SEO Specialist Job Description (+ Template and Three Examples)

October 2, 2018

If the role of a technical SEO specialist doesn’t sound familiar to you, it’s most likely because it didn’t exist just ten years ago.

So writing the job description for the technical SEO specialist can be particularly difficult.  

But before we got to that, we’ll answer the most important question.

What exactly is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the primary method in growing organic (non-paid) search engine results, typically with a key objective of growing organic site traffic.

In other words, using particular keywords, link building tactics, and ultimately, writing and optimizing your content to make it easier to find. And how do we find things in 2018? Google.

That’s right – SEO is all about making sure that the content your brand produces shows up on the first page of Google results for a given phrase.

You may be wondering why this is a marketing role. After all, aren’t marketing goals all about creating demand so the sales people can do their jobs?

Well, yes. And no.

In this case, your objective is driving traffic to your organization’s website. Why, you ask? It’s all about visibility, brand awareness, and nurturing prospects through your sales funnel. Increased organic traffic leads to increased visibility. That leads to brand awareness. And brand awareness means that when potential customers realize a need for a solution similar to your offering, your product will be top of mind. 

But securing this visibility is no joke. That’s why modern marketing teams are employing entire SEO teams to help them build valuable linkbacks (links to your site from reputable websites), write with high-volume keywords in mind (the phrases people search most often on search engines), and much, much more.

When it comes time for your team to hire a technical SEO specialist, the below job description can be a helpful starting point. In fact, we invite you to use the template and adapt it to your own organization's needs and requirements.  You may also alter this job description for an SEO manager.

Are you looking to hire other marketing roles, as well? You can find more job descriptions on our full list of marketing job descriptions.

Not looking to grow your marketing department just yet? We’ve still got you covered! Check out our comprehensive guide to job descriptions.

SEO Specialist Job Description

Title: Technical SEO Specialist

Location: Chicago

With more than 400 percent growth since 2015, ACME Corporations is North America’s leading energy provider, with the single largest retail customer base nationwide. Since its founding in 2007, ACME Corporations has strived to meet the highest standards of energy delivery, customer service, and cost efficiency. Our mission is to be the top-tier energy provider while fostering a collaborative, diverse, and inclusive workplace.

ACME Corporation is looking to hire a technical SEO specialist to be responsible for content optimization and securing high quality links to ACME content. This individual will work closely with the content marketing manager to conduct keyword research and ensure best practices are met across published content. The ideal candidate will collaborate across functions to deliver an effective SEO strategy to meet the business objectives in the most efficient manner.

Responsibilities
  • Day to day management of web site performance & applicable automation of SEO tagging
  • Work with product & engineering to define technical SEO requirements
  • Identify opportunities to improve crawling & indexation
  • Support for page remapping & URL structural updates
  • Bi-weekly site audits and reporting, with recommendations and roadmap scheduling
  • QA of deployments
  • Support SEO team lead & SEO departmental lead
  • Report building & automation
Requirements
  • 2-3 years experience in a SEO role
  • 1+ year experience with HTML, Ruby on Rails, CSS, JavaScript
  • A passion for deep analysis of web technologies & SEO
  • A strong understanding of search engine crawlers
  • Experience in/familiar with canonicalization, client & server side redirects, pagination, crawl budget, xml sitemaps
  • Technical auditing experience on small to large web sites, both static and dynamic
  • Ability to recognize common technical issues and explain their solutions coherently, ensuring that clients and teammates understand the recommendations
  • Ability to diagnose and resolve technical issues on sites with tens of thousands to over 1 million pages
  • Ability to research technical issues and make actionable and well-informed recommendations based on your findings
  • Comfortable retrieving and analyzing data from Google and Bing Webmaster Tools
  • Advanced Excel skills (pivot tables, look-up function and conditional functions)
  • Familiarity with log file analysis
  • Structured markup understanding
  • Ability to work in a fast-paced environment

For even more help in writing your own technical SEO specialist job description, we’ve sourced the following examples from three companies looking to hire.

The following examples show organizations that have followed a typical job description structure, but customized it based on their unique needs and expectations.

TIP: Looking to impress potential employers? Check out the best resume writing services at G2.

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SEO Specialist Job Description Examples

To see how real employers are writing their product marketing manager job description, check out the examples below!


Atlassian

SEO Specialist

San Francisco, California

Atlassian is seeking a Technical SEO Specialist to join our fast growing SEO marketing team. Reporting to the Senior Manager of SEO, you'll improve the organic search performance of www.atlassian.com and our other web assets, including microsites and campaign landing pages.

