Search Engine Optimisation is one of the fastest growing areas of the online marketing mix. Businesses all over the world who are facing a reduction in their marketing budgets are looking at natural search strategies to complement their PPC activity, and this has led to a boom in the number of SEO Jobs that are currently available.
We see an awful lot of SEO related jobs advertised through Jobatwit, although this is in part due to the way that this site is marketed through social media channels – we are likely to be viewed by an audience of web savvy Internet marketers, and as such, provide the ideal place for SEO Companies to advertise for new staff.
While there is a perception in many areas that an experienced SEO professional is able to command an enormous salary, this is only partly true. Some of the top guys in the industry who run their own agency may well be able to pull in more than a million a year through conference work, their own campaigns and affiliate work, and contracts with other companies to provide consultancy advice, on the whole, the kind of salary that a regular SEO professional will be able to command is roughly in line with any other IT professional – somewhere between £25 to £50K per year.
Experience is everything for an aspiring SEO. Many of the larger agencies in the UK such as Latitude, Big Mouth Media and ICrossing offer entry level positions and internships for students, and these are the ideal entry into the industry for people who are keen to learn.
There is an argument that the best people in SEO are self taught, and this is quite true. People who take the time to learn what works and what doesn’t by trialling new things are generally more entrepreneurial and innovative than those who learn the ropes from an established SEO.
It is also important not to rest on your laurels. Algorithms change all the time, and it is vitally important to keep track of the techniques that work best.
Important skills include some level of web development – php or asp, a knowledge of HTML and web standards, commercial awareness, a willingness to learn, and the ability to extract information from abstract data provided by various different analytics software such as Yahoo Analytics, CoreMetrics or Google Analytics.
Tags: industry guides, jobs, SEO
[...] more information, check out our recent blog post about getting into SEO, or read some of the introductory guides on websites such as SEO Book, SEOMoz, and Matt Cutts [...]