How to Get Your SEO Career Started

Intro

If you happen to be considering a career shift and are looking for a job that would strike a balance between complexity and profitability, SEO might be a viable option. While its basics are relatively easy to grasp, relevant job opportunities abound, and career prospects are promising, there are some factors to watch out for, such as high competition and the constant need to upgrade your skills and knowledge. This article will help you decide whether SEO is your dream job—or "ditch-job".

What Is Actually SEO?

SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’. In essence, the name speaks of itself—it’s the way of helping websites be more actively searched. To be more precise, SEO specialists are responsible for making a particular website more visible to search engines so that they display it more often, thus engaging more users and, accordingly, increasing the profitability of the website.

Omitting the technical details, search engines work essentially like registrars. They have a database of online content associated with particular keywords; thus, when a search query is typed, they return links to the web pages that correspond with the keywords in the query. Therefore, the idea of SEO is having your content associated with as many relevant keywords as possible.

Keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive and accurate guide to SEO but a sort of introduction so that you know what the job entails. Thankfully, there’s a lot of easily accessible information—ranging from how search engines work up to the peculiarities of Fintech SEO.

What Should I Get Ready For?

Supposing you decided to jumpstart a career in SEO, what would be asked of you? Among the essential "hard" skills are:

• Web programming (HTML, CSS and JavaScript),
• Content writing and producing (in order to make quality original content),
• Marketing and web analytics (to assess the effectiveness of your efforts to boost the website’s popularity).

And, given that online is rapidly evolving, and new solutions come up quite often, keeping abreast of the industry is a must, too.

As for "soft" skills, teamwork and good communication are essential, since SEO is a collective effort. You will have to work with web developers on improvements to be made to the given website; the marketing and web analytics team regarding the effectiveness of your efforts; and other popular web resources for backlinks (that is, links that lead to your website). And, don’t forget about good organisational skills and the ability to work under stress and meet deadlines.

Where Do I Start My Career From?

Ideally, you’d have to have some SEO experience before getting in the act. You could look for internships with local firms or established corporations, whichever is more available to you. However, competition is running high, so you’d better keep your eyes peeled and not squander any opportunity that might come up. As is the case with any new career, asking professionals you’re acquainted with for advice never hurts; they could also help you with recommendations should they be needed.

When you’ve been given the SEO ropes, the time comes to find a seo job. The companies where you’ve interned might be your point of entry, but you shouldn’t rely on them. Thankfully, SEO vacancies are aplenty, since virtually any website wants to be more popular. The problem is, as has already been said, the high level of competition—therefore, you should approach job-hunting with creativity.

Your starting salary in SEO wouldn’t be high; in the UK, for instance, trainees earn around £18,000, and specialists some £26,000. As your career progresses, management and executive positions would be well better paid, in the order of £35,000 up to as much as £130,000—which would take years to achieve, however. Your salary would also depend on how effective you’d prove yourself to be and whether you’d take up a full-time or part-time job.

The choice is yours. If you’d like what a career in SEO is about, there’s literally nothing preventing you from starting it right now!