The answer to this question is longer than most people expect to hear. The first question that must be addressed and answered is, “What is SEO?” Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of working with company websites and webpages to increase visibility in organic search and to drive visitor traffic to increase conversion. By increasing visibility and rank on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), businesses dramatically improve their chances of getting clicked, making chances of conversion much higher. According to a blog from Blue Corona by Katie Birkbeck, “93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and 47% of people click on the first three listings.” This means that SEO is very important for business and having an SEO Specialist is a key component to the success of your company’s SEO Strategy. However, be careful when searching for an SEO Specialist. There are two types of SEO that professionals can perform for your company: black-hat SEO and white-hat SEO. White-hat SEO is done properly with hard work and data analysis. These are the best practices that are further discussed in this article. Black-hat SEO uses methods that go against the terms of the search engines and have long-term damage on your website from penalties. Warning signs of black-hat SEO are things such as guarantees of X amount of links or higher search engine ranks and should be avoided.
Responsibilities and Daily Tasks of an SEO Specialist
Now the question, “What does an SEO do?” can be answered in detail. SEO is typically looked at as doing keyword research and putting them sporadically throughout a website. Specialists that provide proper SEO do so much more than that during the day that goes unnoticed. The skillsets that SEO Specialists possess are a very unique mix of not only digital skills, but also marketing and content strategy skills as well. These skillsets are so unique and important to business that, according to Ryan Ward of Simplilearn, “SEO is the most in-demand digital marketing skill according to Smart Insights and CMO.com.” A typical day for an SEO Specialist would consist of a combination of the following tasks, varying in priority depending on target goals of the client or the current stage of a project (New websites require more keyword research vs More link building research for an established site):
- Keyword Research - Although there are always changes to the Google algorithm, keywords are still part of the equation and are still the core starting point for online searches. Proper keyword research is very labor intensive. Not only are SEOs looking for search terms and trends, but also looking at search volumes, difficulties in ranking for keywords, SERPs and Click Through Rates (CTRs) of the keyword. By combining these analytics, the search terms and the search trends of the keyword, SEOs are able to develop content that is keyword rich and targeting the correct audiences.
- Optimizing - On-page optimization involves the way your website is presented to both people and search engines. This includes presenting valuable and quality content, clean meta data, a solid HTML structure, quick loading pages, and proper internal links (site navigation and internal links that lead the user through your site). With a growing demand from consumers for photos and videos from companies and brands, SEOs optimize this content for visibility and page load speed as well. SEOs also conduct conversion research by testing various elements to determine what creates better and more consistent conversions from users on your site, optimizing even more for your target audience.
- Link Building – Link building or off-page SEO works on building your domain authority and relevance to search engines.To explain the way link building works, think of links as votes in a popularity contest.The more links you have linking to your site, the more the search engines see your content as relevant content to show for search queries relating to that topic. Some links carry a higher vote than others giving you a higher domain authority and there are two ways of gaining these external links: “natural” editorial link building and manual “outreach” link building.
- Natural link building is the best way for an SEO to gain external links. Creating content that attracts the attention of others in a specific industry worth sharing and linking to without asking is a great way to get free exposure for your company. SEO Specialist research what content to write and develop a strategy to best promote and amplify it.
- Manual Outreach link building involves an SEO developing relationships and asking for external links.This could include guest writing for a blog or trading links from relevant businesses to your industry.SEOs are researching and looking for these opportunities to gain more exposure for the company or the client, increasing visits and conversions.
- URL Building & Structure – SEOs build URLs to track where visitors are coming from and the specific campaign linked to the URL (social media, blog, etc.). These URLs make it easy to understand the exact way visitors interact with your website to see what is working and what needs to be adjusted or abandoned. SEO Specialists also pay attention to the structure of URLs to make it easy for both people and search engines to understand what the page is about.
For Example:
A) seedreamsmarketing.com/the-seedreams-blog/what-does-an-seo-do
B) seedreamsmarketing.com/the-seedreams-blog/archive/seo/020518p=23
Example A clearly tells the user and the search engines what to expect from this page. By structuring URLs like this, SEOs are able to add keywords to the URL, adding to the SEO of the page as well.
- Analytics – After all other elements are taking care of and put into place, analytics are tracked and recorded to see the progress of the SEO campaign. SEOs take this data either daily, weekly, or monthly to make decisions about strategy and testing. Is the new campaign working? Is the page delivering the correct information to the right audience? What is the best content users are engaging with? These are the questions these analytics answer for the Specialist to make decisions about the SEO strategy, making the campaign as effective as possible.
- Continuing Education – SEO is a long-term investment in a fast paced digital world. Specialists keep current with news, events and developments in the industry by reading articles, blogs and forums on a regular basis. By staying updated with latest trends and changes, Specialists provide the best service to their clients and stay ahead of the competition without getting caught off-guard.
The day of an SEO Specialist is always changing and it is these changes that require the skills that SEOs have. There’s more to SEO than keywords and good SEO is done by performing these best practices on a regular basis. By combining these daily tasks with customer personas, content lists and goals of the client or company, an SEO Specialist launches, promotes, amplifies, and measures campaigns that target the right audiences with the correct information. This creates a great environment for testing new strategies and opportunities, keeping clients and companies ahead of the competition.
Other Digital Marketing Teams SEOs Work With
Specialists not only work on their daily tasks, but they also work with other parts of the digital marketing teams of clients and companies. Dealing with these various branches of the marketing teams can seem overwhelming, so organization and communications skills are essential to keep focused and on track. Other teams that SEOs work with on a regular basis are:
- Social Media Marketing – Social media marketing and SEO go hand in hand and the SEO for the client or company is responsible for making sure that the content stays consistent with the SEO strategy. By keeping these posts inline with the SEO strategy, SEOs help raise brand awareness and authority.
- Paid Search Marketing – SEOs work with the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) team to provide the best keywords for paid ads. Because of the keyword research skills Specialists have, they are an essential piece to the success of these campaigns and will work closely with this team.
- Public Relations – All content published by a client or company should be inline with the SEO strategy in place, including press releases and publicity material. SEO Specialists work with the PR Team to make sure the content they are producing is optimized and stays on track with the SEO strategy.
- Content Marketing – The SEO Specialist is very important to the Content Marketing Team. As part of this team their responsibilities are helping with the content writing, optimizing all content before it’s published and keeping the content consistent with the SEO strategy of the company.
- Website Design & Development – All SEO strategies rely on website structure.SEOs work with the website design and development teams to make sure that webpages and landing pages are optimized and load fast, the internal links of the site are working properly and that the website navigation is easy to follow.Without the proper structure, SEO campaigns are ineffective.
Knowing the answer to “What Does an SEO Do?” explains what services and knowledge to expect from an SEO Specialist. If you are a company looking to hire an SEO, remember that there are two ways to do SEO: White-hat SEO that involves hard work and research that benefits your website over time or Black-hat SEO that is lazy and uses shortcuts that hurts your website in the long run. Research all SEO Specialists considered for hiring and find one that provides all of these services and your website will benefit from a solid and effective SEO strategy.
Resources
https://www.simplilearn.com/what-does-a-day-in-the-life-of-an-seo-specialist-look-like-article
https://www.bluecorona.com/blog/what-does-an-seo-company-do