Anyone with an SEO job knows that SEO is taking over the creative staffing industry, one keyword phrase at a time. While you may know that those who work in SEO jobs use a lot of abbreviations and spend most of their days using seemingly complicated Google tools, these functions only scratch the surface of their work.
“The main skill is to have a sound knowledge of SEO that goes above and beyond knowing the basics of SEO,” Senior SEO Consultant Adam Price told digital marketing agency Essential Marketer. “It’s much more technical than just putting a few keywords on a page and hoping for the best!”
Since SEO has grown in importance and popularity over the years, the daily responsibilities and best practices are constantly changing, and professionals need to stay on top of what’s going on in the industry.
What they do
To truly understand what SEO Specialists do, it’s essential to explain the abbreviation. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is a strategy for molding your marketing efforts so your brand is easily found through online searches. There are three basic ways that these professionals make that happen, according to Forbes: content creation, link building, and data analysis.
Content creation is a loaded process that typically requires the help of an entire team to be done properly. High-quality, consistent content that contains relevant keywords is crucial to SEO, noted Forbes. An SEO Specialist is assigned the responsibility of gathering the most popular, applicable keywords through website traffic research and other tools that give insight into what users are looking for and how the product or service can help them.
Also, by including relevant internal and external links, the website is seen as more credible and will have a higher SEO as a result, explained Forbes. Professionals in this field must make sure that links within website content and blog posts provide current, interesting information and point to external, high-quality sites. Plus, as with most online marketing jobs, data analysis is vital to the success of a business. SEO Specialists must track all of their efforts, notice what attracts Web visitors and where they fall off, and adjust the site accordingly.
What it’s like
Ever-changing Google algorithms and SEO best practices add constant variety to the life of a marketing professional in the SEO space. Web presence management provider Conductor noted that the field is growing at a rapid pace and doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. In the year 2012 alone, SEO job postings on Indeed.com increased by 1,900 percent and the number of LinkedIn users who noted or mentioned SEO within experience grew 112 percent.
Conductor also noted that SEO Specialists make up 20 percent of SEO professionals, coming in second to SEO/Marketing Manager for the most popular title in the field. The least popular is SEO Coordinator/Associate, possibly because professionals in this industry need to have a higher level of understanding and responsibility for the online success of a business.
“The common misconception is that SEO is something you can learn once on a training course,” Price told Essential Marketer. “That’s wrong and we certainly don’t advocate this.”
Those looking to pursue a profession in SEO are encouraged to do so if they have a passion for Web development and the Internet, noted the source. They should be flexible, eager for brand success, and willing to take risks. Since a good portion of the job requires testing of different keywords and strategies, it’s a lot of educated guessing and intense analysis of results when trying to boost credibility on search engines.
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