SEO Analyst Zara Haddad-McIvor
SEO Analyst
[email protected] | (801) 555-0151 | Salt Lake City, United States
Profile
SEO analyst at a Salt Lake City agency, working across 14 client sites on technical audits, indexation and internal linking. Report every result with its window, its baseline and what else changed inside it, including two core updates and one platform migration during the year. Prefer the metrics I control: indexed page coverage, crawl errors, redirect chains and Core Web Vitals field data at the 75th percentile, rather than raw sessions.
Work Experience
06/2021 - Present, SEO Analyst, Wasatch Digital Collective, Salt Lake City, United States
- Run technical audits and monthly reporting for 14 client sites ranging from 300 to 22,000 URLs, on WordPress, Shopify and a headless build.
- Cleared 1,880 redirect chains and 640 soft 404s across the portfolio, taking average indexed page coverage from 68 percent to 89 percent of the canonical set.
- Introduced an annotation log so every report shows deployments, core updates, seasonal peaks and paid spend changes on the same chart as the traffic line.
- Report Core Web Vitals as field data at the 75th percentile rather than laboratory scores, and flag where the two disagree.
- Separated branded from non-branded queries in all client reporting, which changed how three accounts judged their own results.
09/2019 - 05/2021, Web Content Assistant, University of Utah, Marketing and Communications, Salt Lake City, United States
- Maintained roughly 900 pages in the university content management system, including title and description coverage and broken link clearance.
- Built the crawl and reporting spreadsheet that the department still uses for its quarterly content review.
Education
08/2017 - 05/2021, Bachelor of Science, Information Systems, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, United States
Minor in statistics. Final project on log file analysis for crawl budget on a large public site.
Skills
Crawl analysis with Screaming Frog, 80
Indexation and canonical management, 70
Redirect mapping, 75
Google Search Console reporting, 85
Core Web Vitals field diagnostics, 65
Annotation logs and baselining, 75
SQL for Search Console bulk exports, 60
Languages
English, native
Arabic, intermediate
French, beginner
Certificates
03/2022, Google Analytics Certification, Google Skillshop
Renewed annually.
Summary
An SEO resume is a one to two page document whose central problem is proof. Search results move for reasons you did not cause, so every claim needs a window, a baseline, a disclosure of what else changed, and a preference for the metrics you control. This guide gives you three adaptable versions and current Bureau of Labor Statistics pay for the occupations that bracket SEO.
SEO resume examples by experience level
An SEO resume is a one to two page document with a harder evidence problem than any other marketing role. You are claiming that something you did caused a result, on a platform that changes underneath you several times a year.
Most SEO resumes ignore this. They say "grew organic traffic 240 percent" with no window, no baseline, and no mention of the core update, the site migration, the seasonal peak or the paid search budget cut that shared the period. An experienced hiring manager reads that line and cannot tell whether you are excellent or lucky, so they assume lucky. The resume that states its own confounders is rarer, and much more persuasive.
Resume guide for an SEO resume
This guide and the corresponding SEO resume example will cover:
- How to write an SEO resume, section by section
- How to make a traffic claim that survives a skeptical reader
- Three adaptable summaries: analyst, specialist and lead
- Which metrics you control, and why those belong in your bullets
- What the job market looks like and what you can expect to earn
How to write an SEO resume
Six blocks: contact header, summary, the evidence block, experience, skills, education and certifications. One page under five years, two once you have led a migration or owned a catalog of meaningful size.
The evidence block goes directly under the summary because it answers the question every reader of an SEO file is silently asking. Not "what happened" but "how do you know it was you".
| Section | What it is answering | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence block | Window, baseline, confounders disclosed, controlled metrics | Directly under the summary |
| Experience | What you changed at template level and what moved because of it | Reverse chronological, one number per bullet |
| Technical scope | Site size, platform, whether you ship code or file tickets | One line inside each role |
| Skills | Technical and analytical first, tools last | Short grouped block |
Four things turn a number into evidence
Before a figure goes on your resume, attach four things to it.
