SEO Job Description
SEO Specialists are the architects of a company's online presence. They leverage technical expertise and strategic insights to elevate websites in search results, boosting brand awareness and generating valuable leads. Uncover the potential of this in-demand role as we explore typical SEO Specialist salaries, the skills you'll need to excel, and the geographic locations hungry for your expertise.
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What is an SEO Specialist?
The mission of an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Specialist is to maximize the volume of inbound organic traffic from search engines to a website. This is accomplished through a combination of on-page and off-page techniques, including link-building, social media strategy, viral marketing, metadata sculpting, site speed optimization, content strategy, information architecture, and more.
As a result of the daily changes in the search algorithms of Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other leaders in search, an SEO expert works in a dynamic environment that requires them to be continually learning, fine-tuning their skills, and experimenting to discover how the industry is shifting.
SEO Specialist Educational Requirements
- No college program exists to train an SEO Specialist
- Break into the positions through experience, success, research, and trial and error
SEO Specialist Essential Skills
- Experience with Google and Bing’s services, including Analytics and Webmaster Tools
- Experience with Google’s Keyword Tool
- A functional understanding of HTML and CSS
- The ability to work with back-end SEO elements such as .htaccess, robots.txt, metadata, site speed optimization, and related skills
- Proven success in link building and viral strategies
- The ability to deploy an effective local and long-tail search strategy
- A deep understanding of mobile strategy and how it relates to SEO
- A solid grasp of how blogging, press releases, social media, and related strategies go hand-in-hand with SEO
- Experience in building inbound organic search traffic and improving SERPs
- A background in creating reports showing web analytics data and site evaluations
- An up-to-date, working knowledge of current, past, and projected trends in the SEO industry
- Familiarity with the best tools in the trade
SEO Specialist Roles & Responsibilities
- Develop optimization strategies that increase the company's website search engine results rankings
- Execute tests, collect and analyze data and results, identify trends and insights in order to achieve maximum ROI
- Manage the expenses of SEO campaigns, staying on budget, estimating monthly costs and reconciling differences
- Work with editorial and marketing teams to drive SEO in content creation and content marketing
- Research and implement search engine optimization recommendations
- Create and execute link building strategy
- Determine measurable goals that demonstrate improvement in marketing efforts
- Write compelling and high-quality website content, including blog posts and page descriptions to improve website search results
SEO Specialist Day-to-Day Duties
- Conduct page optimization for search engine marketing
- Monitor daily performance metrics with SEO tools such as Google analytics to understand SEO strategy performance
- Collaborate with others within the marketing department to manage SEO strategy
- Perform ongoing keyword research, discovery and optimization for new SEO keywords to use throughout the company website and marketing materials
- Closely collaborate with web development team to ensure SEO best practices are properly followed throughout website content
- Change website architecture, content, linking and other factors to improve SEO positions for target keywords