SEMPO and ClickZ are partnering to find out how much money search marketers are earning. The Search Marketer Salary Survey 2013 can be accessed over here and is open for all agency or in-house search marketing professionals. This survey is an annual industry wide survey to assess the current state of compensation of search marketing professionals in relation to region, experience and responsibility. The variables the survey hopes to collect include SEO and SEM jobs, from entry level to executive; salary variations by geographic markets, the total compensation package beyond salaries s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: In House | SEM Industry: Stats

Once upon a time, I had a lot of faith in SEO firms. I sought out top companies in the industry and paid thousands of dollars. What I got in return were minimal results, and what turned out to be minimal effort. If you're an e-commerce manager, you might be surprised to find out how easy it is to save money on the "low hanging fruit" of SEO by shifting part, or all, of your SEO efforts in-house. There are 5 major parts of SEO that you can move in-house, and save your company between $20,000 - $120,000 dollars a year. Keyword Analysis When I used an SEO firm, I was charged between $ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | In House Search Marketing | SEM Industry: In House

Want to make a recession-resistant career move? Consider going to work as an in-house search marketer. According to the second annual SEMPO in-house salary survey, compensation for search marketers working on behalf of a single organization actually increased during the past year, despite a turbulent economy that took a toll on many other types of online marketing. "With the economy in the longest recession of decades, it’s heartening for our annual in-house salary survey to substantiate that search engine marketing is the employment bright spot in sales and marketing," said SEMPO Preside [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | SEM Industry: In House | SEM Industry: Stats | Top News

Are you an in-house search marketer? If so, SEMPO would like your participation in its second annual in-house salary survey. This survey is for in-house providers only but is not limited to SEMPO members. The 21-question survey takes 10 minutes to complete, and will be open until February 20th. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | SEM Industry: In House | SEM Industry: Stats

In-house search marketers are doing quite well financially, according to salary survey results released by SEMPO today. Respondents reported a wide range of salaries, from virtually minimum wage to those exceeding several hundred thousand dollars per year, with the average falling in the $60-70,000 range. And not surprisingly, experience was a factor in how much search marketers earned. "While there are a good number of six figure salaries people need to understand all the salary levels represent reality," said Duane Forrester, co-chair of SEMPO's In-House SEM Committee and Lead SEO Program M [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | SEM Industry: In House | Stats: General

If you're an in-house search marketer, you may have had the experience of awakening one morning and realizing that you have a legitimate career. Wow! Your high school guidance counselor never mentioned this gig, I'll bet. Only a handful of years ago, in fact, this career path never existed. Most folks would have simply labeled you a computer nerd—today they know better. You are not a nerd. You are a geek—a search geek, in fact. Your mornings are spent staring intently at a curious mix of screens, surrounded by fresh coffee, stale coffee, and a few books with odd titles. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | In House Search Marketing | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: In House

I must admit, I wasn't very perceptive when I received my first in-house SEO prospect call back in 2000. The caller recognized the value of his organic search results and the business need for integrating SEO functionality internally. I did not. That's because in those days, I thought it made much more sense to outsource. Rewind to salad days We were green in those days. As Shakespeare once said, "my salad days,/When I was green in judgment, cold in blood..." In the late 1990s, we were at the height of the cloaking controversy; white and black hat didn't exist yet. We didn't have any prov [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | In House Search Marketing | SEM Industry: In House

The ultimate goal of any in-house search marketer is for search engine marketing to become ingrained in the way a company does business, similar to marketing, advertising, and public relations. It’s rare for search marketing to gain this much visibility, but we are starting to see a few organizations successfully embrace SEO beyond IT and marketing. When we talk about incorporating search marketing into the way that you do business, we imagine an open flow and exchange of ideas between marketing, IT, and SEO. This article will challenge you to think about how search engine marketing can [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | In House Search Marketing | SEM Industry: In House

In a recent project document floated my way, everyone's role was listed with many sections explained in extreme detail—programmers were given explicit instructions on expected functionality, designers were shown painstakingly built visual mockups... and the section for search said, "Duane to cover SEO." Basically, "Oh Shaman of search, work your mystical powers to great effect on traffic and revenues—and do it cheaply, please." After years of preaching about how we need to work on projects to include search up front, I find myself wondering if my messages have been heard and unde [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | SEM Industry: In House | SEO: General

