SEO Consultant Job Description

Before I start; I have never worked as a full time SEO Consultant, but I’m very much involved with SEO both for my business and for selected consultancy projects. I’m not a self proclaimed guru in the field. But I make a great living by doing what I love to do; “Online Marketing”. This post is not intended to be an official “SEO Consultant Job Description” guide. The only reason I’m writing about this topic is due to a recent conversation with a friend about the job description of an SEO Consultant. Since it’s my personal blog, I can write anything I want right , so here are my thoughts.

Being an SEO Consultant Back in the Old Days:

During the days when I got first involved with SEO, probably most of you didn’t even know about the term “SEO”. Those were the best days, and tough days at the same time for SEO business.

Doing SEO was great, because there was almost no competition. Sometimes, even for the uber competitive “one word” keywords, it wasn’t really hard to get the #1 spot on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

The tough part was explaining people what I was doing. I’m not talking about prospective clients, I’m talking about family and friends. It was hard to explain why I’d spend countless hours on the computer trying to get the top rankings on search engines. But at the end, I’d always feel very well rewarded both financially and mentally.

Being an SEO Consultant Today:

Yesterday I have received a spam email with the title: “#1 Google Result Guaranteed for Any Keyword for Only $9.99″. (no comment from me)

I have met many people from the SEO and online marketing industries at conferences, and meetings around the world during a number of years. I have talked to many SEO consultants! who didn’t have a clue about SEO. I even have an SEO Consultant friend who is doing this for a living, and he’s told me that sometimes he feels ashamed to tell everybody that he’s an SEO Consultant. And trust me, this guy knows about SEO, and has proven it with some fantastic results during the years.

Enough pessimism, right? Let’s look at the bright side. SEO was an experimental thing done by a certain number of geeks back in the old days, and it has become a fast growing industry now. There are many qualified, smart, highly experienced people working for SEO Companies around the world, and making a fine living. It’s the bad apples and good apples equation. But for sure, this industry needs more direction.

It’s all about supply demand, but why would I care about the bad apples? They are here to offer their expertise because there’s an obvious demand. I will get into this topic later. Let’s first talk about what an SEO Consultant really do?

SEO Consultant Job Description or Is There Really a Job Description?

If I’m hiring a secretary, it’s not hard for me to write a job description for her. Answer the phones, work on my schedule, take notes at my meetings, etc.

If I’m hiring a freelance web designer, it’s not hard for me to write a job description. Attend the planning meetings on time, come up with the required mockups on time, work on the required revisions, get the final design ready for the due date, and pass the necessary files and documentation to the programming team, etc.

With the minor changes for each company, job descriptions are not hard to write for many occupations.

But SEO is a different game, and being a successful SEO Consultant needs a different mindset.

What would be my requirements for hiring the right SEO Consultant?

If I was posting a job listing for a junior or a senior SEO Consultant and searching for the right candidate to hire for my company today, here are the fundamental things I’d be looking for:

• College Degree:

First of all, unlike many other SEO Job listings, I wouldn’t be looking at the candidate’s college degree.  As of today, there is not a certified undergrad or graduate diploma for SEO (as far as I know). *please exlude candidates with graduate degrees with specific search engine research and project experience.  I’m talking about the listings we see everyday like; ” Business Administration, Marketing, or Computer Science Degree Required” type of posts.

• “9 to 5 mindset”:

I wouldn’t hire somebody with a “9 to 5 mindset“.  If you have a 9 to 5 job, don’t get me wrong, you know what I mean by the “9 to 5 mindset”. 

Right SEO Consultant Candidate would be able to work over the clock, no matter what.

• Cheap SEO Consultant:

I wouldn’t hire anybody who’s optimizing his/her site or advertising for the keywords “Cheap SEO Consultant”.  Why? Do I need to explain?

• Guaranteed Results:

I wouldn’t hire anybody who guarantees organic search results.  With the right background and experience, you can make a very educated guess after your market research about specific keywords. 

Even before starting a new project, I can guesstimate when will some of the keywords reach top 3 or top 10 positions in organic results.  But trust me, there is absolutely NO way to guarantee certain organic search result rankings unless your name is Larry or Sergey.

• Begging for a Consultancy Project:

This is for the senior SEO consultant position.  If a candidate for a senior SEO position comes to me to ask for my business before I find him, I wouldn’t hire him/her. 

Why? If you are a successful senior level SEO Consultant, you wouldn’t have any time making cold sales calls trying to find a consultancy job.  I have never had a consultancy job where I have contacted the client first.  They need to come to me through referrals, or through research after seeing my successful work online. 

