Tools, life hacks, skills, trends. What you need to know about the SEO profession.

Contents:

• What does an SEO specialist do?
• What tasks does he solve?
• What software does he use in his work?
• What skills does he need to develop to achieve success?
• Modern trends in SEO
• Useful resources from the editors of Skillbox.by

Having a corporate website helps a business increase brand awareness and boost sales. An SEO specialist is responsible for its promotion. Their main task is to ensure that the resource ranks high in search results.

What does an SEO specialist do?

To ensure that a website ranks high in search results, an SEO specialist: 

• Analyzes competitors' resources;
• Develops promotion strategies;
• Selects keywords and creates a semantic core;
• Draws up technical specifications for web programmers and copywriters;
• Edits the content posted on the website;
• Checks the website for errors.

In addition, the SEO specialist monitors the performance of the web resource. All pages of the site must be displayed correctly. After all, any technical problem can lead to a drop in traffic and a stop in the flow of applications for the purchase of goods and services. In this case, the company will suffer material and reputational damage.

What tasks does an SEO specialist solve?

Content optimization

Texts, images, Banners, GIFs, and videos—everything placed on web pages should be interesting to potential customers. Materials should answer user questions and encourage them to interact with the site. For example, when creating text content, SEO specialists and copywriters should consider search engine algorithms.

Web page content optimization itself can be:

• Internal.At the first stage of optimization, an SEO specialist defines the goals and objectives of search engine promotion. After that, he studies the resources of competitors, creates a sitemap and forms a semantic core. Next, he writes a technical assignment for copywriters, and after the launch of the site, the specialist monitors the promotion of the resource in search engines, optimizes metadata and analyzes conversion.
  
• External. This optimization involves working with third-party Internet platforms. The organization's contacts are added to various geoservices (for example, Google Maps), forums and directories. To increase the volume of external links, you can use sites with topics similar to the resource being promoted.

Adapting a site to search engine algorithms

Search algorithms are constantly changing and transforming. An SEO specialist must be aware of the latest changes and adjust promotion strategies accordingly. The main goal is to provide users with relevant information.

Technical Website Optimization

When promoting a website, it is necessary to take into account a number of technical factors that are taken into account during ranking. First of all, you should pay attention to the web page loading speed. A long waiting time may indicate errors and unoptimized elements. Another reason for low speed is server problems and an overloaded design.

To speed up page loading, an SEO specialist must eliminate the above-mentioned errors. To do this, it is imperative to perform mobile code optimization and install an SSL certificate, which encrypts data and protects transmitted information from hacker attacks. Other technical factors that influence ranking include microdata, internal linking, and the presence of meta tags. All documents and images posted on the site must be optimized.

Link building. What is it and how to use it in website promotion

Link building is a method of link building, where a site is promoted by placing links on third-party resources. The volume and quality of the link mass influence the promotion of web pages in search results. The site address can be posted in the media, blogs, social networks, geo-services, directories, and thematic forums.

In addition, an SEO specialist should also pay attention to review sites. The resource will rise in search results if it is mentioned by real clients of the company. External links can be purchased on exchanges like Sape and Miralinks. However, it's important to exercise moderation here—a sudden increase in link mass can be perceived by search engines as spam and manipulation. And in this case, the site will begin to lose its position in the search results.

What software does an SEO specialist use in their work?

An SEO specialist needs to periodically audit a website, study resource visit analytics and adjust promotion strategies. Let's consider the main tools that a specialist uses in their work: 

Google Analytics.The service generates detailed reports on user visits to the resource. A special code placed on the web page is used for accounting.

Yandex.Metrica.The service is an analogue of Google Analytics. The application also has additional functions. For example, a heat map.

Google Search Console. The program displays search query statistics and provides various tools for search engine optimization of the site.

Yandex.Webmaster.A free analytical service that allows you to study the statistics of viewed pages and collect data on posted links.

Screaming Frog.A popular software tool for technical audit of promoted sites. With the help of this software, you can find broken links, duplicate content and incorrect meta tags.