The window: how long, with start and end months, and long enough to outlast noise. Sixteen weeks is a defensible minimum for most changes; four weeks is not.
The baseline: what the metric was doing before, ideally the same weeks a year earlier, and for which set of pages.
The confounders: what else moved inside that window. A core update, a migration, a seasonal peak, a paid spend change, a new product line, a press cycle, a competitor going out of business. Name them even when they hurt you, and especially when they helped.
The comparison: what happened to the pages you did not touch. A holdout set of similar pages is the strongest evidence available in this field without a laboratory, and you almost never need permission to keep one.
Run the finished file through the free Rezoom ATS resume checker before you send it. SEO roles draw very high application volume and the first pass is usually a parser.
Choosing the best resume format for an SEO resume
Reverse chronological. SEO careers are read as a progression of scope: auditing other people's sites, then owning a template, then owning a catalog, then owning the measurement standard other people report against.
One page covers an analyst or a first specialist role. Two pages become reasonable once you have run a migration, managed a multi-site or multi-language estate, or led other people.
Include your contact information
| ✅ Right | ❌ Wrong |
|---|---|
| Zara Haddad-McIvor | Zara Haddad-McIvor |
| SEO Specialist, 41,000 URL retail catalog, Shopify Plus | Digital growth hacker and SEO ninja |
| Technical SEO, migrations, Core Web Vitals field data | Expert in ranking websites on page one |
| (801) 555-0151, [email protected], Salt Lake City, UT | (801) 555-0151, [email protected] |
The second line gives site size and platform, which is how experienced readers in this field estimate the difficulty of your last job. A 400 page brochure site and a 41,000 URL catalog are different occupations sharing a title.
Make use of a summary
Four lines: your site scope, one result with its window and comparison, the confounders you disclose, and the metrics you hold.
SEO analyst at a Salt Lake City agency, working across 14 client sites on technical audits, indexation and internal linking. Report every result with its window, its baseline and what else changed inside it, including two core updates and one platform migration during the year. Prefer the metrics I control: indexed page coverage, crawl errors, redirect chains and Core Web Vitals field data at the 75th percentile, rather than raw sessions.
SEO specialist on a 41,000 URL e-commerce catalog, running template-level changes against held-out control pages so a claim can be defended afterwards. Took non-branded clicks on 1,200 tested category pages up 34 percent over 16 weeks while a matched 1,200 page holdout moved 6 percent, in a window that contained a core update and a 22 percent cut in paid search spend, both stated in the report. Hold the catalog at the Core Web Vitals good thresholds on field data.
Senior SEO manager for a 41,000 URL retail catalog, accountable for the measurement standard as much as the rankings. Led a replatform that redirected 98.4 percent of the top 1,000 landing pages one to one and returned non-branded clicks to baseline within 5 weeks, with the forecast, the window and the risks published before cutover. Moved field Largest Contentful Paint from 3.9 to 2.2 seconds and Interaction to Next Paint from 310 to 170 milliseconds at the 75th percentile.
Right vs wrong: the same SEO summary, twice
| ✅ Right | ❌ Wrong |
|---|---|
| Non-branded clicks on 1,200 tested category pages up 34 percent over 16 weeks. | Grew organic traffic by 240 percent. |
| A matched 1,200 page holdout moved 6 percent in the same window. | Achieved significant improvements in search visibility. |
| The window contained a core update and a 22 percent cut in paid search spend. | Consistently ranked clients on page one of Google. |
| Field Largest Contentful Paint moved from 3.9 to 2.2 seconds at the 75th percentile. | Improved site speed and technical health. |
The right column can be interrogated and survives the interrogation. The left column cannot be interrogated at all, which is why a skeptical reader discounts it to zero.
