After careful consideration, you’ve determined that it’s best for you to invest in an SEO specialist because of the value one can bring to an organization’s or individual’s website. For you to cook the best meal, you must use the correct ingredients. Get something wrong, and you’ll have a disaster for a meal. The same is true for SEO specialists. Yes, having one as part of your team is beneficial, but having the wrong one will spell trouble for you or your business. According to Paul Gordon, a Freelance SEO Expert, “SEO is an investment for the future and it’s something that needs patience and planning. If you don’t have a good SEO expert by your side, you’ll end up wasting valuable time, and money.” So to save you from making a terrible investment, and the headache of wondering how you’re going to recover, let’s look at the qualities you should look for in an SEO specialist.
Experience and a Positive Track Record
SEO is naturally a field that demands time to master. It’s not necessarily something that can just be mastered within in a short time. Experience and a good track record is the first thing you should consider when in need of an SEO specialist because this is perhaps the one thing that’ll tell you whether you’ll be wasting your time and money, or actually saving it and creating the potential of making even more.
For one to be skilled in SEO, one has to study the various search engines around, and the methods they use to rank search results. One has to master various web technologies to understand how websites and web applications should be tailored for search engines such that they can have the top rankings in search results. There are also various SEO tools available that one should also be acquainted with in order to be successful. Ultimately, the thing that makes the experience so crucial is that one has to actually have spent a good amount of time working with all these tools and web technologies to determine which ones work and which ones don’t. Often, SEO can be challenging, and unless someone can show you that they know what they are doing, and they have proof that their methods work, you should not waste your time, money, or energy on them.
Problem Solving Skills
SEO involves a lot of analysis and research. The way things work online keeps changing with each passing year. This means an SEO expert has to stay updated with what’s going on online. The individual should also be able to adjust to whatever changes and challenges that surface with time. SEO involves a lot of trials an error. Therefore, an SEO specialist should be able to analyze a situation where things are not working and determine where the bottleneck could be. The individual should be able to generate content that will “sell” and also prioritize that which will be more relevant to a particular situation.
Versatility and Extended Knowledge
The internet is a vast place. As such, there are so many technologies employed to achieve various goals and objectives. SEO itself involves a lot of tools, techniques, strategies, and technologies. Hence, the more flexible and knowledgeable an SEO specialist is, the more valuable the individual is likely to be to you. You need someone who can generate content, work with web designers and web developers to create websites that attract traffic, and one whose extended knowledge will enable him or her to handle virtually any situation related to SEO. You need someone who is conversant with the various SEO tools like Google Analytics, Click Equations, and also someone with some web development background.
Typically, an SEO expert’s job description entails:
- Keyword research
- Enhancing onsite website SEO
- Link Risk Analysis
- Content Strategies
- Content Creation
- Monthly Reports, and Daily Keyword Tracking
- Link Prospecting/ Link Outreach/ Link Building
- Identifying and Collecting Social Influencers
- Competitor Analysis and Research
- Website enhancement recommendation to increase ranking in search engines
And the tasks will increase as the web technologies advance and mature.
If you considered just the first quality given in this article when looking for an SEO specialist, you’re likely to get someone reliable. If you feel you need more backup, perhaps involving a friend who’s had experience with SEO can help in highlighting the things to look for. Google is your friend too. Do some research to learn what else you should pay attention to. Remember, the world of the web keeps changing with each passing day. You can never be too careful.
