Member Avatar for MktgRob

What are the basic skill sets necessary for a person to handle SEO initiatives for a corporate website? I am curious because one of my clients is looking to hire someone in a permanent role. Currently I am handling their SEO intiatives and they feel that as I am the closest to the role I should play a role in the hiring process so I am looking for some thoughts and input. Thanks.

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Building on points from , , and , below is a compact, actionable hiring snapshot for a corporate SEO role. The emphasis is on measurable outcomes, practical troubleshooting skills, and clear evidence of ethical practice rather than jargon or promises.

  • Technical & site health — crawl analysis, redirect/canonical handling, index control, site speed, mobile behavior, and structured data familiarity.
  • Measurement & data fluency — Search Console and analytics (GA/GA4) interpretation, basic SQL or spreadsheet work for diagnostics, and a habit of translating data into prioritized actions.
  • Content strategy & conversion focus — creating topic briefs tied to user intent, internal-link planning, and conversion-oriented on‑page recommendations.
  • Outreach & PR alignment — ability to design relationship-driven campaigns, track placements, and report ROI without reliance on opaque networks.
  • Engineering empathy & tooling — readable HTML/CSS/JS knowledge, CMS workflows, and comfort with simple automation or log analysis to validate hypotheses.
  • Communication & process — documenting recommendations, setting timelines, and framing trade-offs for non-technical stakeholders.

Practical interview exercises (short, measurable deliverables):

  • 60‑minute live audit of one corporate URL: submit “Top 5 issues (impact/effort), one quick win, and one content brief.”
  • Short take‑home: a one‑page content brief for a specified keyword showing headings, internal links, and KPI.
  • Roleplay: present a realistic three‑month roadmap when asked to improve a specific conversion metric.

Ethical probes and red flags:

  • Request a detailed example of a past link or outreach campaign (partners, steps, metrics). Vague answers or secrecy are warning signs.
  • Ask about any manual-action/penalty recovery experience (timeline, steps, outcome). Lack of measurable examples or guarantees of “#1” are red flags.

Suggested weighting for evaluation: 40% proven outcomes, 30% technical troubleshooting, 20% communication/process, 10% ethics/culture fit. A short, KPI‑driven probationary project (30–90 days) is a practical final step to validate fit.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for stephen186

I think first of all he should have good knowledge of search engine marketing basics. He needs to understand what exactly is client looking for? their goals and manage the strategy accordingly.

Along with basic on-page and off-page optimization, he needs to think outside of the box and must have qualities of reverse engineering...

commented: good answer man +4
Member Avatar for canadafred

I agree with stephen somewhat, ability to optimize web page components is mandatory. Good writing skills helps. Web pages need to captivate the Internet visitor and convince the search engine that content is unique, authentic and intelligent. I don't worry much about off-site optimization as most of that is best left to occur naturally, as a reasult of exceptional content. You can always create your own off-site ranking factors should your internal linking structure be weak (do to lack of webpages).

A good search engine optimizers satisfies three things simultaneously: the Internet visitor, the web site owner and the search engines. This is why innovativeness (out-of-the-box thinking as steven refered to) is essential.

Member Avatar for InsightsDigital

I would also add that this professional should have a strong curiosity to keep up with trends, best practices, and with case studies of what other businesses have know that worked and did not worked. This way, the professional can have an arsenal of knowledge that will lead the recommendations to a higher level of effectiveness.

commented: very good point +4
Member Avatar for canadafred

I would also add that this professional should have a strong curiosity to keep up with trends, best practices, and with case studies of what other businesses have know that worked and did not worked. This way, the professional can have an arsenal of knowledge that will lead the recommendations to a higher level of effectiveness.

Very good point.

That could also mean actually reading other people's SEO blogs and participating in search engine optimization forums, keeping updated on the search engine content guidelines and any other opportunity to find ways to adopt and develop effective optimization techniques.

Member Avatar for MktgRob

Thanks everyone. Although I am putting less premium on the content creation for now as I am going to be handling that as I have been a marketing content creator for most of my career. Are there any topics for discussion that I can use to make sure that they candidates are not harboring black hat tendencies or will that be something that I will have to monitor over time? I know that seems like an odd question but I am trying to cover all bases.

Member Avatar for canadafred

Well, for a trendy starters, if they tell you how important incoming links are to your web page ranking and that's they're the world's best link schemers, then that's a good indicator of someone unable to perform search engine optimization and focused on manipulating the search engine.

Member Avatar for MktgRob

Well, for a trendy starters, if they tell you how important incoming links are to your web page ranking and that's they're the world's best link schemers, then that's a good indicator of someone unable to perform search engine optimization and focused on manipulating the search engine.

Thanks for that tip. Although to be honest, is someone used the term 'schemer' to describe themselves I would be showing them the door!

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