How To Hire a SEO Manager
Complete with job descriptions, skill profiles, and interview templates. Use this SEO Manager hiring guide to help you make the right decisions, fast.
SEO Manager Recruitment Guide
What does a SEO Manager do?
SEO Managers consider all aspects of web searching by potential customers, and provide the strategies required to find visitors who will need a particular service. SEO assists in converting a visitor to a customer. With billions of web pages available, the SEO Manager helps target the right content to attract the right people to a company’s website.
Day to day tasks of a SEO Manager
- Review technical SEO issues and recommend improvements.
- Implement highly analytical, data driven SEO campaigns through the use of logic based internal link structures, competitor analysis, rank analysis and duplicate content minimisation.
- Collaborate with developers and engineers by defining your ideal.
- Help define and collaborate on managing long term content strategies from ideation through to implementation.
- Execute a variety of link building campaigns.
- Develop scalable SEO strategies and implementation plans, reporting and analysis.
- Communicate with stakeholders on strategy/project development, timelines and results.
- Mentor junior team members.
- Stay up to date with the latest SEO and digital marketing trends and best practices.
SEO Manager definition
An SEO Manager will lead and oversee the research of SEO to help the digital marketing team run effective campaigns and to assist in transitioning visitors into customers. They will play a key role in optimizing the company's website, social media pages, and other content efforts to ensure highly qualified web traffic.
HIRING PROCESS
SEO Manager Hiring Process
Build the ideal candidate profile
Skills needed for a SEO Manager
A seo manager must be customer-focussed and empathetic. Because each call is different, a seo manager needs to have skills in resilience and learning agility. They must also have exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
- Google Analytics
- Website Strategy
- Collaboration
- SEO
Pro Tip
For senior roles, you’re likely to receive a smaller number of applications than you would for a junior position. Ensure you provide details about what it’s like to work for your company, and what your company values are so applicants know whether your company is the right fit for them.
WRITE A JOB DESCRIPTION BASED ON SKILLS
How to write a SEO Manager job description
Once you’ve determined the skills required for the role, you can write the job description to advertise for your position. Here’s what to include in your SEO Manager job description:
Job Title: What position are you hiring for?
Summary: What makes your company unique? What would it be like to work for you?
Responsibilities: An overview of the role’s day-to-day activities, and how the position contributes to the organization
Requirements: Skills a candidate must have to perform the job successfully
Benefits: Details of compensation, benefits, and any perks on offer
Pro Tip
In building your candidate profile, remember you’ve already identified what skills are needed to succeed in the role. Here’s where to list your “must-have” skills and maybe a couple of “nice-to-have” skills. For example, a SEO Manager must empathize with customer’s concerns and problems, but it would be nice to have business planning experience.
SELECTING THE IDEAL CANDIDATE
Sample skill tests for a SEO Manager
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Question 1
Collaboration
Question Type: Video
Following on from the previous question, imagine yourself in the scenario where your non-technical colleague asks about site speed and doesn’t understand what the issue is because it loads perfectly fast on their mobile and then proceeds to show you. Please record a brief video of how you would respond to your colleague (max 2 minutes).
Question 2
Google Analytics
Question Type: Text
You need to place a Google Analytics Event Tracking code on a button, but you have no way of accessing the code to place the tracking on the button, what else could you do?
Question 3
SEO
Question Type: Text
You’ve added a URL in the robots.txt file with a disallow parameter, but the URL is still showing up in Google search results. Why is this and how do you stop the URL from showing in Google?
INTERVIEW TOP PERFORMERS
How to interview a SEO Manager
Once your Vervoe skills assessment has surfaced the most qualified people for your open role, you can focus on interviewing these candidates. The interview should focus on any skills that require development that were highlighted from the skills assessment.
Now you know that candidates can do the job, the interview becomes more of a relationship building exercise where you can get to know the candidate on a more personal level, understand their motivations, and how they would fit in with the team.
Making An Offer
How much does it cost to hire a SEO Manager?
The average SEO Manager in the US makes $89,076 (USD) according to Comparably.com. SEO Managers make the most in San Francisco at $127,814, averaging total compensation 43% greater than the US average. This appears to be an outlier and is plausible due to the high level of competition in Silicon Valley.
SEO Manager Salary United States
SEO Manager salaries in the United States range from $60,401 – $111,652 (USD). SEO Manager salaries in the U.S vary depending on the industry as well as the location.
Source: Salary.com
SEO Manager Salary United Kingdom
SEO Manager salaries in the United Kingdom range from £27,000 – £54,000 (GBP). SEO Manager salaries in the UK vary depending on the industry as well as the location.
Source: Glassdoor
SEO Manager Salary Australia
SEO Manager salaries in Australia range from $48,000 – $79,000 (AUD). SEO Manager salaries in Australia vary depending on the industry as well as the location.
Source: Payscale
