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Emily Carter is the Sr. Content Team Lead at WebFX, where she leads the creative team behind the company’s content. With an M.S. in Digital Marketing and 10+ years of experience, she’s written and reviewed hundreds of articles on marketing, SEO, and tech. These days, her focus is on content strategy and operations, with a special interest in the systems, processes, and people that help great content come to life. Her work appears across WebFX and its brands, including SEO.com, Nutshell, and TeamAI, and has been featured by Social Media Today, HuffPost, and more. Outside the office, she’s usually road-tripping, hiking, or planning her next national park adventure. @emcarter16View full profile
A search engine optimization (SEO) specialist improves a website’s visibility in search results on Google, Bing, and other search engines, and in AI answers like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT, using research, writing, and analytical skills.
A search engine optimization (SEO) specialist is the person who improves how often a website shows up when people search, in Google and Bing’s organic results and in AI answers like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT. SEO specialists audit sites, fix technical issues, improve content, and measure the visibility, traffic, and leads that search drives.
To do that work, SEO specialists rely on an arsenal of marketing tools for keyword research, site audits, analytics, and AI visibility tracking.
Bonus: If you’re looking to hire an SEO pro, we’ve got the guide for you! Claim your free SEO request-for-proposal (RFP) template and use it when reaching out to your shortlist of SEO pros!
Key takeaways
An SEO specialist improves a website’s visibility in search results on Google, Bing, and other search engines, and in AI answers like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT, using research, writing, and analytical skills.
Major aspects of an SEO specialist’s job are auditing websites and existing SEO strategies, identifying and implementing optimization strategies, and using data to evaluate and improve SEO, rankings, and AI visibility.
Some of the day-to-day tasks of an SEO professional include conducting keyword research, analyzing competitor websites, consulting with clients about their business goals, and more.
To become an SEO specialist, many people pursue a Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, journalism / communications, or related field
What is an SEO specialist?
An SEO specialist improves a website’s visibility in search results on Google, Bing, and other search engines, and in AI answers like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT, using research, writing, and analytical skills.
What job responsibilities do SEO specialists have?
SEO experts’ job descriptions vary based on the type of company and whether the position is in-house or with an agency, but some of the major aspects of an SEO specialist’s job are:
Auditing websites and existing SEO strategies
Identifying and implementing optimization strategies
Using data to evaluate and improve SEO, rankings, and AI visibility
Some of the day-to-day tasks of an SEO professional include:
Conducting keyword research
Analyzing competitor websites
Consulting with clients about their business goals
Optimizing client websites for search engines and AI answers with keywords, backlinks, structured content, etc.
Calculating ROI and preparing monthly SEO campaign reports that include AI visibility and AI referral traffic
How is AI search changing the SEO specialist role?
AI search widens what an SEO specialist is responsible for. Besides earning rankings in Google and Bing, an SEO specialist now works to get a brand cited and described accurately in AI answers like Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.
That means an SEO specialist plans for searches where the answer appears before anyone clicks, and reports on more than rankings and sessions.
In practice, the role now includes:
Track citations, not only rankings. SEO specialists check which prompts mention their brand and which competitors get cited beside it. Teams use OmniSEO®, WebFX’s AI search visibility platform, to track citations and mentions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, then decide which pages and sources to improve first.
Write pages AI answers can quote. Answering the question in the first few sentences, using clear headings, and citing sources gives AI answers a clean passage to pull from.
Report on AI referral traffic. Specialists separate AI referrals from organic traffic in GA4 to see how many visits and leads AI platforms send, and how those visitors convert.
Work across teams. AI answers draw on product pages, reviews, PR coverage, and technical health, so specialists coordinate with the people who own each one.
Insights from the experts: What’s the role of an SEO specialist?
To give you an inside look at what an SEO expert is and what SEO specialists do, our experts weighed in.
Expert insights from
Trevin ShireyVice President of Marketing
An SEO specialist is somebody with a wide range of skills within the SEO realm: The ability to make changes to a website to help it perform better in search engines.
This could involve many things, including making changes to the content of a website, making server-level code changes, adjusting the structure of a site, and more. Search engines take a look at many different factors when they evaluate a site, so an SEO specialist needs to have a variety of skills to help improve search visibility. A talented SEO specialist has both technical skills and marketing know-how.
Expert insights from
Cheyenne FordLead Internet Marketing Consultant
The role of an SEO specialist is to monitor trends and new releases related to the core algorithms for key search engines such as Google and Bing to determine a strategy for ranking websites better in organic results across the web.
Based on this analysis and industry research, we then determine the best course of action for the website and make updates to things from the page content, headings, and user experience — all the way to more technical items such as page speed, HTML code, title tags, meta descriptions, and more.
Ideally, the goal is to meet the expectations of a user based on their search query with the information that we provide on the page that they land on.
