What Do SEO Specialists Do & How They Can Help You
When you search for something on Google, why do some websites appear on the first page, and many others on the last? The answer is that they are SEO optimised. An SEO specialist analyzes, tests, and makes changes to websites or webpages to help them organically rank higher in search engine results pages, like Google and Bing.
Ranking higher means the website will show up first before others, increasing the chances of users clicking on it. More visitors lead to increased sales for the company or business. If you are not an expert in the field and need someone to assist you in this aspect, you must know what to ask an SEO consultant to choose the right one for your project.
According to a recent study in 2024, the average click-through rate for the 1st position result is 39.8% while the 9th position is only 1.9%. So imagine if there is a keyword that is relevant to your business, let’s say there is 10k monthly traffic for the keyword “best dentist in the UK”. If your website is ranked in the 1st position, it will get 3,980 visitors, if your site is on the 9th rank, it will only get 190 of them.
SEO Specialist’s Responsibilicties
Now that we know what SEO specialists do. It is also important to know how they do it. The team can be in a separate dedicated department or can also be adjusted in other departments as well such as Digital Marketing, and Content Marketing.
The role and responsibilities fluctuate depending on the industry and goals. They can be assigned to the whole campaign or even sections of it, depending on the company’s demands. Search Engine optimisation is a field that changes quickly, what is working now might not work in a year or even months.
While the methods and approaches change over time, the goals and purposes of specialists remain the same. The most important elements of SEO campaigns are discussed below:
SEO Strategy
This is the first step for SEO specialists. The strategy starts with understanding the company’s goal and analyzing its current contextual stats like content performance, technical health, and domain history. The next step is creating an entire SEO plan accordingly to increase visibility, boost traffic, and drive conversions. The plan involves all of the SEO practices discussed next.
Keyword Research
These are the search terms that people enter in the search engines. Finding and storing keywords that are related to your business is called keyword research. Secondary or LSI keyword research is also included in this step. There are different criteria SEO specialists use to decide which keywords should be saved, such as their difficulty, volume, etc, and can later be used to create content around it.
This step is considered to be the most crucial initial step towards SEO, so it is important that you know how to find and target the right keywords for your business for better results.
On-Page
On-page SEO makes sure all the elements of web pages are optimised for search engine algorithms. And to check if the content falls under the criteria such as E-A-T. It also includes adjusting the researched keywords inside the content, title, and meta description. All of these practices satisfy both user experience and search engine guidelines, decreasing bounce rate, elevating rank, and enhancing engagement rate.
Technical
Technical SEO is a sub-category of on-page SEO. It is focused on upgrading the technical aspects or backend of a website. This includes speeding up page load times, fixing broken links, updating sitemaps, optimising images, and making the website mobile-friendly. It also involves adding breadcrumbs, securing the site with HTTPS, and finding and fixing broken pages.
Off-Page
Off-page of the company means partnership with third parties. There is an old saying that to judge someone’s character, you should look at their friends. The same is the case with the company’s reputation. If some big names in your industry interact with your website, it shows that your content has something to value. Building backlinks is a major part of Off-page SEO. However, the specialists have to be careful when creating such links because bad ones can do more harm than good to the site’s image.
Measurement and reports
Constant measurements and reporting are crucial for any company’s successful SEO. It is the way of analyzing whether the SEO plan is going in the right direction or not and what steps need to be taken in the future. SEO specialists use technical tools for this purpose, such as Google Search Console. These stats are then reported to the team lead or marketing department.
SEO Specialists Salary
The scope of the SEO field is vast. The job titles are based on two factors. Their role type and level of seniority are explained below:
Level Of Seniority
- Intern
- Junior
- Assistant
- Specialist
- Senior
- Lead
- Manager
- Director
- Head
Role type
- Technical SEO Specialist
- On-Page SEO Specialist
- Off-Page SEO Specialist
- Content SEO Specialist
- Local SEO Specialist
- E-commerce SEO Specialist
- Mobile SEO Specialist
- SEO Analyst Specialist
- Link Building Specialist
- SEO Strategy Specialist
- SEO Copywriting Specialist
- SEO Consulting Specialist
- SEO Auditing Specialist
- International SEO Specialist
- Voice Search SEO Specialist
Note that role-specific titles such as Technical SEO specialist are usually assigned in big firms. In small to medium companies general titles like SEO specialist are mostly used. This field has good scope and as the designation rises so does the salary.
But let’s just discuss the salary range of SEO specialists only. Their income varies based on multiple factors such as region, and whether the job is full-time, part-time, on-site, or remote. But the average bracket in the UK is between 57k to 144k/per year and 65k to 157k per year in London according to a Glassdoor report updated on 5 Oct 2024.
What Soft Skills Are Good For SEO Specialists?
Having soft skills with technical knowledge is what makes an SEO specialists competent. Although there are many soft skills that can enhance their effectiveness, top 3 most useful soft skills are mentioned below:
Communication Skills
Communication skills may not be as necessary when working on your own projects. But as an SEO specialist working for clients or companies, communication skills come as the first soft skill. For example, when interacting with other departments such as Marketing, it is very important to explain in easy language so they know the status of the campaign.
Critical Thinking
Every business is different, just having SEO knowledge is no use if the person does not know how to utilize the skills creatively to get the best results. Critical thinking helps them identify the unique challenges of each project and how to solve them.
Adaptability
SEO is not a type of skill that you just learn one time and keep for the rest of your life. The goal of the specialist is to optimise the website in line with recent search engine algorithms. Specialists can only be effective if they know the updates of algorithms. Keeping up with the target audience is equally important.