Search Engine Optimizer | What does an SEO do?
SEO Job Description, Tasks, Roles, And Responsibilities And Importance Of Hiring An SEO.
A person claiming that he/she is an SEO expert/professional must be aware and expert in these areas, KEYWORD STRATEGY, GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE, GOOGLE ANALYTICS, GOOGLE TAG MANAGER, LOCAL LISTING, META TAGS OPTIMIZATION, CONTENT OPTIMIZATION, INTERNAL LINKING, XML SITEMAP, FIXING BROKEN LINKS, BROKEN LINKS REDIRECTS, WEB 2.0 BLOGGING, PRESS RELEASE, LOCAL DIRECTORY, GUEST BLOGGING, CLASSIFIEDS, Q and A MARKETING, INFOGRAPHICS, BLOG COMMENTING, DOCUMENT SHARING, BROKEN LINK BUILDING, VIDEO PROMOTIONS, WEBSITE SPEED, MOBILE FRIENDLINESS, WEBSITE ARCHITECTURE (UI/UX), CRAWLING, HTTPS, BREADCRUMBS, URL STRUCTURE, STRUCTURED DATA MARKUP, ENABLING AMP, ROBOTS.TXT FILE, CANONICAL.
The detailed scope is given below.
- Understand Client’s Marketing Objectives and Golas: Know the client’s Search engine marketing objectives and goals, industry competitive position, business niche, brand awareness objectives, and brand competitive advantages. Search engine marketing goals should be measurable, realistic, and achievable.
- Keyword Research: Perform keyword research and prioritize keyword targeting strategy for primary keyword and secondary keyword phrases. Identify potential keyword targets with low competition, high profitability(not only high traffic but according to user intent so can be easily converted into sales).
- On-Site Optimization: Optimize On-Page(also known as on-site) SEO Elements (H-tags, Images, content structure, and formatting) while utilizing skills in organizing website content into hierarchies. Integrate keyword phrases, LSI keywords, Stem Keywords, and Keyword Synonyms.
- Organize Keywords: Make different categories of keywords and put similar keywords in one place, assign keyword phrases to individual web pages to stay organized on specific topics.
- Higher Rankings and Visibility: Achieve search engines results pages(SERP) top ten rankings positions for money keywords on the top root/home page and other products and services landing pages. Focus on improving click-through rate, results in knowledge graph card, or in Youtube video carousel results.
- Improve User Experience: Optimize to improve website visitor experience, minimize page abandonment, increase page views, increase visitor Dwell time spent on website, Increase Click-Through Rates (CTR) in search engine results pages (SERPS)
- Resolving Technical SEO Issues : At least resolve these technical SEO issues on priority basis, canonicalization, pagination, website speed issues, 404 errors, 301/302 redirects, crawl errors, broken links, server errors, duplicate content, robot.txt file, incorrect site maps, duplicate content, missing alt attributes, poor URL structure, mobile compatibility issues of website.
- Site Audit: Examine, test, and diagnose for website visibility problems.
- Tracking and Monitoring Ranking: Check and track keywords indexing status, link building progress, website content Inventory, Alexa/Ahref/Moz’s domain authority factors, traffic Statistics.
- Local SEO: Verified Google My Business(GMB) profile, Google maps listing, local/city websites listing, and a consistent NAP profile (name, address, phone). Get local business citations.
- Copywriting Skills: Write effective headlines(H1), Meta tags, paragraph subheadings( H2, H3, H4, H5). compose or write unique title tags, meta descriptions, and H-tags to induce clicks in search results. Write in a natural language conversational tone used by searchers conducting voice search queries. Know your audience, write longer content and keep paragraphs short, use text formatting such as bold, lists, and italic, add photo images, avoid keyword stuffing, and other things coming under the black hat or gray hat techniques.
