Who needs to understand SEO, and how much do they need to know?

People who build websites for businesses or provide marketing consulting, run online businesses, or promote products and services online—including business owners and marketers—all need to understand SEO. But needing to understand it does not mean everyone must master every aspect of implementation. According to roger’s article, people with different backgrounds need different learning material. They can start with a basic understanding and go deeper as needed. Those who want to become SEO consultants or run an SEO services company, however, need a more comprehensive understanding.

Start with how you will use SEO at work—not the same reading list for everyone

roger mentions that students, web designers, engineers, marketers, and business owners have all asked him to recommend introductory SEO books, so his answers must be tailored to their backgrounds. The point of distinguishing these roles is not to rank job titles by how much they need SEO, but to consider whether the work involves websites, online business, or promotion:

• Website builders and marketing consultants: People who build websites or provide marketing services for businesses are explicitly identified in the article as people who should learn SEO.
• Website operators and business owners: Those who want to do business online or promote existing products and services also need to understand SEO.
• In-house marketers: People who promote their employers online also need to learn SEO, regardless of whether they have a technical background.

Students are among those mentioned as asking for advice, but that does not mean all students must learn SEO. The relevant consideration is still the work they intend to pursue.

Understanding concepts, implementing SEO, and providing professional services require different depths of knowledge

roger draws an analogy between eating beef and preparing it: diners can know how to choose without having to master refrigeration, marinating, and cutting meat. Similarly, not everyone who understands SEO needs to handle the entire implementation process. They can learn some aspects first and gradually deepen their knowledge.

However, an introduction to the concepts is not the same as practical competence. When introducing a conceptual book published in 2004, he explicitly noted that it did not explain how to actually implement SEO and that readers who wanted to do so would need other learning materials. What remains useful here is the distinction between levels of learning—not treating that reading list as a practical guide for today.

For those aiming to become SEO consultants or start a company offering SEO services, the original article identifies these roles as exceptions that require comprehensive understanding, rather than just a general overview.

Hands-on work requires more than memory and impressions

An older iThome article uses a custom-built SEO KPI summary table to illustrate how the same external-link data can show different changes depending on whether one examines the number of links, linking pages, or domains. The author uses this example to emphasize that implementation details and data cannot be grasped through impressions alone, and distinguishes a general understanding from in-depth expertise in the underlying technical aspects.

The sources also differ on how broadly people should learn: Sandrajankowski on Warrior Forum argues that processes change and that people should make an effort to learn every process, while roger recommends tailoring the depth of learning to a person’s background. The former is a reminder that hands-on work requires continued learning, but it does not distinguish between job roles and therefore cannot justify requiring every business owner or marketer to reach a consultant’s level of expertise.