Webmasters have been arguing for a long time about whether it is worth optimizing sites for search engines or is it a waste of time. Some say that SEO is nothing more than a legend and does not help in any way in making money. Others believe that optimization is still good, works for promotion and brings a lot of money to the SEO specialist.
We do not support any of the opinions, because the truth is somewhere in the middle – SEO works, but optimization approaches have changed. Search engines have gotten smarter, users want useful content, so SEO approaches from the 2000s don’t really work anymore.
In this article, you will learn who an SEO specialist is and how to become one. We will talk about the features of this profession, the duties of an SEO specialist and career prospects.
Formats of work of an SEO specialist
We have already said above that an SEO specialist can work as a hired employee or freelancer. Let’s figure out what are the main differences and what awaits a specialist in each of the formats.
Freelance
Freelancing is a great opportunity to start your own business. The choice of clients is huge: from small customers to international companies – almost everyone has websites.
At first, you should not expect high incomes. You will have to work “on the grade” – put a price tag for services in the market and collect reviews. So you will quickly collect the first cases and will be able to increase the value of your work.
Agency
In an agency, you will most likely start as an assistant or junior specialist. They will pay a little, but you will have an experienced mentor to whom you can turn for professional advice. In the agency, you will learn the whole wrong side of the work of an SEO specialist, “cook” in the digital world and make useful contacts.
Career prospects
It is already clear that an SEO specialist can work as a freelancer or a hired expert. And his career depends on the format of work with clients.
Career of SEO-specialist in the company:
- SEO assistant or junior specialist,
- middle SEO specialist,
- senior SEO specialist.
Freelance SEO Career:
- working with small companies
- cooperation with large clients,
- your online promotion agency.
Pros and cons of the profession
Working in the field of SEO has its pros and cons, which you should learn about before starting training or searching for vacancies.
Pros of the profession:
- high salary for experienced professionals,
- can work remotely
- six months growth to the position of middle SEO specialist,
- Opportunity for career advancement and starting your own business.
Disadvantages of the profession:
- you need to constantly monitor changes in the field of search engine optimization,
- there may be an irregular work schedule, especially for freelancers,
- a lot of analytical work,
- hard to find a job without cases.
Responsibilities of an SEO Specialist
Let’s figure out what an SEO specialist should do in order for the site to be promoted and customers to come.
SEO Specialist Responsibilities:
- audit the site
- analyze competitors ,
- make a plan for website promotion, traffic growth and conversion ,
- form the core of keywords,
- optimize the resource in terms of usability and search engine requirements,
- relink pages,
- work with meta tags
- set technical specifications for specialists from the content team,
- supervise the work of performers,
- monitor the ranking of the site in search engines,
- analyze promotion statistics,
- provide reports to clients.
To understand who an SEO specialist is, it may be enough to look at the list of services below. You will understand that, to varying degrees, you need to master almost everything related to website optimization. There are a lot of tools here, which for convenience we have divided into categories according to the tasks of promotion.
Analytics
- Google Analytics . The service from Google is free and makes it possible to analyze in detail the statistics of visiting sites.
- Yandex.Metrica . A similar service from Yandex, also free.
- Google Search Console . The tool shows how the search engine ranks your site.
- Yandex.Webmaster . An analogue of the Google Search Console from Yandex.
- KeywordHero . Keyword management tool.
- Google data studio . Service for visualizing data from different sources.
Internal optimization analysis
- Screaming Frog . Scanner for technical audit of sites allows you to detect incorrect links, repeated content and other shortcomings.
- SEOTO.ME . The tool will help you find errors in meta tags, empty pages, redirects and incorrectly loaded images.
- Xenu . The service will find broken links.
Working with semantics
- Key Collector . A tool for collecting and cleaning the semantic core.
- Selection of Yandex words (Wordstat) . The service will show exactly what Yandex users are looking for and help you find keywords.
- Ubersuggest . The service will help you evaluate the competition for each keyword.
Position monitoring in SERP
- All positions . A tool for setting positions in search engines.
- Pixel tools . The service will help you check positions in both Yandex and Google.
External link analysis
- Link miner . Google extension for finding broken links.
- Majestic Site Explorer . Link profile analysis service.
- PR-CY . A tool for evaluating external and internal links.
Working with Google and Yandex maps
- Yandex Directory . Registration will allow showing the company and its contact details to users of Yandex services — maps and navigator.
- Google My Business . A similar tool from Google.