12½ emotional ingredients for SEO success

Explore essential emotional skills that can drive SEO success and build lasting trust with clients and colleagues. The post 12½ emotional ingredients for SEO success appeared first on Search Engine Land. - In his book, “Twelve and a Half,” Gary Vaynerchuk explores essential emotional skills integral to his life and business success.  Developing these skills as an SEO professional can set the stage for a successful career: Unlock your SEO potential and embrace curiosity Learn to ‘count to 10’ with patience Unleash your tenacity and embrace the ‘impossible’ Kindness wins, so join every conversation with respect Know what you don’t know and embrace self-awareness Stay grounded and deflate your ego Listen and connect with empathy Own your impact as accountability builds trust Be ambitious and try to see the bigger picture Embrace conviction and never stop believing in the power of SEO Stay optimistic and don’t lose faith when your priority keyword’s ranking slips Revel in gratitude and celebrate every achievement Embody kind candor If I had been aware of these 12 and ½ emotional ingredients during the early days of my career, I would have approached many situations differently. Let’s dive into each trait and how you can use them. 1. Unlock your SEO potential and embrace curiosity Curiosity is a must-have trait for any skilled SEO expert. It’s all about diving deep into the company, product, customer persona, websites and other team processes.  Without this contextual knowledge, your recommendations could miss the mark, eroding trust with clients, employers and teammates. But curiosity doesn’t just enhance your SEO game – it fuels professional growth. By embracing curiosity, you uncover the latest in SEO, UX best practices, project management, and even “minor” skills like creating helpful prioritization matrices. These skills are invaluable when juggling multiple websites and stakeholders. 2. Learn to ‘count to 10’ with patience Initial setbacks or early hurdles should not discourage you.  Let’s face it: SEO success demands hard work, and results rarely happen overnight.  As an SEO professional, you’ll often find yourself preaching the gospel of patience. Educating stakeholders on why Semrush and Google Search Console show different positions for the umpteenth time.  Explaining to the dev team why excessive redirects aren’t ideal, even if users remain unaffected.  The classic question about the quarterly plunge in organic traffic (because nobody asks about the upward trend) from teams that haven’t implemented any recommended changes.  In these moments, my golden rule is to respond with a deliberate delay, refining my initial reply and highlighting any positives. 3. Unleash your tenacity and embrace the ‘impossible’ Don’t be disheartened by discouraging responses like “I don’t know,” “Our website can’t handle it,” or the classic “This is impossible.”  Tenacity means pushing on, asking how it can be done, and challenging the idea of impossibility.  (Kudos to StackOverflow, Stack Exchange, and ChatGPT for showing that the “impossible” is achievable!) I may not be a JavaScript whiz or well-versed in React or Node.js. But that doesn’t mean I won’t notice if a website fails to render correctly. Just recently, in one of my projects, none of my trusty plugins rendered the website properly. Google Search Console hinted at occasional rendering glitches, but as a user, everything appeared fine. The dev teams were convinced everything was flawless.  I endured the chorus for months, “Your SEO tools are faulty; check how they work and clear your cache.”  But then, a tiny error message caught my eye in the Chrome console. After half a day of research, it turned out my SEO tools were solid. A rendering issue indeed existed due to tag setup and a Node.js update months ago. You can only imagine my pride. But what made me even prouder was how I handled it afterward. 4. Kindness wins, so join every conversation with respect Our fast-paced lives are all focused on achieving results and meeting deadlines. But let’s not forget that we’re only human, and mistakes happen. Take the rendering issue, for example. I’ll admit I was fortunate to discover it through my tenacity.  However, a younger me might have started the conversation with, “I’ve been telling you for months that something’s not right, but you ignored it. Now, what will you do with this proof?” Not the best approach for a productive conversation or future collaboration, right? Now, as a wiser version, I opted for a simple suggestion:  “I came across this error in the Chrome console and did some research. Could you please check it out? It might be what we’ve been searching for.” Same information, different emotions, and potentially different outcome. Kindness isn’t so hard. Often, it’s about stepping into someone else’s shoes and asking simple yet powerful questions like, “How are you?”  The challenge lies in giving ourselves enough time to do so.  Think twice before speaking and four times before writing (since writing lacks tone and body language, which can easily lead to misunderstandings). 5. Know what you don’t know and embrace self-awareness It’s vital to gauge your business-specific knowledge and understand your professional standing. We live in a fast-paced era where digital marketing and businesses evolve rapidly.  Don’t hesitate to lean on the expertise of others or openly admit when you’re unfamiliar with certain concepts or lagging behind in the latest SEO tools. Having a realistic sense of how you stack up against others is equally crucial. Being self-aware isn’t just about recognizing your skills and knowledge; it’s about keeping your ego in check.  6. Stay grounded and deflate your ego A valuable lesson came my way recently, courtesy of my manager. I’ve collaborated with various external agencies as an in-house SEO.  Some partnerships were fantastic, with both sides learning and growing together. Others, let’s just say were a never-ending cat-and-mouse game.  But no matter the relationship type, the journey always began with rough edges, fueled by my skepticism and a defensive stance. It hit me that my hesitation wasn’t solely due to past experiences with these agencies. It was rooted in a slight offense, thinking outsiders lacking business knowledge would dare to review my work.  Thanks to my manager’s guidance, I’m now trying to shift gears. I aim to view these agencies as extensions of our internal team, unburdened by history.  It’s about adopting their fresh, critical perspective and learning from it. Over time, I hope to cultivate an open mind, eagerly seeking feedback and embracing the chance to fill gaps in my work. Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on. “> “> “> Processing…Please wait. 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