SEO Professional - payscale, etc

How many of you were or are professional SEO/SEMs?

I like this part

Many of us here would be considered experienced, with 2+ years of SEO.

What below would you qualify for, honestly?

Rand Fishkin - SEOmoz.com CEO

Pay scale article

 

Doing seo freelancing for the past 4 years makes me what ??

I don't like saying/calling people "experts" i'm a guy that has knowledge in SEO that's more like it Experts/gurus is BS

 

One person's "expert" is another person's BS'er.

There's a saying in the US; "If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullsh*t".

I'd rather dazzle them myself...

 

there's such a thing as VP of search marketing? That must only be in an SEO firm, I'm guessing?

 

Or a really big web-based company (like the one I applied for).

 

To be real honest, I have good experience in working with fairly large sites in US. I worked as SEO consultant and managed 3 SEO's (From Client side) but I never got more than 2000$ a month. The salaries which are mentioned above are seems out of world! Do real world people really pay this much? i am sorry for my ignorance.

I use to do lot of work, even I have to manage Adwords, Yahoo Search marketing and Affiliate accounts too. I did that exclusively for 1 year and 7 months and I enjoyed that, probably the best work in my long career. Now I am developing business for my own company, but don't mind working again if I am fit for any of the positions above with the prescribed salaries.

 

sipltech, so SEO pays only $2k in US ? Hmm...that must be a joke. You want me to say that they pay like secretary position or something, no wonder it's really hard to find experience guy. $2k for SEO in US = peanuts. I have LOT of offers from Russia for $2k/month and more. And for russian sites, with less compete, SE = Yandex.ru (not so strict rules and so on). And still it's a PROBLEM to find workers, cause they make more on freelance. English SEOs paid like $3k in Moscow.

sipltech, is it ok to share the company for which you worked ?

 

But recently saw many guys who wants to be in top for $199 for 10 keywords, is it a joke ? Probably so.

"* Supply/Demand
The dot-com collapse was certainly not a one-time event, and Web2.0 shows plenty of bubble-like signs. Even in the interim, there have been small fluctuations (mostly seasonal) that has made SEO more/less in demand by both agencies and firms. "

Hmm...there is always will be more demand that supply for SEO. Just competetion who play with it by prices think it's like webhosting

 

I could see these wages being fairly accurate for the US, at least in the bigger markets. I'm pretty certain that the SEO Specialist is accurate.

I agree. $24K per year would be low in the US. The cost of living is much higher than in other countries and that would be considered just few thousand above working at a fast food restaurant.

 

was the $2k/mo job *only* SEO? I'm making almost 3x that much, then again, I have a pile of other things as responsibilities (marketing duties, print ads/graphics)

 

4 hours work a day! remote assistance + Phone support I never been to office and still I dont go any where! All my job was to train the 3 SEO's of the company. Not bad!

I think 4 to 6 hour is max where you can deliver quality work. though i am spending a lot of time on internet but, I admit now a days productive hours are much less than time spent.

 

Well, here at seo.com (the best seo firm in the world) I doubt any of you dudes can sniff at what I am making.....

 

Those salaries do not seem that high at all.

 

I might have to see Rand for a job, this is my 9th year doing SEO and there's only a couple of spots between myself and SEOmoz for the term SEO.

VP/Director of Search Marketing looks attractive, however i think i just need to start charging more.

 

You do that!

I hope businesses continue to see the value of SEO's and pay accordingly.

 

Did you work in radio? I worked for at least 5 GMs that only cared about the BS...

Its always the guys who can talk a good show...Why isn't it the guys that do the best work?

For me, I have a tough time explaining things like SEO...and really don't understand it much myself. So in that respect, someone that can talk a good game could easily beat me for a gig...even though I have done SEO and that person hasn't

Don't these companies know you can have people on DP do SEO for a few bucks Just messing...

I think the theme of BEST BS is pretty universal...and leads to poor companies.

 

I dont know what this guy is doing here. No.1 company of the world, Dear go and search on internet there are 47 lac 80 k seo companies are there and tell me your turn over. so better use some other words.

 

True, i'm on the front page for just "SEO" and "SEO Company" and i don't see seo.com there with me... and i certainly wouldn't call myself the best SEO or SEO Company in the world.

But i will say it's the best domain name in the world for SEO, if i had that puppy i'd be #1 and not just page #1.

 

Exactly, good point.

Apparently that domain sold for $5m.

I assume you're earning less than $50k.

 

That's what was reported, however it was quite a lot less then that. Still it is indeed the ultimate domain for a SEO company.