What You Can Expect from a Career in SEO

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En provenance du cours de University of California, Davis

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

2563 notes

University of California, Davis

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

2563 notes

Cours 1 sur 6 dans Specialization Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Ever wonder how major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo rank your website within their searches? Or how content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users? Welcome to the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This course is the first within the SEO Specialization and it is intended to give you a taste of SEO. You will be introduced to the foundational elements of how search engines work, how the SEO landscape has changed and what you can expect in the future. You discuss core SEO strategies and tactics used to drive more organic search results to a specific website or set of websites, as well as tactics to avoid to prevent penalization from search engines. You will also discover how to position yourself for a successful career in SEO should this subject prove interesting to you. We hope this taste of SEO, will entice you to continue through the Specialization.

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Getting Started & Introduction to SEO

Welcome to the first week of the course! In the lessons that follow, you will discuss and define the foundational overview of SEO and explore types of careers and salary expectations within SEO industry. By the end of this module, you should be able to define Search Engine Optimization and explain the basics of SEO as a business (as well as how SEO shapes the Internet itself.) You'll also be able to explain the differences between three main SEO job types, and be prepared to choose a career that best suits your current goals.

Introduction1:05

Introduction to SEO5:30

What You Can Expect from a Career in SEO6:18

Rencontrer les enseignants

Rebekah May
SEO Manager & Lead SEO Instructor, Lead Qual
UC Davis Division of Continuing and Professional Education

Now, that you've brushed up on the fundamentals of SEO, we're going to use

this next lesson to talk about pursuing a career in SEO and set the stage for

upcoming lessons that will feature interviews with various SEO professionals.

Now, that we know a bit more about what SEO is and its important to a business's

visibility online, let's discuss what you can expect with a career in SEO.

Working as an SEO requires a particular set of skills and traits.

SEO is very technical in nature yet also incorporates a bit of psychology and

creative thinking.

A solid technical foundation for SEO is a must, and it's crucial to

understand how websites work, how search engines work, and how browsers work.

From a psychology standpoint,

it's beneficial to have a decent understanding of marketing psychology.

So, you know what attracts users and what converts users.

So, you can choose appropriate keywords and

write copy in a way that engages the users of your website.

Many find that SEO lends itself well to people with a competitive nature,

as the art of optimizing a website is about beating competing websites in search

rankings and in traffic.

SEO as a profession has grown rapidly.

There are not a lot of highly qualified candidates,

but there are a great number of jobs looking for someone with SEO experience.

These jobs can either exist in-house, where you work directly for

a company optimizing their web properties, or

at an agency where you work for multiple clients.

Alternatively you can become a consultant and work for yourself.

There are pros and cons to each choice which we will cover, but

first let's take a look at career outlook.

A recent 2015 study by Conductor has found that SEO jobs are up 18% and

salaries are rising rapidly.

This is an update to their 2012 study, which showed that demand for

SEOs was high even then.

There has been continued demand for qualified talent worldwide.

SEO titles vary but there has been a rise across the board in salaries.

The most common SEO job titles are seen in this graph.

And corresponding pay is anywhere from 52 K a year, to over 100 K a year.

You can download the full study on their website at the link provided.

There are a lot of reasons for this growth, but

a large part of it is that SEO is continuing to evolve.

It now goes hand in hand with other digital marketing disciplines

such as content marketing, public relations and even social media.

To be a successful SEO, you'll need to effectively work with people in

other departments to get things accomplished.

You also need sales and presentation skills to pitch to clients or

make internal stakeholders understand the need to invest in key SEO initiatives.

Depending on your role, a large part of your job will be educating and

evangelizing SEO to internal staff or clients.

It's important to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of SEO and

any opportunities you see.

In addition, SEO requires great foresight, and a proactive approach.

With frequently changing Google algorithms, one must do continual

testing and use out of the box thinking to uncover new ranking methods.

It becomes too easy to get caught up in a reactive loop and

make hasty changes to your site each time an algorithm update occurs.

With the proper foresight, your site will be prepared for

what updates are thrown its way.

Now that we know more about titles and

outlook, let's take a deeper look into various career paths for the SEO.

There are three main paths you can follow.

Let's start with as working as a consultant.

Woking as a consultant makes you your own boss.

You have the ability to set your own schedule, determine your own prices, and

work with whatever type of client you wish.

The downside to consulting is that you have to find your own clients,

pay your own taxes, and do your own marketing

in addition to ensuring you have enough work to pay the bills.

In can be difficult to get started as a consultant, especially as a newcomer to

the field, because it helps to have a portfolio of sites you have improved and

referrals from satisfied clients.

One way to begin building up a portfolio of sites and

references is through volunteer work.

I recommend looking for non-profits who can use help and

reach out to them about your services.

You can also find many volunteer opportunities on sites like LinkedIn.

Another way to build up your portfolio, is to create your own sites and

use those sites as examples for how well you can optimize a site.

If you are familiar with affiliate marketing,

this is a great option that allows you to practice optimizing for

competitive phrases while earning a bit of money on the side.

The downside is, you do not earn any references you can use.

The next option is working in-house for a company.

As an in-house SEO, you are likely to be the main point of contact for a company's

web properties and in charge of all the optimization efforts of their sites.

Depending upon the size of the company, you may work alone or

be part of a small team.

Usually SEO will fall under marketing related roles, and

you will likely report to a director of marketing.

Though it is not unlikely SEO will fall under other departments, such as I.T.

as well.

In growing technical communities, such as the Bay Area,

you will see a lot of opportunities to work at startups.

Startups tend to have a bit lower pay because they provide other benefits,

such as stock options.

But these can be great opportunities to launch a career in SEO.

And if it ends up successful, you'll have a great site to include in your portfolio,

and you could easily take off as a consultant if you wish.

The third option is working at an agency.

Working at an agency allows you to interact with a variety of different types

of clients and work on different types of sites in a variety of industries.

This can expose you to a wider variety of SEO issues and

solutions which allows you to gain a lot of experience.

Working at an agency is fun because it can be more like consulting

where it breaks the monotony of working on the same site day in and day out.

But it also provides more security and a regular paycheck,

like an in-house position does.

We have interviewed SEOs in each position to ask them what they like best and

worst about their jobs.

And what a normal day looks like to them.

Feel free to watch these videos at your own convenience.

That completes the video portion of this lesson.

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