How I Would Learn SEO If I Was Starting in 2025

If I were starting from zero today, I’d learn SEO by doing—fast, in public, and with AI as my co-pilot. Here’s the roadmap I’d follow.

1) Build-First Learning (no endless “prep”)

Adopt a “made shots” mindset: ship something every day. Reading helps; outputs teach. Set a weekly quota:

  • 1 new page or post

  • 3 meaningful internal links

  • 1 on-page improvement (title/H1/FAQ/schema)

  • 1 performance fix (image, font, script)

Track it in a simple sheet with columns for URL, action, date, and result.

2) Launch a Test Project (or two)

Pick one:

  • Practice site/blog on a tight niche; or

  • Micro-SaaS solving a tiny problem (AI agents can scaffold this).

Why: you’ll learn crawling, indexing, architecture, content, offers, and analytics on a real asset. That feedback loop is priceless.

3) Build a Bottom-Up Keyword Database

Keywords still matter—paired with intent.

  • Start with branded queries (pricing, reviews, alternatives).

  • Add product-aware queries (best X, X vs Y, X alternatives).

  • Then solution/problem-aware (how to…, templates, checklists).
    Log in a sheet with fields for intent, SERP features, difficulty, and owning page.

4) Practice “Topic Domination”

Pick one money topic and own it everywhere:

  • Pillar page (list/guide)

  • Commercial page (the thing you sell)

  • Comparisons (X vs Y), alternatives, reviews

  • Browser/platform variants, FAQs, templates

  • Off-site surfaces likely to rank or be cited by AI systems
    Interlink everything. Don’t hop topics until this cluster is dense and tidy.

5) Make Your Site Crawler-Friendly (AI cares too)

AI systems and search engines both prefer pure HTML or prerendered pages.

  • Avoid client-side rendering for core content.

  • Keep money pages ≤ depth 3.

  • Maintain sitemaps, robots, canonicals, and clean internal links.

  • Aim mobile CWV targets: LCP < 2.5s, INP < 200ms, CLS < 0.1.

6) Learn On-Page SEO the modern way

For each target page:

  • Put the head term (or clean variant) in title, H1, meta, slug, first paragraph.

  • Use NLP-guided coverage: include the entities and subtopics top results all share—without stuffing.

  • Add real signals: examples, screenshots, data, source citations, author credentials, FAQs.

7) Use AI as an Accelerator (not an autopilot)

Where AI shines:

  • First drafts of outlines/copy

  • NLP term extraction and gap checks

  • Schema scaffolding (FAQ/HowTo/Product/Organization/Course)

  • Internal-link suggestions and anchor cleanup

  • Bulk chores: title/meta rewrites, alt text, 404 mapping

Where you must edit:

  • Facts, claims, and brand voice

  • E-E-A-T details (who wrote it, why trust it)

  • Anything compliance-sensitive

8) Run a Simple Weekly Audit Loop

Every week:

  1. Crawl & index: new 4xx/5xx? Accidental noindex? Canonicals right?

  2. Winners circle: pages at positions 2–15 → refresh on-page, add 3–10 internal links, improve titles for CTR.

  3. New pages: create one new asset per cluster plan.

  4. Speed pass: largest templates/images/fonts.

  5. Submit updated URLs in Search Console.

9) Learn by Unblocking (Just-in-Time)

Don’t study broadly. Act → hit a block → learn that thing → act again. Examples:

  • “Why isn’t this URL indexing?” (logs, coverage, internal links)

  • “Why did this page drop?” (query mapping, intent shift, competitors’ entities)

  • “Is this cannibalization?” (same topic + same intent on two URLs → consolidate or differentiate)

10) Pick a Career Track (and stack skills)

Two solid routes:

  • In-house path: agency role (many accounts) ➜ brand role (one big system). You’ll learn teamwork, stakeholder buy-in, and roadmapping.

  • Entrepreneur path: freelance ➜ boutique agency ➜ productized services or software. You’ll learn sales, offers, and systems.

You can mix: keep a day job and build a side practice until your pipeline is stable.

11) Portfolio That Actually Gets You Hired

Publish case-study style pages:

  • Before/after screenshots

  • Query movement (top 20 → top 5)

  • What you changed (on-page, links, speed, IA)

  • Time to impact

  • Lessons learned
    Three strong studies beat twenty vague bullets on a CV.

12) 30/60/90 Plan to Become Dangerous Fast

Days 1–30

  • Stand up site/project, ship first cluster pillar + commercial page.

  • Set up analytics, Search Console, and a weekly crawl.

  • Fix obvious indexability and speed issues.

Days 31–60

  • Expand cluster (comparisons, alternatives, FAQs).

  • Systematize internal linking and titles/metas.

  • Start one linkable asset (stats, calculator, benchmark).

Days 61–90

  • Refresh pages in positions 2–15.

  • Publish off-site pieces on surfaces that rank or get cited by AI systems.

  • Document SOPs so you can scale (or hand off).

13) What to Ignore (at first)

  • Chasing hundreds of random keywords across unrelated topics

  • Fancy link schemes

  • Pixel-perfect design over crawlable HTML and speed

  • Writing without a conversion path

14) Daily Ritual (60–90 minutes)

  • 15m: Check GSC/analytics; pick one opportunity.

  • 30–45m: Ship one improvement (new section, internal links, schema, speed fix).

  • 10–15m: Log what you did and what happened.

The punchline

Learn SEO by shipping, not by hoarding tips. Start at the bottom of the funnel, dominate one topic at a time, keep everything crawlable and fast, and use AI to remove grunt work while you provide judgment, truth, and taste. Do that for 90 days and you won’t be “learning SEO” anymore—you’ll be doing it.

AI SEOFrancesca Tabor