SEO Specialist Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of an SEO specialist. Feel free to use our job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as an SEO specialist.
Who is an SEO Specialist?
A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialist checks, analyzes, and adjusts a website to make it search engine friendly, and the website then ranks better in search results on major search engines like Google and Bing.
An SEO expert optimizes a website’s pages to ensure relevant search results and a positive user experience, resulting in increased website traffic, lead volume, and brand awareness. To put it another way, an SEO Specialist is no different than any other digital or a traditional marketing professional in that they’re all aiming to increase sales for the firm they work for.
An SEO Specialist can improve a website’s visibility on Google by conducting keyword research and utilizing SEO tools such as Google Analytics. This has significant benefits for any company. Some may work with other members of the marketing team to develop new projects or improve social media account management in order to boost user engagement and traffic.
They select the most popular and relevant search engine queries and embed them into websites, making it easier for search engines to find and display those sites to online users. SEO specialists are employed by both digital marketing organizations and in-house marketing teams.
Most SEO specialists need a bachelor’s degree in a related field, such as marketing or information technology. There are a number of well-regarded online courses available to help you enhance your search engine optimization skills, while certificates are not required to work as an SEO consultant. The majority of SEO online training has no prerequisites. Successful SEO professionals have strong analytical, communication, and research skills, which enable them to better understand clients and provide the best possible optimization.
SEO Specialist Job Description
Below are the SEO specialist job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
- Develop search engine optimization techniques to improve the company’s search engine rankings.
- Make a list of SEO keywords to include on the company’s website and in marketing materials.
- Set measurable objectives to demonstrate that your marketing efforts are improving.
- Monitor daily performance indicators to have a better understanding of how well your SEO approach is working.
- Synchronize goals, and communicate effectively with other marketing experts.
- Work with colleagues in the marketing department to oversee the SEO strategy.
- Create engaging, high-quality website content, such as blog entries and page descriptions.
- Update search engine rankings, website links, and content for maximum optimization.
Qualifications
- Two to three years of expertise in building and implementing successful SEO campaigns
- Search engine algorithms and ranking methodologies should be understood.
- Knowledge of SEO industry products like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics is a plus.
- Understanding of keyword research and data mining software
- Capable of doing a competitive analysis of other businesses in the industry.
- Excellent communication abilities, both written and vocal (email, phone, etc.)
- Daily, you’re comfortable processing large amounts of data.
- Knowledge of WordPress or other content management systems is a plus.
- It’s a benefit if you have experience with other parts of marketing, such as customer growth and promotion.
Essential Skills
Competent SEO practitioners must possess the following key attributes to be successful in the field of digital marketing and search engine optimization:
- A Basic Understanding of SEO’s Three Levels
When developing a marketing strategy, any experienced SEO Specialist should consider all three tiers:
Technical aspect refers to the portions of your website that are not content. This section provides suggestions for strengthening the backend structure and foundation of a website. A large part of this task will be conducting a complete website analysis, which will reveal technical SEO chances to increase the performance, indexing, compatibility with mobile devices, architecture, and crawl-ability of the website. Technical SEO will aid in improving a website’s readability, hence improving the user experience and demonstrating to search engines that the site is trustworthy.
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing the content on your website so that search engines can better understand the topic of your content and recognize it as a valuable resource. On-page SEO is utilizing features such as keywords, meta tags, internal links, and HTML title tags to enhance search engine traffic and ensure that your website appears near the top of Google results.
Off-page optimization is employing a variety of link-building strategies to improve the relationship between your website and other websites. Off-page SEO also includes steps to boost a website’s reputation, which demonstrates to search engines that a website is a trustworthy source and, as a result, should rank towards the top of search engine results.
The prominence of your website is determined by all tiers of search engine optimization within Google search results, according to SEO professionals.
- Marketing Intelligence
The technical aspects of SEO are unquestionably vital, and understanding the issues that may be causing Google to bury your website in the search results is critical. After that, SEO jobs are similar to other digital marketing or even traditional marketing professions in that you’ll need to create and position content that illustrates the consumer’s benefit while getting them closer to a sale.
The difficult part is coming up with content that appeals to both search engine users and Google’s algorithm. With time and practice, you’ll be able to do it.
But, to truly connect as an SEO Specialist and a digital marketing professional in general, you’ll need more than that. To be truly successful in an SEO role, you must think about content marketing on a deeper level, as well as consumer psychology and the target audience you’re marketing to, the social media, online design and development, viral marketing methods, and general company objectives that aid in brand visibility and conversions. Content marketing, as well as consumer psychology and the target population to whom you’re marketing, the social media landscape, web design and development, viral marketing methods, and overall company goals that assist drive brand awareness and conversions, must all be taken into account.
- The ability to view the big picture is a valuable skill.
