12:24 because it helped me to get to where I
12:26 am today I'm definitely not the smartest
12:29 richest most recognized or most
12:32 successful digital marketer in the world
12:33 but this is a long journey that I've
12:36 embraced along the way and I hope it's
12:38 one that you'll enjoy or are currently
12:40 enjoying too now if you want to start
12:42 your digital marketing career in SEO
12:44 like I did then I highly recommend
12:46 watching our SEO course for beginners
12:48 which will teach you how to get free
12:50 organic traffic to your site from start
12:52 to finish I'll see you there