Who is an SEO specialist

If you analyze the offers of such large educational projects as Skillbox and Netology in the field of marketing and IT, you will find that the direction “SEO specialist” is one of the cheapest. All because of the opinion that “SEO is dead”, which has been around among the people for 15 (!) Years. SEO can be compared to the famous cartoon character South Park – every year analysts find new reasons to write an epitaph to SEO, but things are still there. More precisely, not a cart, but an SEO specialist at the computer.

You need to look at this situation from the positive side. Since you can learn SEO for a song now, it’s definitely worth doing. The article will tell you what responsibilities are assigned to an SEO optimizer. Seeing how long the list is, you will understand why SEOs are in no hurry to cut down.

• SEO specialist: who is he and what does he do?
• Required skills
• Pros and cons of the profession
• SEO work formats
• Features of work in SEO
• Signs of a good SEO professional
• Tips for SEO Beginners
• Brief summary

SEO Expert: who is he and what does he do?

Let’s explain what an SEO specialist does from the very beginning. When a person enters a query into the search box of Yandex, Google or another system, he sees that the search results (sites) are ranked – from the first line to the tenth on the first page, also on the second and subsequent ones. This does not happen by chance. The better the suitable page of the site and the site as a whole, the higher the line in the search results it takes. Ranking high – high traffic. You may notice by yourself that when searching for information, you click on the links in the search results, which are located above.

The page on the first line in the search results takes about 49% of the traffic on demand, the page on the second line takes about 20%. Those who occupy lines from 4th to 10th get “crumbs”. Sites from the second ten are left with almost nothing – except for casual, “stray” visitors.

But what does “promote” mean? How to do it? An SEO specialist who is professionally engaged in website promotion in search engines knows this. An SEO specialist is responsible for ensuring that the site does not languish in the “purgatory” of the second ten. What are the responsibilities of an SEO specialist and what exactly does he do?

• Draws up an SEO promotion strategy. It’s about strategy – that is, the long-term plan, since there are no short-term results from SEO. As a rule, the strategy is designed for a period of 6-9 months.
• Conducts an SEO audit – checks that the site meets the requirements of search engines from a technical point of view.
• Analyzes the sites of competitors – looking for what “chips” can be adopted.
• Provides technical assignments for programmers, layout designers, copywriters.
• Collects semantic cores – lists of requests for which the resource pages are optimized.
• Summarizes subtotals – for example, checks the position of the site for keywords in dynamics.
• Brings usability to mind – makes the site as user-friendly as possible.

And of course, the duties of an SEO specialist include regular reports to the customer about the work performed.

Required skills

If a specialist is engaged in the promotion of sites in search engines, he must have the following personal qualities:

• Perseverance . The skill that those who have nothing to write down usually write on the resume is really important here. SEO promotion is one of the most sedentary professions.
• Concentration . You will have to work with huge amounts of data – which is difficult when the wind is in your head.
• Organization . An SEO specialist has to interact remotely with a large number of specialists. He must be able to plan the time in order to effectively organize their work.

With regard to the necessary professional skills, they are as follows:

• Understanding the principles of ranking.
• Ability to use Yandex and Google tools for webmasters and SEO-optimizers. We are talking about Metrika, Google Analytics, Search Console, Yandex.Webmaster.
• Skills in using other SEO specialist tools – Screaming Frog, Xenu, Key Collector.
• Ability to use programs from the Microsoft Office package – first of all Excel.
• Excellent knowledge of the Russian language. Since most companies do not have editors on staff, an SEO specialist will have to proofread copywriters’ essays on their own.
• Knowledge of the principles of the main CMS.

If an expert is familiar with HTML and CSS, this is a plus. However, it is not necessary to know these languages ​​thoroughly.

Pros and cons of the profession

The pros of being an SEO website optimizer are:

• Demand . In Moscow, only HH.ru has 158 vacancies for SEO specialists – not bad for a “dead profession”.
• A high salary  for those who really understand. Earlier the salary was even higher, but in recent years the labor market has been flooded with amateurs who are ready to work for next to nothing.
• You don’t need a higher education . Universities do not teach SEO specialists – you can get this profession by completing courses from schools such as Geekbrains and Skillbox. However, if a person studied information technology on the “tower”, this is a good start.
• Possibility of regular development during business hours . Since the essential skill of an SEO is to understand the principles of ranking, which are constantly changing, a specialist can spend a solid chunk of his working day reading feature articles.
• You can work remotely.

Now let’s talk about the cons:

• Stress . Imagine, you have built a house, and the next day a person from the administration comes and says that the requirements for the construction of the foundation have changed – you will have to re-fill and build anew. Stress? What else. Hands can drop. This happens all the time in SEO. You bring the site to the desired state, then the search engines update their algorithms, and that’s it – change the foundation.
• Routine . There is, alas, little creativity in SEO. You have to perform the same operations every day. If you are a person with a creative mind, this can be torture for you.
• Great responsibility . Now companies receive orders mainly from SEO traffic. If you make a mistake that leads to a drawdown in positions and, as a result, to a drop in traffic, you can leave the company without income.
• High competition . In Moscow, a dozen SEOs each apply for positions with six-figure salaries. Getting such a position without a solid background and portfolio is problematic, so you will probably have to rise from the bottom. The salaries of junior-level specialists are much more modest – in Moscow 45-50 thousand rubles.

