Who can be called as an SEO Expert?
The question is raised because we see experts all over :), only thing we need to share is, what all things should be known for an eligible expert, hope answers to this question creates a real experts:)
Clarification added 1 month ago:
I see very few answers that are close to the question others are just sayings. I would like to see an appropriate one as the best answer
Best,
http://www.google.com/profiles/jagadeeshmp
Answers (30)
Mkrtich L
e-Commerce and IT Consultant at expertconsultant.co.uk
Best Answers in: Business Plans (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
Hi Jagadeesh,
It could be difficult to define, as there is no “generic” SEO. Unfortunately many people think that SEO is something like cross-industry universal approach, but in fact it is specialist service which depends on the type of work involved.
Let’s explain it a bit further. For example as SEO professional you know that different search engines require different “fine tuning” for a website. So if you don’t know which of the search engines is mostly used by customers of this particular industry then you can optimise everything in a wrong direction. The same is about search phrases.
I have even written an article on one particular case for Chemical SEO and you can have a look if interested (see the link below).
So the answer for a good SEO expert is – someone who knows the industry his client is in and knows it sometimes better than the client himself, together with all optimisation techniques and market distributions. Therefore there is no such thing as “generic SEO professional” anymore, situation is much more specialised this days.
Mike Laziev
Links:
Any white hat blogger that performs SEO freelance or agency side with large name clients. I work with NBC, MTV, Comedy Central, Access Hollywood, National Geographic, Trane, Discovery, Spike, Bravo, and more media clients on a daily basis. I handle everything from consulting these clients on strategy methods down to implementing technology.
Links:
Jeremiah S also suggests these experts on this topic:
Dave C
Creative Director / Strategic Accounts | C2 Media Services
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (2), E-Commerce (2), Lead Generation (1), Sales Techniques (1), Computers and Software (1)
wow - great answers by both Mike and Mitja. I fully agree, SEO is about to undergo a major change. Industry Specific Search Engine Optimization (call it ISSEO) is the only way to go and backlinks/content are the main key to unlocking success.
There are smaller firms locally that have "built" a reputation on being "SEO experts". They pronounce themselves "experts in SEO" the problem is that they outsource everything to their real experts in India who are employed by another firm. If pressed these local folks wouldn't have a clue how to SEO a site from scratch internally
these local guys aren't experts in anything except maybe reading, analyzing, and understanding google analytics - then preying upon a clients lack of knowledge to squeeze out a 12 month contract that is marked up using a 4 or 5 factor over what India is charging.
Are the local guys experts at SEO? no way... are they knowledgeable about how to sell SEO? slightly... are they in for a big surprise if they don't diversify? absolutely.
Please don't get me wrong - I love the idea of outsourcing to india, but i think credit should be given where it is due, and not passed off as in-house work if it's not truly in-house.
Clarification added May 7, 2008:
just to clarify as my words seem like their being taken with a different implied meaning.
I was speaking of a specific local company which operates in and around my area... I wasn't talking about all local companies. My issue id with the companies that misrepresent themselves as "doing it all in-house" when they clearly outsource the bulk of the work.
you could classify these people as those who have jumped on the bandwagon to sell their brand of "homemade moonshine" only the moonshine is being produced overseas, repackaged, marked up 5 times, and re-sold as "homemade"
I think SEO has it's place as part of an overall marketing budget, but the barriers are coming down and the veil is being lifted so that the mystery behind SEO is slowly fading away... the days of the "SEO only" company are numbered.
Ivan S
Managing Director at Portal.ie (EmployIreland.com & eRecruit.ie) http://twitter.com/IrishRecruiter
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (2), Job Search (1), Resume Writing (1), Staffing and Recruiting (1)
My wife calls me a ‘SEO Consultant’! She was making fun of me, since I am really a Geologist. But my work is really optimisation of the web sites like www.EmployIreland.com. I started blogging about what I do on the blog www.JobsBlog.ie, and a few months later I had 500 unique visitors a day. No spiders, no robots, but 500 people with search engines (95% Google) as a referral.
A few months later I realised I must know something about this ‘SEO thingy’. So I made a blog www.SeoConsultant.ie where I tried to write about SEO. Then I got orders 30 days later!? People asked is I can do the SEO for their sites. I did a few, but it was taking a lot of my time, so I could not concentrate on my real business.
I guess I was not smart enough to outsource it to India, as Dave suggests everyone does. Perhaps that is because I hired about 10 different companies to do SEO for me (mostly Indian, but also some Canadian and US – yes the dollar is low...), and have seen no results at all.
I still think I am the ‘SEO Expert’. I have not done it for NBS, and MTV as Jeremiah,... but mostly for myself.