Outline your SEO experience
Employer, site or client scope, platform, dates. Then three to five bullets, each naming what you changed, at what level, and what moved relative to something.
| Instead of | Use |
|---|---|
| Increased organic traffic significantly | Non-branded clicks on 1,200 tested category pages up 34 percent over 16 weeks against a 6 percent matched holdout |
| Improved keyword rankings | Average position for 840 tracked non-branded queries moved from 14.2 to 8.6 over two quarters, measured in Search Console |
| Fixed technical SEO issues | Cleared 3,412 redirect chains and 1,190 soft 404s, taking indexed page coverage from 61 percent to 92 percent of the canonical set |
| Optimized site speed | Field Largest Contentful Paint at the 75th percentile moved from 3.9 to 2.2 seconds, inside the good threshold |
| Led a website migration | Mapped 41,000 URLs and redirected 98.4 percent of the top 1,000 landing pages one to one; clicks returned to baseline in 5 weeks |
| Created SEO content strategy | Rebuilt 1,200 category templates with unique intros and internal links at depth 3 or less, shipped in 4 waves with a holdout |
SEO Specialist, Alta Provisions, Salt Lake City, UT, May 2023 to August 2025 (41,000 URL retail catalog, Shopify Plus)
Rebuilt 1,200 category page templates and held back a matched 1,200 page set as a control. Non-branded clicks on the tested set rose 34 percent over 16 weeks against 6 percent on the holdout. The window contained a core update in March and a 22 percent reduction in paid search spend, both disclosed in the report.
Cleared 3,412 redirect chains and 1,190 soft 404s, moving indexed page coverage from 61 percent to 92 percent of the canonical set.
Took field Core Web Vitals to the good thresholds across the catalog: Largest Contentful Paint from 3.9 to 2.2 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint from 310 to 170 milliseconds, Cumulative Layout Shift from 0.14 to 0.04, all at the 75th percentile.
Wrote the annotation log that records every deployment, algorithm update and paid budget change against the traffic chart, which is now how the team reports.
Filed 60 tickets a quarter into the engineering backlog and shipped template changes directly through the theme repository.
Make an SEO claim that survives scrutiny
Google publishes multiple ranking system updates in a year, and any of them can move your chart in a week you also happened to ship something. This is the central professional problem of the occupation, and a resume that acknowledges it is immediately in a different category from one that does not.
Four disciplines make a claim defensible, and each one fits in a clause.
| Discipline | What to write | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| State the window | "Over 16 weeks, June to September 2025" | Short windows are noise; a named window can be checked against update timelines |
| Name the baseline | "Against the same 16 weeks a year earlier, same page set" | Removes seasonality and states what set of pages you mean |
| Disclose the confounders | "The window contained a core update and a 22 percent paid search cut" | Volunteering the objection is the strongest form of credibility |
| Compare against untouched pages | "A matched 1,200 page holdout moved 6 percent" | The nearest thing to a control group available in production |
Then prefer the metrics you actually control. Sessions are downstream of a dozen things you do not touch; indexation, crawl health, template coverage and Core Web Vitals are things you change directly and can evidence.
Measurement standard: every change logged with a deployment date, a named page set, a 16 week minimum window and a matched holdout where one is possible. Algorithm updates, migrations, paid spend changes and seasonal peaks are annotated on the same chart as the change.
Controlled metrics reported: indexed page coverage against the canonical set, crawl errors and redirect chains, internal link depth, structured data validity, title and description coverage, and Core Web Vitals field data at the 75th percentile.
Downstream metrics reported with caveats: non-branded clicks and impressions from Search Console, average position on a fixed tracked query set, and assisted revenue, each stated against a prior-year baseline for the same page set.
Latest test: 1,200 category templates rebuilt, 1,200 held out. Tested set up 34 percent in non-branded clicks over 16 weeks, holdout up 6 percent. Window contained a core update and a 22 percent paid search budget reduction.