As we’ve seen, SEO has an impact on every element of your company. SEO is intrinsically related to the rest of these elements because company websites are so important.
Having precise goals for SEO marketing is beneficial. Is it your objective as an SEO Specialist to prioritize search engine rankings, traffic, brand exposure, or conversions (turning a visitor into a paying customer)?
An SEO Specialist will be effective if they can outline those objectives and then implement an SEO strategy while keeping the organization’s overall objectives in mind.
- Excellent communication skills and a willingness to work together
An SEO Specialist will cooperatively work with a company’s sales, customer service, web development, analytics, IT, marketing, and other departments. It’s also not always evident why making changes to a website might help with SEO and, as a result, drive more visitors and conversions. That’s when your ability to communicate comes in handy.
SEO specialists must be able to effectively and clearly explain why certain changes are necessary and how they will benefit the website and the company’s bottom line. Additionally, a portion of your role requires collaborating on the website with teams of varying backgrounds and opinions.
You may also be involved in the creation of specialized content for the site, so make sure your writing skills are up to grade for SEO jobs.
- Adaptability and curiosity
The algorithms used by Google to rank search engine results are constantly evolving. Depending on your point of view, this could be either annoying or thrilling for you, but a competent SEO Specialist embraces the task with zeal.
You must be adaptive to flourish in the SEO profession. Many professionals benefit from continuous learning, but an SEO Specialist requires it to grow. Furthermore, if you’re in charge of a single company’s website, You can’t afford to take anything for granted; it’s your responsibility as an SEO expert to continually analyze it to see if it complies with the ever-changing SEO recommended practices.
How to become an SEO Specialist
There is no one-size-fits-all way to becoming an SEO expert, despite the fact that there are various options. Although many SEO practitioners started their careers in traditional marketing roles before focusing on SEO, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. No specific background experience is required to work as an SEO Specialist. SEO professionals come from a wide range of professions, including marketing & communications, business, and information technology.
Actually, just around a third of job advertisements for search engine optimization requires a bachelor’s degree, and nearly two-thirds require no degree at all. The most critical criterion is that you have current SEO abilities, which you must be able to demonstrate.
- Understand the fundamentals of SEO
There’s never been a better moment to improve your SEO skills. Over 93 percent of internet experiences, according to one survey, begin with a search (and a search engine). And here, ranking is more important than ever — according to one study, the top-ranking search result had a click-through rate of roughly 30%, while the fifth-ranked result had a click-through rate of only 4%. On average, only 1% of searchers click through to see the ninth-ranked result. Clearly, a high ranking can have a huge impact on a company’s performance.
So it’s no surprise that search marketing experience is in high demand, whether as full-time employees or as part of a marketing or promotions role. Indeed, according to one recent survey, job postings for SEO roles have increased by 43% year over year.
SEO professionals are becoming an integral element of every marketing team, and even non-specialist team members, from interns to CEOs, should be familiar with SEO.
While a degree isn’t always required, many SEO job advertisements do ask for experience with one or more specific SEO technologies. A search engine like Google never stops improving the tactics it employs to provide the most relevant results to users. To stay current with best practices, SEO experts must constantly update their approaches, adjusting to changes in search engines and learning new abilities.
It can be difficult to know where to begin in the present sector of SEO due to its intricacy. In an organized atmosphere that stresses learning that is comprehensive, efficient, and current, a digital marketing Bootcamp or other SEO-focused school is an excellent method to master the essential technical SEO ideas and techniques SEO Specialists need to know. You’ll know that the time you spend studying is focused on what matters most, and you’ll get feedback to keep your progress on track with the support of an instructor.
- Learn about the most important SEO tools
There’s a lot more to SEO (and the related technique of SEM, or search engine marketing) than just keywords. To properly generate and optimize content for all platforms – including a variety of search engines, search methods, and display options as well as social media platforms – a multilayered strategy is required, which needs a lot of work and strategizing.
Fortunately, there are tools available to assist you in conducting research and analysis in order to produce fresh insights; creating, formatting, and posting material; and tracking what’s working and what needs to be improved. There are other tools that can help an SEO expert automate many of their most time-consuming tasks, increasing productivity and allowing you to focus on creating exceptional content.
Linkio, Alexa, SEMRush, Serpstat, Google Analytics, and Google Keyword Planner are just a handful of the other keyword research and content development tools available. The best of these systems integrate a variety of capabilities for content optimization and content marketing into a single platform. SEO experts may use Ahrefs to find relevant keywords, evaluate ranking criteria and backlinks to the pages of their website, find related keywords based on searches, assess competitors’ content and SEO, and even find the most shared material online.
There are tools for practically every area of SEO administration, including:
- Moz will do an assessment of your audience targeting.
- To consolidate the metrics from your social media channels, use Cyfe.
- To keep track of changes in your competitors’ traffic, use SpyFu.
