What Does an SEO Specialist Do? 2024 Career Guide

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been around since the late 1990s, so as you might imagine, the SEO specialist job is fairly new. It's also a career that offers flexibility, as SEO is essential across industries. As an SEO specialist, you can be self-employed and take on multiple clients, join a team at a digital marketing agency, or work in-house for an organization that wants to ensure a solid online presence.  

Learn more about what an SEO specialist does, how to become one, and whether or not this is the right career choice for you. 

What is an SEO specialist? 

An SEO specialist optimizes a website to generate high rankings on a search engine results page (SERP). In other words, you increase your website’s visibility on a search engine, like Google, Bing, or Internet Explorer. Your goal is to drive as many people to your organization's website as possible, helping ensure that they have a positive user experience when they arrive and raising brand awareness for your organization. 

In this position, you would analyze data, strategize, and develop techniques to drive customers to a website. The role typically falls under the digital marketing umbrella and is essential to an organization's overall marketing strategy.  

What are the roles and responsibilities of an SEO specialist? 

Every organization will have its own unique job description for an SEO specialist, but some of your day-to-day duties might include:  

• Researching and optimizing relevant keywords to use on an organization's website

• Tracking a website's daily metrics for trends and other insights 

• Collaborating with other teams in your organization to ensure you have the same goals 

• Making websites more accessible and user-friendly

• Creating and sourcing high-quality content for a website alongside an editorial team

• Continuously updating and evaluating a website's content, links, user experience, and mobile optimization 

• Staying up to date on all things SEO and search engines to optimize strategy performance and improve search engine rankings 

• Coming up with and operating a link-building strategy

Below is a more in-depth glance at some of the key duties of an SEO strategist:

Analyze data and trends

As an SEO specialist, you'll spend a great deal of time analyzing data to find trends, insights, and problems that might arise. For example, some keywords may perform better than others, or you may find that a large percentage of the website's traffic comes from a specific source. You'll stay on top of a website's analytics to see which parts of your organization's strategies work and which don't. 

Strategize

Strategizing will also be a big part of what you do as an SEO specialist. Once you've analyzed the data you've pulled from the website and identified trends and problems, you'll need to devise ways to fix or optimize those problems. You'll usually do this by developing marketing campaigns on your own or in collaboration with your organization's marketing department. 

Develop techniques 

Once you have a strategy, you’ll need to implement it. This might include any number of tasks, including changing meta descriptions, using different keywords, increasing page speed, and creating new high-quality content. You might work with the web development and editorial teams during this process. 

Read more: SEO Jobs: Types, Salary, and How to Get Started

Important SEO specialist skills

As an SEO specialist, you must possess many skills. These include workplace and technical skills that relate directly to your position. While every job is different, explore some of the top skills you must master to be successful as an SEO specialist. 

1. Problem-solving

SEO specialists regularly encounter challenges, so understanding and resolving issues is a big part of the job. To deal with them, you’ll need to understand a problem as part of a big picture and constantly learn new ways to approach the obstacles you encounter. Being a good problem-solver also means honing your critical thinking skills. 

2. Communication

As an SEO specialist, you'll communicate with many people daily, from marketing departments to the IT professionals who keep your website running. You'll need to communicate to your colleagues in a straightforward manner so that they understand the concepts and strategies you are trying to convey.

If you're self-employed, you must likewise communicate with your clients regularly. Providing high-quality written content for your website’s users is also essential, so you may want to develop your writing and verbal communication skills. 

Read more: What Is Effective Communication? Skills for Work, School, and Life

3. Basic coding, tools, and operating systems knowledge 

Technical skills are also crucial for SEO specialists. You'll want to have some coding experience and an understanding of basic programming languages, like HTML and CSS. You also may need to be familiar with standard hardware or operating systems. Knowledge of tools like Google Analytics and Excel is also important. 

How to become an SEO specialist

You won't find one particular path to becoming an SEO specialist. However, many people in this role have at least a bachelor's degree. Earning certifications and developing skills, knowledge, and experience can help you land a job. 

Education

While a college degree is sometimes optional for a career as an SEO specialist, many employers will require one. Consider, at minimum, a bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, business, or IT. While many schools won't have an SEO major, you can participate in activities that help you hone your skills. An internship is also a great way to gain experience and build skills. 

Certificates

In addition to degrees, certificates can help you become an SEO specialist and gain the appropriate, specialized knowledge for your career. Certificates may enhance your resume and give you a competitive edge when looking for a job because it shows that you're committed to this field.

For example, HubSpot Academy offers a free SEO Certification. Semrush Academy also offers numerous SEO and other digital marketing courses, and MarketMotive provides Advanced SEO Certification Training. On Coursera, you'll find a Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate offered by Google that might help you advance your career. 

Experience 

While degrees and certifications help land a role, many employers also want a candidate with experience. If you want to gain work experience, an internship is a great place to start. An entry-level job in digital marketing or content marketing may also be helpful. 

It's also important to learn as many related skills as possible, whether you simply study on your own, take courses, attend webinars and workshops, or combine all these options. SEO changes constantly, so staying on top of and practicing what is current is a must. 

Salary and job outlook

According to Glassdoor, the estimated total pay for SEO specialists in the US is $69,171 per year [1]. This figure includes an average base salary of $63,611 and $5,560 in additional pay. Additional pay may represent profit-sharing, commissions, or bonuses.

Notably, the demand for all types of digital marketers, including SEO jobs, is high. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the marketing industry will likely grow at a rate of 6 percent between 2022 and 2032, which means the job outlook for this type of career is good and growing at a faster-than-average rate compared to other industries [2]. 

Get started today

As an SEO specialist, you'll work to optimize an organization’s or individual's website to ensure it shows up high among search rankings. This job typically falls under the digital marketing umbrella, and the job outlook for this career is positive. 

One of the most important aspects of becoming a successful SEO specialist is learning as much as possible before starting and throughout your career. Online courses offer a way to do that on your own time. On Coursera, you'll find options from some of the top businesses and educational institutions in the world that may help your career, such as the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialization and Google SEO Fundamentals courses, both offered by the University of California, Davis.