The technical thresholds you can cite exactly
Core Web Vitals are useful on a resume precisely because the thresholds are published and fixed, so a number means the same thing to you and to the person reading your file.
Google's good thresholds are Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint at 200 milliseconds or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift at 0.1 or less (web.dev, "Web Vitals", Google). Interaction to Next Paint became a stable Core Web Vital in 2024, replacing First Input Delay, so a resume still reporting First Input Delay dates itself immediately.
Two details separate a credible entry from a decorative one. Say whether your figure is field data from real users or a laboratory score from a synthetic test, because they frequently disagree. And report at the 75th percentile, which is the threshold basis, rather than an average that hides your slowest quarter of visits.
Give the window with start and end months. Name the page set the number applies to. Disclose the core update, migration, seasonal peak or paid spend change that shared the window. Keep a holdout whenever the change is template-level. Report Core Web Vitals as field data at the 75th percentile and say so. Separate branded from non-branded queries, since branded demand is usually somebody else's work.
Do not write a percentage without a window and a baseline. Do not claim credit for a recovery that followed a core update you did not cause. Do not report total sessions as your primary result. Do not put a client's Search Console screenshot on a resume or in a portfolio without permission. Do not name a keyword position without saying which tracking tool, which location and which device.
Build a snapshot of your key skills
Twelve to fourteen entries in three groups: technical, analytical and measurement, then the tools. Measurement discipline belongs in its own group, because it is the thing this resume is arguing for.
Technical: Crawl and log file analysis, Indexation and canonical management, Redirect mapping and migration planning, Internal linking and site architecture, Structured data, JavaScript rendering and hydration issues, Core Web Vitals field diagnostics
Measurement: Holdout and control page design, Annotation logs for updates and deployments, Prior-year baselining on fixed page sets, Branded and non-branded query separation, Forecasting with stated assumptions
Content and on-page: Search intent mapping, Template and taxonomy design, Title and description testing, Content pruning and consolidation, International and hreflang handling
Tools: Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, Screaming Frog, Semrush, Ahrefs, BigQuery, Looker Studio, Chrome User Experience Report
List your education and certifications
Degree, then platform certifications with the issuing body and year, then anything technical that supports the engineering half of the job. This field hires on demonstrated work rather than credentials, so keep this section short and let the evidence block carry the file.
Bachelor of Science, Information Systems, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 2021. Minor in statistics; final project on log file analysis for crawl budget.
Certifications: Google Analytics Certification, Google Skillshop, most recently renewed 2026. Semrush SEO Toolkit Exam, Semrush Academy, 2023.
Technical: SQL and BigQuery for Search Console bulk exports. Python for log parsing and crawl diffing. Git and pull request workflow for template changes.
Naming the technical skills matters more than a certificate here. An SEO who can ship a template change and one who can only file a ticket are paid differently, and the resume should say which one you are.
Choose the right layout and design
Single column, plain type, clear headings, no photograph. Keep the evidence block as labeled plain lines; those figures are the ones you want quoted back to you, and a graphic hides them from the parser.
Include a link to a personal site if you have one, and make sure it is technically clean. It is the only resume in the world where the reader may open developer tools before they open your experience section.
SEO job market and outlook
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes no separate Occupational Outlook Handbook profile for an SEO specialist, so there is no single official wage or growth figure for the title. What you can do is bracket it with the published occupations that SEO work is drawn from and hired alongside.
| Bracketing occupation | Employment, 2025 | Projected change, 2025 to 2035 | Median annual wage, May 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market research analysts | 952,700 | 7 percent, much faster than average | $78,760 |
| Web developers | 87,400 | 5 percent across the combined group | $92,650 |
| Web and digital interface designers | 132,700 | 5 percent across the combined group | $104,000 |
| Advertising, promotions and marketing managers | 454,800 | 6 percent | $165,780 combined |
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 wage data and 2025 to 2035 projections.
