Demand, success and profit

It wasn’t that long ago that Search Engine Optimisation was not considered a separate career as most web masters practised some basic SEO.  As websites began growing and became a means to make money, it become necessary to hire the services of dedicated SEO experts rather than leave it to the web master.

SEO is a viable business, there is not question about it and the demand for SEO expertise is not diminishing.

SEO can be practiced either by an individual or in the employment of a company and salaries for SEO employees are on a par with that of developers or marketers while individual SEO practitioners generally make much more.  Freelance SEO experts usually charge by the hour.  It is quite an easy profession to do as your own business, it is just a matter of getting clients and away you go.

Web designing is not enough

Many clients expect their site to be SEO friendly when they hire someone to develop and design their site, so if you can offer both web design and SEO expertise in your portfolio you will be a very valuable professional.  But this is not always mandatory and there are many companies who need to hire just SEO experts which no design or development involved.  Yet, every designer or developer has to have at least some knowledge of SEO tactics and visa versa.

There are some developers or administrators who may think that SEO is not technical enough for them to make the move toward it, and instead of feeling like you are downgrading, adding SEO to your portfolio will actually upgrade of your skills base.

If you need more proof take a look at how many courses and exams are available for SEO practitioners, all geared toward institutionalising this profession.

Even SEO has ugly aspects

Every career carries with it things outside our control, yet with SEO you can almost guarantee it.  Search engines are always changing their algorithms and never make them public which leaves even the best SEO professionals having to make educated guesses half the time.  This can be very discouraging because as soon as you feel you have mastered one aspect of SEO, it changes and you are back to the drawing board once again, trying to explain to your clients why something isn’t working or why their rankings are sinking.

SEO has no fixed rules either, at least no written ones which means you can work hard trying to follow what you think are the rules while getting nowhere with the search engine. It doesn’t help either that they are not obliged to rank high sites even if you have made every effort to get optimised.

SEO takes patience, constant patience which many clients don’t understand and hold SEO experts responsible for what they perceive as lack of results. You need to understand that your efforts will take time to pay off; this is not a career that offers immediate gratification, if indeed any.