I actually see SEO as a simple thing that is looking into three things that together create a success:
1. Content – original (that Google has not seen jet, and ever updating content...)
2. Presentation – nice code, URL’s, logical chunks of text or articles around sets of keywords, XML sitemaps...
3. Links to your web site.
If you just do those tree things properly, your will rank high for whatever phrases you like.
A friend of mine told me the other day as well a sentence that made me wonder about myself a bit:
“Ivan you are the expert in talking to search engines!
Don't forget to talk to people :)”
This was after my blog ranked on the first page in Google.ie for the phrase Google.ie:
http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=Google.ie&meta=
That SEO Consultant Blog there – that is me!
Ivan
“The SEO Consultant”
aka Geologist
Links:
Ooooh Jagadeesh...... you are an SEO professional & now doubting if you are an SEO Expert or not.... :)
Let me share it with you..... Search Engine Optimization Experts: Are those people (Male/Females) or maybe Machines (Automated Softwares) that are capable to Optimize any Online Business on SEs because they do know (By experience / Reading / Grandmothers) the required doors, secrets, keys (You name it) to do the job successfully.
Now, is it a must that an SEO Expert to be Certified or recommended by other industry Icons.....?!! .....Is it impossible that an interested Internet Addict Butcher/Taxi Driver/Doctor to become themselves very useful SEO sources!!?
In my opinion, let the final results & achievements to judge....
Good question to have on the table, Jag
Ahmed
Muhammad A
Marketing Manager / SEO Consultant / Web Developer / Designer at H2O New Media Dubai
Really there are many SEO techniques.
Some SEO Experts find loop holes in search engines and go from there...News for them is that they are about to go down majorly.
Some SEO People like myself write content articles which users find useful and hence come into the website due to keyword searches :).
Depends on how the SEO person is going...again there is more than 1 way to get on top :).
Rudy D
Associate Director Audience Development - Search Marketing Specialist @ Time Inc Interactive SEO SEM
Everyone these days seems to be an SEO expert. Proof is in how long you have been doing it and what you have accomplished. How many fortune 500 companies have you worked on? Fortune 50? How many millions in revenue can you contribute to your SEO? What industry experts have you worked with to confirm what you know? Lots of small guys out there that know alot but may not be able to execute enterprise level SEO.
Content, content, content... With the right, carefully researched 'keyword', one needs the right Title, H1 & H2 leaders, meta tags, rich latent semantically indexed verbiage, honest & relevant linking and back-linking. Then, the intelligence (market competition & web page crafting) to put it all together; knowing what's important to leave in or out, and where. If the SEO service can deliver that in one package, then you're most likely looking at a true "Expert".
JL R
Office Manager at TW Layman Associates
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You may find some useful information at Ask Kalena it is a Daily Search Engine Advice Column. http://www.ask-kalena.com/
Links:
Vincent V
EVP - Marketing and Strategic Relations at Net Applications
Best Answers in: Web Development (2), Blogging (1)
SEO is a results oriented business, and through Analytics, you can measure the results.
We Partner with many SEOs in most any location and industry expertise. And, the one bit of advice I'd add to the other excellent answers here is to make sure you are measuring the results of any of your SEO efforts. I'd suggest measuring all of your marketing campaigns as well.
Drop me a note to vince@netapplications.com of you'd like a few referrals of SEOs that we at Net Applications have seen perform successfully with a proven/measured track record.
All the best,
Vince
Links:
Gideon R
SEO & Online Marketing Specialist
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (19), Search Marketing (9), Web Development (2), Advertising (1), Business Development (1), Blogging (1)
Hi Jagadeesh
Michael Martinez is one of the very few true SEO experts.
Links:
do a search on seo in google or similar. look at the companies trhat have sponsored links and then throw them away, then look at the sites that arer top or the search with sponsorship, they are the chaps to talk to!
.
Mansi J
SEO Team Leader [E-commerce, Internet Tecnologies] at SilverTouch Technologies
Hi,
There is no such definition for an "SEO expert". But only required to be expert is:
Fundamental knowledge of how Search Engines works
Technical knowledge of link building and on-page optimization
A little bit of HTML awareness
and a lot of zeal and enthusiasm to cross-over the ocean of Search Engines.
Its a big ocean - and you have to keep yourself very updated to be a
Real Expert.
Links:
I would start by reading the PDF linked below. It is an 8-page PDF summary of a book called "The 12 Habits of Highly Effective Websites".
The PDF (which of course is free) covers the 12 things you need to do to bring your website to the first page of search results. No tricks. Just hard work, but better for the long term and is best practices for the web.