If  you are desperate for a consultancy job, and if you are a self-proclaimed SEO GURU, please spend the time to optimize your website for “SEO Consultant” keywords.

• Search Engine Algorithm Knowledge:

I wouldn’t hire an SEO Consultant who doesn’t clearly understand how search engines work.  If SEO is your job, you need to understand all the basics and fundamentals of search engines’ algorithms.

• Basic Programming & Web Design Knowledge:

I wouldn’t hire an SEO consultant if he/she doesn’t have basic programming and web design skills.  I’m not talking about writing an enterprise software. 

Even if you have a team of people working for you (web designers, programmers, content writers, etc.), you wouldn’t be a great SEO consultant if you can’t discuss the basics of the programming or web design job you need from your employees.

• Advanced Knowledge of How Websites Work:

You get a domain, you get a hosting account, upload everything to the public html folder, setup the index page, and you are done.  Now, you are a web developer, add a few backlinks, now you are an SEO. 

Unfortunately my friend, unless you have an advanced knowledge of how web sites work, and how websites should be setup, it’s very hard to create advanced SEO strategies for that website.  If I say “SILO”, and if we can’t talk about this topic for at least 30 minutes, that’s a red flag for me.

• Following the New Trends:

Many jobs require specific skills, if you have those skills, you can be great at what you are doing.  But being an SEO Consultant, you need to be following all the new trends related to SEO, SEM, online marketing, affiliate marketing, etc.  You don’t have a choice. 

Even a minor algorithm update of Google might require extra work for next day.  If you can systematically follow the new trends, it’s great, if you can’t, maybe SEO is not right for you.

For me, these are the major requirements to look for when hiring an SEO Consultant.  But is this the case in real life?  Are all the business owners or CEO’s knowledgeable about the qualifications of an SEO?

Let me give you some real life examples of SEO Consultants’ experiences (including myself) during hiring process for consultancy and full time positions:

• Who are you to interview me?

One of my friends, who is a senior SEO, was invited by a small business owner to talk about a possible consultancy project. 

When he showed up at the office of this guy in an expensive skyscraper office in New York City, he was surprised to see a 15 year old kid along with the business owner.  The business owner brought his 15 years old son to interview my friend. 

He started the meeting with saying “My son is the computer genious here, I don’t understand about internet or SEO, I only know how to check my email.  My cousin told me that I needed SEO work for my site, that’s all I know.  He will be asking you some questions today”. 

What would you do after this conversation?  Of course, he’s explained his level of expertise briefly and excused himself from the meeting.

• How much & When?

Most business owners only care about NET ROI, and numbers.  So if you tell them you charge $X/month, and start explaining the work you will put in, they won’t listen to you, they will focus on the $2X /month they should make. 

They will insist on the money they will make as a result of hiring you, and they want to know exactly when. 

They don’t understand the fundamental differences between running an online business and an offline business.  With great SEO, you can only increase the website’s traffic, you can’t promise sales numbers. 

There are so many variables in the equation (actual product or service they are offering, traffic, landing page quality, content, design, security, payment options, shipping options, demographics of prospective customers, etc. , etc.) to generate the revenue. 

So, what would an SEO do in this situation?  Try your best to explain the dynamics of online business in general, then if you don’t have a choice but to forecast some numbers, do not overpromise. 

Use your best guess with your prior experiences, and underpromise.

• Put it on the contract, or you will fix all the broken computers

 

You are the SEO expert, and if they hire you, you will not be an SEO expert, you will be their computer guy (for small businesses).  They will ask you to do everything related to computers and internet. 

Trust me, especially in small business environments, you will even be asked to fix the broken computers. 

They will want you to write their blog, design their site, program every little plugin, rewrite descriptions, and more. 

So prepare a detailed contract, and tell them exactly what you will be responsible for, before you even start.

• Can you play the corporate game?

Working with a small business has its pros and cons, just like working with/in corporate. 

I had a friend who started working for a corporate company as a full time SEO.  They had a team of 10 people for the online marketing department.  The only thing they were doing was running banner ads on all the possible CPM networks, and doing media buying agreements once a year. 

These 10 people would basically come to work 9 am every morning, have fun, chill out, write their personal blogs during the day, take long lunch breaks and once a week create report (with all the christmas wrapping) for the staff meeting. 

Since the senior management team wasn’t knowledgeable enough to understand the fundamentals of online marketing, they would be happy with the fancy, colorful chart reports.  My friend was a hardworking, smart guy, and had to resign after 3 months. 