You will work with cross-functional teams across Atlassian to deliver content that our website visitors will love.

Your technical SEO knowledge will be in high demand across the company as teams will look to you as the SEO expert to deliver optimization recommendations to improve site rankings across various areas of the business. Through your work, you'll establish positive relationships with your colleagues across Atlassian, which will help to develop your influence and multiply your impact.

Atlassian is not looking for black hat SEOs or marketers. Our approach is “user first, search engine second”. We’re looking for someone relatively new in the field who is eager and ready to learn.

In this role, you'll get to
  • Establish deep knowledge of technical SEO including site improvement audits competitive analysis, market research and keyword analysis.
  • Optimize pages and sites for OnPage factors to achieve optimal user experience.
  • Do keyword research, help with site migrations and perform data analysis to understand user and search engine behavior.
  • Help product managers, content creators, developers, and designers to define the right SEO strategy.
  • Create reports, audits, analyses and recommendations for user acquisition goals.
On the first day, we'll expect you to have
  • A basic understanding of search engines, HTML, web analytics and OnPage / OffPage optimization
  • 1-2 years of experience in the online marketing field
  • A strong drive to learn and a lot of curiosity
It’s great, but not required, if you have
  • Experience optimizing a website before (own project or for a company) with results to show.
  • Exposure to Javascript or other programming languages besides HTML + CSS.
  • Experience in related fields to SEO, such as UX, design, web development, social media management, conversion optimization, paid advertising, email marketing.
More about our team

The Performance Marketing team is responsible for all paid online marketing channels and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Our focus is organic traffic growth, increasing ROI and growing customer evaluations. This highly collaborative team works closely with technology, product marketing and marketing analytics to build integrated campaigns and define a marketing strategy that allows for a consistent customer experience across all channels. You'll join a world-class team that is passionate about online marketing and building an exceptional customer journey experience with our products for our customers to keep them coming back for more.

More about our benefits

Our offices are open, highly collaborative and yes, fun! To support you at work (and play) we offer some fantastic perks: ample time off to relax and recharge, flexible working options, five paid volunteer days a year to support your favorite cause, plenty of food and beverages, ergonomic workstations with sit/stand desks, unique ShipIt days, a company paid trip after five years, generous employer-paid insurance coverage (medical, dental, and vision) for you and your family, 401k matching and more.

More about Atlassian

Software is changing the world, and we’re at the center of it all. With a customer list that reads like a who's who in tech and a highly disruptive business model, we’re advancing the art of team collaboration with products like Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Trello, and now Stride. Driven by honest values, an amazing culture, and consistent revenue growth, we’re out to unleash the potential of every team. From Amsterdam and Austin to Sydney and San Francisco, we’re looking for people who are powered by passion and eager to do the best work of their lives in a highly autonomous yet collaborative, no B.S. environment.


Barnes & Noble College

SEO Specialist

New York, New York

Barnes & Noble Education enhances the academic and social purpose of educational institutions. Through Barnes & Noble College, our flagship business, Barnes & Noble Education serves more than 5 million college students and faculty members on 782 campus stores nationwide, delivering essential educational content and tools within a dynamic retail environment. We act as a strategic partner to improve academic outcomes; provide value and support to students and faculty; and create loyalty and retention, all while supporting the financial goals of our college and university partners.

Barnes & Noble Education is looking for an individual contributor who will help define and lead product SEO initiatives aimed at high-quality organic online traffic growth. This role is all about applying growth hacking, data-driven product development, and iterative test-and-learn techniques to the SEO world. Your success will have a significant, immediate impact on a fast-growing business.

