What is the work of an SEO specialist?

An SEO specialist’s duties can vary greatly depending on which company he works for. He may have completely different responsibilities when working „on the client side” (i.e. directly for the company whose sites he is positioning) than when working for a large online marketing agency. His job is also likely to look very different if the agency he works for is small. 

Additionally, much depends on the seniority and experience of a particular specialist. Obviously, the duties of a person in a „senior” position will be quite different from those of someone who has worked in the industry for much less time. However, regardless of the company and the positioner’s „status,” one thing remains the same—working on websites. 

Building an organic action strategy 

Before starting any SEO activities, it is necessary to create a strategy that covers the client’s needs, takes into account the website’s technological capabilities, the budget available, and Google’s current requirements. 

The role of the SEO specialist in creating the strategy is first to define the organic action goals and target groups of the client. The next step is for the positioner to propose possible variants of actions with the help of which, in a given budget, you can achieve as much as possible of the established goals. 

The SEO specialist’s role in creating a strategy is to define the goals and target groups.

Analysis of the website in terms of positioning

One of the most important tasks of a positioner is conducting an SEO audit of websites. This audit forms the basis for further actions and is the first point of any strategy. The SEO audit consists of three main parts: on-site analysis, off-site analysis, and implementation instructions/support for the relaunch and re-audit. 

Audit consists of a thorough analysis of the site’s various elements and performance in terms of the Webmasters Guidelines. This allows the specialist to detect any irregularities occurring on the site and prepare a recommendation for their changes. Often, he also implements some of the recommended changes himself in the site’s content or code, but programming work as such is usually outside the scope of his duties. 

Support-in-building-content-on-page

Another of the SEO specialist’s tasks is to build the content plan and provide direction for content development to give the site the highest possible organic visibility. The specialist commission’s copywriters to write content that will most effectively implement the established strategy and then reviews it for optimization for Google search engine requirements. 

In many cases, he also supports clients who prefer to produce content independently because, for example, they are in a very specialized industry. As part of such support, he sends possible article topics and lists of keywords and optimizes the finished content. 

Link acquisition

An important role of any SEO specialist is acquiring valuable links leading to client sites from various sources. As part of link building, the specialist selects publication sites, orders dedicated content creation, and determines the number of links and anchor texts with which they should appear on the site. 

As part of link building, the positioner also monitors the overall picture of a given site’s link profile. He or she analyzes incoming and lost links and tries to balance SEO activities with what Google deems acceptable. 

The link-building process is also a part of the SEO process.

Customer contact, that’s-the-basis-of-guiding-projects

Another element that appears in the work of every SEO, regardless of what company they work for, is contact with the client, which is a very important element of SEO. Changes to the site, the implementation of new ideas or recommendations for further strategy usually require close cooperation with the client, without this the project may come to a standstill. 

Meetings, emails, or reports are a big part of the SEO specialist’s work every week. They allow the specialist to maintain a good relationship with the client, maintain order in the ongoing project, and run the whole SEO process dynamically. 

What additional duties can an SEO specialist have?

All the duties listed so far, to a greater or lesser extent, are carried out by every specialist regardless of whether they work in a large, small company or on the client side. However, there are quite a few other tasks that are already conditioned by the job:

• Participation in the sales process – many companies involve SEO specialists to act already at the sales stage, where they take an active part in creating offers, participating in sales meetings or answering questions and concerns of potential customers.
• Publication of own articles on industry portals—this is primarily a PR activity that benefits both the company and the specialist. Statements in the trade press on topics broadly related to SEO are very good for building the image of a particular company (and a particular positioner) as a specialist in the eyes of potential customers. 
• Education—that is, participating in workshops, gaining new knowledge, and conducting training for clients and other professionals.

Summary

As we can see, the work of an SEO specialist does not focus only on the website itself, but covers many different aspects. These are not just technical activities, the positioner also does a lot of managerial work, sometimes also participating in other processes in the company, such as selling services. 

Therefore, a good SEO specialist must have not only technical knowledge and skills but also a wide range of so-called „soft” competencies that will allow him or her to establish a relationship with the client and smoothly execute the positioning strategy.