A good SEO expert will help your website consistently attract targeted visitors whom you can then convert into customers. This is because they know how to get you traffic by optimizing your website’s online presence. Honestly, there isn’t a successful business online today that didn’t get there thanks to some help from such an expert. As such, you need to hire one too. With this in mind, here are some qualities you should look for as you search for an SEO expert to plug into your business.

Practical SEO Knowledge

There are some things every SEO expert should know, including how to create:

• An SEO friendly website or how to make modifications to an existing website to improve its rankings
• Well written, relevant, and engaging content that ranks in the SERPs
• High-quality links

The Three SEO Levels

It’s important to understand that there are three levels of SEO – technical (a site’s structure), on-page (ways of increasing traffic to your website), and off-page (link building techniques). Without this understanding your SEO becomes one-dimensional and you won’t be as successful as you could be. This is why it’s so important to understand all the technical limitations and issues search engines have, then find ways to minimize these things with your website.

Understanding Areas of SEO Specialization

It’s also important for you to understand that there are many specializations within SEO, including:

• Local SEO, on-page optimization, analytics, mobile search, content development, link building, keyword development, and reputation management
• PPC advertising
• Social media marketing
• Creating content that attracts attention

Much of this is interconnected. Nevertheless, it’s still important to understand how each of these things work.

Years of Experience and Certification

While anyone can call themselves an “SEO expert,” that doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing. SEO consists of many little parts and pieces that take many years of learning if you want to be successful at it. What makes this even more challenging is that every site needs different types of SEO tactics. Nevertheless, an SEO expert should be able to look at a website and know exactly what on-site SEO tweaks they must do improve its rankings.

A Proven Track Record of SEO Success

It’s vital for an SEO expert to have a proven track record of happy clients. They should be able to provide you with at least three references whom you can check. These clients should speak of their proven results and tangible improvements – things that justify the money they’ve paid for their SEO services.

A Well-Rounded Perspective and Knowledge

It’s important to understand that SEO is more than marketing a website for the search engines. It’s also important to keep people interested and engaged in what the website is offering. As such, an expert will have a deep understanding of all types of marketing, psychology, culture, social media, web analytics, web design and development, viral marketing, content, products, and business models. Without this understanding your SEO success will be short lived.

An Understanding of the Big Picture

Your SEO should focus on accomplishing goals, not ranking in a specific position. As such, the SEO expert you hire should interact with various parts of your business, including; IT, customer service, marketing, sales, and analytics. This is why it’s important that their personality, integrity and communication style matches that of your business’.

Knowledge of White Hat and Black Hat SEO Practices

White hat experts want to stick around for the long-term, but black hat experts don’t think this way. Instead, they’ll use deceitful, short-term methods to get a website into a good position in the SERPs. Although black hat endeavors occasionally work, once the search engines discover them they punish the website by placing it further down in the SERPs. Obviously, you don’t want this to happen to your website, so you need to make sure that you’re working with a white hat expert.

Excellent Communication Skills

An SEO expert should be able to clearly explain to you what changes need to be made to your website. This is important since they can’t do everything themselves. They’ll need help from your IT and C-level teams. Of course, each person’s communication style and services’ standards will be different. You must find someone whose approach fits your needs and whose communication medium (e.g. phone, Skype, texting, email) works for you.

Passion

You’ll want someone who gets things done accurate and can ensure top rated results. They must find a way to work around any challenges they encounter along the way. Of course, your business can also help here by taking steps not to impede progress.

Curiosity

Another important characteristic of SEO experts is curiosity. They should continually investigate how search engine crawlers work. You’ll be able to notice this because their knowledge will always be growing. When they stop learning you may want to reconsider finding someone new, because your success hinges on their ability to stay up-to-date regarding the best SEO tools and techniques that are available today.