There are over 100 billion Google searches every month worldwide, and if your company wants to be on top results when a potential customer looks for your service, hiring an SEO expert is a must. A lot of companies waste resources on the wrong SEO specialist, simply because they don’t know what to look for.

Hiring an SEO expert can boost the promotional effort of your sales or marketing team by making your brand and service noticeable and searchable by your target market. In fact, 89% of customers begin their buying process with a search engine.

SEO experts work at this goal by recommending what content you should offer or how to design your web page. They also guide your team as to which SEO techniques are flagged by search engines and which ones you need to avoid.

Recruiters or hiring managers responsible for IT and expert search need to recognize great SEO professionals from a long list of applicants. Here are the top things you must check when looking for great SEO experts.

1. Professional Background and Experience

SEO experts, through years of trying and testing various online marketing methods, would know how to deploy a mix of strategies—keywords, backlinks, subheads, headlines, and more—to drive traffic up to your website. They can identify overperforming or underperforming sites and recommend strategies to make it work better.

SEOGadget’s Oliver Archibald says, “Every site is different, and the correct solution to one site’s problem might be vastly different from a similar issue on another site.”

An expert’s professional background would show that they have been in the business for years. This means that they have an understanding of the history of SEO, its current trends, and how it has evolved to the current practice.

2. Continuous Search for Excellence

Passion and commitment for work is a phrase that is regularly abused by applicants. It’s easy to claim that one is passionate about his or her work. But, how can you really tell that they are? Years of experience in the field will tell you about your candidate’s enthusiasm and passion for the field.

This means that a great SEO expert will continuously strive to be better at what he or she does, and will stop at nothing to discover new solutions, tactics, and even tricks to contribute to the SEO industry. This is usually seen through supplemental training and seminars, memberships to groups and communities in the SEO industry, and other opportunities for learning.

A great SEO personality is one who strives for excellence and is always involved in all the actions. Link Fish Media owner, Julie Joyce, describes the ideal SEO employee as “someone with an obvious passion for the work, as if you don’t give a damn about what you’re doing, I doubt you’ll ever be brilliant at it.”

3. Multi-Dimensional Understanding of SEO

SEO has three tiers namely technical, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization. Experts in SEO provide valuable insights not only on content building, but also on website development. They should know how to structure a site to ensure that the content is more accessible and indexable by search engines.

SEO strategies and techniques constantly evolve, and this multidimensional understanding should be current and up-to-date. Who knows, maybe in a year’s time, another tier would surface.

4. Data-Driven Success Stories

The success of a company’s branding efforts relies on good SEO tactics, and SEO experts will be more than happy to share those success stories with you. You can make your hiring decision based on the reputation and relationship they have built with their clients.

An SEO expert can tell you what websites and businesses they have helped succeed with data and metrics that are accurate and exact. Think about it, how does an SEO expert know if their efforts have succeeded? It all goes back to data analytics.

5. Knowledgeable About Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing Concepts



True-blue SEO professionals have mastered the ins and outs of traditional and modern marketing. They are well versed in online marketing concepts such as web analytics, web development, viral marketing, social media landscape, and business models. At the same time, they know how to tap human psychology and cultural perspectives.



With their in-depth perspective and knowledge, SEO players are successful in using modern media and platforms to deliver quality content to your target users. SEO may involve technicalities, but at the end of the day, it’s another marketing strategy to reach the right target audience.

6. Problem Solving and Critical Thinking

SEO specialists are problem solvers who provide answers to the question “how.” How do we get ourselves on the first page of Google? How can our content reach our audience? How do we optimize our website? These are just some of the questions that are usually thrown at SEO experts.

They align themselves with the company goals and objectives, and find out the different strategies they can implement to help them achieve these goals quickly and more effectively. This involves critical thinking.

SEO employees cannot just follow rules, standards, and procedures. They need to independently criticize every situation individually to come up with the most appropriate SEO solution that is effective and efficient.

7. Right Fit for the Company

SEO is far from being limited to marketing. It collaborates with other departments like sales and customer service. SEO professionals are team players whose goals and values match the organization’s.

In terms of communication skills, Dave Peiris of SharkSEO describes a great SEO employee as “a good communicator, and can easily explain complex technical issues in ways that non-technical people can understand.”

SEO is not just about getting ranked by Google. In fact, it’s more about converting page visitors into new customers. Sure, SEO requires expert technical skills, but the best SEO teams must have the attitude of a real marketer, too.

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Manila Recruitment is recognized as the leading recruitment firm in the Philippines for headhunting, executive search, expert, technical and IT recruitment. We share an unrivalled passion to help your business succeed by understanding your goals, then sourcing and providing you with your number one asset – driven, dedicated and exceptional people!

Experience the Manila Recruitment difference, and give your business in the Philippines a competitive advantage by contacting us today. Whether you are exploring an offshore solution, or are an established entrepreneur, SME or Multinational in the Philippines, our team has the experience and a tailored recruitment solution to introduce you to the top talent in the Philippines.

Contact our Manila Recruitment team at hello@manilarecruitment.com.