How an SEO Specialist Puts Your Business in Front of the Right Customers

One of the most impactful hires we helped make recently was for a B2B SaaS company that had hit a growth ceiling. Their product was strong, their outbound motion was humming, and their paid acquisition was performing, but organic traffic was flatlining. They weren’t showing up for category keywords, their competitors were outranking them with thinner content, and their blog was basically a dumping ground for the founder’s thought pieces and company news.

The CMO knew the problem: they had no real SEO strategy. What they didn’t know was how to fix it. They needed someone who could build a plan from the ground up, starting with technical cleanup and followed by intent-matched content that would actually rank. Within a few weeks, we brought in an SEO specialist with experience scaling organic channels from zero. In six months, search became their highest-converting channel.

This is what good SEO hires do. They’re not just optimizing blog posts or running site audits in a vacuum; they’re aligning technical fixes with business goals, building content around real search behavior, and turning underperforming web properties into high-ROI growth engines.

What You Gain When You Hire an SEO Specialist

When you bring on a skilled SEO specialist, you’re not just hiring someone to “fix your website” or “add keywords.” You’re investing in a long-term growth engine. SEO is one of the few acquisition channels that compounds over time, and when it’s done right, it drives durable, high-intent traffic without the ongoing spend of paid channels.

Here’s what your company will experience with the right SEO specialist in place:

• Stronger visibility across key search terms: You’ll start ranking for the keywords your customers are actually searching for, especially the ones with purchase intent.
• Higher quality inbound traffic: Instead of chasing leads, you’ll attract visitors who are already looking for the problems your product solves.
• Cleaner site architecture and performance: Technical issues that quietly undermine your SEO (like crawl errors or duplicate content) will finally be diagnosed and resolved.
• More strategic content production: No more guessing what to write. Your blog and landing pages will follow a clear strategy tied to search intent and business priorities.
• Better insight into what’s working: With reporting systems in place, you’ll see which efforts drive results and where to double down.
• A competitive edge in your niche: With a specialist actively tracking competitor moves, you’ll adapt faster and spot opportunities others miss.
• Reduced dependency on paid acquisition: As organic search improves, you’ll have more control over your lead pipeline and a lower cost per acquisition.

Put simply, an SEO specialist helps your business show up where it matters, with the right message, at the exact moment your audience is looking.

How SEO Specialists Help Businesses Grow 

Conduct Keyword Research to Guide Content Strategies

Keyword research is the foundation of effective SEO, and it goes far beyond plugging phrases into a tool. A skilled SEO specialist studies how your audience thinks, searches, and frames their problems. They analyze search volume, competition, and intent to find the terms your buyers actually use, not just to name your product, but to describe the problem it solves.

This isn’t just about building a keyword list. It’s about aligning content with real demand. For example, your team might call it a “performance analytics dashboard,” but your customers are searching for “how to track team productivity.” That insight shifts your content in the right direction, resulting in better rankings and higher-quality traffic.

Perform Site Audits to Identify Technical SEO Issues

Before you can build visibility, your site has to be in good health. Technical issues often go unnoticed by teams focused on content or design, but they quietly undermine your ability to rank. A site audit is how an SEO specialist uncovers what’s holding you back.

Here’s what they typically look for:

• Crawlability issues: Are search engines able to access all your pages? Broken links, orphan pages, or a messy robots.txt file can block indexing.
• Duplicate content: Multiple URLs showing the same content can confuse search engines and dilute authority.
• Broken internal links: These not only hurt user experience but also disrupt the flow of link equity throughout your site.
• Slow page speed: A slow-loading site can lead to high bounce rates, and Google takes note.
• Mobile usability problems: With mobile-first indexing, any layout or UX issue on mobile can affect rankings.

Optimize On-Page Elements Such as Titles, Meta Descriptions, and Headings

On-page SEO is where technical insight meets messaging strategy. A good SEO specialist makes sure every element of a page (from its headline to its metadata) signals relevance and earns attention. When done well, these adjustments improve both search engine rankings and click-through rates.

Here’s what they focus on:

• Title Tags: Clear, keyword-targeted titles that match user intent.
• Meta Descriptions: Concise summaries that drive clicks and reinforce relevance.
• Headings (H1-H3): Structured headings that guide readers and help Google understand the page hierarchy.
• URL Structure: Short, readable URLs that include the target keyword.
• Alt Text for Images: Descriptive tags that support accessibility and image SEO.

Develop and Implement Backlink Strategies

Backlinks remain one of the most powerful indicators of authority in search rankings, but not all links are created equal. A seasoned SEO specialist focuses on building high-quality links through sustained, strategic outreach, not shortcuts or schemes.

This typically means creating content worth linking to, identifying relevant sites, and building relationships with editors and publishers. It can also involve digital PR or guest contributions. On the back end, they’ll monitor the site’s backlink profile to remove or disavow harmful links. The result: steady growth in authority without risking penalties.

Track Keyword Rankings and Organic Traffic Growth

SEO isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it channel; it’s a discipline that requires consistent tracking and iteration. Once a strategy is in place, an SEO specialist monitors how your target keywords are performing in the search results and how your organic traffic evolves over time. This tracking isn’t just about checking charts; it’s about interpreting what the data means and what to do next.