What the bracketing occupations tell you about SEO hiring
Market research analysts, the analytical occupation closest to the measurement half of SEO, are projected to grow 7 percent between 2025 and 2035, much faster than average, with about 82,000 openings a year and a median annual wage of $78,760 in May 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 and 2025 to 2035 projections).
Web developers and digital designers, the occupations closest to the technical half, held 220,100 jobs in 2025 with about 13,600 openings a year and medians of $92,650 and $104,000 respectively in May 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025).
The ceiling sits in the management group: marketing managers had a median of $166,790 in May 2025, within an advertising, promotions and marketing managers group of 454,800 jobs projected to grow 6 percent through 2035 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 and 2025 to 2035 projections).
The practical reading is that SEO pay follows whichever half of the job you can prove. Analytical rigour and technical depth are both published occupations with real medians; "ranked clients on page one" is neither, and it is priced accordingly.
What salary you can expect in SEO
There is no official median for an SEO title because the Handbook does not publish one, so treat the brackets above as the honest range rather than quoting a figure that has no source.
Two things reliably move you inside those brackets. The first is technical depth: an SEO who can read log files, diagnose rendering problems and ship a template change through a pull request is competing near web developer pay, which had a median of $92,650 in May 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025). The second is measurement credibility, which is the analyst half of the job, where market research analysts sat at $78,760 in the same cycle and are the fastest growing of the bracketing occupations at 7 percent through 2035 (BLS, 2025 to 2035 projections).
Scope multiplies both. Site size, number of languages, whether revenue is attached to the pages you own, and whether you set the measurement standard for other people are the differences between the middle of the range and the management figures above it.
Key takeaways for an SEO resume
- Attach a window with start and end months to every number.
- Name the baseline and the exact page set it applies to.
- Disclose the core update, migration, seasonal peak or paid spend change inside your window.
- Keep a holdout for template-level changes and report it.
- Lead with metrics you control: indexation, crawl health, Core Web Vitals field data.
- Report Core Web Vitals at the 75th percentile and say whether it is field or laboratory data.
- Say whether you ship code or file tickets, because it sets your pay bracket.
Build your SEO resume in 15 minutes.
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Pair it with a matching SEO cover letter.
SEO resume questions, answered
How long should an SEO resume be?
One page for an analyst or first specialist role. Two pages once you have run a migration, owned a large catalog or set the measurement standard for a team. The evidence block earns the second page; a longer list of tools does not.
What if I cannot prove my work caused the result?
Say so, and report what you can prove. "Non-branded clicks on the tested set rose 34 percent in a window that also contained a core update" is an honest sentence and a strong one. The alternative, a bare percentage with no context, is read as either naive or evasive, and neither helps you.
Should I put client traffic screenshots in a portfolio?
Only with written permission, and prefer figures to screenshots. Search Console and analytics views frequently contain client-identifying data, and reproducing them without consent is a reason not to hire you. A described result with its window, baseline and holdout carries the same evidence without the exposure.
Which metrics belong on an SEO resume?
Start with what you control: indexed page coverage against the canonical set, crawl errors, redirect chains, internal link depth, structured data validity and Core Web Vitals field data. Then add the downstream ones with caveats: non-branded clicks and impressions, average position on a fixed query set, and revenue where it is attributable.
Do I need to know how to code?
Not to enter the field, but it changes your pay bracket. The Handbook's May 2025 figures put web developers at a median of $92,650 and web and digital interface designers at $104,000, above the $78,760 median for market research analysts (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025). An SEO who ships template changes is priced nearer the first pair.
How do I write an SEO resume with no professional experience?
Run a real site, even a small one, and report it with the same discipline: the pages you changed, the window, the baseline, the holdout if you kept one, and the confounders. Add a technical audit of a public site written as a document a client could act on. Two honest case studies beat a list of courses, because they show the reasoning the job is actually paid for.