A seven minute read.
Best of luck.
Liam
Links:
This is like a Zen question. But since SEO does not require a license, the cost of entry into the ranks of "expert" is relatively low. With some humility, you can sit back, learn from books, online articles, forums and learn to separate the wheat from the tares - and with live experimentation, you can be an expert. Then you get the levels of expertise.
Are you a technical SEO expert who knows what to fix and how to fix it?
Are you an SEO expert also knows the business and marketing end of it. I get clients who ask about conversion or ask for help about keywords. So are you an expert who can help with that?
Are you best at link building and/or link baiting?
There are different flavors of real experts as well - you can't discount one or the other.
However, my gauge on an SEO expert is does that person show fruit? Does he walk the walk or just talk the talk? Does he know what engines look for?
If he talks about meta tags in any other context other than if the meta tags were done right or not, I know he's full of crap.
If he doesn't know what duplicate content is, if he thinks he can use H1s all over the place, if he thinks he SEO is all about writing articles or adding lots of content then I know he's full of crap.
So unfortunately, until the SEO industry either can create a license or some kind of guild, the burden of proof on anyone who calls himself/herself an SEO expert is on him/her.
Hi Jagadeesh,
No doubt this question is and will get many responses. I think SEO is a overused term now-a-days and it's definition has changed over the years particularly after Google went public in 2004. I've been on the web since 1994 and I can tell you the wild wild west days of the 1990's no longer exists.
From my perspective, Search Engine Opitmization (SEO) is only what is performed on the website itself. It is a process that first requires research to determine what terms you optimize your website's pages. Keep in mind that we no longer optimize for an entire website, but optimize on a page by page basis. The other process takes into account the technical modifications from being W3C compliant, Visible Text over just the Meta tags, Link Title Descriptions and many other items.
Having said this about SEO, I think the rest of the natural ranking process for your search engine ranking position (SERP) is based on your outreach program in which you are posting content and increasing the critical mass of links on the web outside of your website. From our standpoint this is a Digital Marketing process. This is not advertising, but using editorial copy to promote and raise awareness of a website. I would coin this as Search Engine Marketing (SEM) as "marketing" is defined as a process.
Oddly enough the posting process actually allows you to generate visitors to your website from more than just search engines.
Quick site note: I would distinguish this from Search Engine Advertising (SEA) in which a text ad is used to as an "An Announcement For Attention To Arouse A Desire To Purchase". I think there is a mis-conception of "marketing" vs. "advertising".
So to answer your question, a SEO Expert only performs a service that is sliver of work that is related to the visible and technical modifications to your website only. This person may expand their services to include market research, but one has to keep in mind this is only one small piece of the puzzle now-a-days.
Thanks.
SEO Experts have proven trackable results, interact with their clients and know their clients business goals and objectives.
Links:
Edwin L also suggests these experts on this topic:
Mirek P
INDEPENDENT e-Strategist, e-Consultant; OPEN4net's owner [ LION: mpolyniakATgmail.com ] focused on pharma!
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (3), Compensation and Benefits (1), Staffing and Recruiting (1), Events Marketing (1)
IMO LinkedSEO members
Links:
Exact qualifications and Certifications are not good key markers for excellence in performance or even basic competency.
The other responders here are correct - new foolproof methods for determining a website's relevance to a search term are replacing the old foolproof methods all the time. And bigger changes are coming.
Will changing your marketing vehicle to suit your market go out of style? Never!
SEO is a moving target - the best people have been doing it for a while but most of us haven't always called it SEO. Internet Marketing was the newest buzzword back in the day. Search Marketing is another current term. What will we call it next? I don't know.
Here's a couple of links that might help you out:
Links:
Jagadeesh:
Google "tweaked" it's algorithms 451 times in 2007 (source - BuzzOutLoud/CNet). That's about 8 times per week. The rate of change (and intelligence) in search engines will only increase in the future - look for close to 600 "adjustments" to Google in 2008 - about 2 changes per day.
True SEO experts understand these dynamics and craft sustainable design architectures that are tweak-impact averse. Indeed, it's the age of the search engine "optimist". ;-)
bf
Links:
Afzal Khan - SEO/SEM S
Manager (Online Marketing - SEO) - Professional Blogger
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (1)
Hi Jagadeesh,
Great question to throw on board. I was waiting to answer ur question, but I thought it will be good to wait for some time & see what other people share.
I completely agree with answers by both Mike, Mitja and slighty disagree with Dave Cox about his views "these local guys aren't experts in anything except maybe reading, analyzing, and understanding google analytics - then preying upon a clients lack of knowledge to squeeze out a 12 month contract that is marked up using a 4 or 5 factor over what India is charging.