SEO work formats

After graduating from SEO training courses, you will be faced with a choice: what to do – get a job in an office for a full day or do freelance at home. One of the advantages of the profession is that you can work for yourself.

However, starting your SEO career is worth starting from an office job. You simply won’t be able to find customers if you don’t have a portfolio or experience – just a certificate of completion. A certificate is a sign of proper assimilation of theoretical material. With a certificate, as with a diploma about a “tower” – de jure you are a professional, but when you are put in an office chair and loaded with tasks, you do not know how to approach. The Junior SEO position is a must-have for yesterday’s student. The demand is small, but you can cook in a digital mess, get the first experience (if you’re lucky, then the portfolio), ask Senior SEO with questions on the topic. In the field of SEO, career growth is fast – in six months or a year you will be able to move to the Middle-level.

Or go on a free voyage. Freelancing has many benefits:

• You work as much as you want and when you want. You can finally sleep off.
• Income depends on you. There is no middleman between you and the client who takes the lion’s share of the payment.
• You are not attached to a place. You can rush to another city at any time. The main thing is not to forget your laptop.
• You can satisfy your vanity and turn your own name into a brand – if you invest in promoting your personal website, YouTube channel, and Instagram profile. Working in an agency, you will remain in the shadow of the corporate brand.

Features of work in SEO

Working in SEO is pretty paradoxical. On the one hand, you must have the ability to concentrate and withdraw into yourself, on the other hand, introverts have a hard time. It is necessary to constantly communicate with the customer and be able to “sell” the current result, which, from the point of view of the customer himself, is always insufficient. It is necessary to use imagination to explain the essence of the work to the client using simple examples, without resorting to professional terminology.

Customers of SEO services are always extremely skeptical towards the contractor. It is clear why – for certain they have already been “burned”. An agreement is concluded between the client and the SEO specialist, but the document is protected primarily by the performer – the paper is a guarantee that he will not be deprived of funding after 1-2 months. The executor himself cannot give guarantees of bringing the site to the top, because SEO is not an exact science, where everything is calculated in advance.

An SEO guy shouldn’t be overconfident and overconfident. Better to avoid high-profile promises like “bring any site to the top.” An experienced SEO specialist is a realist who understands that there are sites with which, in principle, nothing can be done about it. The structure is outdated, the content is the legacy of “old school” SEO with fierce overspam. It is necessary to start from scratch, but the budget of “5 kopecks”, on which the customer insists, will not be enough even for a tenth of the work. It is better to refuse, since the most likely alternative is negative karma, the same feedback and an eye twitching with stress.

Signs of a good SEO professional

Usually, a good SEO schnick is distinguished from an amateur by a number of criteria:

• There is a personal blog . It doesn’t matter if it’s a website or a YouTube channel. If the optimizer has something to brag about, it will do it. A dabbler will not advertise himself, because he is afraid to “get burned” – to freeze nonsense, from which it will become clear what kind of “pro” he is.
• There is no sign of despair . A good SEO specialist will not willingly accept a job even before the customer announces the terms. A good SEO-schnick has orders “above the roof”, so he still has to be convinced.
• Doesn’t make unfounded promises . “3 months, and the site is in the Top for RF requests!” – the customer will not hear from a good SEO specialist. The optimizer understands that the search engine is female and her mood changes regularly.
• There is a portfolio . Is always. A good SEO-optimizer is sensitive about the portfolio, because he understands that this is the key to its relevance.

Unfortunately, the customer’s chances of transferring the project to amateurs are still quite high – no matter how you check. An amateur can easily “cling” to someone else’s success – to add to the portfolio projects on which he worked nothing at all. In fact, word of mouth is the only effective tool for finding a smart SEO contractor.

Tips for SEO Beginners

Nobody wants to give a project to work for a beginner. But what about a beginner SEO specialist? The main thing is not to despair, you can break through. Here are a number of recommendations, following which a newcomer will sooner or later gain credibility in the industry:

• Create your own website . This is a great experimental site! If a beginner does not have the opportunity to experiment without worrying about the result, most of his knowledge will remain theory.
• Think about people, not search engines . Doing “SEO for people” is much more difficult than working according to the precept of the “promoters” from the 2000s. But in 2021, the old methods are no longer relevant. An SEO-schnick has to acquire marketing skills – to compose a client’s avatar, to determine the CO.
• Prioritize content . The most important thing on the site is the content: articles, videos, images. And the further, the more finicky search engines become to content. Ordering the text from a copywriter and simply publishing – this method is already in the past. We need to find a way to present information more understandable and more interesting than that of competitors. This is also the concern of the SEO specialist.
• Don’t look for a “magic pill” . SEO is an area where experience matters. The more you work in SEO, the better you understand search engines. Alas, it is impossible to speed up this process.

Brief summary

The position of the one who promotes sites is called an SEO specialist. This person is responsible for ensuring that the resource in the search results takes one of the leading positions. The services of an SEO specialist are generously paid by companies, since the income of the enterprise directly depends on SEO traffic. However, SEO mastery comes only with experience – therefore, it is better for a beginner optimizer to get a job as an “apprentice” to an authoritative specialist, and not try to immediately get the project under full responsibility.