Getting Your Foot in the SEO Door

Despite the sluggish year for the marketing world in 2009, the recession appears to have left the SEO industry relatively unscathed. Growth continued in 2010, showing that companies are continuing to shift their budgets from traditional forms of marketing activities to search engine marketing.

According to Global Industry Analysts, the global market for SEM is expected to reach $50.68 billion by 2015. In terms of online advertising, at the end of last year, the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) released a report stating that U.S. internet advertising revenue hit $7.88 billion for the third quarter of 2011, the eight consecutive quarter of year-on-year growth. As companies grow, so too does their need to find the right personnel.

Generally speaking, most SEO professionals I've met entered the industry after having worked in some other field. In most cases search marketing was never their chosen career path and I've heard some weird and wonderful stories about how some people made the move into the industry. I was working as a translator in Germany when I first crossed paths with SEO. I started out by helping my boss for a few hours with some link-building work, and after a month or so I was spending as much time doing SEO work as I was translations.However, as the industry grows, there will be more and more young professionals approaching the field directly. So how do aspiring young professionals get their foot in the SEO door? It's not an academic field as such, so qualifications and university courses are extremely thin on the ground. That said, Econsultancy, a well-respected company which publishes research and advice on digital marketing, does offer some recognised qualifications and training courses, but these don't come cheap.

Be pro-active if you really want to make that move into search marketing. Get blogging, or if you already have a blog, buy a domain name for it to start getting to grips with Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. Showing that you know your way around these tools will gain you big brownie points. Reading books has its benefits, of course, but the SEO industry moves and changes so rapidly that what you read last month may no longer be relevant this month. Another good thing to do is to read industry blogs to keep-up-to-date with the latest happenings in the field.

Practical agency experience is always a huge plus in the eyes of any employer and may even swing you that first interview. Apply directly to SEO agencies, explain that you are looking for experience and, if you are prepared to do so, even state that you are looking for some work on a voluntary basis to gain this experience. If you're looking for a place to get started, then take a look at our SEO guides to kick-start your SEO journey and let us know if there's any particular areas that you'd like us to cover!