6 Skills You Need To Be An Excellent SEO Expert By Miami SEO Experts

SEO are probably the most typed out letters by content creators all over the world. However, Search Engine Optimization is not just a buzzword being used by marketers everywhere to get brands to sign up with them, it actually does mean a lot of work in many different areas, and it requires lots of different skills, so let’s check them out (Spoiler alert: Googling doesn’t count as a skill).

What do you need to succeed?

So, most SEO guides will talk about tools, we’re not going to tell you should ignore them… mainly because we’re not that insane, partly because because doing SEO without tools would make every single process unbearably long. What we are going to tell you is that using the right software and visiting the right pages is not all there is to it. There’s other aspects you should keep in mind when looking for an SEO expert

• Be up to date

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know what we’re going to say: SEO is ever changing. When SEO experts first got started a few years ago, all they had to do was cram a bunch of keywords into a website and wait for Google to catch up. Algorithms were simple and strategies were focused solely on having audiences make a purchase online. Right now, that looks as up to day as trying to ignite a fire with a bunch of twigs.

SEO experts today need more solid strategies to achieve their goals. Purchasing habits have changed, hard sales are no longer appealing, and there’s millions of brands putting the stakes so high a solid marketing campaign is now as necessary as having functional hearts and lungs.

• Research skills

Keywords don’t just materialize on blank pages after you spend hours willing them to appear. You need thorough research to find the appropriate ones. Likewise, creating valuable content is not just about writing skills but about knowing what makes that content valuable and appealing to specific buyer personas.

In other words: SEO experts can’t be bored with long reading materials and endless google searches. So you can’t be choosing someone who gets tired just by reading shampoo labels and can’t wait longer than 2 seconds to get an accurate answer. Thorough research is non negotiable, not realising this soon enough will be as catastrophic as riding with a drunk Uber driver.

• Analytical as hell

Anyone who graduated high school can read metrics and statistics. In this day and age “being able to read” isn’t really something that stands out, this is why, to excel at SEO, you need someone who can do a lot more than that. You’ll need someone who can analyze the numbers and create a solid strategy after reading those metrics and statistics… on that note…

• Problem Solving

You know what’s incredibly annoying to hear when you’re looking for a solution? A stupid answer based on some random trend that has nothing to do with what you need to do. An SEO expert who actually knows what to do, will based solutions on your specific needs, they won’t just be throwing around random answers.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s also the faker who never finds a solution. Stay away from those too. You don’t want to be working with someone who only serves to point out problems and never finds how to fix anything.

• Proven experience

Does this mean you can’t hire a rookie? Not exactly, but someone who just got into SEO shouldn’t be using the ‘’expert’’ title anyway.

Here’s the thing: If you’re just starting out (aka. you named your brand yesterday and are working towards getting your very first client) and are in an industry in which you don’t need to excel in your marketing strategy right away, by all means work with someone new to SEO and grow together.

But (and this is a HUGE BUT), whether your company was just born yesterday or is entering its golden years, you will benefit from someone who’s done everything before. You’ll have someone who’s tried many different methods over the years and is no longer on a very basic “trial & error” loop when it comes to figuring out what works for a brand. And you will have someone who will know what to do in the event of a marketing emergency.

• A love affair with marketing

SEO practices shouldn’t stand alone. Just as inbound methodology dictates marketing and sales work together and that the inbound philosophy is instilled in every aspect of an organization, SEO should work in tandem with everything else you’re doing. Which means an SEO expert can’t be annoyed by marketing.

• Common pitfalls (Or things that you should run away from)

Before you go hire the first SEO expert that sends you his resumé, there’s two more things you should know (and that should send you running away when you see them):

• Empty metric bragging

You know what “10k Likes on Facebook” means? That 10 million people liked something on Facebook. Should you just ignore how many people like and share your posts? No, but getting likes and shares shouldn’t be your goal, you need to take it a step further and think of conversions, customers, and promoters.

• Rigid worldviews

As miami SEO experts we’re always challenging each other, and it directly affects -positively- the outcome of our work. We can’t be closed off when it comes to criticism lest we want all of our products to look stale and boring. Change is crucial when it comes to inbound, SEO, and marketing in general.

Originally published at blog.thesocialus.com.