An SEO strategist decides what a website should do to win more search traffic, and in what order. They research the searches the business wants to win and who already ranks for them, judge which pages to build or fix first, tie the work to business goals, and point everyone who does the work in the same direction. An SEO specialist does a defined part of the work; the strategist owns the plan. The rough US average salary is around $70,000.
What does an SEO strategist do?
The strategist's question is "what should we do next, and why?" Answering it takes most of these, week to week:
- Research the market. Which searches the business's buyers make, how many people make them, what they expect to find, and who ranks for them now.
- Find out what's holding the site back. Read the audits, Search Console and the analytics, and judge which problems cost the most traffic. A strategist doesn't fix every issue, but has to know which ones matter.
- Set priorities. Rank the opportunities by the traffic or revenue at stake against the effort and the odds of winning.
- Write the plan. Which pages to create, rewrite, merge or retire, which technical fixes come first, and how the site will earn links.
- Brief the people who do the work: writers, developers, technical specialists and whoever builds links.
- Measure and change course. Check the results with the analyst, and move effort away from what isn't working.
- Explain the work to managers, clients or founders, in terms of the business rather than of SEO.
What a strategist decides, in practice
Most of a strategist's value is in choosing where not to spend effort. Say a site sits on page six of Google for two groups of searches. The first group is bigger, but page one is held by sites with many times its authority and pages that already answer the search well. The second group is smaller, and page one includes small sites and how-to guides the site could beat. A strategist puts the effort into the second group first, because that's where the site can reach page one this quarter, and comes back to the first group once it has the authority to compete.
Most decisions look like that: which group of searches, which page, which fix first, and what to leave alone for now.
What an SEO strategy covers
The plan a strategist writes usually answers:
- Who are we trying to reach, and what do they search for?
- Which of those searches can we realistically win, given how hard each is and how much authority the site has?
- Which page serves each search, and does that page exist, need rewriting, or compete with another page on the site?
- What's broken technically, and which fixes unblock the most?
- How will the site earn links and mentions from sites its buyers trust?
- How do we show up in AI answers? More searches now end in an AI Overview or a chatbot's answer, so the plan covers being cited there too. Our post on AEO vs. SEO vs. GEO explains how they differ.
- How will we measure it, and what result would make us change course?
Skills an SEO strategist needs
- Keyword and competitor research, with tools such as Ahrefs or Semrush and Google Search Console.
- Enough technical knowledge to judge a problem's cost, even when a specialist or developer fixes it: crawling, indexing, rendering, redirects and site structure.
- Content judgment: knowing what makes a page the best answer to a search, and when two pages are competing for the same one.
- Reading data: telling a trend from noise in Search Console and analytics, and knowing which numbers the business cares about.
- Prioritization and business sense: weighing traffic against revenue, effort and risk.
- Clear writing: briefs a writer can work from, and reports a non-specialist can follow.
SEO strategist job description
A sample to adapt. Most postings for the role look roughly like this.
SEO strategist
We're looking for an SEO strategist to plan and lead how our website grows in search. You'll decide what we work on and in what order, brief the people who do it, and show what it achieved.
Responsibilities
- Research the searches our customers make, and the competitors who rank for them.
- Audit the site and prioritize technical, content and link opportunities by their likely impact.
- Write and maintain the SEO plan: the pages to create, update, merge or retire, and the technical fixes to make first.
- Brief writers, developers and specialists, and review their work for search.
- Track rankings, organic traffic and conversions, and report on results each month.
- Keep the plan current as search changes, including AI Overviews and AI assistants.
Requirements
- Hands-on SEO experience, with results you can show in numbers.
- Fluency with Google Search Console, Google Analytics and a keyword research tool such as Ahrefs or Semrush.
- A working knowledge of technical SEO: crawling, indexing, site structure and redirects.
- Clear written communication, including for people who aren't SEOs.
SEO strategist salary
The rough US average for an SEO strategist is around $70,000. Pay varies a lot by city, seniority and company size, and a strategist who leads a team may earn more.
SEO strategist vs. SEO specialist vs. SEO analyst
The three titles overlap, and at a small company one person often does all three jobs. Where they're separate roles, they divide like this:
| Role | The question they answer | Typical work | Rough average salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO strategist | What should we do next, and why? | Research, priorities, the plan, briefs | $70,000 |
| SEO specialist | How do we do this part well? | Technical fixes, on-page work, links or local listings | $70,000 (technical SEO specialist) |
| SEO analyst | Did it work? | Tracking, reporting, page audits | $74,000 |
Strategist vs. specialist. The strategist sets direction across the whole program; a specialist does a defined part of it, such as technical SEO or link building, and goes deeper in that part than the strategist does. Our guide to the SEO specialist role covers each kind.
Strategist vs. analyst. The strategist looks forward and decides; the analyst looks at what happened and measures. A good strategist leans on the analyst's numbers, and a good analyst says what the numbers mean for the plan.
For all five SEO roles side by side, including content managers and copywriters, see SEO roles: strategist, analyst, specialist.
How to become an SEO strategist
Most strategists come from a hands-on SEO role: content, technical SEO or analysis. The path usually runs like this:
- Learn the fundamentals. Google's SEO Starter Guide is a sound, free place to start.
- Work on a real site. Your own, a friend's business or an employer's. Rankings, traffic and Search Console data teach what no course can.
- Get good at one part of the work, such as content or technical SEO, so you understand how the work is actually done.
- Take responsibility for priorities. Ask to own a section of the site or a group of searches, decide what to do there, and report what happened.
- Keep a record of results in numbers: a page that moved from page three to page one, a group of searches that doubled its clicks. That record is what gets you hired as a strategist.
Do you need a full-time SEO strategist?
A small or mid-sized business rarely needs one full time. The plan takes the most work at the start and needs regular review after that, while most of the ongoing effort goes into content, technical fixes and links. An agency gives you a strategist along with the people who carry out the plan. Our SEO strategy services start with the goals, the measurement setup and an audit, and turn them into one plan.
