Average Salary for a SEO/SEM marketer in US/Canada

[jim2jim]

A friend makes about 60K/year and have been doing it for 2 years.

 

[jim2jim]

I guess it has to do with the company you work for and how good you are. I heard ppl making over 150K.

 

[Windmill]

Cross-Skill Guys!

You don't just have to be an SEO Marketer. You can be a full on Online Marketing Consultant and strategist. You can earn much higher salaries. You can take your skills and use them across a wide range of jobs, for instance we aren't just SEO guys, you are also...

- Adwords specialists (you can wing it)
- Copywriting specialists
- Analytics specialists
- Moderate web development specialists
- Moderate graphic designer specialists
- Experience in customer service (depending on what you do)
- Experience in handling clients (depending on what you do)

etc etc

Cross-use your skills and get jobs that have more reach be the idea guys not the do-ers!

 

[seoactive]

It's directly related to how hard you work. It starts small and the longer you go the more you make. Start at 1k/month and work your way up to 10k/month.

1k a month? For a full-time SEO employee. I dont think thats even legal... Assuming there is minimum wages in your State.

 

[reeze15]

frankly said...
I'm working in a small company. Focusing in designing niche. We design everything that we can include magazine, business card, web, mini-site, fb covers, blogs, brochure, pamphlet and corporate videos as well. My position is SEO admin who is responsible in google analytics, google webmaster, google adwords, ranking position, on page and off page SEO and also some content writer (english is my 2nd language) promote blog for drive traffic.

Fyi, I'm in SEO for about 4 years (freelance). I'm graduated in Electrical Engineering. So, SEo is my non-official knowledge which I'm studied by my self and some times attend classes, coaching and webinar...I've success rank about 20 websites in specific local in my country. So, that would be good for my portfolio and experiences though many of them I just outsource such as web 2.0, profile, article by using my method that I trust.

So, this company is my 1st company that I work truly in SEO. They just pay me (before confirm) $600. And after I perform well, they promised to give me more increment.

My question is, is it worth? even though I've requested about 4-5 seo tools include GSA, proxies, vps, spinnerchief, BMD, PM and SB for my study and also for my convenience for SEO purpose. And they can provide as I'm the 1st SEO expert they are hiring...or I just need to out-source same as what I did before?

Please advice...Thanks!

 

[brainstorm1]

Working for a specific company and doing SEO is neither safe nor a well-paying job. I would suggest striking out on your own. Many companies in these tough economic times cannot afford to pay for employees with benefits and training and would prefer an established expert who can do the work for a lower price.

You only need a few clients in order to make more than some of the companies are offering and much of the work can be outsourced anyway.

 

[yayman]

Guys don't get your hopes up; those numbers are a little on the high side.

Salary will be based upon your roll in the company (link builder, seo consultant, owner, manager, etc.) Most people will be in the 30-75k range unless you are the owner / manager / something special.

2011 SEOmoz salary survey http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-salaries-how-much-should-you-make
2012 SEOmoz industry survey http://www.seomoz.org/seo-industry-survey

And that's why you try to start your own biz

 

[Windmill]

Working for a specific company and doing SEO is neither safe nor a well-paying job. I would suggest striking out on your own. Many companies in these tough economic times cannot afford to pay for employees with benefits and training and would prefer an established expert who can do the work for a lower price.

You only need a few clients in order to make more than some of the companies are offering and much of the work can be outsourced anyway.

I agree with you its not safe.

I would but I also do private consulting on the side. With my job its a bucket-full of stress. The business I works for relies on its SEO income. Lesson learned, I will try to never take on a job like this again. I have tonnes of freedom/flexiblity but I have peoples jobs on my shoulders. If they get penalised properly the business is sunk and jobs/lives will be ruined. Not a nice feeling. I try to switch off from that thought though.

If you're on your own, then you live and die alone. I'd much rather that.

I like my lifestyle though. Flexible job + income on the side = slightly respectable amount of money, but only slightly

What I really want, is to get out of the SEO game altogether. I don't view this as a long-term gig. Maybe for the next 5-10 years max? By then I want to move into something safer.

 

[reeze15]

Working for a specific company and doing SEO is neither safe nor a well-paying job. I would suggest striking out on your own. Many companies in these tough economic times cannot afford to pay for employees with benefits and training and would prefer an established expert who can do the work for a lower price.

You only need a few clients in order to make more than some of the companies are offering and much of the work can be outsourced anyway.

Thanks for your generous reply my post. yes I think about it to open SEO company. the problem is, my country not well known about SEO. They prefer social network such as facebook to invest rather then SEO.

So, I think it is unsafe step for me to invest for opening new company and search for potential prospect@clients. Because they are not well educate about SEO. I don't think they want to invest $400-$1000 per month just for SEO. I decided to take some experiences gaining customers and keep contact with them before open a self SEO company.

Any ideas for this and I hope you all can give good ideas for me =)

Thanks!

 

[Windmill]

I remember when I read Tactikal's thread and he was pulling in like, $1,000+ USD per month per client (small businesses) on a 1 YEAR contract (lol) and they were apparently "oh THATS COOL". I don't know where these clients exist. It could be a regional thing but such clients don't exist here. I signed a client today that likes to chuck money around to buy fancy cars but do they want to pay for SEO? Hell no!

