The economy continues to be shaky, but executives at two top search marketing agencies believe Search Will Ride Out Storm During Downturn. During the third quarter of this year, both Didit.com and Reprise Media saw growth between 3% and 7%. While many companies are looking to trim budgets, search marketing budgets are generally staying intact and growing in many cases. Going into the holiday season, Steve Lagnado of Didit.com is forecasting a sizable seasonal bump of 10% to 15%. Lagnado added “We have yet to see any material impact from the economy. Budgets haven't changed. If they do, they'll probably increase." Because of the cost-efficiency and measurability of search marketing it continues to perform well during these hard times, and when confidence is restored in the economy, search will be well poised to make even bigger gains.
If you are interested in learning more about the SEO hiring process, take a look at the post on SEOmoz’s blog, Interviewing For SEO Jobs. Currently SEOmoz is looking for a new Search Marketing Apprentice, and Duncan Morris used this opportunity to walk you through looking for candidates. This particular position is fairly junior so their process won’t line up with every SEO position, but the concepts hold true for most SEO jobs. Because the SEO industry is still developing you need to look beyond the surface level details of your candidates to find the best fit. By optimizing every detail of the search process, including job descriptions and job advertisements, you will be closer to finding the best candidate possible.
Blogging is becoming more universal everyday. More and more people are starting their own web logs to talk about what is happening in their lives, their companies and their industries. Some people have even used their blogs and their blogging skills to develop careers. ReadWriteWeb recently conducted an informal survey on How Much Do Top Tier Bloggers and Social Media Consultants Get Paid? The sample set was fairly small, but their results definitely prove it is possible to make a career in blogging. At the base level, pay per post bloggers make around $40,000 a year. Full-time and In-house bloggers generally make more money with respondents averaging between $70,000 and $90,000, including bonuses. The bloggers at the higher end of this salary spectrum are usually also involved in the social media planning of their company. At the high end of the blogging world are the consultants. Social media consultants can command rates of up to $300 per hour, teaching companies about running blogs, building their reach, and taking advantage of new technologies. Although RWW only surveyed a small number of bloggers, their results prove that blogging is a growing profession which is earning some people some very real paychecks.
In a posting on SEOchick, Jane Copeland weighed out the pros and cons of an SEO degree in, SEO University: Should Academia Be Our Standard? Looking at her breakdown, there are definitely more cons to SEO becoming an academic field. Although an official SEO degree will create a more trusted foundation for the industry, it is too young for it to be carried out appropriately. Things are changing everyday, and if we attempt to over complicate things by forcing universities to develop courses, degrees, and qualified teachers we will end up worse than we are now. Jane makes a great point to say that if she was offered an SEO degree while she was in school, she would have passed on it. The idea of an SEO degree is very limiting for someone still figuring out what they would like to do. An increase in the number of quality SEO courses would benefit the industry, but a quality degree program is still farfetched.
That’s it for this week, check back next week for another update.
