What makes you a SEO professional?

Yes what makes you a SEO professional?
Isn't that knowing all the work like Directory submission, link building, article submitter, rewritter, spinner, html, php, css, makes you a SEO professional?
Am i right???
or any other answer to share most welcome..
Thanks in advance..

 

Being an athlete doesn't make you a professional athlete. Getting paid for being an athlete does.

Similarly, simply "knowing" all of that does not make you a professional SEO. Getting paid for knowing all of that (and a whole lot more) does. And if you suck at it... you likely won't be getting paid to do it for long, at least not by the same clients.

 

Canonical is right, a professional is someone who does something for a living. So if you sell you SEO services to other webmasters you become a SEO professional, although that doesn't automatically make you an SEO expert.

 

Yes, you are right qazu and Canonical great explaination ...
but can you tell me whom we will say that this is a SEO expert or Professional/?
What qualities and knowledge one should have to become a SEO professional?

 

SEO Expert and SEO Professional are two totally different things.

As an SEO Expert IMO you should demonstrate both a broad and deep knowledge of

- search engines (how they crawl, how they index, how they rank),
- web technologies (web servers like Apache and IIS, server-side scripting, client-side scripting, HTML, Mod Rewrite, content management systems, etc.),
- web design,
- sales/marketing,

to name a few...

You should know how all of these things are interrelated.
You should understand how various aspects of your site (and how other sites) affect your URLs' rankings.
You should possess the skills to maximize those things which you can control to optimize the ranking of your URLs in the SERPs.
You should possess the skills to influence to the best of your ability those things out of your control to optimize the ranking of your URLs in the SERPs.
You need to be analytical yet be capable of thinking outside the box.
You should be good at observing, hypothesizing, and proving/disproving through trial and error.
You should not be afraid to try new things.
You should be a risk taker when appropriate and conservative when appropriate, and knowledgable enough to know when to be what type of SEO.
You need marketing/sales skills to do a good job at link development, or at least understand how to use sales and marketing skills to get links so that you can tell someone who possesses those skills what to do.

To be an SEO Professional you need only get paid for performing SEO services. Ideally you would also be an SEO Expert and possess other interpersonal skills so that you are comfortable dealing with clients, making presentations, etc.

Really anyone who gets paid for SEO services can call themselves an SEO Professional and I would (reluctantly) have to agree because "technically" it only requires getting paid. But very, very few who dabble in the field of SEO can legitimately call themselves SEO Experts IMO. To do this, you should have a track record of proven results and let your work speak for itself.

 

I too agree SEO Professional is entirely different from SEO expert. In simple words I can say I am an SEO professional as it is my profession
. But I am not SEO expert

 

I'm just cheap

 

all SEO experts are rich guys , but SEO professionals not

 

This is such a good topic. Canonical has some really good points on that. They are really different. And knowing all the techniques doesn't make anyone an expert or a professional. It takes years of experience just like an athlete to be a professional or an expert. And it would take several accomplishments not just by making a site popular but by getting the real conversion out of it to call you a professional.

 

ya canonical is absolutely right...

 

There are many "SEO professionals" who get paid but don't deliver the results. I'd like to add that an SEO pro should be compensated for the work, but also the professional should deliver solid SEO results. Way too many people out there claim they can do SEO, but they simply can't.

 

Good explanation Canonical..
That will be the best knowledge for the newbies in SEO field and for me also.........
I would Like to hear more from you guys....

 

Says so on my business cards.

Actually it doesn't and I don't think myself as a SEO professional. On the other hand, I can pretty much answer any SEO question posed to me by my clients, either from experience or with a quick google.

If you want to market yourself as an SEO professional, I think you;re going to have to show that you have knowledge in the field and maybe provide examples of what you;ve done in the past for clients or what you could have done for a site or client if they had used your services.

 

A professional is the person who do this work with an intention of earning money.He only deals with the things which help him to make money.He do not goes into deep study.We are SEO professional not SEO expert.
A SEO expert is the person who knows ins and out of SEO concepts.He guide other people and it is not necessary that he is doing this work with an intention of making money.For eg Matt Cutts,he is a SEO expert.

 

I would suggest that results make a pro. All of my paying gigs have been because of demonstrable results.

 

It depends on what exactly you're being paid for. A few of my clients know nothing of SEO - other than they need it - so to them what makes me a pro is that I know all the ins and outs of SEO. However, some of clients know quite a bit about SEO but simply don't have the time or desire to invest in handling it themselves, so in this regard it is the actual service of me implement SEO that makes me a pro.

SEO is one of those things that a lot of people know about, but simply have no interest in doing themselves - you have to admit, the work is not for everyone I liken it to pizza. I know how to make a pizza, but I'd much rather pay somebody else to do it...it usually turns out better anyway.

 

SEO PRO ??
Search Every One & Provide Ridiculous Offer = SEO PRO in DP.

I received a lot PM with : "Hey i can make your KEYWORD rank TOP TEN for this amount, Interested ? i'm SEO PRO" " I can get your site on top google.com search engine. SEO PRO"

Hello, PRO means professional, their job scoop including ART of communication, Professional Advise and information given to their CLIENT not one/two line description .
Yes, i agree, you pay peanut you get Monkey but please learn how to RESPECT your Client. Professional Lesson No 1.

 

>what makes you a SEO professional

14 years of practicing

 

What makes? The Results!

I've been playing tennis for 25 years, not a professional

I know A LOT about hockey, not a professional

I get my pages and my customers page on first page of search engines, am a professional

 

You can only be called as a professional if you have given justice to the word itself... If your sites sell big time by using the right SEO tactics and techniques, then you are one. Experience is a very nice foundation but what important is on how you will apply it and monetize with it.