A Comprehensive Guide for SEO Manager: Earn $4000 Per Month

Shujaat Ali Khan
7 min readSep 1, 2023

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Image by author using Canva

Have you ever wondered about a house without a civil engineer, or a company without its foundation? Probably not. Exactly is the case with digital companies. They need an SEO manager to perform the required search engine optimization tasks which can help in increasing their search rankings.

The role of SEO manager is in high demand. In this guide for an SEO manager, I’ll discover about:

  • What is an SEO manager?
  • How to become an SEO manager?
  • Skills required for an SEO manager?
  • How much does an SEO manager earn?

Before we begin, I want to mention that I’ll be covering topics related to digital marketing, SEO, AI, and more. If you find my content helpful, liking and following me would be a great way to show your support and motivate me to create informative and valuable content.

SEO Managers consider everything about online searches and make plans to attract people looking for certain services. SEO is really important in turning a visitor into a customer. In a big online world with lots of web pages, SEO Managers are like guides. They help pick the right stuff to show to the right people on a website.

Basics of SEO for Becoming an SEO Manager

As an SEO manager, it’s crucial to recognize the importance of keywords in your content. It’s extremely important for you to know the use of keywords in your content because every time you search on Google, it’s all about keywords.

These keywords are really important because they help Google find the best content that matches what you typed. Google uses different ways to find the right information. The better sources get higher positions in the search results.

Getting to the top spot in Google is tough because Google uses always-changing rules to find the best results for people. This makes it hard for many businesses to be seen. SEO helps by carefully picking the best keywords that people are likely to search. This makes the website easier to find because it matches what people are looking for.

As an SEO Manager, you’ll be in charge of overseeing SEO research to help the digital marketing team run successful campaigns. You’ll also need to make sure the company’s website, social media, and other content projects are optimized for better results.

To make it easier for you, SEO involves some important types that are essential to learn to become an SEO Manager.

1. On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization is a fundamental aspect of the work an SEO manager does on their website. On-page optimization is about improving things within your website. Here are the important things to think about:

  • Keyword research: Checking out and selecting the right keywords that match what your target audience is searching for.
  • Optimize the meta tags: Create titles that can catch the reader’s attention, descriptions, and headings that accurately show what your content is about, and also include the keywords you want.
  • URL Structure and Formatting: Creating clear and easy-to-understand URLs for people and search engines.
  • Content Optimization: Making really good content with keywords that are interesting and easy to read. It should be formatted nicely and provide useful information.
  • Internal Linking and Site Architecture: Planning a website layout that makes sense for users, and using smart internal links to help people move around and share authority across the site.
  • Image Optimization: Making images smaller for faster loading, giving them good names, and using clear alternative text (alt text) so they’re easy to understand for everyone, including search engines.

2. Off-Page Optimization

Being an SEO manager, it’s really important to understand how off-page optimization fits into the bigger plan. Off-page optimization focuses on things outside your website that affect your search engine rankings. Consider these factors:

  • Link Building and Earning Backlinks: Getting important links from trusted websites to show that you’re credible and trusted, which makes search engines like you more.
  • Social Media Signals and Engagement: Being active on social media and getting people to like, share, and comment on your posts to get noticed online.
  • Online Directories and Citations: Listing your business in relevant online directories and making sure your business information is accurate everywhere online, especially for local searches.
  • Guest Blogging and Influencer Outreach: Partnering with experts in your field and writing articles for popular websites to get more people to know about you.

3. Technical SEO

As an SEO manager, one of your main jobs is to understand the details of technical SEO. Technical SEO is about making the technical parts of your website work better, so search engines can easily read and understand your content.

By excelling in technical SEO, an SEO manager can provide search engines with a clear and well-structured path to navigate, ultimately leading to improved visibility and ranking for the website.

This kind of SEO involves improving the behind-the-scenes structure of your website to make sure search engines can access and organize your content.