Are the local guys experts at SEO? no way... are they knowledgeable about how to sell SEO? slightly... are they in for a big surprise if they don't diversify? absolutely. "
I think the question here is of how to identify SEO Expert's or who all are the people who can call themselve as an "SEO Expert", although there are few people who counts name of Big clients to prove their SEO expertise. Huge bunches of people, majority from India also claim himself/herself as an SEO Experts.
I also claim myself as "SEO Expert" - but do I am an expert or who all can say I am an "SEO expert".
So my intake's are:-
1. SEO Expert is someone who is technical & marketing education background, good programming skills as well as a practical understanding of industry-accepted SEO practices and knowledge of search engine guidelines.
2. SEO Expert should have a good reputation and an industry presence.
3. Good understanding of client's website offerings, clearly defined SEO approach.
4. Purely White Hat, acheived great results on search rankings.
5. Any SEO Expert can have a good pitch, but the customers’ actual experiences always should hold more influence. References
6. Ultimately final results & achievements to judge.
7. Important aspect always clear with his SEO approach & can share his knowledge when asked.
Regards
Afzal Khan
Links:
Let me quote what Ivan, in a wonderful way, already said:
“Ivan you are the expert in talking to search engines!
Don't forget to talk to people :)”
Mitja and Ivan are truly right.
Sure, you have to 'optimize' your code.
Sure, you have to take care of the technicalia side of business (eg. microformats etc).
Sure, there is no magic here.
The semantic web is al about content and ideas.
Content is all about good copywriting skills, well presented informations, and semiotic skills (semiotics not only the semantic side of the former. We can't ignore the connotative side of every sentence simply because it speaks to the user's world of values that is the context of a semantic perception of a given information)
This is more true in a startup case where you have to build the brand recognition and the loyalty of the users trying to reach the critical mass to generate the Metcalfe virtuous circle.
(a Fortune 500 benefits of an already strong brand and, so, it needs a different approach to the problem)
As Evan Williams said, the problem is a business model problem more than a technical one. And a good business model involves a well tought and well executed communication plan.
ps. we are beset by so many 'experts' in all the fields of the human work (how many 'web designers' you see who can only double-click to start dreamweaver, move boxes around and fill the css with classes?). It is happened before. It will happens again. What do you want? A certification? Who gives this certification? Who guarantees the goodness of the Authority in charge? Who controls the controller?
In the end, the results speaks for yourself. Let good ideas and real expertise do the their dirty work :)
Regards
Rosario
Links:
Maurice W
Senior SEO THUK Media
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Depends SEO is a wide term ive seen it used for PPC roles which is a joke – £60k for a ppc role
And Shall we say that certain cultures venerate "Experten" over results I’me sure that Audi have a "her doktor SEO" with a nice brass plate on his office door in Ingolstadt – pity that I page a launched last month beats their mega site used to launch the Q5
Marketing doesn’t lend its self to the Model of the Professions
Mitja Mavsar
err I very much doubt that seo is going away because of Algorithm changes (don’t belive what calacanis says about human moderated search)- a good SEO has to have the chops or have a team member that does to analyse just wtf is going on with a clients website.
look at bt.com for an example of a bad site and for big companies liek BT you would have to have the political nous to know what buttons to push to get results.
Dear Jagadeesh,
A true SEO-er can go beyond tweaking your results in search engines and is capable of telling you 1) what people in your industry typically are using (search words) and 2) how you can make a sustainable communication strategy so you create relevant content for your (potential) visitors. If you need a name: Edward O'Hara from Jupiter Media Nordics would be my bet.
Cheers,
Pat
Cheers
David M. W
Pres. Development Solutions. California's leader in Outsourced Business Development and appointment setting services.
I recently attended an SEO seminar sponsored by Network Solutions and was hugely impressed by the quality of the information presented; I obtained a great overview and deeper understanding of how SEO functions. The presenter was a fellow named Harry Brooks—he's a terrifically sharp guy and I would say without reservation that he is an SEO expert. You can reach him at "hbrooks@networksolutions.com".
Mercy L
Senior Executive - SEM at Dot Com Infoway Ltd
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (1), Search Marketing (1), Web Development (1)
The one who could be updated with the industry updates. Could be able to convert the traffic to conversion. With any kind of website, should be ready to give the users the best experience.
Peter P
Independent Marketing and Advertising Professional
Best Answers in: Advertising (8), Internet Marketing (2), Compensation and Benefits (1), Business Development (1), Writing and Editing (1)
Almost anyone who can convince some poor sod to part with money to let someone bamboozle them with jargon and then leave them with no extra profits afterwards. Just a lot of "keywords" and no clever thinking - except for the entire scam that is.
