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Its always better to know in advance what you can expect
from a career in SEO.
Some Good Reasons to Choose SEO as Your Career
1High demand for SEO services
Once SEO
was not a separate profession – Web masters performed some basic SEO for
the sites they managed and that was all. But as sites began to grow and
make money, it became more reasonable to hire a dedicated SEO specialist
than to have the Web master do it. The demand for good SEO experts is high
and is constantly on the rise.
2A LOT of people have made a
successful SEO career
There
are many living proofs that SEO is a viable business. The list is too long
to be quoted here but some of the names include Rob from Blackwood
Productions, Jill Wahlen from High
Rankings, Rand Fishkin from SEO Moz and many
others.
3Search Engine Optimizers make
Good Money !
SEO is a
profession that can be practiced while working for a company or as a solo
practitioner. There are many jobboards like Dice and Craigslist that
publish SEO job advertisements. It is worth noting that the compensation
for SEO employees is equal to or even higher than that of developers,
designers and marketers. Salaries over $80K per annum are not an exception
for SEO jobs.
As a solo SEO practitioner you can make even more money. Almost all
freelance sites have sections for SEO services and offers for $50 an hour
or more are quite common. If you are still not confident that you can work
on your own, you can start a SEO job, learn a bit and then start your own
company.
If you already feel confident that you know a lot about SEO, you can take this
quiz and see how you score. Well, don't get depressed if you
didn't pass – here is a great checklist that will teach you a lot,
even if you are already familiar with SEO.
4Only Web–Designing MAY NOT be
enough
Many
companies offer turn–key solutions that include Web design, Web development
AND SEO optimization. In fact, many clients expect that when they hire
somebody to make their site, the site will be SEO friendly, so if you are
good both as a designer and a SEO expert, you will be a truely valuable
professional.
On the other hand, many other companies are dealing with SEO only because
they feel that this way they can concentrate their efforts on their major
strentgh – SEO, so you can consider this possibility as well.
5Logical step ahead if you
come from marketing or advertising
The Web
has changed the way companies do business, so to some extent today's
marketers and advertisers need to have at least some SEO knowledge if they
want to be successful. SEO is also a great career for linguists.
For
somebody who comes from design, development or web administration, SEO
might look not technical enough and you might feel that you will downgrade
if you move to SEO. Don't worry so much – you can learn a LOT from SEO, so
if you are a talented techie, you are not downgrading but you are actually
upgrading your skills packages.
7SEO is already recognized as
a career
Finally,
if you need some more proof that SEO is a great career, have a look at the
available SEO courses and exams for SEO practitioners. Well, they might not
be a CISCO certification but still they help to institutionalize the SEO
profession.
Some Ugly Aspects of SEO
1Dependent on search engines
It is
true that in any career there are many things that are outside of your
control but for SEO this is a rule number one. Search engines frequently
change their algorithms and what is worse – these changes are not made
public, so even the greatest SEO gurus admit that they make a lot of
educated guesses about how things work. It is very discouraging to make
everything perfect and then to learn that due to a change in the algorithm,
your sites dropped 100 positions down. But the worst part is that you need
to communicate this to clients, who are not satisfied with their sinking
ratings.
Probably
this will change over time but for now the rule is that there are no rules
– or at least not written ones. You can work very hard, follow everything
that looks like a rule and still success is not coming. Currently you can't
even rely on bringing a search engine to court because of the damages they
have done to your business because search engines are not obliged to rank
high sites that have made efforts to get optimized.
3Rapid changes in rankings
But even
if you somehow manage to get to the top for a particular keyword, keeping
the position requires constant efforts. Well, many other businesses are
like that, so this is hardly a reason to complain – except when an angry
customer starts shouting at you that this week their ratings are sinking and
of course this is all your fault.
The SEO
professional and customers both need to understand that SEO takes constant
effort and time. It could take months to move ahead in the ratings, or to
build tens of links. Additionally, if you stop optimizing for some time,
most likely you will experience a considerable drop in ratings. You need
lots of motivation and patience not to give up when things are not going
your way.
Black
hat SEO is probably one of the biggest concerns for the would–be SEO
practitioner. Fraud and unfair competition are present in any industry and
those who are good and ethical suffer from this but black hat SEO is still
pretty widespread. It is true that search engines penalize black hat
practices but still black hat SEO is a major concern for the industry.
So,
let's hope that by telling you about the pros and cons of choosing SEO as
your career we have helped you make an informed decision about your future.
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Thanks...very helpful.
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