Here’s what they typically keep an eye on:

• Keyword position changes: Identifying upward or downward trends for core search terms.
• Top-performing pages: Seeing which content is driving the most organic traffic, and why.
• Traffic sources and segments: Analyzing how organic users behave compared to other channels.
• Search impressions and CTRs: Spotting gaps between visibility and engagement.
• Content decay: Identifying pages that were ranking well but are now losing ground.

Create Content Briefs Optimized for Search Intent

Producing content without a brief is like building a house without a blueprint. A strong SEO specialist creates detailed, search-driven content briefs that guide writers to produce content that’s not just informative, but also discoverable, scannable, and aligned with what users are truly searching for.

A solid SEO content brief usually includes:

• Target keyword(s): The core term(s) the piece should be optimized around.
• Search intent classification: Whether the query is informational, navigational, or transactional.
• Recommended title and meta description: Drafts that reflect both keyword targeting and click-through appeal.
• Suggested structure (H1, H2s, etc.): An outline that helps organize the content clearly.
• Questions to answer: Based on related searches or “People Also Ask” boxes.
• Internal linking opportunities: Pages to link to for SEO benefit and reader context.

Monitor Competitors’ SEO Performance and Adjust Strategy

A good SEO strategy doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s relative to your competition. An SEO specialist keeps a constant eye on how competitors are ranking, what content they’re publishing, and which keywords they’re targeting. This helps your business stay agile and identify opportunities before others do.

This involves:

• Tracking competitor keyword movements: Seeing which terms competitors are gaining or losing ground on.
• Analyzing their content strategy: Understanding what types of pages or formats are driving traffic for them.
• Identifying link sources: Reviewing backlink profiles to spot outreach opportunities or partnerships.
• Spotting SERP feature wins: Seeing if competitors are claiming featured snippets, FAQs, or video results.
• Benchmarking performance: Measuring your own rankings, traffic, and visibility against theirs.

Improve Site Speed and Mobile Optimization for SEO Benefits

Site performance (especially on mobile) is now a major ranking factor. A slow or clunky experience turns users away and signals low quality to search engines. SEO specialists help ensure your site loads quickly and works seamlessly across devices, improving both rankings and user engagement.

They start by auditing key metrics like load times, Core Web Vitals, and mobile usability. From there, they recommend fixes like compressing images, deferring scripts, cleaning up code, and ensuring responsive design. These optimizations often lead to measurable improvements in traffic, time on site, and conversions.

Use Analytics Tools to Report on SEO Progress

An SEO strategy is only as strong as its ability to prove impact. Specialists use a range of analytics tools to track performance, diagnose issues, and guide future strategy. These tools bring transparency to the process, showing what’s working, what’s not, and where to optimize next.

Here’s what they typically rely on:

• Google Search Console to monitor index status, keyword performance, and technical issues.
• Google Analytics to track organic traffic behavior, conversions, and content performance.
• Rank tracking platforms (e.g., Ahrefs, SEMrush) for monitoring keyword positions and competitor performance.
• Screaming Frog / Sitebulb to run deep technical audits and identify on-site issues.
• Looker Studio / Custom dashboards for visualizing data and reporting progress to stakeholders in a digestible format.

Recommend Changes to Increase Organic Visibility

This is where strategy turns into execution. After completing audits and research, an SEO specialist delivers a clear, prioritized set of recommendations, each grounded in data and tailored to your site’s needs.

These actions might include updating underperforming pages, targeting new keywords, consolidating duplicate content, or fixing site speed issues. Crucially, every recommendation is backed by performance data and competitive analysis, so your team understands exactly what to change and why it will make a difference. The result is a focused roadmap for long-term growth in search visibility.

How to Hire the Right SEO Specialist Without the Guesswork

Hiring an SEO specialist comes with risks, but most of them don’t come from the role itself. They come from rushing the process, mis-scoping the need, or hiring a generalist who talks SEO but doesn’t deliver results. That’s where the right recruitment partner makes all the difference.

A focused, strategic hiring process helps you avoid:

• Hiring a marketer, not an SEO: Many candidates blur the lines; your recruiter should know how to spot the real specialists.
• Mismatching the role to the business need: Technical SEO? Content-led SEO? You need someone built for your growth stage.
• Overlooking long-term fit: Strong SEO requires cross-functional collaboration. Communication style matters just as much as credentials.
• Wasting time on the wrong candidates: A specialist recruiter brings you proven performers, not keyword-stuffed resumes.

When you work with a recruiter who truly understands SEO, you de-risk the hire and dramatically increase your odds of finding someone who can turn organic search into your most reliable growth channel.

Turn Search into a Scalable Growth Channel

Organic search is where trust is earned. It’s how your future customers discover you, before they’ve filled out a form, joined a list, or clicked an ad. But showing up at the right moment requires more than luck or content volume; it requires someone who knows how to engineer visibility.

With the right SEO specialist in place, your business can move from chasing leads to consistently attracting high-intent traffic, without relying on paid channels to keep the funnel full.

If you’re ready to bring that kind of capability in-house, Somewhere can help you find the person who’s done it before and knows how to do it again.

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