An SEO specialist is responsible for making a website search engine-friendly to get organic and targeted traffic.
Their work involves analyzing competitors to make better content. Fixing its technical errors, aligning targeted keywords to match user intent, and more.
They also track performance. Adapt strategies to meet client needs. Stay updated on search engine algorithm changes.
Why is an SEO Specialist Needed?
An SEO specialist helps businesses increase visibility, attract organic traffic, and generate leads by optimizing their online presence for search engines.
A Statista survey (January 2015 to January 2024) shows that Google dominates the market share in search engines at 91.47 worldwide in all devices.
The remaining 8.53% is divided among Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, and Baidu.
As you can see, search engines produce billions of organic visits and are the primary source for searchers. SEO becomes more cost-efficient than a pay-per-click advertisement (PPC) for businesses as a long-term investment.
Better conversion and targeted traffic is why there is a huge demand for good SEO specialists worldwide.
Now that you know what a Search Engine Optimization Specialist is needed, let’s move on to 10 major duties and responsibilities.
10 roles and responsibilities of an SEO Specialist
If you’re pursuing a career as an SEO specialist, here are 10 key responsibilities you’ll need to maintain.
SEO Audit
An SEO audit is like a checkup to examine a website’s structure and current state.
It is crucial to check for technical, on-page, off-page, and local SEO errors in a website before starting SEO projects. It helps to understand the strengths and weaknesses of a website.
The site audit is not a major ranking factor but helps with user experience (UX) and solving errors that are preventing the site from ranking on SERP.
Competition Analysis
It is always a good idea to learn or study the best in your industry or your target.
Top ranking websites in your niche or industry are the ones that were able to succeed. You can get lots of ideas about what works and what might work by analyzing competitors.
Before creating content, it is important to analyze your competition to get an idea of what your competitors are doing to rank.
It is important to check their content’s backlink profile, headings, images, data, site structure, speed, and more.
Keyword Research
Keyword Research is a process where the analyst, based on data, finds profitable keyword opportunities.
Researching which keywords to target for better website traffic and conversion is one of the main responsibilities of SEOs.
The entire campaign depends on which keywords to rank at the top of the SERP. Failing to choose the right keyword will lead to no traffic or conversions.
Content Creation
Publishing helpful content like blog posts, infographics, and case studies, builds trust and brand awareness.
But the goal is to create content that not only ranks but also converts those visitors into paying customers for your clients.
Effective keyword research can help you write content that aligns with user intent, which is relevant, and helpful as well.
Link Building
Link building is one of the major factors in search engine rankings, as they see backlinks as a vote of confidence from other websites.
It is a part of an off-page SEO where you need strong communication skills to collaborate with others skilled seo specialist within your industry to acquire links.
Backlinks from relevant and high-authority websites will boost SERP rankings.
Local SEO
Local SEO is the method of optimizing a business to appear in search results within a specific geographic area, whether they have a website or not.
As an SEO specialist, you help clients target both international and local audiences by improving their rankings in local search results.
Most businesses aim to attract nearby customers by leveraging platforms like Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) and Google Maps. This strategy ensures they remain visible to potential customers searching within their area.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is important to learn as positive user experience can indirectly improve search engine rankings.
Technical audits help you fix issues like website speed, mobile-friendly design, HTTPS, content duplication, and accessibility—tasks that require a lot of practice.
You can use SEO tools like Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, and Seoptimer to check and improve a website’s health.
Manage clients
Growing your name as a Search Engine Expert will get you lots of clients, and it is your responsibility to manage them and their sites accordingly.
You should be able to adept to the workload and manager there need simultaneously.
SEO Reporting
Reporting key performance indicators like traffic, impressions, CTR, CTA, and sales to clients is important. It keeps them informed about how effectively our SEO strategies are working.
Free SEO tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Looker Studio are the best to create a report.
Keep updated on the search engine algorithm
If you are an SEO professional, then no doubt that you must keep yourself updated with the latest trends and search engine algorithms.
Search engines like Google update their algorithm frequently including Core, Spam, Helpful, Reviews, and Link updates to show relevant and helpful results for searchers.
