The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
When it comes to SEO, especially technical SEO, we often talk about the importance of hard skills. And while there’s no doubt that vlookup and regex can be your best friends, there are some essential soft skills to learn that will help you excel in your role and progress in your career.
But first, let’s look at the definition of what we actually mean by soft skills.
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are abilities that allow a person to communicate and work with others effectively and harmoniously.
Whether you’re a content or technical SEO, in-house or agency, your soft skills will help you navigate any work environment and process. That’s because in any role, even in tech roles, we are still working with other human beings. Not to mention that SEO is mostly a cross-functional team effort, which means you’ll need to be comfortable interacting with your stakeholders.
And if you are an SEO at management level, you might find that there are even trickier interactions to have with your leadership. Especially if you are responsible to get sign-off on your organic strategies and projects.
I’m going to share five soft skills today that you can start focusing on in order to improve how you engage with your team members, stakeholders, and leadership, thus helping you progress in your career and generate success.
Five soft skills for SEO success
1. Empathy
Empathy is the ability to sense other people's emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. According to recent research, empathy is the most important skill in leadership.[1] But why is it