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For those that might not be away, SEMPO recently undertook a SEM salary survey to benchmark salaries for professionals in this growing niche: http://www.sempo.org/news/releases/01-10-08. Whilst the focus was understandably on the USA marketplace and on in-house SEM, I feel that the content is useful no matter where you work. – UK or USA, agency or client side….
What it doesn’t really convey though, is the sometimes delicate issue of setting your own salary expectations.
IMHO, we don’t set our salaries, neither do our employers… This might seem a silly statement but our salaries tend to be determined by a more faceless and ubiquitous source otherwise known as “The Market”. Playing to the basic whims of supply and demand, this is a salary range that ebbs and flows just as surely as the tide at our shores.
To play the game effectively and to ensure that you achieve the best salary you can, it is important to temper these reports with some realism…. I have spoken to SEO’s with 6-12months experience who feel that they can demand £30k a year purely on the basis that their skills are in high demand… Sure…. They might get lucky but in my experience, these guys and gals are still looking for work 6months later but with a more realistic salary expectation…. Better to get it right first time and give yourself a wider pick of the opportunities that are out there.
To this end, research is paramount….. Spend as much time on this as you do on keyword analysis and you’ll never go far wrong… Scan the leading job boards and see what is available in your experience level however remember that, in the UK at least, age discrimination legislation now stops advertising stating “x years” experience…
Speak to leading recruiters and agencies… As they work on a commission basis that will want to secure a decent salary for you but won’t want to price you out of the market… You may not like what they have to say but sometimes tough love is the best type of love to give….. Take the advice on the chin, reflect on it and move forward.
Be realistic but push for the best deal you can…. None of us are charities and all go to work to earn money – strive to get as much as you can for the skill level that you have. Remember though, not to be too greedy…. Armed with confidence, realism and an appreciation of “The Market”, the bigger salaries will come as your experience and expertise grows.
Why not check out www.peopleinseo.com
This is a new human edited directory – very SE friendly and once established sure to drive some quality traffic to its members.
As the name suggests, this is for people and Companies working in the industry – whether it is freelance work, SEO software, training or major campaigns. Membership will be tightly controlled to ensure relevant content and the best possible chance of good quality “link juice” being passed to you.
Once established it will offer paid or reciprocal links only but at the moment you can register for free.
We all know that good back links matter – get your site listed now.
We’re conducting a little study here to attempt to gauge the general demand for SEO, PPC and SEM professionals in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
In England, it appears that London and Manchester are the two main SEO centres but what about Scotland, Ireland (North and South) and Wales?
Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Maybe you’re a jobseeker and are looking to move to a “hive of activity” or maybe you’re living a little off the beaten track and are finding it difficult to find local suitable employment?
Maybe you’re an employer or recruitment agency with a concentration of vacancies or staff in one location……
Whilst this one study is aimed at the UK we would be keen to get some information on the USA too.
Whatever your background we would welcome your thoughts on this….. Pinning down demographic data for the SEO/PPC market will help us improve our service and offering, hopefully benefiting all users of the site.
Regards…
When you look at seovacancies.com you will notice that it is exclusively focussed on the SEM, SEO and PPC market place. Obviously this is intentional as it is a niche board.
I know that I am stating the obvious a little here but it would seem that most of the visitors to the site are actively or passively looking for work – hence the interest and click through.
In our never ending quest to be the premier portal/job board of its type we need to offer more than this and need your help to do this.
Sure, we can study, analyse, make educated guesses, pin a tail on a donkey or even just draw straws but the best way to establish what content is required is to ASK….
To that end, we need your help…. What has drawn you here…? What will make you stay a little longer or maybe make your stay more memorable…? what would make you come back or even bookmark the site? As a potential job seeker what are you looking for in a job site? What would make you use it and recommend it to your peers?
If you’re an employer, you needs will be different but we need to hear from you too.
