When I was in school, I used to read a lot. I mean, a lot.
I would read whatever I could get my hands on. English books, Hindi books, Hindi story collections, the editorial section of Hindi newspapers, the weekend stories published in newspapers—anything.
Even though I had Mathematics instead of Biology in school, I still used to read Biology books just because I was curious. Reading wasn’t something I did because someone told me to. I genuinely enjoyed it.
Looking back, that habit probably shaped the way I think today.
When I entered the SEO industry more than ten years ago, I honestly didn’t know much about SEO.
I had done B.Tech, so I knew coding. I had studied .NET, Java and other programming languages, but SEO was completely new to me.
Like most people, I started with execution.
Finish the tasks.
Complete them on time.
Make sure they’re accurate.
Improve efficiency.
That was the job.
But as I became more senior, I realized something.
Execution is only one part of SEO.
At some point, you have to stop asking “What task should I do today?” and start asking “Why are we doing this in the first place?”
That’s where strategy begins.
I also had something that, even today, I still struggle with from time to time.
Imposter syndrome.
I always felt like maybe I didn’t know enough.
So, to compensate for that feeling, I kept reading.
I read Black Hat World, Search Engine Journal. Search Engine Land. Bruce Clay’s blog. Medium. Builder Society. Warrior Forum. Reddit, authority Hackers, Income School on YouTube.
Later, I joined multiple Discord communities as well.
On LinkedIn, I started following people like Daniel Foley Carter, Andrew Holland, Liam Fallen, Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR, Lily Ray, Kristina Azarenko, Peter Rota, Mark Williams Cook, Steve Toth, Peter Rota, and many more names and channels I don’t have on the tip of my tongue but those helped me with learning. Following or reading through anybody’s posts or learning doesn’t mean I do whatever they say but their ideas and experiments shape my thinking and give me perspective on different things.
The interesting thing is that I never liked learning through videos.
I’m much more comfortable reading than watching.
Reading is how I process information.
One habit I developed over the years is that I don’t trust information immediately.
If someone writes an SEO article with a strong opinion, I don’t immediately accept it as truth.
I read the comments.
I look for criticism.
I check what other people think.
Sometimes the comments are more valuable than the article itself.
Only after looking at both sides do I decide whether I should trust the information, ignore it, or test it myself.
That habit has saved me from blindly following a lot of SEO advice.
Gradually, reading changed the way I approached SEO.
I stopped thinking only about execution and started thinking strategically.
Instead of asking,
“Did we publish the page?”
I started asking,
“Will this actually help the business?”
Instead of looking only at rankings, I started looking at why rankings mattered.
Instead of focusing only on traffic, I started thinking about revenue, business goals and long-term growth.
Later, another challenge came.
Client communication.
To be honest, in the beginning I thought communication would be my biggest weakness.
I thought my English wasn’t perfect.
I thought maybe I wouldn’t be able to explain SEO properly.
But after a few stakeholder meetings, I realized something.
Communication is less about speaking well.
It’s more about understanding the mindset of the person sitting on the other side of the table.
What are they worried about?
What does the CEO care about?
What does the marketing manager need?
Why is the founder asking this question?
Once you understand that, explaining SEO becomes much easier.
You’re not trying to sound smart.
You’re trying to make your work understandable.
One thing that helped me a lot during stakeholder meetings was documentation.
I like keeping track of everything.
Not just SEO KPIs. I keep track of every discussion.
Every suggestion.
What got approved.
What got rejected.
What was blocked because of budget.
What was blocked from our side.
What worked.
What failed.
I also keep an eye on competitors.
Not just their SEO.
Their onboarding.
Their email marketing.
Their webinars.
Their product demos.
Their UI and UX.
Even what they’re doing offline.
Because sometimes the biggest competitive advantage has nothing to do with SEO.
When everything is backed by data, stakeholder conversations become much easier.
Another thing I realized is that if you’re leading SEO, you need to stay updated.
If Google announces something three days ago and your client asks about it today, you should have an opinion.
Not because you need to know everything.
But because people trust specialists who stay informed.
And if I genuinely don’t know the answer, I don’t pretend.
I simply say,
“I don’t know the answer right now. Let me research it properly and I’ll come back with data and a recommendation.”
I think that’s far better than pretending to know everything.
Reading helped me become a better SEO.
It helped me become more strategic.
It helped me communicate better.
It helped me make better decisions.
But somewhere along the way, something changed.
Today, I sometimes find myself constantly switching between Reddit, LinkedIn, X, BlueSky, Instagram and Discord.
I’m always looking for the next big idea.
The next life-changing insight.
The next SaaS idea.
The next productivity hack.
The next perspective that will somehow change everything.
The funny thing is…
That perfect idea probably doesn’t exist.
These days I’m starting to question something.
Am I reading because I need to learn?
Or am I reading because it feels productive?
There’s a difference.
Sometimes reading gives me the satisfaction of making progress without actually making progress.
It’s much easier to consume ideas than to build something with them.
I’m still going to keep reading.
SEO changes too quickly to stop learning.
But I also want to spend more time taking action.
Building.
Experimenting.
Writing.
Testing.
And sometimes doing absolutely nothing.
I think we’ve forgotten how to be bored.
Every free minute is filled with another app, another article, another notification or another video.
Maybe boredom isn’t something to avoid.
Maybe it’s where our best ideas come from.
This is where my thinking is today.
It might change a year from now.
Maybe I’ll disagree with parts of this article in the future.
And that’s okay.
For now, this is what I believe:
Reading changed my career.
But reading alone won’t change my future.
At some point, you have to close the browser and start doing the work.