Breaking Into Search Marketing.
A few people have asked me in recent months (more like three people) about my chosen career field, search engine marketing (SEM). Since I started in this field eight years ago (I can't believe it's been that long!), people have always been interested in understanding what it is that I do exactly.
"You make websites show up higher in search engines, I get that," they say. "But how? And how does one learn to do this? Where do you get started?"
For me, I learned when I joined an agency. I started off by learning a part of SEM called search engine optimization (SEO). The focus of this is to make websites show up higher in the search engine page listings where you don't have to pay to be. The key to success in this area: content. Specifically:
When I look for talent to work on my SEO teams, I look for people with the following characteristics:
Surprisingly, many people think of SEO as super-duper technical. It ain't. We say it over and over again in the SEO world, "Content is King." If you think there is a way to "game the system" through technical strategies... There is. But it sure as hell shouldn't be your main priority. Encouraging clients to build out content that speaks to user interests is critical. So whether they have a "technical" background, I could truly care less about. In my experience, people who are inquisitive can learn what they need to about the technical pieces.
And besides, the clients I tend to work with have development teams who "live and breath" their sites. They know everything about what's going on in the pages of their site. It's my job to WORK WITH THEM, not show them up in front of their bosses that they aren't doing a good job with SEO. I can't count the number of times I have worked with people in the industry who feel it is their job to be complete jerks to client development teams. It's unnecessary and usually inaccurate in terms of what we're there to do.
So how does one get started?
Best place is to do it at an agency. From the beginning. Yep... You read that right. You want to learn SEO? I recommend you go entry-level at an agency.
"But... I'm already a number of years into my career... I don't want to have to start over!"
In some cases, you may not have to. It depends on what kind of experience you bring to the table. But starting at an agency will provide you with the opportunity to learn what you need to about best practices in the industry. And search marketing people tend to progress quickly in the field. If you're good at what you do, you can move up the ladder faster than in other areas of marketing.
Bottom line: It's hard to get a job in search marketing (specifically SEO) without having learned the basics. And the best place to learn it is by doing it at an agency. And the only way to get in at an agency is to usually start at the bottom rung.
Finding an entry-level job at an agency doing search marketing is EASY. We can't hire people fast enough. Especially if you live in San Francisco or NYC.
"You make websites show up higher in search engines, I get that," they say. "But how? And how does one learn to do this? Where do you get started?"
For me, I learned when I joined an agency. I started off by learning a part of SEM called search engine optimization (SEO). The focus of this is to make websites show up higher in the search engine page listings where you don't have to pay to be. The key to success in this area: content. Specifically:
- Do you have content on your web pages?
- Is it in a format that can easily be scanned and then indexed by search engines?
- What is the content about?
- Does that sync up with how users search for this type of content?
- What are competitive sites doing?
When I look for talent to work on my SEO teams, I look for people with the following characteristics:
- Can they write?
- Are they good with project management?
- Are they curious and inquisitive?
- Do they like to research things? Specifically, user behavior?
- Are they good at extracting stories from data they study, and then able to draw conclusions and explain it to a client?
- Do they have a technical (coding, HTML, developer) background?
Surprisingly, many people think of SEO as super-duper technical. It ain't. We say it over and over again in the SEO world, "Content is King." If you think there is a way to "game the system" through technical strategies... There is. But it sure as hell shouldn't be your main priority. Encouraging clients to build out content that speaks to user interests is critical. So whether they have a "technical" background, I could truly care less about. In my experience, people who are inquisitive can learn what they need to about the technical pieces.
And besides, the clients I tend to work with have development teams who "live and breath" their sites. They know everything about what's going on in the pages of their site. It's my job to WORK WITH THEM, not show them up in front of their bosses that they aren't doing a good job with SEO. I can't count the number of times I have worked with people in the industry who feel it is their job to be complete jerks to client development teams. It's unnecessary and usually inaccurate in terms of what we're there to do.
So how does one get started?
Best place is to do it at an agency. From the beginning. Yep... You read that right. You want to learn SEO? I recommend you go entry-level at an agency.
"But... I'm already a number of years into my career... I don't want to have to start over!"
In some cases, you may not have to. It depends on what kind of experience you bring to the table. But starting at an agency will provide you with the opportunity to learn what you need to about best practices in the industry. And search marketing people tend to progress quickly in the field. If you're good at what you do, you can move up the ladder faster than in other areas of marketing.
Bottom line: It's hard to get a job in search marketing (specifically SEO) without having learned the basics. And the best place to learn it is by doing it at an agency. And the only way to get in at an agency is to usually start at the bottom rung.
Finding an entry-level job at an agency doing search marketing is EASY. We can't hire people fast enough. Especially if you live in San Francisco or NYC.
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