As promised this is the follow up to a previous post in which I attempted to define exactly what qualifies one as an “SEO Expert”. Based on some great feedback that I received on the original post, we can now refine our qualifications a bit.
When we left off an SEO expert was defined thusly:
[For all things SEO; their opinion is valued and generally regarded as attention worthy.
They have a strong portfolio with an extensive history of sustainable success across many different industries. They have made valid contributions to the craft and have offered their unique insight into critical areas of the profession.
They have a professional level competency in the following areas:
- Web design and development
- Copywriting
- Marketing Theory and Practice
- Business Ethics
They have a functional grasp of the following subjects:
- Internet and WWW Technologies
- Internet Research & Data Mining
- Information Retrieval
- Web Information Retrieval ]
A Challenge
I ended the fist installment with some open questions designed to spawn discussion of this topic and hopefully provide some insightful answers. Lets see how we did. Answers are based on feedback received from the first post:
What areas have yet to be considered?
- Viral Marketing/Buzz Marketing
- PPC
- Project Management
What do trends within the industry tell us about how to ensure one’s expertise will be viable in the future?
The SEO must develop learning and information management strategies to stay on top of the daily changes to the search marketing landscape.
What distinct yet complimentary disciplines are likely to be integrated into SEO in the future?
Specialized Marketing Disciplines:
- Print Marketing
- Confrontational Marketing
- Guerrilla Marketing
- Statistical Analysis/Strategy
- Web Information Retrieval
It looks like we found some solid answers and now we can compose our first refined profile of an SEO Expert:
For all things SEO; their opinion is valued and generally regarded as attention worthy.
They have a strong portfolio with an extensive history of sustainable success across many different industries. The SEO expert employs and maintains an information management strategy that ensures they stay abreast of daily industry developments. They have made valid contributions to the craft and have offered their unique insight into critical areas of the profession.
The Expert SEO has a proven, personal optimization methodology that is consistent with knowledge of search engine technologies and based upon ongoing research findings.
Additionally the SEO Expert will have a professional level competency in the following areas:
- Web design and development
- Copy writing
- Marketing Theory and Practice
- Business Ethics
They have a functional grasp of the following subjects:
- Internet and WWW Technologies
- Internet Research & Data Mining
- Information Retrieval
- Web Information Retrieval
- Project Management
- Pay-Per-Click Campaign Management
- Statistical Analysis and Web Metrics
- Print Marketing principles
- Confrontational Marketing Strategies
- Guerrilla Marketing Concepts
Conclusion
Are we getting closer to an accurate profile of a Master SEO? Please contribute your thoughts, feedback, refinements, additions, corrections, etc.