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Sphinn Home » SEM
A Career in SEO? Bad Move.
SEM News Source: http://www.allthingssem.com
Published: Dec 18, 2007 - 06:51 am
Story Found By: northrock 1517 Days ago
Category: SEM
If you find the world of search engine optimization (SEO) interesting and you are considering stepping into it as a career goal for 2008, you should really give it some serious thought beforehand. The profession is maturing now and is full of challenges that you may not find so exciting. After reading this you may wonder why I do SEO for a living. I guess I’m just a sucker for punishment.
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from emanuelh 1517 Days ago #
Votes: 1

A bad move indeed for most people wishing to enter a high-tech career without sufficient education or capital. For almost every popular search query the relevance score of the page ranked at, say, # 10 at Google is rising rapidly. SEO workers have learned the trade either as an extension of website development or independently but in conditions of low or moderate competitiveness. They, and their clients or employers mistakenly view it as a technical profession troubled by some uncertainties that will be cleared up by Matt Cutts soon.In fact SEO is not a technical profession at all but something very different. And SEO candidates are not prepared or trained for it at all. There’s a longer article of mine on this subject at http://sphinn.com/story/18731. 

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from awaken 1517 Days ago #
Votes: 0

SEO is only one aspect of an overall web strategy.  It is just one form of generating traffic.  Sure, if the enignes decided to kill SEO, then some folks would lose their jobs, or will need to adapt.  But, those of us that understand internet marketing have nothing to worry about.  I actually think that it’s a great time to get involved in our industry.  Not only SEO, but webmastering as a whole.  I work in-house, and I know that I can’t just call myself an SEO.  I work on ppc campaigns, tweak html, analyze site statistics, tweak landing pages, etc. etc...  But, it was my experience in SEO that opened my eyes to all of these other avenues.  Now, I feel like I’m a well rounded web marketer, and that translates into job security.  So long as I retain the ability to generate revenue for my company, myself, or my clients; I will never be worried about being out of a job.

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from emanuelh 1517 Days ago #
Votes: 1

I’m afraid that the inhouse "web marketer" is in a precarious situation much more than the independent web marketer. The inhouse worker may fail to get a tripling of his budget when the top pages listed in Google for the relevant popular search queries get higher and higher relevance scores. Same for the PPC costs spiralling up due to more efficient competitors entering the auction. Face-lifting the company’s website and producing highly-colored weekly statistics may not compensate for this.   

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from scottclark 1517 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Like many other things in the US business world, long-term "strategists" are often given lower priority and have to multitask many roles. SEM will go to the bottom of the list because, simply put, decisionmakers don’t understand it.  The first problem is that for many SEO/SEM are not considered "long term strategies" so when immediate results are not visible in 2 weeks, it’s time to put that on the "later" list and get Ms. Susie SEO to quit "linker building or whatever she does" and get to work fixing the printer in room 302.I think many SEM professionals will start to "feather their own nest" with home-grown SEM-heavy businesses that use their skills for a competitive advantage like informational products and drop ship industries.

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from seofactor 1517 Days ago #
Votes: 2

My rebuttal good sir.

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from sphinndr 1517 Days ago #
Votes: 1

I love getting to a post where i might not agree with and find that there is a rebuttal already.  Even though I may know seofactor I didn’t know that this ruffled his feathers...so to speak.

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from jennosborne 1516 Days ago #
Votes: 1

I disagree with you but I spunn this because I love that you got a good discussion going.  Way to go!My opinion is that just because a company brings SEO in-house doesn’t mean that they will be able to do it well.  It’s very difficult to find one person who has all of the skills needed these days.  More and more it takes a team with a diverse set of skills if you want to rank well for competitive terms.  What I am finding these days is that company’s need one in-house person with knowledge of SEO, SEM, etc to interact effectively with the the outside vendors.

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from BrettBorders 1516 Days ago #
Votes: 2

The three letters "SEO" as we now know it will come and go... but there will always be work for smart digital marketers with good reputations.

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from peterdaly 1516 Days ago #
Votes: 1

Career?  What’s that really mean in the web world?  I  have been working as a web professional since 1997.  Based on my experience so far, any "career planning" best have a 4-5 year time horizon.SEO and web application security testing, my current areas of expertise, are in areas that were not even really thought of 5 or so years ago (more or less.)  My career?  I’m fairly certain what I will be doing 5 years from now will be very different than what I am doing today.In our world, "career" has a fairly short time horizon compared to other industries, and must be viewed in a more broad perspective.  I am a Web and Internet Marketing Professional...the details of which are in constant flux.

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from SpostareDuro 1516 Days ago #
Votes: 0

In house: I choose to keep my checkbook humble. There are still plenty of small business owners that need me to do their SEO work while wearing my shorts and flip-flops from the comfort of my living room.Dead end: I like the challenge. Not the GP of pats on the back or a few extra pennies. But, if you’re right about SEO moving in-house, then it seems reasonable to believe that a ’Path’ will soon follow. Especially once they realize SEO is what keeps them on the map.R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Once again, I pay my bills. Anyone who doesn’t respect me...Touche’ SEO obsolete: As changes occur, the SEO stays ahead by moving with the tide. Maybe SEO AS WE KNOW IT will change, but I don’t see cast into the landfill in my lifetime.No Barriers to entry: Thank goodness. I must’ve been confused when I thought that SEO was hereditary. If all it takes is little glove match...

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from shor 1516 Days ago #
Votes: 0

SEO isn’t a career or a profession. SEO isn’t in-house versus agency. SEO is a <a href="http://www.stuntdubl.com/2006/10/11/seo-theory/">school of thought</a>. If you want to make money online, who is the go-to-guy? Driving traffic, improving usability, increasing conversion, that’s what we do. SEO is a dead end in 2008? SEO is a choose your own adventure book with way too many good endings. Start an agency, follow the corporate road to VP or Chief Search Officer  (senior executive level SEOs are everywhere), become an online entrepreneur, form your own start-up... heck you could tour the speaking circuit full time or get hired by a search engine. If your job is to rank #1 for a single SERP then yes, you could become obsolete one day but your average SEO is responsible for a bit more than that.

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from emanuelh 1512 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Well shor I’ve read your article and it reminds me of the times when medicine was all about bloodletting. Actually a school of thought on bloodletting. But now we know of course that the science and practice of medicine had then possessed only a tiny fraction of the knowledge it has today. SEO is in the same situation. Not because it is a fledgling science - it is neither science nor art, as some like to print on its visit card - but because what it would like to know is kept secret by the search engines. Very effectively. So, keeping in mind the quite recent history of medicine, SEO as a school of thought should better be about what cannot be known and about how to act intelligently in this peculiar situation. In fact, if we strip SEO of all that has to do with website design and development and focus only on what has to do with getting top rankings, we find SEO in the small category of professions characterized by decision-making in conditions of minimal information. Without the bloodletting of course.Speaking about schools of thought I would like to add that there is one relevant school of thought. It’s called complex systems theory, a distant cousin of information theory. And information theory, by the way, started by measuring the information you don’t have.    

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from FLSEO 1405 Days ago #
Votes: 0

IMHO >> I am not relying on the future of "SEO" ... Internet marketing as a whole will eventually be dominated by the media moguls in the same fashion that print and video media have been ... The opportunities for small to mid sized firms will always be there ... at least at a superficial level, but  the profit margins will also narrow to the point where few will be interested in pursuing it any longer ... IMHO ... Florida SEO

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