SEO Consultant & SEO Specialist: Job Description

The SEO consultant and SEO specialist is your Internet marketing expert.
Taking advantage of the search engines is the biggest single portion of any
Internet marketing program, since about 85% of all those seeking
information on the Internet use the search engines to find it. Getting your
business ranked high up in the
search engine results is the
primary job of the SEO
consultant and SEO specialist.

Any knowledge able SEO

consultant will tell you up front
what he or she can't do. Unless
you are going to be paying for
positioning (such as with Sprinks
or Overture), your SEO
consultant cannot guarantee
positioning. It can't be done.
Getting quality positioning will
depend on many factors. Your
consultant ought to know what those factors are and be able to explain them
to you.

A knowledgeable and ethical SEO specialist will have concern and respect for
your business. He or she will not employ techniques that are dangerous to
the health of your website. For instance, the use of cloaking to hide the page
code (Google says straight out: "Don't cloak.") Another big thing with search
engines is the use of what we call classic doorway pages. These are pages
whose sole purpose is to redirect to another page, or that have no content of
their own but present a link or button to click to transport the web surfer to
the homepage of some other site. Classic doorway pages are considered
classic spam. These kinds of things are not used by any knowledgeable or
ethical SEO specialist.

An SEO consultant's job description? We view it this way:

1. The SEO specialist must provide real access, not just an E-mail contact.
Real business people use phones.

2. The SEO specialist must understand the prospective client's needs and
goals.
3. The consultant must outline viable options to achieve the client's goals.
Honesty is essential.

4. The SEO consultant must provide insight to the process so that the client
has a grip on what the issues are and how the proposed marketing solution
will contribute to the bottom line. The client must have enough information
on which to base sound decisions. Any competent consultant should be
perfectly willing to provide an understandable explanation of his or her
services. By this, we mean to say that if the consultant can't make the
process understandable, he or she is probably hiding something.

5. He or she won't use techniques that will endanger the client's website,
and thus endanger the client's business.

6. The SEO consultant must be honest about the timeline involved. When
can the client expect to see results? Those who are willing to pay for
inclusion or pay for positioning will probably see results much faster than
those who are using "regular" search engines.

7. Execute the plan on time and keep the client informed of progress.