Whether your business is large or small-scale or somewhere in between, if you rely on organic web traffic for your marketing and sales channel, then you need to either hire an SEO Specialist or master search engine optimization yourself.
SEO has come far away and has become the heart of all marketing strategies. It’s not wrong to say that you can’t put away SEO from your marketing strategies, whether if you are increasing your web presence or just starting.
Your website might look stunning with multiple multimedia files, but it is also important to attract targeted visitors and turn them into customers. If that’s not working, then it’s going to affect your revenue negatively.
Suppose your website is not driving enough organic web traffic. In that case, it’s time for you to hire an SEO Specialist, whether it’s an employee, an individual consultant, or any consulting SEO agency/firm.
Let’s read on and understand who an SEO specialist is and what key factors to consider as an SEO specialist.
Who is an SEO Specialist?
An SEO Specialist or SEO Expert is an individual who optimizes any website in order to drive maximum organic traffic and achieve a higher ranking on the search engine result page (SERP).
An SEO Specialist knows how to drive more organic traffic from search engines and takes all the measurable steps to keep it on the go.
Now, let’s take a look at the key factors that you need to look after for hiring an SEO Specialist.
Key Factors To Consider An SEO Specialist
- Years of Experience
- Knowledge of all three SEO level
- A proven record of SEO success
- Understanding Google and its algorithms
- Excellent communication skills
- Research minded
- Critical Thinking & Analytical Mind
- Curiosity to learn
- Content marketing
- Adaptability
1. Years of Experience
Nowadays, even a rookie tends to be an SEO specialist. Anyone can open an SEO agency and call themselves an SEO expert.
But, that doesn’t mean they know what they are doing or what their client is expecting. When it comes to SEO, several little things go in when it comes to a bigger picture of SEO. And it takes many years of experience to understand what works and what does not work to accomplish a task.
Every website is different and needs a different strategy and SEO tactics to drive organic traffic and succeed. An SEO specialist with many years of experience will analyze the website and know what needs to be done to drive more organic traffic, whereas a fresher or newbie would follow some basic methods that won’t end up with a positive result.
2. Knowledge of All Three Levels of SEO
SEO stands on three pillars, i.e.,
- On-page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
- Technical SEO
You don’t want someone to focus on only one aspect of SEO; you would rather need someone who will create a strategy from all three angles to increase the web presence and to reach maximum success.
3. A Proven Record of SEO Success
If you are planning to hire an SEO specialist, this is a must-ask question. It isn’t easy to have a happy client when it comes to SEO, so you should ask for at least three to four strategies they adopted, which has helped the website see good growth and how much time it took them to succeed.
4. Understanding Google and Its Algorithms
The Google algorithm is a complex system used to extract data from its search index and deliver the best possible result to the user. Unfortunately, Google keeps updating its algorithm, and every time there are some major updates, the websites see a rise or decline in their ranking. So, an SEO specialist needs to be on top of it.
5. Excellent Communication Skills
An SEO specialist can’t handle everything on a website. Being an SEO, one must be able to clearly communicate within the teams why and when a change needs to be done on the website in terms that everyone understands. In addition, they should be able to talk to the tech team and other teams across the domain to get their point.
6. Research Minded
Research is an incredibly important task from an SEO perspective. Therefore, an SEO specialist should be well-versed in researching and thoroughly enjoy it.
Keyword research is fairly a time-consuming task that needs patience and confidence and can’t afford any mistakes.
An SEO specialist knows the importance and relevance of the keyword, and hence it should be looked after in every aspect while planning the keywords.
7. Critical Thinking & Analytical Mind
An SEO specialist needs to be able to have an analytical mind and be a creative thinker.
Every website is different, and there are multiple factors that might affect the website, so an SEO expert needs to think and create different strategies.
Being an SEO, one should always look at the data and understand the “3 whats”:
- What happened?
- Why did it happen?
- What should we do about it?
8. Curiosity To Learn
Knowledge is important, but apparently, curiosity is essential too. Curiosity to learn.
SEO is a field wherein you will discover some of the other things every day, which you might not be aware of; it might be a ranking factor, or something on the technical side, or related to search query. So an SEO specialist should be curious to understand whether it’s good or bad for their website.
9. Content Marketing
Content is the King, and again it goes hand in hand with SEO.
But, just writing content is not enough, you also need to understand the role of content, i.e., how content should be created, and you must understand how important the role content plays in SEO strategy.
10. Adaptability
SEO keeps changing, and it’s crucial for an SEO specialist to adapt to the changes and make the client understand that the strategies you were following aren’t going to work any further.
Conclusion
The demand for an SEO specialist will rise in the coming days as more and more companies are building their online presence. And to stay on the top of the market, companies would need an SEO specialist to help them build their online presence and sustainably grow. If you are also looking forward to becoming an SEO specialist, the SEO Course offered by Simplilearn is for you. This advanced SEO course will transform you into an SEO professional. You will master many skills like keyword research, on-page SEO, link building, analytics, technical SEO, and much more.