Essential Functions:
  • Efficiently carry out keyword research & analysis
  • Learn from keyword research to create optimized META elements & writing short copy
  • Help with execution and management of various link acquisition tactics
  • Pull data and observations through competitive research
  • Extract & analyze key performance metrics from Google Analytics
  • Create monthly reports on campaign performance
  • Keep your finger on the pulse of key organic traffic and ranking metrics and continually enhance our capabilities to monitor the health of our SEO program.
Requirements:
  • 3+ years direct working experience as a Search Engine Optimization professional; 3 – 5 years of experience in the organic search space
  • Experience working on large websites (over 100k pages)
  • Hands-on experience with Google Analytics, Google & Bing Webmaster Tools, Moz, Majestic, Keyword Research tools
  • Fluency in SEO core elements including, but not limited to: Keyword Research, Technical SEO (UX, site architecture, URL structure, XML sitemaps, canonical tags, dynamic/static pages, etc.), On-Page Optimization (Metadata, Headings, Content, Anchor Links, Navigation, etc.)
  • Experience with link building, outreach and proper usage while representing the brand in the best possible light
  • Working knowledge of the latest web technologies, marketing tools and methods for effectively leveraging them to improve brand visibility
  • Understanding of basic HTML, CSS and code structure as it relates to SEO
  • Solid verbal and written communication skills
  • BA/BS in business, marketing, communications or other related subject
  • Meaningful product SEO experience and/or demonstrable aptitude and passion for product SEO
  • Ability to prioritize multiple projects with great attention to detail
  • Must be able to work under tight deadlines
  • Has excellent working knowledge of MS Excel
  • Working knowledge of various keyword research tools
  • A ‘can-do’ attitude and passion for online marketing
  • Technically savvy & a fast learner
  • Eager to learn and is not afraid to ask questions
  • Extremely organized, efficient, and strong attention to detail
  • Possess good written & verbal communication skills
  • Desire to advance their skillset and grow
  • Self-starter with a positive personality, highly-energized and creative thinker

Barnes & Noble Education is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer committed to diversity in the workplace. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status.


Hireology

SEO Specialist

Chicago, Illinois

Hireology’s technology empowers businesses to build great teams. Over the last eight years, we’ve grown from a startup to a market-leading organization with over 175 team members, and we’ve created an award-winning culture that makes this company an amazing place to work. 

It’s with that in mind that Hireology is looking to add an SEO Specialist to create, execute, analyze, and optimize the SEO of thousands of sites. This position, reporting to the VP of Product will be a first of its kind at Hireology and is the opportunity to lay the entire SEO infrastructure of our platform while driving tangible business results to our customers in the form of quality applicants. You will be working directly with our Product and Engineering teams to rapidly implement and measure your strategies.

As our SEO Specialist, you’ll be responsible for:
  • Defining the SEO strategy to drive increased quality applicant flow for customers through multiple channels
  • Building, measuring, and driving the success metrics for career sites and job descriptions hosted by Hireology
  • Creating the project plan and executing the tactics to drive site performance for our 6000 customers
  • Working cross-functionally across Product, Engineering, and our Sourcing team to best help each team deliver an exceptional product experience

So what kind of person are we looking for in this role? We have a pretty unique culture here at Hireology, and the person who will be successful in this role will be:

  • Results Obsessed: You are passionate about measuring and driving demonstrable results through your efforts
  • Entrepreneurial: As the first person in this role at Hireology you will constantly be on the lookout for new opportunities to add customer value and help drive our product roadmap
  • Expert: You are an authority in the SEO space, bringing your knowledge and passion to Hireology.

Okay, we’ve laid out what the job is - now are you qualified? Below are the minimum qualifications we’re looking for an SEO Specialist. Also, we want a chance to get to know who you are and why you applied, so please include a cover letter.

  • 2-4 years experience as an SEO specialist, managing and executing campaigns to increase site performance.
  • Basic understanding of HTML and ability to diagnose issues and provide best practices
  • Fluency in SEO core elements including, but not limited to: Keyword Research, Technical SEO (UX, site architecture, URL structure, XML sitemaps, canonical tags, dynamic/static pages, etc.), On-Page Optimization (Metadata, Headings, Content, Anchor Links, Navigation, etc.)
  • Experience with link building, outreach and proper usage while representing the brand in the best possible light
  • Google Analytics Certified
SEO Specialist Job Description (+ Template and Three Examples) Writing job descriptions was a pain until now. Use this SEO specialist job description and three industry examples to get your employee search started! https://learn.g2crowd.com/hubfs/gadget-google-samsung-106341.jpg
Claire Brenner Claire is a former growth marketing team manager at G2. Born and raised in the Chicago area, her brief stint in Ohio (University of Dayton) gave her a new appreciation for deep-dish pizza, but left her well-versed in Cincinnati-style chili and "cities" with a population fewer than 400,000. While not writing, Claire can be found practicing calligraphy, seeking out the best dive bars in Chicago, and planning her next trip. (she/her/hers) https://learn.g2.com/hubfs/_Logos/Claire%20headshotUpdated.jpeg http://www.linkedin.com/in/clairebrenner

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