On a day-to-day basis, we monitor websites to ensure there are no overarching issues, perform competitor analysis, review rankings, dive into Analytics tools to track traffic and performance, and monitor lead/revenue data and then report back to and update clients on the actions taken.
How to become an SEO specialist
If you’re looking to kickstart your SEO career, we have some tips for you too! To become an SEO expert, many people pursue a Bachelor’s degree in:
Business
Marketing
Journalism / Communications
Computer Science
Information Systems
Statistics
Or a related field
However, the specific requirements for working in SEO vary depending on your employer and SEO focus area.
What skills does an SEO specialist need?
Our expert Senior Talent Acquisition Coordinator, Emily Livingston, shared the top skills you need to succeed as an SEO specialist.
1. Passion and curiosity for the industry
Becoming a true SEO expert means you stay on top of the industry — and not just because you have to! Finding success in SEO means you enjoy learning about everything happening in the ever-changing industry. You have a passion for staying updated on the latest information and use that insight to empower your work.
“The best SEO specialists keep tabs on industry changes and trends because they like to stay up to date with the newest advancements in the field! They do great work because this is the work that they love to do.”
2. Interest in analyzing performance metrics
A key part of being an SEO expert is analyzing performance metrics, including AI referral traffic alongside organic search. In WebFX’s analysis of 2.3 billion sessions, visitors from generative AI platforms converted about 1.2x higher than organic search visitors, even though generative AI drove just 0.18% of total sessions in 2025. You need an interest in reading numbers like these and a desire to learn how to improve them.
3. Resourcefulness and creativity
If you want to become an SEO specialist, you need to be resourceful and creative. SEO requires a lot of testing and experimenting with new ideas, so it’s good to have skills in those areas.
“Our best marketers tinker and aren’t afraid to try new things. We use A/B testing to compare which strategies might work best so we can create personalized recommendations for each client.”
4. Being an ongoing learner
The marketing industry is continually evolving, and SEO evolves just as fast as AI Overviews, AI Mode, and assistants like ChatGPT change where people find answers. In WebFX’s study of 2.37 million U.S. keywords, 25.8% of queries showed a Google AI Overview. It’s important, as an SEO pro, to be an ongoing learner that wants to continually find new ways and opportunities to improve your SEO strategy.
“Our top SEO specialists love to do independent research and ask questions. In an industry that changes quickly and often, every project is a learning opportunity. There’s no limit to the information we can explore.”
To learn more and view open SEO positions at WebFX, head over to our careers page and apply to join our team!
What roles are similar to an SEO specialist?
If you’re looking to become an SEO pro, you’ll likely rub shoulders with other digital marketing-related roles. At some businesses, several of these roles might be merged with that of the SEO specialist. At others, the roles will be separate, and the SEO expert will simply be working with the people in these roles.
The roles in question include:
Digital marketing manager: Digital marketing managers are in charge of handling a variety of digital strategies, with SEO being one of those strategies. People in this position might single-handedly manage all digital marketing, or they might oversee the team of people who do.
SEM specialist: Search engine marketing (SEM) specialists are similar to SEO pros since they focus on search engines, but their focus tends to be more on paid advertising than on organic SEO.
AI search specialist: Some companies hire for generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO) as a separate role focused on how the brand appears in AI answers. At others, the SEO specialist owns that work.
Email marketing manager: Email marketing managers handle all email campaigns, developing and sending out different types of marketing emails to leads and customers.
Social media specialist: Social media specialists run campaigns on various social media platforms to draw engagement and spread awareness of the company.
How do I find and hire an SEO specialist?
Want to work with an SEO expert to boost your site’s visibility and rankings, but not sure how to get started?
Here are some quick tips to hire an SEO expert:
Ask questions about their experience with SEO
Look at reviews to see what people say about their services
Check their pricing to make sure they fit in your budget
Ask what their first steps would be if you hired them
Ask how they track and report visibility in AI answers like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT
Ask how they communicate about their projects
Need some more help hiring an SEO expert? Check out these resources:
Hopefully, this post answered your burning questions about what an SEO specialist is and what they do. If you’re ready to take the next step in your journey, choose an option below:
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Emily Carter is the Sr. Content Team Lead at WebFX, where she leads the creative team behind the company’s content. With an M.S. in Digital Marketing and 10+ years of experience, she’s written and reviewed hundreds of articles on marketing, SEO, and tech. These days, her focus is on content strategy and operations, with a special interest in the systems, processes, and people that help great content come to life. Her work appears across WebFX and its brands, including SEO.com, Nutshell, and TeamAI, and has been featured by Social Media Today, HuffPost, and more. Outside the office, she’s usually road-tripping, hiking, or planning her next national park adventure. View full profile@emcarter16