Even though users might not see the changes right away, search engines will definitely notice and use your improvements. Consider these aspects:

  • Website Speed and Performance Optimization: Making your website load faster, reducing the time it takes for the server to respond, and optimizing the code for a quick and smooth user experience.
  • Mobile-Friendliness and Responsive Design: Ensuring your website works well on mobile devices and changes its layout to fit different screen sizes.
  • Site Structure and XML Sitemaps: Organizing your website so it makes sense, and creating XML sitemaps to help search engines understand and navigate your site better.
  • Robots.txt and Canonicalization: Using a robots.txt file to guide search engine crawlers and using canonical tags to prevent issues with duplicate content.
  • HTTPS and Website Security: Make your website secure with HTTPS encryption to protect user information and to show both users and search engines that your website is trustworthy.

By learning these basic components of SEO you can become an SEO manager but remember becoming an SEO manager takes time and consistency, you need to start your own blog on a WordPress site to experience how SEO works.

Skills Required for Becoming an SEO Manager

In order to achieve high rankings on Google, it’s crucial to have a well-structured website and a mobile-friendly design. Equally important is creating high-quality content. This is what an effective SEO manager does.

By ‘high-quality content,’ I mean content that not only aligns with search engine optimization but also offers real value to your target audience. Keep in mind the user’s search intent, their problems, and queries while writing the content.

Here are some skills that you need to learn to become an SEO manager:

1. Strategy Development:

  • Formulate and implement SEO strategies aligned with the company’s goals and objectives.
  • Perform comprehensive keyword research to pinpoint relevant and high-traffic keywords.
  • Examine the SEO strategies employed by competitors and identify areas for enhancement.

2. On-Page Optimization:

  • Optimize website content, including titles, meta descriptions, headers, and content structure.
  • Improve internal linking and site architecture for better user experience and crawlability.
  • Ensure proper use of keywords, semantic relevance, and natural language.

3. Technical SEO:

  • Identify and fix technical issues that impact website performance and search engine indexing using SEO software.
  • Optimize site speed, mobile responsiveness, and user experience.
  • Implement structured data markup to enhance rich snippets and schema.

4. Off-Page Optimization:

  • Develop and manage backlink-building strategies to improve website authority and credibility.
  • Build relationships with relevant websites and influencers for link-building opportunities.

5. Content Strategy:

  • Develop a content strategy that aligns with SEO goals and addresses user intent.
  • Coordinate content creation, optimization, and promotion efforts.
  • Ensure content is relevant, valuable, and optimized for search engines.

6. Data Analysis and Reporting:

  • Monitor website performance using SEO tools and analytics platforms like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Semrush, or more.
  • Analyze key metrics, such as organic traffic, rankings, click-through rates, and conversion rates using SEO software.
  • Provide regular reports and insights to stakeholders on SEO progress and outcomes.

7. Algorithm Updates and Trends:

  • Stay up to date with changes in how search engines work and what’s happening in the industry.
  • Adapt strategies to align with evolving search engine algorithms and user behaviors.

8. Team Collaboration:

  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including content creators, developers, designers, and marketing teams, to implement SEO initiatives.

9. Training and Leadership:

  • Train and mentor junior team members or colleagues on SEO best practices.
  • Provide guidance on SEO-related decisions to ensure consistency and alignment.

10. ROI and Business Impact: Measure the impact of SEO efforts on overall business goals, such as lead generation, revenue, and brand visibility.

The scope of an SEO Manager’s role is multifaceted and constantly evolving as search engines and online behaviors change. Successful SEO Managers need a combination of technical expertise, analytical skills, creativity, and the ability to adapt to the dynamic nature of the digital landscape.

Salary of an SEO Manager

I know most of you were waiting for this part so here are the insights for the salary of an SEO manager and the stats are really good!

For someone starting as an SEO Manager with less than 1 year of experience, the average total pay (including tips, bonuses, and overtime) is around $49,435. For those early in their career, with 1–4 years of experience, the average total pay is about $65,766.

Moving into the middle of their career, with 5–9 years of experience, an SEO Manager can expect an average total pay of around $81,423, based on 281 cases. Those with extensive experience, spanning 10–19 years, earn an average total pay of $97,046.

This data is taken from Payscale.

Thanks for reading my article. Your support will be much appreciated:)

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Shujaat Ali Khan

Helping businesses through my guest posting, link-building, and content writing services. You can contact me via mail.