Unlock Career Potential as an SEO Specialist with These 10 Tips

A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialist evaluates tests and modifies a website to make it more search engine friendly. Consequently, the website performs better in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) on popular search engines such as Bing and Google. In short, therefore, an SEO specialist optimizes a website’s pages to ensure appropriate and desired search results, improve user experience, raise brand awareness, and increase lead volume and website traffic.

SEO specialists are no different from other professionals who work in digital or conventional marketing; they all share the primary goal of increasing sales for their firm. It is also a promising career; in fact, according to AmbitionBox, an SEO specialist with over seven years of work experience can earn up to ₹8,00,000 annually in India.

So if you’re a working professional interested in digital marketing and want to become an SEO specialist, this article is for you. Here, you’ll learn about the role of an SEO specialist, the required skills, job opportunities available in the market, and much more.

What are the Job Responsibilities of an SEO Specialist?

An SEO specialist is involved in the following:

• Monitoring, reporting, and evaluation of website analytics and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns
• Create optimized landing pages and copy for SEO
• Research, assess, and incorporate SEO suggestions in the content
• Create and implement a link-building plan
• Suggest alterations to website design, content, backlinks, and other elements to enhance search engine rankings for targeted keywords
• Run tests, gather and analyze data, and look for trends to get the best return on investment from your paid search efforts

Tips to Boost Your Career as an SEO Specialist

We’ve compiled a list of valuable tips that will be helpful in boosting your career.

1. Create Niche-Specific Strategies

Every industry is unique, and so is its customer base. It is, therefore, important to note that an SEO specialist cannot create a one-size-fits-all strategy. Thus, it becomes crucial for any SEO expert to identify the client’s customer base, understand their demographic and behavior and prepare a strategy accordingly.

2. Research

The entire SEO campaign research process begins with a simple keyword analysis. Therefore, a lot of research is necessary to create an effective SEO strategy. This includes gaining in-depth insight into the client’s business, new technologies, what the competition is doing, etc is important to your success as an SEO specialist.

3. Ability to Prioritize

Prioritization is necessary for managing an effective SEO campaign. This, therefore, means that you must understand which actions to take first and which to defer. For instance, prioritize thorough audience research before you outline your strategy. Doing so will help you determine which content will connect with them and address their problems.

4. Analyze Specific Client Requirements

Measure the performance of an SEO strategy frequently. Doing so will help you keep track of the SEO campaign performance and identify the areas that need improvement.

5. Gain In-Depth Knowledge of Keyword Research

Keyword research, expansion, and optimization are the most important tasks for an SEO specialist. So if you wish to succeed at your job, in-depth knowledge of keyword research and its nuances is very important.

6. Evaluate the Advertising Links of Competitors

It is imperative to stay updated on what the competition is doing, as it will help you strategize more effective campaigns.

7. Align Campaigns with Web Development Teams

Aligning a company’s SEO campaigns with other teams, such as the software development department, will help in creating applications that optimize site rankings. So, an SEO specialist has to make sure that the site development themes or enterprise applications are in tandem with the company’s SEO objectives.

8. Collaborate with the Marketing Teams

SEO also plays a pivotal role in content programming and content production. Consequently, an experienced and seasoned SEO specialist must collaborate with marketing and other teams to ensure that the content produced is SEO-optimized.

9. Create and Optimize Your Own Site

Building your own site and optimizing it for SEO is the greatest showcase of your practical skills. This allows potential employers to get an idea of the kind of work you have already done and what you’re capable of doing.

10. Build a Strong Portfolio

Building a strong portfolio is the foundation for a robust SEO career. Make sure you take up projects, work with clients, and add those projects as part of your portfolio. Moreover, a strong portfolio will always attract top companies and increase your chances of getting selected.

How Can One Become a Certified SEO Specialist?

According to LinkedIn, there are over 3,000 SEO specialist job openings and vacancies in India.

It’s clear then that you can leverage SEO knowledge to boost your career.

To become a certified SEO specialist, you can follow one of these routes:

• Enroll in an online digital marketing course or an SEO course
• Work at a digital marketing firm and learn SEO practices and strategies
• Enroll in a postgraduate marketing program

What are the Current Job Roles for SEO Specialists?

Companies with SEO-optimized websites are more likely to have high traffic than others. That’s why multiple business enterprises are now looking for different types of SEO specialists. The current job roles or opportunities for SEO specialists are as follows:

1. Search Engine Marketer (SEM)

Although SEM and SEO are often combined, they are actually extremely distinct. SEM is significantly more comprehensive and includes SEO. While SEO creates and upgrades webpages to enhance their organic search result rankings, SEM helps optimize webpage rankings through paid ads. For this job, you need to be well-versed in PPC marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

2. Digital Marketer

Digital marketers usually manage each and every form of online marketing, such as social media, pay-per-click advertising, SEM, and SEO. This job necessitates:

• Creation and deployment of digital marketing strategies
• Content planning management
• Using SEO in content
• Leveraging social media as an element of long-term strategies
• Using of analytics and data management
• Using advertising platforms to generate paid traffic

3. Content Marketer

Content marketers must-have SEO expertise as they directly produce online content, outreach materials, blogs, reports, graphics, videos, and other types of content. Your primary duty will be taking part in the marketing plans and acting on the content-related decisions.

What Industries Hire SEO Specialists?

1. Digital Marketing Agencies

By leveraging the right strategies, tools, and technologies, an SEO specialist can help a digital marketing firm to promote brand awareness, generate leads, drive conversion, boost revenue, and deliver profitable results.

2. E-commerce

In this era of rapid digitization, businesses need to have an online presence to engage their target audience. With the help of an SEO specialist, e-commerce platforms find it easy to reach people across the world, increase conversion, and boost sales.

Become an SEO Specialist with Emeritus

If you are interested in becoming an SEO specialist and learning more about digital marketing, then you’ve come to the right place! Emeritus’ online training, courses, and certification programs. Can enhance your knowledge and skill in this space. At Emeritus, you can enroll in one of its certificate courses in digital marketing and advance toward a bright career in SEO. So, get started today.