The Skills needed to get a SEO Consultant Job

Posted: May 2nd, 2009 | Author: Ben McKay | Filed under: SEO Help, SEO Project Management Talk: 11 Comments »

One of the things that I did a couple of years ago, was look to see what other skills were being required from SEOs. I saw some jobs promoted as web development orientated jobs with SEO tagged on, and others that were promoted as specialist SEO consultants. The reference to SEO is crossing-up in more role descriptions (PR, marketing, copywriting and website management) so it’s all the more important to get a good understanding of how the SEO labour market is getting on and what is required of us (also see the 80+ SEO interview questions article).

The SEO Career Path?

There are no predetermined career paths in to SEO, like there are for a doctor for instance, but what is clear is that this variety of backgrounds makes it a vibrant and creative place to work in!

And wouldn’t you want to work with these guys?!

My SEO career to date, like most, hasn’t taken a traditional route but a stint in offline marketing and campaign management means I bring something else to the table, and I personally find it quite interesting to read about people’s backgrounds. Taking a slight tangent, I remember David Harry telling me that it’s always a good idea to look at the background of people who are involved in the search engine technology’s development (when reading patents) as this provides a sort of agenda / context for the what is being read. Maybe the same can be said about the developing skill-set of SEO’s?

SEO and a range of Web Development Skills and Understanding

Looking at IT Jobs Watch’s in-house SEO section, these are the other items that were quoted in their survey as required skills over the last 3 months:

(54.12 %) Marketing
(39.36 %) CSS
(37.72 %) HTML
(31.02 %) Pay per click
(30.22 %) JavaScript
(24.04 %) Internet Marketing
(21.65 %) PHP
(20.15 %) XHTML
(18.79 %) .NET
(17.76 %) E-Commerce
(16.17 %) Google
(14.95 %) AJAX
(14.85 %) Photoshop
(14.71 %) XML
(13.92 %) ASP.NET
(13.59 %) Flash
(12.61 %) MySQL
(12.56 %) CMS
(12.04 %) Web Development
(11.06 %) Internet
(10.40 %) Web Design
(10.22 %) SQL Server
(10.03 %) ASP
(9.606 %) Finance
(9.513 %) Content Management
(9.466 %) C#
(9.325 %) Advertising
(9.185 %) W3C
(8.388 %) Dreamweaver
(8.247 %) Web Analytics

For outsourced SEO consultants, interestingly it looks like a slightly different skill-set is required:

(39.78 %) HTML
(37.55 %) CSS
(30.48 %) Marketing
(27.51 %) JavaScript
(22.30 %) PHP
(20.07 %) CMS
(18.59 %) XHTML
(16.36 %) .NET
(15.99 %) MySQL
(15.99 %) Pay per click
(15.61 %) Content Management
(14.50 %) Photoshop
(14.50 %) XML
(14.50 %) AJAX
(13.75 %) Finance
(13.01 %) SQL
(13.01 %) Flash
(11.52 %) E-Commerce
(10.04 %) Dreamweaver
(8.550 %) ASP
(8.550 %) ASP.NET
(8.550 %) Web Design
(8.550 %) Google
(8.178 %) Web Development
(8.178 %) Internet
(7.807 %) W3C
(7.807 %) Oracle
(7.435 %) SQL Server
(7.435 %) Java
(7.435 %) Advertising

I wouldn’t use this list (from IT Jobs Watch) as a prioritised list of skills that you need to develop to become a SEO Consultant, as many jobs advertised here that reference ‘SEO’ are web design/development jobs.

The Range of SEO Jobs and Specialist Areas

Many SEO Consultants have specialisms, frequently because they have not had the experience of multiple areas of SEO – it is after all a very large field indeed. SEO roles have certainly been expanding in potential skill sets over the years as we see more opportunities to develop our website’s visibility in the search engines, a few examples include:

Techy Territory: Onsite SEO consulting can delve right into programmers and server management territory, with knowledge of content management systems/databases, site structure, URL rewrites, server types, redirects and more.

Geeky SEO: cutting-edge analysis, website usability testing, almost academic research in to search engine algorithms and anything else regarding a high-level of understanding of the technical directions of search and online marketing management.

