SEO as Career – Scope, Future, Income & Pros / Cons

It was 2005 September when I entered the Online field through a webmasters forum called as the Digital Point which gave me all the basics and insights of the Search Engines business. Also this was the time when i started to understand how search engines work and how we can optimize our websites to rank better in the search. Finally after around 5 years of full-time experience I have a full time team of SEO’s, Content Writers who manage around 100 different websites and make sure that all of these rank in better placements in the Search.

This article is a continuation to our article of Career as a Full Time Blogger – Scope Returns Future.
Whenever we plan to hire a SEO, we need to ensure that the guy has practical experience rather than having some basic knowledge on On-page optimization. Hence this field can pay you a lot of money if you have real good hands-on experience and knowledge, and pay you nothing if you have just some bookish knowledge. Its always important to have a great experience on everything related to website management before applying for a job.

Scope as SEO Employee / Job

If you plan to work for some company as a SEO Employee or Consultant then there is not much scope because this field is not just about submitting a website to search engines or web directories but its about understanding how you could really make a website rank into the top and how does all this stuff work. Most people have a idea in their mind that SEO is a very easy job which can be handled easily following which they apply for a placement in different companies to get a quick job.

95% of companies do not have any idea on why they have hired a SEO, because they just hire someone to perform SEO and do know have any planned approach for the same. Hence these so-called SEO Professionals would perform a few submissions to search engines and directories on the web. If you plan to work for some corporate as a SEO Consultant then its suggested that you should first get a experience in the industry for atleast 2-3 years and also continuously stay updated on the Search Industry by subscribing to SEO Blogs, News websites and discussion boards.

There is a huge scope in this industry as every web projects needs traffic from the Search, hence everyone is looking for optimizing their websites to rank in the top of the Search Engine Results. If you are looking into the future of this industry then you do not have to worry about its just growing and there is a positive trend for the same. You just have to stick to the work and then you would get success following which you can also shift to developing your own websites and ranking them onto the top instead of working for someone else.

Income of SEO or Salary options

One of the most asked question by everyone who is looking to enter into this industry is the PayScale they would be getting. This is one area where i personally feel that Asian countries like India are very poorly rated because Indians get paid on an average of around Rs 95,771 – Rs 232,129 per year which is somewhere in the range of $2000 – $5000 depending on different factors like Years Experience, Employer Type, City, Company Size, State or Province, Certification etc

If you are in United States then the chances are better because companies offer better pays for SEO Professionals which range $32,312 – $49,257 [via payscale.com] making the overall income atleast 10 times more than what Indians are paid. This is mainly because if the higher budgets and bigger campaigns run for companies in order to attain higher rankings in the Search.

Once someone opts for these jobs, the next available option would be of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Manager which offers them with salaries upto $70,000 per year plus the work includes managing a team all of who work on the optimization campaigns. These payouts are quite better than the jobs offered in different industries whole the work scope just increases every year.

One of the Major disadvantage of getting into this field is that if you do not update yourself with the latest trends then you could loose your job easily because the whole work depends on the performance and without results the deals or work would not continue.

Now the advantage in this job or work is that you can also earn in six figures being a Search Marketing Consultant or a SEO Director leading a bigger team and handling the whole agency. There are many other Pro’s or Con’s with this which you can find yourself if you are into this industry for atleast a few years.