A SEO specialist is someone that has a passion for the web; to became a search engine optimiser you have to know HTML and CSS and what are the best tags and tips for a website SEO friendly.
Your attention for details must be the best and you have to know everything about competitor analyses.
You have to know how to make reports from google analytics and webmasters tool for you and your clients.
You have to know what are the best keywords for your business from google adwords, than analyse your competitors for that keywords, than create a strategy for quality back links building which will be different for any business environment. SEO is a long term investment, is a difficult job and automatic tools or cheap solution could make your website banned from google.
Here, in this blog, you can see a person that share his ideas, but there are only few people who understand what I am talking about. If you want to invest in search engine optimisation, start from contacting me.