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15 Things to Look for in a Technical SEO Specialist (+20 Bonus Competencies)

Technical SEO is vital to any digital marketing campaign as it impacts the usability, speed, and responsiveness of your site to user interaction. A poorly functioning website will lead users to bounce from your website, which will negatively impact your keyword rankings and conversions.

Website builders are notoriously finicky, so any little mistake can lead to catastrophic consequences for your website. Technical SEO requires extensive expertise and knowledge of website backends to make changes properly and ensure that all changes are best optimized to improve your site’s performance and responsiveness.

For many companies, hiring an in-house technical specialist may make sense to ensure their website and digital marketing platforms function properly, though you could save money by hiring an outside technical SEO specialist on retainer.

Whether you’re conducting a Hyper Local Lead Generation Campaign or an SEO-Driven Content Marketing Campaign, you can’t ignore the importance of technical SEO for your success.

Let’s discuss the qualifications of a technical SEO specialist and what to look for when hiring one for your business. Additionally, we’ll discuss how a technical SEO specialist can improve your SEO performance and other aspects of your website.

15 Things to Look for in a Technical SEO Specialist (+20 Bonus Competencies)

What Is a Technical SEO Consultant?

Technical SEO refers to optimizing a website’s speed, usability, user experience, and crawlability for users and search engines. Think of technical SEO as the foundation on which your online marketing house is built.

The technical SEO consultant or specialist is responsible for managing these aspects of your business, ensuring your website loads quickly, renders nicely on mobile, and can be crawled and indexed by search engines. They can serve as both a consultant and the main SEO campaign manager, depending on their qualifications and role.

To get a better understanding of the technical SEO specialist’s role, let’s look at their responsibilities and how they can improve your digital marketing performance.

Ways a Technical SEO Specialist Can Improve Your Website

Website usability is not just important from a diagnostics perspective but impacts every aspect of your business, from website traffic to lead conversion funnels. The following are five ways that hiring a technical SEO expert can improve your organic web presence.

  1. Improve Functionality: The primary job of the technical SEO is to ensure proper site functionality, working hand-in-hand with your developer. Technical SEO specialists will diagnose problems ranging from indexation issues to 404 errors that prevent users from accessing your website.
  2. Boost Traffic: Technical SEO experts are also well-versed in keyword research and can implement keywords strategically across your site to improve intended rankings.
  3. Improve User Experience: Technical SEO specialists will ensure that pages render properly across devices and are registered in the user’s preferred language to improve your site’s UX.
  4. Increase Click-Through Rate: Technical SEO specialists are highly knowledgeable in off-site SEO tactics, including schema markup and metadata optimization, which help improve the click-through rate of organic listings.
  5. Increase Conversions: By improving all technical aspects of your website, from speed to proper interlinking, a technical SEO expert can plug leaks in your funnel and improve your underlying conversion rate.

Technical SEO Consultant: Main Responsibilities

An ideal candidate must have comprehensive knowledge about web design and development, and organic SEO. From thorough content evaluation to hands-on experience in HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and/or other programming languages, technical SEO strives to fix the loopholes and drive your website performance.

If you plan to hire a Technical SEO specialist to strengthen your website, we’ve broken things down for you here in a simple format, starting with the responsibilities.

  • Detailed understanding of search engine algorithms to determine what governs the crawlers’ behavior and influences them to rank pages.
  • Sitemap knowledge.
  • Optimizing page load speed.
  • Manage keyword rank tracking and reporting.
  • Finding and fixing content duplicate issues.
  • Link building and outreach efforts.
  • Fixing Indexing errors.
  • Installing SSL certificates on websites.
  • Optimization of landing pages and blogs across different devices – desktops and mobile phones.
  • Build and optimize a mobile-friendly website.
  • Identify, monitor, and implement on and off-page changes to improve the website performance.
  • Troubleshooting website performance issues – crawling and indexing errors.
  • Responsible for registering, fixing, and maintaining weekly logs for SEO-related bugs/errors.
  • Collaborating with other SEO professionals, web developers, digital marketers, and many other specialists to eliminate recurring technical glitches.
  • Administrating web tools – Google Analytics, CMS, and many other industry-leading tools.
  • Updating websites following the client’s KPIs and industry-recommended practices ( algorithm updates).

Technical SEO Consultant: Main Responsibilities

An ideal candidate must have comprehensive knowledge about web design and development, and organic SEO. From thorough content evaluation to hands-on experience in HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and/or other programming languages, technical SEO strives to fix the loopholes and drive your website performance.

If you plan to hire a Technical SEO specialist to strengthen your website, we’ve broken things down for you here in a simple format, starting with the responsibilities.

  • Detailed understanding of search engine algorithms to determine what governs the crawlers’ behavior and influences them to rank pages.
  • Sitemap knowledge.
  • Optimizing page load speed.
  • Manage keyword rank tracking and reporting.
  • Finding and fixing content duplicate issues.
  • Link building and outreach efforts.
  • Fixing Indexing errors.
  • Installing SSL certificates on websites.
  • Optimization of landing pages and blogs across different devices – desktops and mobile phones.
  • Build and optimize a mobile-friendly website.
  • Identify, monitor, and implement on and off-page changes to improve the website performance.
  • Troubleshooting website performance issues – crawling and indexing errors.
  • Responsible for registering, fixing, and maintaining weekly logs for SEO-related bugs/errors.
  • Collaborating with other SEO professionals, web developers, digital marketers, and many other specialists to eliminate recurring technical glitches.
  • Administrating web tools – Google Analytics, CMS, and many other industry-leading tools.
  • Updating websites following the client’s KPIs and industry-recommended practices ( algorithm updates).