He tried, but couldn’t fit in.  Others weren’t interested in working more, they were very happy with their lifes.  That’s fine, but they were also not happy about him working his ass off.  It wouldn’t make them look nice at the staff meetings. 

At the end, he had to quit.  Not every corporate environment is same, but corporate business comes with bureaucracy. 

If it’s your own site, and you want to try something new, you can try it right away.  If it’s a small business, you might have a manager, most likely direct permission from the boss would be sufficient to make the changes. 

But if it’s corporate, to be able to change a single word on the site, you might have to explain the reasons to your managers, create reports, make up reasons, then create more reports, and wait a response from senior management. 

If you are lucky, you might change it before it’s too late.  Most good SEO consultans I know are energetic, they work over the clock, they are smart, and if they want to get something done, it must be done now, not later. 

With a dynamic job like SEO, it might get harder to work in corporate world.  Evaluate yourself, and make your decision.  Explain the dynamics of this business clearly before you sign a contract, and require specific privileges for necessary updates. 

I don’t like the corporate environment, that’s why I’m a serial entrepreneur, you know yourself better than I do, so answer it yourself; Can you play the corporate game?

• Having a clue about SEO is sometimes WORSE than having NO IDEA about SEO

 

A small business owner, or the manager in the company, or even the HR person, most of these people are smart. 

So they will do some basic research about SEO, and especially during the hiring process, they will try to look like they know what they are talking about. 

There are very smart and reasonable people out there, you start to explain them the basics, they start to understand that you know what you’re talking about, and they will try to listen, and learn more. 

But people are not the same, some of them will try to ask you totally unrelated questions and try to prove you that they know about SEO and you cannot trick them. 

Here’s an example; On one of the small consultancy projects, all the work was detailed in the project quota documents.  The person who was going to make the decision has insisted on asking why we wouldn’t use a freelance from India who’d submit to 2000 articles for $4/hr within 2 hours, for a total cost of $8.00. 

Now, how would you start answering this question?  You have to start talking about article directories, how they work, why you’d submit articles to these directories, how the link building process works, and why it’s a big NO in your list to use an article directory submission bot to use.  Because your philosophy of SEO is all about natural, and white hat.  Start explaining him now, start with white hat  

You see, he has googled a few things about SEO, found this Indian company who does MANUAL? hand submission to 2000 article directories with a nice sales letter telling how evil US SEO people are for charging too much for this little work. 

He doesn’t even have a clue about the article directory submission process.  So, in my experience if you work with an unreasonable business owner or manager, it’s sometimes easier if they don’t have a clue about SEO unless they are very open minded about listening and learning the basics from you.

If you had the patience to read until here, you know now that I have talked about so many different topics related to SEO Consultant vs Business Owner (or manager) relationship, and the hiring process.  The idea of writing a post about job description of an SEO consultant came from the conversation with my friend.

My Conclusion about the SEO Consultant Job Description

Overall, I believe, an SEO Consultant doesn’t have a job description.  SEO Consultancy is too complicated and too much dependant on the project itself, therefore it’s hard to put every responsibility on a paper. 

Instead of a job description, both parties should agree on a custom made roadmap drawn by the consultant for the specific project before starting to work together, and sign a detailed written contract.

If you are the SEO Consultant: After your initial meeting, you will get the idea about the company (small business or corporate) and who will you working with.  You will not only be asked to do a great job, you will also be teaching people SEO every day. 

If the company environment and the people feel right, go for it, if not, there are countless options for good SEO Consultants out there.  Look for the next option where you will be more comfortable.

If you are the BOSS (Small Biz Owner or the Corporate Manager): Do your research, make sure to create a list of your needs, goals, and hopes from this job/position. 

Do not insist on asking specific promises which are impossible to be achieved.  Understand, and respect the skills of the person you are talking to.  Trust is an important factor in online marketing.  Overall if the skills offered will do the job, and if the first impression answers the trust questions in your mind, don’t make his/her job harder, and hire them.

Invest Into SEO

Long term SEO Strategy is a fundamental need for any business website (ecommerce or not).  So, consider SEO as a long term investment, not a short term one like CPA Arbitrage, and get into the online game while it’s the right time. 

The right time to invest into an online business is NOW.  Don’t wait for TOMORROW , it might be too late.

**Thumbnail and photo credits; SEO360

Tagged as: Search Engine Optimization, SEO Consultancy, SEO Consultant