So I just came across this blog. Code: http://www.allthingssem.com/seo-career-bad-move/ and was wondering what some of the older guys thought about choosing SEO as a career. In the article the guy mentions that it can be hard to gain respect and move up in pay in the SEO field. I got an internship lined up for a prestigious SEO company in my area and I want to go career with it. I'm 22, majoring in Advertising, and I'm going to graduate in December. I'm kinda at a crossroads in my life right now, I have to start making some adult decisions. Some of what the guy is saying makes sense and allot of the comments agree with him. What do you all think? wow I need to proofread that title is horrendous
take the job, learn how the company does seo to make money for clients, then do the same thing for your own money sites. also, don't make your life decisions based on what somebody wrote in an article. define your outcome, your reason why you must create that outcome, then take action to get the outcome.
If you are doing advertising for a major I would be more inclined to go the PPC / media buy route - SEO entails a lot of technical maths type stuff and automation / programming stuff rather than strictly generating traffic and converting it into a profit. You have to do a lot of number crunching on the traffic side before you ever get to the actual conversion side, which is more what advertising people do. "SEO" is going to be less and less of an industry in the future IMHO as the algos get more and more difficult to game and the top serps are sewn up by the large companies with large budgets. The time to make your money as an independent SEO is NOW, before it's too late. In the future we will have more new media advertising types rather than SEOs. The focus will be on holistic traffic generation and conversion, of which SEO is only a part. There are already plenty of openings for new media specialists at the big agencies.
Anyone that says SEO is a bad choice is a dummy IMHO. SEO is the future! If you can not use SEO to make you money then there is something wrong with you. What is the one thing people want online? To make money right? And how do you make money? By getting traffic and what does SEO do? Get you better ranking that generates traffic. You just have to add various combinations of various skills (marketing+seo+sales for ex.) $$$$. Either you can make money working as SEO and trying to climb up the ladder (stupid move imho) or you can learn SEO work as SEO as long as it takes for you to become an expert then do your own sites and invest into yourself. I am currently searching for SEO jobs, and if I land one, then it will be for 1 year or much less just to get some extra capital (and I will only accept a senior position) to invest into my own projects. Lord knows I have researched keywords and I have about 2 years worth of keywords lined up to work on lol. Love this game man!!!!!!!!!!! If I had to go down the "career" route (I hate following the masses) then SEO would def. be the one for me In short go for it bro, learn from it, maybe take up a sales job, then start your own company either offering SEO services or building your own sites and ranking them by hiring a small team.
Do SEO for your own website and make money for yourself is the best !! Don't work for SEO company. It sucks. Be your own boss, man.
dear sir, i can proofread your title for 0.0001 dollars. just kidding.Dave,you got to remember that apart from working as a professional,you can create a portfolio for yourself over time and then start providing services directly instead of working for others by showing off.There is so much opportunity for seo professionals nowadays and for those who work as freelance or have their own little company,tthe profit margin is gonna be high.While you are at building a clientele,you can create money making sites and let them gain traction over a few months. But keep in mind that being a seo means you are gonna have to keep up with changes happening all the time.That is the way it is gonna be.
Dude SEO is the the future ! Online Marketing is big and will get bigger every day . I have an internship coming this summer and I am going to to get one on a internet marketing firm even tho I am studying software engineering I think the best place to learn about the aspects of how to market your skills is on the filed itself plus if you are any good with SEO and you think you can really surprise your boss and clients with your skills. Just go for it , your reputation will go viral in no time I have seen similar cases here in Montreal . and PS: an SEO/SEM salary is around 250K in North America ( Read That online) And in Europe Online Advertising is getting more and more popular .
Yea, i say go for it, but learn different types of SEO but try to stick with white hat if u plan to SEO for a major company, u don't wanna get in hot water later if things should hit the fan.
Thanks for all of the responses guys, I sorta figured everyone would say "work for yourself man" lol. Of course someday I want to work for myself but coming right out of college I do want some health insurance and some steady income. I only have one site set up right now and I SEOed it up to position 2, its what got me the internship (thanks BHW) and its bringing me about a dollar a day. I'm just too busy with school to do much more than one right now. that was interesting to hear, I majored in advertising because I fail at math. I don't mind being on the conversion side of things, that's more of what I'm good at anyway, sales. I just don't really want to get into sales, I just don't really like talking to people. I have no problem talking to people, have many friends, not shy or socially awkward, i'm just an introvert I guess, always a pretty serious. Ever since I was a kid though I've been able to persuade people, so I figure persuasion online would be a good route. Anyway thanks for all of the advice guys. It'd be interesting to hear some insight from someone who has worked at an SEO company...
