If your website struggles to reach the top, receives minimal traffic, and lacks user inquiries, you undoubtedly need the services of an SEO specialist.
A SEO specialist is someone who promotes websites on search engines, aiming for top Google rankings, increased website traffic, and more inbound inquiries. However, effective SEO goes beyond technical aspects; a skilled specialist must prioritize both search engines and users.
How to distinguish a good specialist from not a very good one?
Inexperienced or incompetent specialist
- Uses only gray and black promotion methods: mass purchase of links, behavioral factors boosting, forum and social media spam are reminiscent of the early 2000s
- Suggests “SEO” over-optimized texts for search robots, sincerely believing that it will help the site get to the top
- Promises promotion exclusively for high-frequency queries
- Limits activities to buying links or flooding texts with keywords, neglecting other optimization methods
- Always employs one or a couple of outdated strategies without considering the client’s business
- Makes many generous promises, especially common among novices who believe they know everything about SEO
- Doesn’t ask about your business, target audience, or competitors; seems indifferent to what he’s promoting
- Doesn’t track results, conduct analysis, or compare dynamics; appears indifferent once again
- Stagnates in the 2000s and relies on outdated methods
- Doesn’t consider related areas, solely focuses on SEO
- Doesn’t explain what, how, and why they’re doing; just expects blind trust in their expertise
Good specialist
- Utilizes white hat methods: internal website optimization, semantic core development, behavioral and commercial factors analysis, quality content creation, and building a natural backlink profile
- Writes or provides guidelines for crafting quality optimized texts “for humans,” not just for robots
- Explains the need to target the entire pool of queries from the semantic core: informational, transactional, navigational — ensuring maximum conversions
- Practices a comprehensive approach: works on site structure, UX, design, and usability; if not done personally, provides recommendations to the business
- Considers the goals and objectives of search promotion for a specific business and site, creating an individual promotion strategy
- Avoids making extravagant promises, relies on hypotheses, understanding that SEO involves multiple factors influencing the final outcome
- Starts with marketing analysis, then makes forecasts and proposes solutions
- Understands that business growth in terms of inquiries and sales is crucial, genuinely interested in these metrics, and proposes concrete solutions
- Keeps track of all new trends, monitors algorithm updates, and applies them to both their work and the businesses of their clients
- Recognizes that for effective site promotion, you need a combination of contextual advertising, content marketing, and other promotion channels
- Readily explains the main stages of work and their implications, providing reports and interpreting figures and metrics
So, it can be concluded that a good SEO specialist is always a bit more than just an ordinary “SEO person.” They are an internet marketer, a copywriter, and a sales professional. They possess all the professional skills and tools of SEO while ensuring websites are user-friendly. It’s a combo!
Job responsibilities of an SEO specialist include:
- Conducting SEO audits, checking for technical errors, and evaluating the site’s theme, competitors, age, and condition. Performing basic business marketing analysis and formulating a promotion strategy based on this data.
- Implementing on-page optimization, making the site search engine-friendly, and fixing existing errors, such as removing duplicates and 404 pages, setting up 301 redirects, creating a site map, configuring user-friendly URLs, implementing microdata, checking and improving site navigation, measuring page load speed, establishing internal linking, and working on behavioral and commercial factors.
- Creating a semantic core and providing recommendations for creating new pages and writing content based on it.
- Providing a task list to webmasters for composing or improving meta tags, texts, and, in some cases, graphical content.
- Offering business owners recommendations for improving user experience (UX), usability, and site design. Testing hypotheses.
- Conducting off-page optimization by finding resources for external links to the site and building the link profile.
- Analyzing the results of their work, drawing conclusions, and coordinating with the client.
- Generating reports. In “FADS,” we provide clients with reports on technical work, content creation, and KPIs related to positions, traffic, and inquiries, depending on the chosen promotion format.
Skills of an SEO Specialist
Professional Skills (Hard Skills):
- Understanding Search Engine Principles:
- In-depth knowledge of search engine operation principles and factors influencing site rankings. Continuous monitoring of algorithm updates is crucial.
- Google Filters Expertise:
- Familiarity with Google’s main filters, understanding the reasons for their imposition, and the ability to lift a site from under filters.
- Internal and External Optimization:
- Understanding the principles and stages of both internal and external optimization.
- Usability Basics:
- Knowledge of usability fundamentals to professionally evaluate site convenience for visitors and provide recommendations for structure improvement.
- Fundamentals of Internet Marketing:
- Understanding the fundamentals of internet marketing and connecting SEO with other areas such as contextual advertising, content marketing, SMM, etc.
- Balancing Commercial and User Aspects:
- Ability to balance commercial goals, user convenience, and SEO optimization aspects of a site.
- CMS Understanding:
- Familiarity with how content management systems work, including WordPress, Joomla, and others.
- Tool Proficiency:
- Proficiency with various tools and services such as Google Keyword Planner, semantic core extension, competitor semantic analysis, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and tools for audits, monitoring, and control of internal and technical site optimization, as well as monitoring behavioral factors, etc.
- Effective Brief Composition:
- Ability to compose effective briefs for copywriters, programmers, and webmasters.
- Copywriting Skill:
- Ideally, the ability to write content or at least review copywriter texts for compliance with SEO requirements.
- Microdata Knowledge:
- Understanding microdata to configure the display of site elements in search results.
- Excel Proficiency:
- Proficiency in using Excel, particularly for creating semantic cores and reports.
Soft Skills:
- Logical Thinking and Analytical Mindset:
- Crucial for analyzing extensive data sets, identifying logical patterns, and comparing performance indicators.
- Humanities backgrounds can lead to excellent SEO specialists, but they may find it challenging to analyze large datasets without strong logical and analytical skills.
- Marketing Vision:
- Understanding what a business needs, as mentioned in the table.
- Time Management:
- Ability to allocate time efficiently, both for personal tasks and coordination within a team.
- SEO specialists rarely work alone; they typically collaborate with a project team. Coordination is essential to ensure tasks are completed on time and with high quality.
- Responsibility:
- A good specialist adheres to deadlines, maintains constant communication, and genuinely considers not just monetary aspects but also aims to bring value and profit to the client.
- Wide Outlook and Readiness to Learn:
- Essential personal qualities for an SEO specialist as the field undergoes frequent changes.
- The commitment to continuous learning and development is crucial, considering the dynamic nature of SEO where changes occur almost daily.
