Your SEO Guide

The Stepford Wives of SEO

Posted by on Mar 10, 2011 in Blog, Featured, Google, On-page, SEO | 5 comments

Nicole Kidman starred in the 2004 movie, The Stepford Wives. It’s a comedy-thriller about a couple living in a town of “perfect” wives. Perfect as defined by the sterotype their husbands desired? Well that has lead me to wonder…

What would the PERFECT SEO look like?

Web Dev and Programming Please

SEO’s must have a solid understanding of HTML, content management systems basic data retrieval systems, but we shouldn’t stop there. Great SEO’s can build websites, troubleshoot DNS errors, write REGEX, and create structured data files like XML feeds (by hand).

Copy Writing Expertise

SEO’s who can’t write compelling copy will never be as effective as those who can. Good copy writing allows you to include more links in your content while simultaneously increasing the enjoyment of the reader. Especially important is title tag and meta description writing. A good copy writer can make a 20% click through rate listing into a 40% listing.

Analytics is a must

Every search engine optimization campaigns lives and dies on analytics. Without tracking you’re just doing tactics for the sake of doing tactics. Every SEO should really have their Google Analytics IQ Certification, as well as a working knowledge of Omniture and WebTrends or Coremetrics. The platform itself isn’t as important as the mind that analyzes the data. SEO’s have to be able to explain why traffic is going up or down. Most importantly, every SEO campaign should have ROI tied to it, else how is the business owner going to decide whether or not to hire you for next year?

Client Management/Presentation Skills

It doesn’t matter if you are agency or in-house, every SEO must be able to present and explain campaign performance to a client or boss. If you can’t put a powerpoint presentation together and confidently explain what’s going on in your world, this isn’t the right career for you. Practice creating SEO training videos, then watch the playback to see where you can improve your presentation.

Risky Business

The perfect SEO needs to be willing to take risks. When I say, “risks” I’m not talking about buying links – that is not a risk, that is just foolishness. What I’m talking about is being willing to try new tools, test new techniques, put you and your opinions out there for the industry to critique, etc. It’s about breaking the status quo, and blazing a trail.

Where’s your Startup?

I think it’s important for SEOs to have started their own business at some point in their life. Creating a start-up shows that you’re self-motivated, innovative, willing to take risks (see above) and understand how business works. If you’re start-up(s) have failed, then you’ve earned valuable life experience on what works and doesn’t work. If you’re start-up(s) are successful and you’re still doing SEO, then you’re in it for the love of the game, and not just the money.

The Social Network

One of the greatest things about the SEO industry is the people. Not only are they willing to help new SEO’s get started, but even veterans can grow by tapping into the experiences of others. If you’re not connecting with others in the industry, you’re missing a huge piece of what it is to be an SEO, and you’re growth will be slower because of it.

The Language Barrier

One of the most overlooked areas of SEO right now is the multi-lingual space. The ability to optimize a site for more than one language can be very important, depending on your target audience. Some of the best SEO jobs are for large, multi-national corporations who covet the ability to speak and optimize in multiple languages.

The Whole Package

As you can imagine, it’s not easy to find an individual who is technical, personable, innovative, strategic, social and multi-lingual. Not only that, but they need previous SEO experience and live close enough. These Stepford Wives of SEO are rare, and may already be doing their own gig. The key is to find people who fit the criteria, but don’t have a TON of SEO experience. This way you can groom them within your organization while they rise to the top of the industry.

 

How close are you to being the perfect SEO?

  • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

    Damn dude…when you put it that way, I’d say your bar for a perfect SEO wife is pretty damn high.

    The part that makes it really difficult to pull of is the balance between the technical know-how and creative writing. Esp given the constraints brought on by mechanical nature of google sentinels and the humanistic nature of real-life reader. That alone is hard to pull off.

    And now you want these creatives to have technical savvy as well???…yup…I agree, thats a rare breed indeed.

    Also, great observation in terms of shortcutting it. If someone starts their own biz, it DOES show a lot of desired SEO traits.

    • http://twitter.com/dancristo Dan Cristo

      Yep. It’s not easy finding the perfect SEO, but I think that probably goes for most industries. You’ve got the players and you’ve got the rockstars. The rockstars contains certain skills that the average joe’s don’t.

      Talent is a funny thing.. Some people are born with it, and others just work hard to achieve it. Either way I think these skill sets describe what the perfect SEO looks like in my mind.

  • http://www.lsgeekster.blogspot.com Kira Permunian

    Perfect! I guess if I were to look for a perfect SEO specialists, I could only find a minimal number of them. I think a perfect SEO is composed of several persons who are experts in each of the field you’ve mentioned working together to get the top spot in the search engines – a team. 

    Anyway, this post is perfect guidelines for a perfect SEO with the skills included: Time management, leadership, critical thinking, problem solving, and schedule maintenance, multilingual, organization, and communication amongst others.

    • http://twitter.com/dancristo Dan Cristo

      Your point about teamwork is so true. There are so few individuals out there that embody ALL of those required skills, but a good team can fill in the gaps where individuals are lacking in certain skills. 

      Another important thing to note is that some of these skills are natural abilities, while others can be improved upon with experience or training. As a hiring manager, you need to be able to tell which is which. Hire SEO’s with natural abilities, and you can teach them the other skills as necessary.

      If you do find an SEO with all the skills, or you’ve trained a naturally gifted SEO where they are  now we’ll rounded, look to empower them. Give them responsibility and look for opportunities to promote them. Those are the guys you want in charge of a team, because even a team will have strengths and weaknesses, so a well rounded manger can help the team achieve it’s potential.

  • http://www.alexiskenne.com Alexis Kenne

    Quite an interesting blog post for bloggers. I found this quite helpful.