Then again perhaps they were large businesses. In which case I'd run pretty damn far away. I once got contacted by someone who had a business pulling in like 500k each year, and they were looking for ways to increase it to 5 million, with their eyes very much focused on seeing what SEO could do for them. HELL NO, I ran away as fast as I could and let all of the other SEO guys fight it out amoungst themselves for that contract

 

[TheRealRazzy]

$1 - $XX,XXX,XXX?

It's hard to say since a lot of us won't openly say how much we make.

You can average what everyone says they make but are you getting an accurate assessment? Probably not.

 

[the_demon]

I think not everyone necessarily believes or understands the salary amounts I gave (or maybe you do?)... To you guys who are outside of America / Canada it's not an impossibility to hit this amount of cash... You have to learn how to market yourself, have a very strong command of the English language (for international business), and network with the right people.

I turned a $10 investment on my first domain name and a dream into let's just say over $100,000/yr. I'll admit it took me a few years to get to that point, but I started off as a young teenager looking to take on the world with little money, no job, and all while attending high school and then college.

FACT: I quit college after 2 years because I realized my expected job salary was $54k/yr and I had already made more than that within 6 months or so.



I'm not some super genius MIT grad ( although I always wanted to be ) I'm like so many of you are now... Young, motivated, and determined to succeed! Just put your mind to it and the rest will follow!


Some tips that led to my success:
- Reading every ebook, forum, IM related thing I could get my hands on
- Some web programming skills
- Having the idea to partner up with web firms who did not offer SEO <-- this was HUGE to my success
- Business audio books (audible.com , great site)
- Reading books on deception/seduction help you understand when people are bull shitting you and how to handle the situations as they arise
- Learning how to automate and outsource various aspects of my work
- A smart phone, so I could always stay on top of things
- Specialize in something, but if you can't be good at something find someone who is to work with you


Anyways, I hope this provides inspiration and maybe even some guidance for those of you struggling to climb to the top of the "financial latter" so to say.

 

[vitaliysem]

I live in Toronto and used to do sales for an SEO company where I got most of my knowledge But apart from that on linkedin I saw a lot of businesses paying 90k+ a year on contract basis

 

[Expertpeon]

Considering that I target 20-30k/yr for my self-paid S-corp salary (despite AGI of around 17 times this in reportable US income this year, or more), I'd say the IRS actually believes this is a fair salary for SEOers (they also were fine with those numbers for 2011)

 

[seoactive]

$1 - $XX,XXX,XXX?

It's hard to say since a lot of us won't openly say how much we make.

You can average what everyone says they make but are you getting an accurate assessment? Probably not.

If we all work in the same physical environment and location, that I can understand. I dont quite see a point hiding you salary here especially when hardly anyone here knows (or cares) who is really behind the 'username'. Just my 2c

 

[TheRealRazzy]

If we all work in the same physical environment and location, that I can understand. I dont quite see a point hiding you salary here especially when hardly anyone here knows (or cares) who is really behind the 'username'. Just my 2c

lol, have you seen some of the threads with titles similar to "How much do you make online?"

It's troll central haha.

 

[seoactive]

lol, have you seen some of the threads with titles similar to "How much do you make online?"

It's troll central haha.

I see where you are coming from, but 'how much you make online' and 'average salary offline in US/Canada" are different. At least so far, we can see some pretty accurate inputs and opinions. Obviously, if someone wants to troll, I cant stop them.

 

[psytrance]

$5k a month; so thats around $60k per year. Thats what I was thinking too. So I guess "SEO specialist" position isnt worth a lot these days then.

As far as i know... Companies have offshore workers and consultants/team leaders/seo specialists that know what to do and control everything.

 

[desfigurel]

I see what you mean, but on the other hand, our living standards here are high, so it all balance out. With respect, if you make USD and spend it in third world country, you can get much more stuff than we do.

That's true in many cases, but also way off mark in other cases. Just to give you an example, for a 4th gen iPad you guys pay $499 (the cheapest model, 16 GB wifi) and I pay $711 for the same exact model (through official local store). And that's the case for much more products. Does that still seem cheap to you, as a price in a 3rd world country with the average salary 10 times lower than US?

 

[Expertpeon]

That's true in many cases, but also way off mark in other cases. Just to give you an example, for a 4th gen iPad you guys pay $499 (the cheapest model, 16 GB wifi) and I pay $711 for the same exact model (through official local store). And that's the case for much more products. Does that still seem cheap to you, as a price in a 3rd world country with the average salary 10 times lower than US?

Yeah it's fair to compare electronic prices around the world for US tech companies.

When I was in Austria fibre was cheaper (a lot cheaper) than in the US... and you could get it anywhere. Good luck getting 100mbps in basically any US city at all. You also have a lot cheaper cell phone services.

I'm always shocked that people bitch and moan about European prices. France is outrageous as is Italy, but the Netherlands, Germany and Austria I find quite affordable. They're also fantastic countries so. Beer is also about 50% as expensive in Germany (and around 1000% better when compared to 2 times as expensive US beer) than in the US.

Also the only way to get cheaper US good prices is with a free trade agreement, so you should encourage your nation to sign one if you want cheaper goods. Just expect to get reamed by the USA in a lot of other ways.