MarketingSherpa has just released the fourth annual edition of its Search Marketing Benchmark Guide. The Guide is a comprehensive benchmark for all things related to search marketing, including things such as expected search spending for 2008, how search ROI stacks up against other tactics, difficulty in SEM staffing, new ways to evaluate clicks and click fraud, and many other topics. One interesting aspect of the research this year focused on the challenges to bringing search in-house. If you're thinking about bringing your search engine marketing in-house, how hard is it? The report featur [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | SEM Industry: In House | Stats: General

Education is very important to in-house search engine marketers—it's the only way you can hope to keep up with the scrappy entrepreneurs who are constantly pushing the envelope with new tactics and techniques. There are many routes that you can go to get your education, but you should understand that in a constantly changing field, education needs to be continual. While you're learning you'll be using your new knowledge as part of your daily job. But what else can you do with that education to further the goals of your department? First, let's look at the places that you can get yo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | In House Search Marketing | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: In House

Marshall Simmonds of the New York Times is, to me, the SEO of the hour right now. For an industry often mischaracterized as doing nothing but blog spamming, Marshall's work as chief search strategist to institutionalize SEO as part of the regular editorial production at the New York Times lead directly to last week's news that the paper was opening up its archives without charge, since it already gains so much free search engine traffic that leaving the archives open will mean more traffic and thus higher ad revenues. So those of you who are cursing those SEOs out of ignorance of what they can [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: In House | SEO: General

One of the biggest realizations that hit many in-house search marketers is the simple fact that they cannot do it all themselves. Despite the best of intentions and the strongest work ethics, the fact remains—you are but one person and there are only so many hours in a day. If you are fortunate enough to have a dedicated team of search experts working with you, your team can still easily hit a wall. Eventually something will come up, or time and circumstances will conspire to leave you staring at the calendar or out the window with one seemingly frightening through rattling around i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | In House Search Marketing | SEM Industry: In House | SEM Industry: Outsourcing

While the ideal for in-house search marketing is to perform all tasks related to search marketing internally, the reality is that there are times when help is needed from outside sources. There are several reasons for this, but when it does happen, the prime motivator should be that the relationship between the company and the outside vendor be as beneficial as possible for everyone involved. Let's first look at why you may need to bring in an outside agency. Training. Expanding the knowledge of the team is a vital task, either in general terms, in a specific area, or for a specific tool [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | In House Search Marketing | SEM Industry: In House | SEM Industry: Outsourcing

Private equity and investment firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) put out a new ad spending forecast, covered in MediaPost and the Financial Times. Driven by audience migration, the US Internet is anticipated to capture $61.98 billion and become the top ad medium in 2011. Traditional media will show slow, low single-digit growth while alternative media will grow at a compound annual rate of 17.4 percent during the forecast period. According to the MediaPost write-up of the VSS findings, consumers are spending less time with media overall and less time with "push" vs. "pull" media in particul [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | SEM Industry: In House | Stats: General

At the recent Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York, agency executives spoke candidly about their experiences working with search engine marketing (SEM) firms. What's working? What's not? And most importantly, how can agencies and search marketers work together to better serve clients? Here's a re-cap of "Outsourcing Anonymous: Why To Admit You Hired An SEM Firm (Or Not)," one of the many interesting and compelling sessions that went down at SES: Agency Transparency Sara Holoubek, a free-agent consultant, moderated the session. She asked the agency panelists to comment [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Conferences | SEM Industry: In House | SEM Industry: Outsourcing

An online business owner basically has two choices when it comes to their website marketing efforts. They can outsource it or they can do it in-house. Both of these options bring a number of secondary options to choose from and its up to the business owner to do what is best for his or her situation. Here is a rundown of the possible choices: Questions I need answered if I insource my search marketing: Do I do it myself? Do I have the time? What is my time worth? Do I have the knowledge and skills? Do I have the time to get the knowledge and skills? Is this [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: In House | SEM Industry: Outsourcing | Small Is Beautiful

The Natural Search Blog has complied a list of prominent SEOs who work within a company, in house work, rather than working for firms that specialize in SEO. Often SEOs who work within a company do not get as much recognition as those who work at SEO firms. In fact, a common SEO stereotype is that SEOs only work for SEO firms. The list contains well over 60 names that underscore that in-house SEO continues to be a growing space. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: In House