Technical SEO Consultant: Main Qualifications

Once you understand the main roles of a technical SEO specialist, it’s essential to find one with the right training and protocols to ensure they have the largest impact on your performance.

  • Well-versed with HTML, CSS, JS, and site architecture.
  • Ability to make calculated changes in the website content.
  • Theoretical understanding of on and off-page SEO strategies, including backlink profiles.
  • Hands-on experience in opening and managing client accounts on Google Analytics and Google Search Console, and tools like Moz, Ahrefs, SEMRush, and other relevant SEO tools.
  • Functional knowledge of Chrome DevTools, structured data markup, content analysis tools, and AMP.
  • Proficiency in managing robots.txt files, canonical tags, pagination, and redirects.
  • Conceptual Knowledge of Conversion Rate Optimization and UX principles and practices.
  • Broad understanding of social media platforms and their influence on SEO practices.
  • Agency experience would be given preference.
  • Anticipates common website problems and provides detailed analysis along with performance recommendations.
  • Must possess excellent verbal and written communication.
  • Good interpersonal skills to coordinate with internal teams and manage projects with senior managers/leadership.

Technical SEO Consultant: Bonus Competencies

  • A go-getter and team player with an ingrained passion for mastering digital marketing practices.
  • Stay updated on the latest happenings in the industry and market competition level to formulate razor-sharp SEO strategies.
  • Exceptional capability to coordinate with multi-disciplined teams to find and fix core problems and establish coherence in project management.
  • Creative, flexible, and willing to unlearn and learn to break the mold and excel in the field while supporting organizational goals.
  • Assertive enough to voice opinions in front of project managers, senior executives, and leadership for the larger good of the stakeholders.
  • Demonstrates confidence to take on challenges, technical and otherwise, to deliver promised results within the deadline.

From on-page to off-page to technical SEO, every aspect has to be thoroughly understood to achieve maximum digital impact.

Regarding technical SEO, having an inventive mind with relevant experience removes the most pesky bugs and can quickly reinstate your business performance.

Yet, it is not a sure-shot formula for the complete success of any digital marketing campaign.

We recommend that you attract and assimilate serious technical SEO talent for the success of your business and clients.

Getting Started: Practical Technical SEO Tips for Websites

Even if you’re not ready to hire a specialist, implementing some core technical SEO best practices can strengthen your site’s performance and rankings:

  • Use HTTPS – Security is a ranking factor. Ensure your website has an active SSL certificate.
  • Optimize Core Web Vitals – Improve Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
  • Fix Crawl Errors – Regularly check Google Search Console for indexing issues and resolve 404 or server errors.
  • Create an XML Sitemap – Submit it to Google and Bing to help search engines crawl your site efficiently.
  • Use Proper Canonical Tags – Prevent duplicate content issues by telling search engines which version of a page is primary.
  • Mobile-First Optimization – Test your site with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and ensure responsive design.
  • Schema MarkupAdd structured data for products, articles, FAQs, and events to improve SERP visibility.
  • Clean Site Architecture – Keep URLs short, descriptive, and logically structured to help users and crawlers.
  • Compress Images & Enable Lazy Loading – Improve speed without sacrificing quality.
  • Monitor with SEO Tools – Regularly audit your site using Screaming Frog, SEMrush, or Ahrefs.

Why Hire a Technical SEO Specialist

Hiring a technical SEO specialist goes beyond fixing surface-level issues; it’s about building a strong foundation for long-term digital success. Search engines are becoming more complex, and the technical health of your site directly affects how well it can compete in search results.

A specialist can quickly diagnose and resolve indexing errors, crawl issues, and site speed bottlenecks that often go unnoticed by non-experts. They also keep your site aligned with frequent search engine algorithm updates, ensuring it remains compliant and competitive. Without this expertise, even the best content or link-building campaigns will struggle to deliver results.

In short, a technical SEO specialist bridges the gap between web development and marketing, making sure your business doesn’t lose traffic, leads, or revenue due to preventable technical problems.

FAQs: Technical SEO Specialist

What does a Technical SEO Specialist do?

A Technical SEO Specialist is responsible for optimizing websites to ensure they meet the technical requirements of search engines like Google. Their primary focus is on improving the website’s structure, performance, and accessibility to enhance search engine rankings.

This includes tasks such as optimizing website code, improving page load times, addressing crawl errors, and implementing structured data markup.

What tools are essential for Technical SEO Specialists?

Essential tools for Technical SEO Specialists include Google Search Console, Google Analytics, SEO auditing software (e.g., Screaming Frog, SEMrush), website speed testing tools (e.g., PageSpeed Insights), and schema markup generators. These tools help diagnose issues, monitor performance, and make data-driven decisions.

What is the future of Technical SEO?

The future of Technical SEO will likely continue to evolve with advancements in technology and changes in search engine algorithms. It will be increasingly important to optimize for mobile devices, voice search, and user experience. Technical SEO Specialists will also need to adapt to emerging technologies like AI and machine learning that impact search rankings.

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