If your goal as an entrepreneur is organic growth, at some point you’ll need to consider a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. For many businesses, this means hiring an SEO expert to manage this strategy. The problem is that most business leaders don’t know enough about SEO, or their SEO needs to know how to write a good job description, ask relevant interview questions, or assess a candidate’s competency in that area.
3 steps to hire the right SEO expert for your business
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Eli Schwartz, author of Product-led SEO, has developed a keen sense of what works and what doesn’t over a decade of work as an SEO expert and consultant. His strategies have generated millions of dollars in revenue for some of the top websites on the Internet and he has helped clients such as Shutterstock, WordPress, Blue Nile, Quora and Zendesk execute highly successful global SEO strategies. As the head of SurveyMonkey’s SEO team, he grew the company’s organic search from just 1% of revenue to a key driver of global revenue.
“I’ve seen a lot of SEO job descriptions that don’t seem to know what they’re looking for,” Schwartz said. “Some have responsibilities that are ten years old, while others have impossible standards. Maybe you want someone who understands content, project management, engineering, and analytics, but find these divergent skills in one person? Unlikely.”
In his experience, the three steps to hiring an SEO expert are assessing your company’s needs, determining compensation, and writing an effective job description.
1. Assess your company’s SEO needs
Start by taking a step back to get a sense of your company’s SEO needs. You don’t want to end up with a strong tactical person but no one to develop the overall strategy, Schwartz advised. Most strategists have some tactical skills, but not all tactical people have strategic skills.
“The skill strengths of SEO professionals can be divided into four different functional areas, which are product management, copywriting, technical and public relations,” Schwartz said. “Who you should hire depends entirely on your company’s existing SEO capabilities and gaps.”
In most cases, Schwartz said, earlier-stage companies should ideally hire a jack-of-all-trades with different marketing and product skills. In later-stage companies where the new hire will only work on SEO projects, prioritizing skill sets is critical. Finding someone who has experience and skills in all of these areas is not impossible, but it is not easy.
Schwartz said it’s much more effective to determine exactly what the business will need and where the bandwidth is to get things done. There is no perfect formula for knowing how to hire and what skills to prioritize, as the specifics will always be individual for each company.
2. Correctly calculate fair compensation
As evidenced by the diversity of skills and requirements, compensation for your first SEO salesperson will cover a wide range. For this reason, Schwartz declined to state the “ideal salary” for this position, nor does he believe anyone should make such statements.
“In my experience, I’ve never seen the many public surveys of SEO salaries line up with actual internal compensation packages,” he said. “So I would take them with a grain of salt.”
Large companies will have salary scales that place SEO managers within a job category with some of the most common placements being product management, product marketing, content producers, performance marketing, or online marketing.
Smaller companies that don’t use formal compensation scales should align SEO salaries with one of the other more common job functions when setting up compensation packages. A pitfall to avoid is to try to pay as little as possible, as “you get what you pay for!”
Another mistake Schwartz said should be avoided at all costs is making any part of the salary variable based on a KPI. This will lead to the wrong incentives and won’t help you prioritize your SEO efforts in the right direction for long-term sustainable growth.
“I’ve seen SEO bonuses aligned with link metrics, ranking positions, search clicks, and even revenue,” he shared. “It always caused long-term, far-reaching negative impacts.”
3 steps to hire the right SEO expert for your business
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3. Write a detailed job description
What is the ultimate goal you want an SEO expert to help you achieve? Schwartz said the answer to this question will form the basis of your job description.
Looking to launch a new site? Grow your content or organic visibility? Once you’ve set your goal, try to break down the steps it might take to get there. These will be the specific requirements that should be listed in the job description.
For example, you understand what kind of reporting might be needed to know when that goal is being met, and you need to familiarize yourself with that tool. You should also decide what kind of hard skills the person needs. If you want a link builder, they don’t need math skills. If you want a technical SEO specialist, they don’t need to be a great communicator.
Know whether you want a senior or junior hire and include the appropriate years of experience. Understand what kind of previous jobs provide the ideal background for your hire. Do they need experience in a large company? Agency? Early stage company? Finally, you can include some other nice-to-have skills, as long as you make it clear that they are not requirements.
“Proper preparation will make screening resumes and deciding who to hire much easier,” Schwartz said. “Because you’ve clearly defined what the new hire will do once they’re on board, it will also be much easier to make the decision about who is the best candidate.”
Remember, SEO is done by humans
As you begin this process, remember that “great SEO is made by humans, for humans.” To get great SEO, you absolutely need the right people. That’s why Schwartz recommends that you find the person or people you can envision as owning the future success of your company.
Hire someone who can operate beyond the boundaries of your typical digital marketer and who demonstrates adaptability and creativity. They will take your SEO much further than you thought possible, so take care and diligence in finding people you can trust for this great task.
“Anyone with a modicum of SEO knowledge could perform an SEO audit or create a keyword list,” Schwartz explained. “However, it takes a unique person to be able to combine customer empathy with creativity in layers of SEO knowledge.”
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