Being in college myself, I'd advise you to go light on the IM stuff. There are so many opportunities on campus and if you've been doing IM for a while then you have an upper hand on pretty much anybody wanting to make money. This stuff will help you just about anywhere, and it's a great source to get some easy startup capital if you want to invest in something bigger.
1. SEO is Moving In House Sometimes this is true. Plenty of clients I've worked for have had their marketing and IT department try and fail miserably at SEO, PPC, etc. I think people who have tried in house SEO are easier to sell to because you can explain why their efforts didn't work. 2. SEO is a Dead End Maybe if you're some kind of grunt. 3. R-E-S-P-E-C-T I get results, can give answers without hesitation, will rattle off an unnecessary amount of technical details and people treat me like I'm God. 4. SEO Could Become Obsolete Just plain ignorant. 5. No Barriers to Entry The article says anyone can get good at SEO. That's just not true.
well spotted! your observation made me go and have a read for myself and interestingly, one of the first commenters on that thread (by the name of terry reeves) revisited it some time later and heres what he subsequently had to say: I thought I would chime in again on this post as I now have some perspective to look back on. As of the original date of this post, I had just started as an in-house SEO with hopes of great things to come. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered the reality of my situation. There was really no real commitment to my employer from the top and about a year later, I moved on to providing SEO to small business owners who could not or would not bring SEO in-house. This market is huge and growing. At a time when the economy could not look worse, my business has literally doubled. SEO is only just beginning to be understood by many small business owners and the demand for increased sales through non-traditional sales channels seems to be on fire right now. Most small business have relied on newspapers, radio and yellow pages to attract new business. That is changing BIG TIME right now. SEO has provided me with an income and regular business opportunities that no other field could, considering I never finished college. If you learn and prove you can do the job, SEO can pay you six figures easily working from a home office. The only in-house SEO I will ever do again is in my house. I do some on-site work locally but that pays even more. The best part is the chain of command is me. ive got to say when i saw the heading to this post here on bhw by daveguy, i thought the unanimous response would be YES: get paid to learn and enjoy a fruitful career in your own business once youve learned some new tricks and have been paid for the privelage, so i was surprised to see a couple of dissenting voices. for what its worth, i think seo has to be one of the most amazing career opportunities in the world right now and im being serious. if you learn your craft and implement your skills well and i mean implement them very very well and you can earn at the same level as a professional footballer in the english championship division (£15k / £20k per week), or a harley street consultant (£6k / £15k per week), or if you only do it very well, you'll earn at a similar level to a partner in a suburban law firm (£2.5k / £5k per week) if youre exceptional, you can earn a city traders bonus (£1m+ p.a.) a premier league footballers pay packet (£2m+ p.a.), or even a rock stars royalties (£5m+ p.a.). i kid you not. tell me where the average man who isnt amazingly athletic, stunningly handsome, or brilliantly musical is ever going to get an opportunity like that short of spending several years in university, followed by several more years of professional training and then hoping to get into a law firm / being appointed by the general medical council / being recruited by a 'city' brokerage etc etc? seriously, if you were my son and you were asking me that question, id be saying TAKE THE JOB, LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN ABOUT HOW THEY DO BUSINESS, RE-EVALUATE YOUR GOALS IN TWO YEARS TIME, KEEP BUILDING YOUR OWN SITES IN YOUR SPARE TIME, KEEP RE-VISITING BHW AT ALL TIMES and have fun being a young man in one of the most dynamic industries the world has to offer.
Good Idea, but in starting you should have to work with them though the situation which you have expressed is right but its also important to know what skills you have and what have to learned via working others.
Seo is imprevisible..today you can rank on #1 and make 1000E/day and tmr google can update the algoritm and your on #100 + and your ruined..just an example...get a job and do seo in the free time for extra money.
That is only if you have a site that is more black hat, If the site is an authority site it wouldn't drop.
Interesting, and it's what my instinct has been telling me but I was too scared to admit it. How long do you think we've got before it all becomes nearly impossible?