A good site is a good site. A good writer is a good writer.
A gimmick is just that.
I don't need my site optimized for a search engine. I need more/better quality sales. A very different thing.
What is Search Engine Optimization really about and why is good SEO crucial to the design and strategy of ANY Web project?
A good SEO expert is much more than just someone who opens a bag of magic 'tricks' to get increased traffic to your Web site.
Some have written here that many SEO gurus will be out of a job in a while because search engines are getting smarter and the 'tricks' will not work as well in the future. I agree with that partly. Having been in search optimization since 1996, I have witnessed the rise and fall of many ‘experts’ claiming to get traffic to sites by various methods which eventually got banned. These went from stuffing meta tags to invisible magnet text to cloaking to link farms to one-way doorway pages to today’s much more subtle tactics of writing and seo’ing reams of content designed to attract eyeballs but really not related to what the site is doing.
These always have to go out and learn new 'tricks' every few years because the Search Engines' job is to get around the unrelated content. I have told my clients for years: "You have to understand the heart of a good search engine company. Early search engine companies were started by people with Library Science degrees. Think - Research Librarian. Think of that person who wants to give you the absolute BEST book to answer your needs when you are researching for something. They disregard the cover; they disregard whether it is on the front shelf, the top shelf or is the most checked-out book. They only care about one thing – very exact relevance of the content to the researcher's needs.
A good SEO expert understands this and helps an online campaign to develop true, relevant content. They build it around researched and core needs of people searching online. Thus, a good SEO advisor needs to be at the core of your entire site development strategy, not an afterthought. This person can help you develop you entire concept and site plan around what real people are out there really looking for. If you do that, you are working in rhythm with the heartbeat of the search engine companies, not against them. You will not be losing traffic as they get smarter – to the contrary your site will only gain more credibility as the Google’s of the world discover you ARE a good resource.
Having said that, there are a lot of techniques a good SEO person needs to understand and be a master of. Why is this necessary? Because search engines are not human. They are robots. While your site needs to have very relevant content, made for human consumption, and be ready to answer questions on search terms humans choose, it is all delivered via an artificial intelligence ‘servant’ – the search engine index system.
A good SEO expert understands how that robot works. It speaks a somewhat different language than humans do (though the companies are working very hard to make it almost human). You need to know that language well and speak to that machine, which will do the ranking of your pages against a list of search terms (keywords). That servant has a protocol.
Think of it as if you were going to a foreign country. You want to speak well to your hosts in that country but they have a different language, a different protocol, and a different value set than people you are used to talking to. To be successful, you also have to know that language, that protocol and that value set.
A good SEO person is like a bilingual ambassador to the search engine country who can get your site presented well in that strange world. He or she faces both worlds and is graceful in each. The communication is translated and passed through in a language the other side understands and values highly.
The result? Humans searching for what you really have to offer find you. That is what every site wants and needs to survive.
An SEO Expert is someone with more than 10 years experience getting clients to the first page of results on a consistent basis, full time.
But that's my definition.
An SEO is not a sales person, an SEO is the person that watches website metrics, documents the changes across multiple websites to undertstand "today's rules of Google" (yes tomorrow they may be different, so we make the changes we see today and see where our results are tomorrow.)
Some people depend on other people (LinkTraders) and some people depend on HTML code and Googlebot.
Another way to look at is this. You may know about 3 years of SEO.. because you have been actively doing SEO every day for 3 years. To your marketing manager that does not understand the manipulation of Google's rankings, you ARE the expert.
To me, the guy that say "backlinks are the future" (etc, whatever!) and that organic SEO is dying, has no clue.. and is not an expert.
Look for the people that do not utilize easily explioited methods. (link farms, paid links, etc..)
Look at what Google says,"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."
HINT: follow the rules..
However, you may find an "SEO Expert" that is an expert in link schemes.. he will still be an "expert" because he has experience, but that doesn't mean you really want to do business with him.
when you talk to an SEO, get several of their clients to talk to.
what do their clients say?
I believe there is a lot of snake oil in something that I have done now for 8 years. Traveling roadshows, seminars, systems, etc... We all have to remember that the SE's are out to provide the best answer for any given query, it's how they maintain their audiences and, at the end of the day, drive profits.
SEO today will be the same as SEO in the future for the expert SEO's - those that understand their clients audience needs and provide content/solutions that intersects with the queried intent. Experts are marketers first and foremost, the tactics may change but at the end of the expert day the will help place the right message in front of the right audience at the right time.