Ahrefs.com. A service for analyzing websites, tracking social networks, backlinks, keywords, and brand mentions.

Google Page Speed ​​Insight. A program for analyzing the loading time of internet pages.

Validator.w3.org. A resource for checking the validity of web page code.

Text.ru. A text exchange with the function of checking the uniqueness of texts.

RDS-Bar. A browser extension that allows you to analyze the SEO metrics of a website and web pages.

Bertal.ru.A service used to view HTTP headers and HTML code.

What skills does an SEO specialist need to develop?

To succeed, an SEO specialist must develop certain personal qualities (soft skills) and professional skills (hard skills). We will list the main ones.

Soft skills:

• Communication skills. The specialist collaborates with copywriters, marketers, developers, and layout designers. An SEO expert must be able to communicate with colleagues and competently formulate technical specifications.
• Stress resistance. Stressful situations can arise in any job, and in order to react calmly, it is important to develop stress resistance skills. In the case of an SEO specialist, this may be a situation where, with the next change in the search algorithm, the resource drops in the search results. And the SEO specialist will have to promptly correct errors and report to management. Problems can also arise with the hosting provider. In this case, you will need to contact support and determine the cause of the problem.
• Initiative.The employee must constantly generate new ideas and seek out innovative solutions that will attract more potential buyers to the site and reduce advertising costs.
• Analytical skills. An SEO specialist will have to constantly use formulas and spreadsheets to work with various statistical information.

Hard skills:

• Knowledge of how search engines work. An SEO specialist must constantly monitor changes in web page ranking algorithms. Using outdated promotion methods can lead to a decrease in the website's popularity on the Internet.
• Ability to formulate and test hypotheses. There is no universal method that is guaranteed to promote a website to the first line of search results. An SEO specialist should try different approaches and test the effectiveness of various software tools.
• Ability to use keyword selection services. It is necessary to understand how the programs used to form the semantic core work. A website promotion specialist needs to study the following applications: Key collector, Yandex.Wordstat, Keyword Tool and Google Trends.

Modern trends in SEO

Search engine promotion mechanisms are constantly changing. Therefore, an SEO specialist should be interested in new trends and promptly change their approach to work. Let's consider the main trends that need to be taken into account in 2024:

• Voice search.Successful promotion will require content optimization for spoken queries. A specialist will have to take into account that voice commands often contain long sentences, and answering a question will require unique and structured content. And here, the site loading speed is important, since the user wants an instant answer.
  
• Machine learning and artificial intelligence.In the coming years, neural networks will become the basis of search engine algorithms. An SEO specialist needs to understand how machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies work.
  
• Video content.Search engines focus on high-quality visual materials.A promotion specialist will have to pay special attention to optimizing metadata, tags, keys, and titles that are placed in the description of the video.
• Optimization of sites for tablets and smartphones. Global volumes of mobile traffic are constantly growing. Site pages must be correctly displayed on the screens of smartphones and laptops. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out local optimization, speed up page loading and improve navigation for mobile devices.

Useful resources from the editors of Skillbox.by

An SEO specialist is a key figure in the world of modern digital marketing. Thanks to their efforts, buyers see a corporate website and learn about a particular business. And to help you get to know this area better, the Skillbox.by editorial team has prepared useful resources.

References:

• Eli Schwartz "Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy" - a book about the logic and theory of search engine promotion;
• Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer and Rand Fishkin "The Art Of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization" - the book will be useful for both beginners and experienced SEO specialists;
• Dixon Jones "Entity SEO: Moving from String to Things" - the CEO of InLinks talks about the basics of search engine optimization.

Internet resources:

• neilpatel.com - blog of one of the world's leading SEO experts, Neil Patel;
• searchenginejournal.com— a resource that will be useful for a novice SEO specialist;
• Google Search Engine Webmaster Blog — on the site's pages you can find information about changes to the search algorithm and recommendations for content optimization;
• seoblog.by — blog of Sergei Tsarik, director of PromoWebcom, a company that specializes in website promotion;
• Karbyshev's Bay is the Telegram channel of SEO specialist and internet marketer Ilya Karbyshev.