- Keep Up-To-Date With SEO and Updates of Search Engines: keep informed on White Hat best practices, and Google Algorithm updates such as Caffeine, Rankbrain, Hummingbird, Panda, and Penguin. Know what works and what doesn’t work. Apply advanced expertise and knowledge to avoid spam. Follow Top SEO Blogs such as Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, Semrush Blog, Search Engine Watch, Moz, and Top champs of the SEO industry.
- Competitive Analysis: Competitors’ websites analysis to determine strengths and weaknesses plus audience share. Compare client’s site backlink with competitors’ sites. Use tools like Ahref.com.
- Tracking and Monitoring Ranking: Check and track keywords indexing status, link building progress, website content Inventory, Alexa/Ahref/Moz’s domain authority factors, traffic Statistics.
- Website Redesign and Development: Have a fundamental understanding of site development and web designing and redesign processes, the terminology used by webmasters tools, and have basic HTML coding skills. Understand Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Web-page Layout, and Graphic Design items.
- Advanced SEO Techniques: Use sophisticated methods to maximize search engine visibility leading to featured snippets, write evergreen content, Google quick answers box, Google knowledge panel, local pack. Install HTML markup to support the above objectives.
- E-commerce stores: Understand key aspects of Ecommerce/online stores, shopping carts, online payment methods, ecommerce platforms, and shipping options and tax regulations to comply with laws.
- Internal Linking: Use the best internal linking practices and processes to improve website usability. Make sure a crawlable link structure that distributes link equity to internal pages. Use breadcrumb navigation and most important the keywords enriched anchor tag.
- Expertise using SEO Tools and SEO Software Effectively: knowledge of – paid as well as free tools like Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, Header Response Checkers, Site Crawling, Rank Tracking, Keyword Analysis. Favorite tools include Brightlocal.com, Moz Linkexplorer, Semrush.com, Backlink Audit, and Backlink Analysis, Ahrefs.com, Alexa.com, Ubersuggest, Hootsuite, Kwfinder.com, Yoast.com, SEObook.com, Neilpatel.com, and Backlinko.com.
- Mobile Search Focused: Use responsive website design and work on achieving higher in Mobile search results. optimize content to rank well in voice search and in Google mobile-first index.
- Off-site SEO/Link Building: An organic search engine optimizer advises clients on how to develop a diversified inbound link profile using a variety of white-hat link-building strategies and techniques such as blogger or influencer outreach, content marketing, and Infographics design and publishing. resolving reputation management issues that damage online credibility and reputation. Work to earn and attract natural relevant links to key landing pages and linkable content ( Infographics etc). Pursue quality backlinks from high authority websites.
- Social Media Optimization(SMO): Social media optimization includes Social Media Profiles such as Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Promote and broadcast client’s brand messages. Add social media sharing buttons and features to digital content.
- Monthly SEO Reports: Prepare reports for ongoing clients and for project progress reporting. examples include tracking keyword rankings, highest traffic landing pages, traffic trends, linking Domains, and acquired traffic sources. Compare mentioned items with competitors.
- Fix Old Website vs. Build a New Website Analysis: Make sure before starting work on an existing website that either a new website is needed or an existing one is okay, check spam score and other factors of the existing website and domain, and advise the client accordingly.
- SEO Guarantee: A real search engine optimizer never makes SEO Guarantees for keyword rankings. Only guarantee what’s in your direct control. Use past experience to approximate future results and scenarios.
Search Engine Optimizer FAQs
What's better: Outsource SEO or In-House?
As per our opinion, if don’t have a big budget for paying monthly salaries of high-level SEO experts, then it is better to outsource SEO marketing, once you will start getting huge sales via SEO then it is up to you either continue with the same digital marketing agency who gives you big sale and built your trust or you can hire for in-house.
What is your experience as an SEO consultant? Success rate?
Mehboob Shar has personally managed many SEO projects worldwide, you can check out our SEO portfolio. An advanced SEO expert should have at least 5,000+ hours of industry experience. Mehboob Shar has over 20,000 hours of experience ranking websites worldwide.