SEO specialist: what is the profile of this professional?

A few years ago, SEO professionals began to be wanted more intensively. This happens because the work with digital marketing has shown favorable results in companies that have applied the practices and recommendations of SEO.

This factor causes millions of searches to be made daily about the topic: either by entrepreneurs who want to obtain positive results with greater visibility on the internet or by those who want to specialize in the profession and start to act as an SEO professional.

When hiring an SEO service, all companies ask the same question: should I hire a professional SEO consultant, an SEO agency, or an SEO professional to work at my business? Through this question, it will be almost inevitable that the companies will look for a “SEO specialist” to solve the problem. But there is an important point regarding the expectation of counting on this professional for the project.

SEO specialist: expectation and reality

The main point of this article is that, when we search for an SEO specialist, probably, this professional will be the main part of a project that involves other employees as well. That is, they will not be the only ones responsible for all the SEO work in a company. If the organization is looking for an SEO specialist to develop all fronts of the project, inevitably, the expectations will be frustrated.

It is very common to find job vacancy advertisements for SEO professionals requiring knowledge such as writing skills, data analysis, creation of strategies and ASO, in addition to the use of WordPress and technical knowledge in programming.

Analyzing this ad, do you believe that only one person can perform all these tasks in an SEO project that involves all fronts (strategy, On-Page, content, Off-Page)?
The SEO process is complex, being a set of interdisciplinary practices, requiring attention on different fronts, from the most technical tasks to those related to content production.

Does the complete professional exist?

To answer this question, it is necessary to understand that there is still no official practice for SEO. In other words, agencies and organizations are based on mistakes and successes to define some points, including the assignment of tasks for each professional in the segment.

Consequently, each organization builds its methodology, which means that there is no correct specification of the functions of an SEO professional. Thus, inaccurate information about the profession is passed on, causing companies and agencies to view it in the wrong way.

Overall, we find agencies and organizations demanding that the professional be qualified in several areas and, during their performance, assume the responsibility of different fronts, such as technical, strategic, and related to content production.

Many companies are also based on SEO results equal to Google Ads, for example, analyzing only the return on investment without considering the entire cost of hiring professionals and tools to perform this work. The measurement of results of the SEO work is different from the measurement of other digital channels of acquisition.

Teamwork

Working integrated with the other areas of the organization is the first step to succeed in an SEO campaign that involves several work fronts. Having specialists working in certain areas, there are even more chances to achieve the expected results, as well as to not overload the professional.

In other words, a good SEO project will work properly if it has teams that act in constant and procedural communication since SEO work is an ongoing process. After all, it is much more worth having a professional working in a certain sector than in several at the same time. Not to mention that the professional with the technical profile will have a more promising relationship with the IT team, for example.

In addition to providing greater quality to the service offered, a professional focused on a certain function will have more ownership in the matter. For example, a journalist will be much more productive in the content team instead of working directly with the technical issues of On-Page, which are not their domain.

The more experienced and proactive the professionals are in each step, the better the result of an SEO project will be. Otherwise, we will have a generalist professional with basic knowledge, who will not identify with any front and, therefore, will not be able to actively contribute to the growth of the project.

The professionals involved in an SEO project

Now that the importance of doing teamwork throughout an SEO campaign has become clearer, instead of concentrating all responsibilities on just one person, it is necessary to understand the value of the performance of some fronts. The main three are the following.

Strategy

The SEO strategy team is responsible for managing the project. Professionals must know the client and his segment to be able to trace the most assertive actions.

Besides, there is the analysis and selection of keywords that should be worked in the content to be published. Such terms should offer the best chances of good positions in Google’s search results.

Technical

The technical team is responsible for important points of a website, such as:

• Performance;
• Usability;
• information structure;
• Clean source-code.

They also have to anticipate updates or changes to the algorithms that influence the SEO project.

Content

The SEO content professional must create a relevant plot to the public, informing about the product and/or the segment in question, while applying optimization strategies, such as:

• Keywords;
• Semantic Field;
• Internal Links;
• Content Structure.

Other factors that must be taken into account in the content production are the persona and the depth of the topic covered, which is divided into top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. Besides, it must persuade the reader to complete the journey and become a customer or a qualified lead.

The profile of an SEO specialist

Claiming that an SEO professional is complete means to say that the collaborator with a particular role in an SEO project has complete ownership of the theme and functions: be it a strategist, a technician, or a content analyst.

An SEO professional may have knowledge in some areas, but, hardly, the ability to act with high quality in all of it. This, in fact, is a differential in the profile of those who work with digital marketing.

The differential for an SEO professional is that they are familiar with and know how the entire SEO process works. Mainly, that they know how the actions of strategy, content, Link Building, and On-Page are done. Among these fronts, that they have enough experience and knowledge to contribute to the growth of the project.

So, how did you imagine an SEO specialist before reading this article? Now, after that information, what is your opinion about organizations that require multiple tasks from just one collaborator? Leave your answers in the comments!