What does an SEO specialist do?

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Thinking Notes

SEO Singapore Client Monthly Meeting

Have you been wondering what does an SEO specialist do?

Are you exploring to hire professional SEO services?

Are you wondering what exactly is SEO and what does an SEO specialist do?

It is important to know what is the scope of work of SEO so you know what you are paying for.

Below is a brief summary of the scope of work that we personally execute at Thinking Notes as SEO services for our clients

However, please take note that not all SEO services are consistent as everyone got different opinions, strategies, and game plans.

What does an SEO specialist do on a broad level?

what does an seo specialist do

SEO initiatives can be classified as offsite optimization initiatives and onsite optimization initiatives.

Offsite optimization means all the works are done off your website and you will not be able to see any changes in your website if your SEO vendor only focuses on offsite activities.

Offsite SEO optimization primarily focuses to generate quality backlinks from other credible websites while onsite SEO optimization primarily focuses on improving the metrics and content of the website.

What does an SEO specialist do for offsite optimization?

Type of possible offsite SEO optimizations initiatives are:

  • Creating business profiles in relevant business directories with backlinks
  • Creating guest posts in other publications or blogs with backlinks
  • Getting mentions in major publications through contributions, expert sharings, community service.
  • Disavowing negative backlinks

For SEO agencies who focus more on black hat SEO tactics, they will have a base of websites that they buy from marketplaces that sell expired domains.

They will form a Private Blog Network and inject low qualities articles within these websites to generate the backlinks. This is highly frowned upon though, so please proceed with caution.

What does an SEO specialist do for onsite optimization?

Onsite optimizations are less straight forward because they are so many varied ways to improve metrics of the website.

Here are some onsite SEO optimization initiatives:

  • Sitemaps

    Make sure both XML and HTML sitemaps are present, clearly readable and well-formatted

  • Internal Links

    Create a rich amount of internal links with the appropriate anchor tags that cross-reference to specially targeted pages and strategic keywords

  • Content

    Creation Work with clients to create quality contents that visitors actually bother to read

  • Click-Through Rate Optimization

    You may be surprised that the click-through rate has a significant impact on the SEO results. We continuously revisit and create impactful titles and meta descriptions that encourage searchers to click.

  • Search Engine Index

    Ensure websites are properly indexed at major search engines without broken links.

  • Information Structure

    We ensure all information is properly structured; for eg the heading tags and microdata.

  • Bounce Rate Reduction

    Continuously analyze information, optimize the website to reduce bounce rate, and increase Average Time on Page metric at the same time.

A Good SEO Specialist Keep Learning Everyday

As SEO is always in constant flux, it is important for us as SEO specialists to remain humble and be always open to new ideas and face up to mistakes made.

There should be an effective system deployed for us to keep on learning new things and current trends on SEO and web designing so we can continuously provide value for our clients.

SEO is like fighting a war

Have you understood what does an SEO specialist do?

We make it a point to meet our clients every month to keep them updated on their SEO results and our initiatives.

I feel that it is our responsibility to keep them fresh, updated, and motivated for the challenges ahead.

I personally like to reference SEO as a kind of tactical warfare where we fight for our clients as freelance mercenaries.

Every war environment is different and different elements need to be considered for every unique scenario.

Team-work and team-spirit are very crucial elements to sustain the morale of the team for winning the war.

Unlike web designs, where there is tangible deliverable, SEO is a long term business marketing initiative.

It will be difficult for both parties to keep this going if the relationship is going to be a pure vendor/client relationship.

In my view, a good relationship should be like an employer/employee except our clients do not have to pay us a full salary every month with benefits.

Ultimately, there has to be a lot of trust between both sides.

And this is also crucial reasoning behind why it makes sense for us not to provide SEO services to clients of the same competing niche and industry.

What does an SEO specialist do? 1
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