Paid Search: Integrating SEO and PPC requires a great understanding of paid search – metrics that paid search teams are measure against, tools that they use and the performance of terms…and how all this informs search marketing decisions.

Social Online PR: Offsite SEO consulting can move heavily into the realms of online PR and marketing, working with industry-specific journalists, social media marketers, newswires and online influencers….with the ultimate goal to build buzz and inbound links.

Marketing: Some SEO roles can require a great deal of marketing prowess , as the insights and response to market needs and behaviour can make a successful SEO campaign into a resoundingly successful campaign. Corporate SEO frequently provides the best examples of cross-channel marketing integration.

SEO Liaison: Some larger corporations employ an in-house SEO specialist who is fully competent in their field but instead used as a means to liaise with an outsourced team of SEOs. This is to expand the capacity and the activity of the company’s SEO aspirations but bridge the communication/culture gap that might exist. It can be an excellent approach.

Don’t Forget Fluffy Skills!

You could add a whole host of adjectives and more ‘fluffy’ qualities to that list too; highlighting more links to marketing, creativity and management…but as this is an technical job description, let’s not be too pedantic! A SEO person specification as part of the job decrption will of course look quite different.

SEO Job Opportunities

I hope this helps people learn more about SEO and realise the opportunities that exist in the industry (if you didn’t know already of course!). Take a look at a couple of Google custom search engines that I built for SEO jobs, social media and PPC jobs, both in the USA and UK.

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11 Comments on “The Skills needed to get a SEO Consultant Job”

#1 Stephanie said at 5:30 pm on May 12th, 2009:
And when anyone does decide they want to look for a job in SEO (Junior or Senior) feel free to contact me @ BD Recruitment. I specialise in recruiting solely in SEO & PPC……….
#2 Ben McKay said at 5:35 pm on May 12th, 2009:
As persistent as ever!!
#3 Eriuqs Spires said at 4:40 am on May 22nd, 2009:
Really helpful. I am loving your site Sir Ben. Will take down all this things.

Hope we do have printer version of this one.
#4 The state of the UK SEO Jobs Market | SEO Scoop said at 1:26 pm on June 9th, 2009:
[...] web developers, PR specialists or business development guys. All-in -all, you can read what technical SEO skills you might need, but please bear-in-mind, there’s a load of fluffy marketing and management skills [...]
#5 Video Marketing said at 6:22 am on July 10th, 2009:
I agree with you. There are 2 different sides but both are equally important. The on-page or off page seo. On page is more boring and scientific and off page is more sexy and creative. But you need to optimize the page first before you can start your link building. Thanks for the info.
Preston Rahn
#6 Dofollow Blogger said at 9:41 pm on August 2nd, 2009:
As google becomes smarter and smarter it is more and more important to understand marketing. Google becomes more human in that sense it responds to good marketing that humans respond to.
#7 Marketing Recruiter said at 11:24 am on August 20th, 2009:
Ben

This is an excellent and in depth study of SEO; I’ve been in the field a few years and totally agree that the skill base is expanding at an astronomical rate. No longer can a SEO specialist get away with updating the Meta Data and think they’ve done a great job, because if the code is bad, then nothing else you do can rectify this – I’ll keep reading, and I think I’ll keep learning
#8 elottery syndicate said at 6:24 pm on November 5th, 2009:
Surely you missed out the huge exaggeration skills required!
#9 dave said at 10:05 pm on November 30th, 2009:
I am surprised to see analytics at #30. Actually, I am shocked.

Are we sure this list is talking about SEO engineers in particular or how important web designers feel that SEO is to the overall design of their sites?

Definite distinction there. I love the range of skills though- 30 of them! Who knew?
#10 Ben McKay said at 1:59 pm on December 1st, 2009:
Hi Dave,

I guess it’s because these results are heavily skewed to IT folk as opposed to SEM’s.

Good point though – should be well up there!

Cheers Dave,

Ben
#11 Pouching said at 10:09 am on March 12th, 2010:
Thanks a lot for the SEO skills Ben McKay …. Its a helpful kit…..