Is An SEO Career Right For You?
An SEO career is not everybody's thing. It's still pretty new, having only been around since the mid to late 1990's, and it changes so fast, the learning curve never ends.
However, I've been doing this since 2004, and I can tell you the pros and cons of doing this for a living.
The Pros Of An SEO Career
If you love change, enjoy the challenge of keeping up with Google and are comfortable writing content, this is a great career field. Any good SEO who wants to stay gainfully employed should be comfortable with constant upheaval, as Google changes it's algorithm probably almost daily.
Great SEO specialists are also good writers. You'll be creating content for yourself, your employer or clients, depending upon if you're an in-house specialist or a consultant working for multiple, different organizations.
You can either enjoy the freedom of being your own boss by earning income as a consultant, or if you want a little more job security with benefits, you can hire on in almost any company of decent size to just maintain one website, blog and associated social media accounts.
If you're comfortable working both alone and with a team, this is a good career to be in. Sometimes you'll be flying solo on optimizing pages, and at other times, you'll be part of a larger team developing website requirements.
Project management skills and the ability to work without supervision are key things to get and be good at. Most companies still don't really understand or know anything about search engine optimization, so you'll really be the "go-to" person who has to set the pace and provide leadership in search engine marketing.
The Cons Of An SEO Career
If you don't like change, are comfortable with doing the same thing the same way all the time, this is not the best career choice you could make. None of us are really using processes and strategies that worked four or five years ago. The internet and the technology changes all the time, and those drive new search behaviors, so you need to keep pace with how to evolve your SEO strategy.
You really do need to be able to make some decisions on your own and work independently. If this doesn't appeal to you, then doing SEO is not going to fulfill your life.
If your attitude towards writing content is less than enthusiastic, I wouldn't advise you to do SEO. We write constantly. Sometimes we dream up the content and other times we are directed as to what to write. The ability to write well is critical.
I'm comfortable with change. My motto is "Semper Gumby" - always flexible. It keeps me from going insane when Google rolls out an onerous algorithm penalty that has severe implications for a business.
I like working on my own as well as with teams. I love to write. I'm fascinated by how search continues to evolve, since nobody really knows what paths it'll take a year, two years, five years from now. That' s the beauty of this career field. Or curse, if you prefer!
If you're interested in doing SEO as a career, but don't know how to get the basic and advanced skills, let me teach you how to get going. I have a three day training course that will get you level set. I even show you the things you need to do to get that first, all important client.
Until the next time, stay safely between the ditches!
All the very best to you,
Nancy
Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
