Would applying to "Junior SEO" position give me the best chance at landing an SEO-related role? I don't any professional experience in SEO. I am currently learning/teaching myself it, and will soon begin a project to create niche site/blog and get it ranked.

I currently work as a social media manager, very simple and relatively easy job. I got this position without any prior experience, as it was my first foot in the door within digital marketing.

I know I could get social media related position (entry level) restively easy after this [temporary internship] position ends, but I'm really much more interested in SEO and I feel like going into SEO would give me more opportunity for career advancement, have a higher ceiling, and other perks I'd enjoy. I feel like social media management could be somewhat more of a "dead end", especially considering the fact that SEO related tasks/skills I enjoy doing much more than social media related ones.

My plan was to study SEO for the next few months, and start a project/portfolio and will get a niche topic/site ranked with the theory I learned (while continuing to learn SEO). Would something like this be sufficient enough to apply to junior roles?

I am aware that all the SEO knowledge II am currently learning is just "theory" without much of the skills being put into actual practice (besides the skills I pickup when ranking a niche site), so I know going into a company I can't just offer SEO value right off the bat, hence why I'm thinking a Junior role would be much more sufficient because I could learn under someone, etc.

What do you guys think of this? It seems like there are a good amount of junior SEO roles out there, and if I show them my portfolio (ranking a site) paired with my social media platform skills, would it give me a chance to land some junior position that I could start my career off with?

Also, what about freelancing? After I have a portfolio of my own, do some freelancing jobs in order to gain more projects for a portfolio and then apply to junior SEO position?

It seems like many of these positions are also remote, which I don't mind.

What do you guys think about this? Would doing a plan similar to this give me a chance to land a junior SEO position?

I'm hoping for a timeline of about 3 months would give me sufficient knowledge to learn SEO, rank a site, potentially do some freelancing after and then apply to Junior SEO related job.

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it. SEO is something I'm very interested in beginning a carrier in, and I would prefer not to stay within social media.