Search Engine Optimization, most commonly referred to as SEO, has become an indispensable part of brand building and digital marketing these days, especially with the rising prominence of the internet and technology.
Through several methods and practices, not only does SEO help websites and other online content gain greater visibility on search engines like Google, but it also makes it much easier for users to find the information, products, and services that they’re looking for.
SEO is also a clever strategy that allows brands to learn more about what their target audience is interested in so that they can curate their content to suit these interests, providing a much more entertaining and high-quality experience for their readers. With all of the intricacies and nuances involved in SEO, it can’t just be done by merely anyone, and that’s where SEO specialists come in.
What is an SEO Specialist?
An SEO specialist, also referred to as an SEO expert or SEO professional, is someone who offers SEO services and specializes in constructing SEO strategies and campaigns to increase a brand’s organic traffic, brand awareness, and online presence This individual is primarily tasked with optimizing websites, online content, and digital marketing strategies to improve their performances on search engine result pages
SEO specialists use various SEO techniques that include but are not limited to the following:
- Keyword Research: The act of researching and staying up to date with popular search terms and queries that users are searching on search engines such as Google to strategically include them in your content, which will result in greater performance on search engine results pages.
- On-Page Optimization: The optimization of web pages to improve their performances on search engine results pages, as well as their visibility to users by focusing on various content elements like meta tags, title tags, headings, images, site structure, and more to offer a much more positive experience for readers.
- Link Building: The process of getting other websites to publish content that contains links leading back to your website. Aside from establishing your brand’s thought leadership in the topic or industry, it also positively affects how search engine algorithms perceive your pages, which can lead to a better ranking in search engines.
- Technical SEO: Any optimizations done to improve a website’s technical aspects and improve user experience. Apart from submitting your sitemap to Google, other examples include mobile optimization and faster loading speeds, which allow users to easily navigate your website on their mobile devices and access content.
What Does an SEO Specialist Do Daily?
With SEO being primarily focused on staying up to date with the ever-changing algorithms and conditions on search engines, an SEO specialist’s day-to-day tasks involve the regular evaluation of the factors that can affect the performance and success of clients’ websites. These include the following:
- Keyword Research: As mentioned above, keyword research is all about understanding what users are searching for, and this can understandably change every day. Because of this, SEO specialists have to keep up with search queries, as well as their competitiveness, search volume, and popularity to ensure that they’re providing clients with the best possible ones.
- Data Analysis: With SEO being a continuous process, SEO specialists must always check the performance of clients’ existing web pages to see whether or not the implemented strategies were effective. With the valuable insights from these sites, SEO specialists will be able to make the necessary changes to improve the performance of these websites on search engines.
- Coordination and Collaboration: While an SEO specialist is well-versed in all the latest practices of the trade, it’s impossible to get everything done without help from other teams. Depending on the tasks for the day, a specialist can reach out to different teams and departments that deal with link-building and outreach, content production, web development, UX design, and more.
- Optimization: SEO specialists also work to optimize websites by ensuring that they have high-quality content, use the proper keywords, include the right links and anchored texts, and much more to improve your webpage’s ranking and engagement.
What Skills Does an SEO Specialist Need?
The position of an SEO specialist requires a lot of technical skills and knowledge, and these are a few that one must have to succeed in the job:
- Keyword Research: As one of the most important aspects of SEO, a successful SEO specialist will need to have an understanding of keyword research to identify the best long-tail and short-form keywords for clients to use on their online content. Included in this is also the familiarity with search engine algorithms, search intent, and keyword competitiveness.
- Link Building Strategy: Another crucial skill for an SEO specialist to have is link building as this can improve a website’s search engine ranking, increase the website’s perceived authority and expertise, boost organic traffic, and help differentiate a client’s website from its competitors.
- Data Analysis: An SEO specialist must have the ability to review data as this will allow them to evaluate the performance of their SEO campaigns and executions and determine whether they require any changes and revisions. It also helps with the planning of future plans, as well as establishing whether the current one is resonating with the client’s target audience.
- Technical SEO: An SEO specialist will also have to make a website as technically optimized as possible, and this involves different things like checking that all the links are working, no content is duplicated, and prioritizing content elements like meta tags. All of this is done to help search engines view a website as helpful and user-friendly, which can boost the site’s rankings and performance.
- Social Media: While not necessarily a requirement for all companies and agencies, an SEO company in Singapore can still benefit from having social media proficiency as several businesses may want to increase the traffic on their accounts. And despite not appearing on search engines, social media posts, as well as engagement on these, can still increase traffic and backlinking, which can boost a brand’s ranking on search engines.
Is SEO a Good Career Option?
With more businesses and brands looking to differentiate themselves from their competitors, the demand for digital marketing and strategies is also rising, making SEO a great career option to consider.
While it may be seen as a stressful job at times, especially when juggling multiple clients, it also provides job security, diverse opportunities for career advancement, continuous learning, and work mode flexibility, all while coming with a high earning potential.
Final Thoughts
The main task of an SEO specialist is to optimize client websites and online content to boost overall search engine rankings and drive organic traffic. It requires prospective candidates to have a familiarity with certain skills and practices such as keyword research, link building, data analysis, and much more as these are things that an SEO specialist has to do regularly.