Please post your comments here, I promise we’ll take them all on board and implement as many of the sensible and viable ones as possible…..
We are pleased to announce the launch of our new logo that is being incorporated into the .com version of our site. This should be launched shortly and will include a exciting new CMS that has some pretty nifty SEO features.
Any thoughts on the new logo are more than welcome…….
We need your help……
We’re looking for a new web hosting Company ideally based in the UK but we’ll also consider a USA based supplier. They need to provide good reliable and secure web hosting with Debian Linux O/S and PHP5
Any good or bad Companies that we should know about? Please let us know!
In one respect the Google Sandbox is very similar to Father Christmas / Santa Claus… No; I don’t imagine for a second that Google will try and force their way down your chimney….. But many people do dispute whether it/him exists 
Having a nosy around the web today I found the following links that might be of interest to those not familiar with the phenomenon (Sandbox – not the big man with the beard).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_Effect
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google-Optimization-Help/Google-Sandbox-Frequently-Asked-Questions/
I’ll leave it up to you to decide one way or the other but comments are always welcome.
The perception is that the sandbox is an effort to prevent spam websites achieving a high ranking soon after launch – of course this can cause problems for legitimate sites trying to gain a credible presence very quickly.
The Google Sandbox filter is like a probationary period for a website. During this time, affected websites may perform badly in Google organic search listings against the more competitive terms.
There are many theories regarding this. One theory concerning the Google Sandbox is that it effectively extends the normal backlink ageing process, meaning that acquired backlinks offer reduced benefit for an extended period of time until the trustworthiness of any new website is established by Google.
More recently, some SEO experts dispute the existence of the Sandbox, preferring the theory that a new website has poor initial ranking purely due to a lack of trusted inbound links. Let’s not forget to consider bad SEO too.
As a industry, I personally regard SEO/PPC in the UK as being in it’s infancy. Certainly there are many established and professional agencies and freelancers etc that offer this service already but I feel it still has a long way to go.
To be more precise, I guess I should say that I think it is yet to be recognised as a career of choice by many. Countless academic institutions offer great degrees or similar with multimedia and computer based content but unless I am mistaken (and please correct me if I am wrong), the concepts of SEO only ever play a very small part of this (I’m not including SEO training companies in this).
This is my impression of the UK marketplace as it stands, I appreciate that the industry in the USA is far more established although I’d be keen to know if it has yet become an chosen career choice for those leaving academia…. Those living across the pond, please let us have your thoughts…..
Personally, I think SEO has a great future – if I didn’t, then www.seovacancies.com wouldn’t exist but please let me have your thoughts. Do you feel you can move up the career ladder in your current role or maybe onto bigger and better things within the industry……. Or are you an SEO who does it for the love and not the money and hasn’t really thought about what they will be doing in 10year time.
What about PPC? Why pay for results when you can achieve them organically? A controversial statement maybe but I’d welcome views from both sides of the fence!
Looked at your CV recently?
Considering looking for work soon?
If the answer is “yes” then you may want to have another look at your CV.
Does it really sell you and list your key achievements? One of the biggest criticisms recruiters have when looking at a CV is the lack of demonstrable results or responsibilities.
Which of the following sounds better:
“PPC Account Manager responsible for growing and managing client accounts” or “PPC Account Manager with responsibility for 7 of our 10 largest clients, managing monthly revenues in excess of £100,000”
They could be both the same person; which has more impact and is likely to secure that all important interview?
How about another…..
“Since joining I have played a key role in achieving high search engine rankings for our clients’ keywords” or “Application of on and off page SEO to achieve page 1 rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN for some of the most competitive keywords in our clients markets, examples include “seo vacancies” and “ppc jobs”.
Never lie on your CV, but always take pride in your achievements and never been ashamed to highlight them. You may think you can keep this detail for the actual interview but if you never get to this stage because of your CV how will your prospective employer ever find out?
Why not have another look at your CV – are you really selling yourself?
