Digital marketing, an integral part of any marketing strategy today, has opened up many job opportunities in the field, one of them being for SEO managers. But what exactly does an SEO manager do and what are the skills you need if you want to be one? Let’s find out!
In this article, you’ll find:
- Who is an SEO Manager?
- Duties and Responsibilities of SEO Managers
- Further Skills You Need to Have as an SEO Manager
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Are You Ready to be an SEO Manager?
- Related Reads
Who is an SEO Manager?
An SEO manager is responsible for planning, implementing, monitoring, and managing a company’s Search Engine Optimization strategy.
This may be an in-house manager who takes care of a company’s SEO or it could be an SEO manager who takes care of clients for the company.
SEO managers have a wide variety of duties and responsibilities. These include keyword research, technical and on-page SEO, content strategy, data analysis, and more.
Duties and Responsibilities of SEO Managers
If you’re looking to apply as an SEO manager, here are the following duties and responsibilities that you can expect to have. Knowing what they are in advance will help you get ready for the job and assess if you’re qualified for the position.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is one of the cornerstones of SEO. It’s the process of identifying which keywords a website should target. It also takes into consideration what keywords the target audience of the website will be using to find content. This helps increase traffic and ranking of the web pages of your website.
Technical and On-Page SEO
On-page SEO focuses on optimizing web pages and content to accommodate a specific keyword. This will result in gaining more traffic when people find your content through your keyword or keywords.
Technical SEO is concerned with optimizing the technical aspects of websites and individual web pages. This also helps with ranking higher on search engine result pages. This includes tasks such as:
- Speeding up the loading of a webpage.
- Making content easier to understand and crawl.
- Auditing link to make sure they’re all working.
- Optimization for mobile
Content Strategy
Managing, monitoring, and creating content is an important part of SEO. As an SEO manager, you are responsible for developing, implementing, managing, and monitoring a content strategy and assuring that the content and information presented are accurate and engaging.
Data Analysis
SEO managers must be able to use web traffic data to understand how to effectively manage web pages and the website overall. This means that effective SEO managers will also be using programs for gathering data like Google Analytics.
Taking Care of Clients
SEO managers will be working closely with clients most of the time. These are usually clients of your company that are aiming to establish a good online presence through SEO.
Therefore, they must be able to communicate effectively and efficiently with them. This includes being able to understand their needs and goals so they are assured that you know what you’re doing.
You must also be able to communicate the results of all your SEO efforts to the team, whether that is via presentation in some format, instructional documents, emails, communication with other managers, etc. This will help them appreciate what is happening on your end and collaborate on your findings, accepting feedback and ideas from the team. It will also help keep them in the loop if any immediate concerns need to be addressed.
Further Skills You Need to Have as an SEO Manager
Communication
As an SEO manager, you will be dealing with both people and projects daily. Communication skills are paramount.
Communicate clearly what you need from your team members. Explain tasks in detail and help them overcome obstacles. Additionally, you must be able to be empathetic with your team. You must communicate constructive criticism while being able to maintain your team’s motivation and drive.
You must also be able to explain complex SEO concepts and processes to your clients in a way that they would understand. You may find yourself giving presentations with bar charts and graphs, heck, do a mini TED talk, get people fired up and inspired by showing the ways in which their company is growing.
Strategic Planning
The SEO field is a fast-paced and hectic work environment. It has lots of demands, from being able to create high-quality content to monitoring the metrics needed for evaluation and planning. As an SEO manager, you are able to effectively and efficiently navigate this field with your team.
Manage your team’s time. Prioritize tasks to help guide everyone to reach their goals.
Additionally, know how to properly delegate tasks. Your team members each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Some team members will be more suitable for certain tasks than others. As an SEO manager, be able to identify which team member would be most effective for each task.
Technical Skills
Having a basic knowledge of SEO is a requirement for any professional in SEO. But as an SEO manager, you must be highly proficient in all technical aspects of SEO.
Data Analysis
SEO managers are able to analyze the data the team gathers. It’s important to be able to make sense of all the digital marketing metrics from your SEO efforts. This allows you to interpret and use them for your reports, which you share with the team and motivate each member to be a part of a higher ranking in SEO.
This helps you identify any strengths and weaknesses in your SEO strategy. From this data, you’ll be able to troubleshoot any problems and foresee any future ones. As a manager, you may also find yourself discussing these findings with your team. It opens up a discussion for growth and gives your team the opportunity to show you something you may have missed.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How many years of experience are needed to be an SEO manager?
The requirements vary depending on where you apply but a lot of job postings require at least 2 – 5+ years of experience with technical SEO.
2. Is there a high demand for SEO managers?
According to Forbes, the SEO industry is poised to reach $80 billion by 2020. This opens the industry to a lot of job opportunities and increases the demand for SEO managers.
3. Do you need to be an SEO specialist first before becoming an SEO manager?
You don’t necessarily have to be an SEO specialist to be qualified for an SEO manager position. But it is a requirement that you have experience with SEO and you’re familiar with all of its technicalities.
Are You Ready to be an SEO Manager?
Being an SEO manager is a big responsibility. You’ll be in charge of the overall SEO strategy of your company. As such, you will be able to effectively and efficiently create, monitor, and manage your SEO strategy.
Additionally, you’ll be in charge of a whole team that is focused on reaching your goals and objectives. As an SEO manager following the objectives we’ve outlined, you will inspire your team.
The role of SEO manager requires many different skills. From data management and analysis to presentations to the team and upper management, your skills in this role are very diverse. It is challenging and stimulating, and you’ll find you wear various hats. If you like the idea of being both an analyst and a rock star, you might consider this position.