- Check your page loading times with Google PageSpeed Insights.
The list could go on and on. While SEO specialists and digital marketing gurus may not use all of these tools daily, this list demonstrates the wide range of factors they must consider when creating content that is based on keyword research and is search engine optimized
- Continue to improve and practice your SEO skills.
The cornerstone of your profession as an SEO specialist is knowing how to use the correct digital tools. You’re ready to move on to higher-order skills and best practices that will offer you an edge, such as more advanced tactics. After you’ve learned how to use them, they should support your whole approach to SEO, including content optimization and strategic thinking, for example, which is a soft skill.
Simple practice – establishing your own SEO campaigns and trying different things to discover what works and what doesn’t – is a fantastic method to develop these skills. Always keep meticulous records of your SEO efforts! This will be crucial in the future.
Because you’re practicing, don’t be afraid to get in even if you’re not sure what you’re doing. Just give it a shot. You can start making modifications and seeing what effect they have even if you only have one plan in mind. Even once you’ve mastered these strategies, there’s always more to learn, such as how to check for fraud in ad click-throughs, fine-tune the microdata in your HTML tags, or find ways to speed up page loading times.
You’ll be exercising as you expand your arsenal of SEO tools, you’ll develop soft skills like communication and interpersonal skills, organizational and administrative skills, and, most importantly, analytical and strategic thinking.
But, at the end of the day, SEO is all about strategy. Optimizing content is a combination of art and science, and you’ll need to be able to interpret the data in front of you, at the very least on the scientific side. Analytics tools can help you do A/B tests and understand where your traffic is coming from, but there is no clear solution to the question of what to do with that data. You’ll need to consider which tactics are acceptable and effective, as well as how to utilize your resources strategically to achieve the best results. However, you won’t know which instincts to trust until you give it a shot – practice is essential.
- Create a project portfolio to show off your SEO work.
The projects you create while you develop your talents will last long after the practice period is done. These practice campaigns will form the foundation of your professional SEO portfolio – possibly the most crucial component of your job search – especially if you don’t currently work in SEO. This is why maintaining records is so important: now that you’ve figured out what works, it’s time to package your effort to demonstrate the various tactics you’ve tried, demonstrating that you understand how to use them and make them work.
This kind of empirical information is especially important for SEO experts, whose jobs often take place behind the scenes and aren’t always well-represented by content that users view. Rather than displaying a completed website, an SEO specialist must demonstrate a thorough understanding of processes and outcomes through research, planning, analysis, and strategic thinking.
- Showcase Your SEO Skills by Optimizing Your Own Website
You’ve put together a portfolio of work that is well-presented and demonstrates your abilities. Apply them to your own website to demonstrate that you’re an SEO expert – not only to show that you mean what you say but also to attract possible employers.
The greater the impact, the larger your network. Developing a large network as an SEO specialist, unsurprisingly, begins online. However, there are several offline opportunities to meet and network with those in your industry – as well as individuals working in related sectors including digital marketing, promotions, UX design, and advertising. Conferences, workshops, virtual summits, and sites like Search Engine Journal are all great ways to learn about SEO.
Where to Work as an SEO Specialist
Entrepreneurship
Starting your own company allows you to convey your expertise as a Search Engine Optimization expert to businesses on your own terms. Unfortunately, your income will vary widely based on your business, your launch, and the services you provide, therefore there is no one-size-fits-all salary for people who want to establish an SEO or digital marketing company. Starting your own business, on the other hand, can be gratifying and successful in the long run if you have something to offer enterprises, choose to work on a contract basis, or have another reason to do so.
Companies
SEO Specialists can work as business marketing consultants, digital marketers, marketing analysts, content marketers, and SEO managers in companies. A company’s SEO staff will grow in size as the company grows. SEO teams are usually very large in number.
Public speaking
SEO Specialists can engage in public speaking, teaching how to analyze and adjust a website to make it search engine friendly, and the website then ranks better in search results on Google and Bing which are two of the most popular search engines.
SEO Specialist Salary Scale
SEO Specialists can make anywhere from $55,000 to $80,000 depending on their experience. Salaries for more junior roles, such as SEO Researchers, range from $30,000 to $60,000, and for Content Writers, from $35,000 to $75,000. Salary ranges for Link Builders range from $35,000 to $100,000 on the low end to $100,000 on the high end.
An SEO Specialist earns $49,000 on average per year, with SEO Managers earning much more, about $63,000.
SEO Directors, who often earn between $70,000 and $120,000, and SEO Team Managers and Campaign Managers, who typically earn $50,000 to $100,000, are at the top of the pay scale.
In Nigeria, the average monthly income for an SEO Specialist is NGN 149,500. In Nigeria, the average extra cash compensation for an SEO Specialist is undefined, with a range of undefined to undefined.