What Skills Do You Need For SEO & SEM Positions?

In the previous article, I introduced SEO and SEM positions as technical branches of the marketing department.

Therefore, for international students who want to work in this field, they need to master some special skills to do well in this position.

So what kind of skills are valued by SEO and SEM positions? This article will explain them for you.

SEO Position

For international students who want to work in SEO positions, the first thing they need to understand is that SEO is a slow and meticulous process, and all the work is done to make the web pages display a little bit ahead.

Understand Computer And Network Underlying Architecture 

Therefore, the first skill to have is to understand the computer and network underlying architecture knowledge, to be familiar with SEO rules, search engine operation modes and algorithm mechanisms. For those who do not understand computer basics, it is impossible to work in this position.

At the same time, for SEO practitioners, there are a lot of data logs that need to be collected and processed in daily work, so they need to have strong data skills.

For example, they need to know how to collect and crawl a lot of data, how to clean data and do statistical analysis, to find suitable keywords, and exposure opportunities under various conditions. 

Strong Tool Skills

For SEO positions, they need strong tool skills, proficient use of tools can greatly improve work efficiency, such as some crawler software, data analysis and processing software, etc.

SEO positions also require practitioners to have very strong logical skills, because for SEO positions, it is actually to increase the possibility of more display on each link of the search engine. What situations and links will bring benefits or eliminate negative effects in what kind of environment are actually interrelated, so a good logical ability will help to better sort out the work context, and avoid doing useless work.

Project Initiation

In addition, another main work of SEO positions is project initiation. In a period of time, there are many projects running at the same time, which is very common. To control the progress of the project, to capture the data of each stage, to recycle the project, etc., are all the work that SEO positions need to do. A good project management and promotion ability is also very important for SEO positions.

Therefore, for international students who want to work in SEO positions in the marketing department, they must first have a certain computer foundation and understand the working principles of major search engines. At the same time, they must have good data skills and excellent logical skills. If they also have good project promotion skills, they can perform better in their work.

SEM Position

In the previous article, I also mentioned that SEM and SEO are two branches of the same market work, so they have some similarities in work, so the requirements for skills are also similar.

Data Analysis

First of all, for SEM positions, data analysis skills are also a very important skill. To find a more optimized way of delivery, it must be based on high-quality data analysis. 

For example, SEM positions basically have to do the optimization core funnel every day, multi-dimensional strategy delivery, whether it is effective or not, data funnel analysis, and monitoring and adjustment after delivery, are actually based on data analysis.

Data analysis skills are the entry threshold for SEM, and also one of the advanced skills. Without strong data analysis skills, they can only repeat some simple execution work on the SEM position. Of course, this involves the proficient use of some statistical software and data analysis models.

Promote Testing

In addition, SEM practitioners need to have a grasp of the overall delivery and the ability to continuously promote testing.

In daily work, there are many times when the work is to track the effect of delivery, at this time, they need to make a decision from a whole, and test their own delivery whether it has produced a positive effect. At the same time, for bad effects, timely adjust the strategy or stop the loss, etc., are the embodiment of ability.

Of course, unlike SEO, SEM work requires a certain account operation and management ability, because the main core of SEM work is still to make their web pages stronger through paid methods. But for many large enterprises, there may be a lot of content in the same period of time, different search engines may be involved, and each search engine corresponds to different accounts, so excellent account management is also an indispensable ability.

But one thing to note is that because SEM is to display web pages through payment, the requirements for pure IT technology are not as high as SEO positions, for non-computer related majors of international students, it is also a position to consider.

But still, for example, data, logic, delivery control and other abilities have certain requirements.

In Summary

For international students who want to work in SEO or SEM positions, first of all, these positions value data skills and logical skills very much, because these two skills are throughout the work of the positions.

At the same time, if they have a certain computer background and understand the search engine of the Internet, they will be better able to understand many principles in the work, and thus better optimize the web pages, bringing a lot of intangible value and conversion for the company.