A quick follow-up to to my note about the increasing demand for search engine optimization specialists:

Tim Dineen, Online Marketing Manager at job search engine Indeed, found out that California is the no. 1 state for SEO jobs. Meaning: On the US west coast, you’ll find the highest density of job offers for Search Marketing professionals. His findings are based on an analysis of the @SEOjobs Twitter account (great idea, by the way!), which is populated via a feed from Indeed.

Here is his map:

Onward Search did a similar analysis, which was based on the SEMPO member roster – and came to the same conclusion.

I was curious to find out about the “demand” for SEO and did a quick (non scientific) research with Google’s great tool “Insights for Search”. As the chart shows, the search volume for the query “SEO” in California has been far above the national average in the last 90 days.

Conclusions: 1. There a lots of choices for California based businesses that are interested in hiring an SEO Consultant or SEO agency. 2. The competition among SEO professionals in this state will continue to increase. Hopefully, this will also lead to a more mature industry with higher education and ethics standards.

P.S. If you’re interested in becoming an SEO professional or are just curious to learn more about this industry, check out the following links:
- SEOmoz: How To Get An SEO Job?
- SEO Journal: 10 Tips To Making It In The SEO Community
- Onward Search: Where In The World Is SEO Talent?
- Reality SEO: SEO Salaries, Jobs And In-House Surve
- SEMPO: In-House Search Marketing Pays Well, But Not Dot Com Hype Levels

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The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life. (Bill Gates)

Although the cofounder of Microsoft referred to computer technology in this quote, I’m sure it can be applied to search engine optimization as well. SEO has become part of our everyday life. The (non SEO savvy) internet user might not notice it – but the SEO pros do everything to “make it fit” for their clients. Too much of a stretch? (Feel free to disagree with me by posting a comment…)

As I noted many times before, SEO is such a fast paced industry. So many news items, so many updates and changes every day.

Following a list with things I learned in the last 30 days about search engine optimization, internet marketing and social media:

1. I would like to visualize the basic SEO process? Is there a great chart which helps me to understand it?

Yes. Aaron Wall from infamous SEO Book created a impressive and very comprehensible chart, IMHO. The original PDF version can be downloaded here.

2. Is the bounce rate really a search engine ranking factor?

Yes. At least Top SEO’s must now take bounce rate into account when designing and refining a site, SEO Blackhat writes.

3. Does a non-indexed page pass on PageRank?

Surprisingly, yes. Dutch Search Marketer Eduard Blacquière received the answer through the LinkedIn group LinkedSEO. It said: “NoIndex is a request to not show the page in the results. PR still passes. NoFollow, PR doesn’t pass but does accumulate”.

4. How can I get 800,000 visits from Google.com in just 7 days?

Well, I don’t know if we’re ever going to make it to the homepage of Google. But the “Big G” linked to its new phone with T-Mobile at the end of October. According to Search Engine Roundtable, more than 800,000 unique visitors went to that page during the week the link was active. In one day, more than 233,000 unique visitors were registered. One can only dream…

5. Is the BrowseRank the new PageRank?

Maybe. Marios Alexandrou from All Things SE explains BrowseRank, a measure developed by Microsoft with the purpose of outperforming Google’s PageRank, in a very interesting post.

6. How do I build authority links (including .edu .gov .mil)?

Saad Kamal reveals the secret in a very useful post. First, in order to find authority links: spy on your competitors Find out which .edu/.gov/.mil are linking to your competitor, with a command like “linkdomain:www.google.com site:edu”. Then get Links from .Edu/.Gov/.Mil blogs on your Niche, with a command like the following: “Keyword+inurl:blog site:.edu”. Saad offers many more great tips.

7. Can SEO and user generated content really be a good match for each other?

Yes. Laura Callow delivers great insights on that, backed up by research and data. Among others, she writes that online comments and reviews posted by the enthusiasts are second only to word of mouth as a purchase driver for all web users.

8. Which are the Top 25 most powerful web directories?

Paul Teitelmann from Search Engine People provides a fantastic list. It includes directories like World Site Index, Dmoz Zilla and Octopedia.

9. How to I avoid to screw up a change of my domain name?

Andrew Heaps from Latitude has some valuable tips. Among others: Phase the transition. And don’t forget to tell the search engines.

10. Which are the best books on social media marketing?

Lee Odden from the Online Marketing Blog wrote a great post with over 20 Must Read books about social media marketing. It includes “Cluetrain Manifesto“, “Groundswell”, Seth Godin’s “Tribes”, James Surowieki’s “The Wisdom Of Crowds” and Paul Gillin’s “Secrets of Social Media Marketing”.

I am aware that this list could be ten times longer. Did I miss any of the “big stories” in SEO, in your opinion? Let me know!

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“There’s no two ways about it – SEO is hot again”, writes Rand Fishkin, CEO of the Seattle based SEO company SEOmoz, in his latest blog post. He observes that not only his firm has received a higher than normal volume of requests for consulting, but also various job sections for SEO professionals are thriving.

The employment trend chart by job search engine Simply Hired shows a 147% increase in SEO jobs in the last one and a half years alone:

  

Seo trends

Seo jobs

Fishkin lists 8 reasons why Search Engine Optimization is becoming more attractive to companies in a down market:

1. The Web Outperforms Other Sales Channel
2. It’s the Right Time to Re-Tool
3. Paid Search Drives Interest in SEO
4. SEO is Losing its Stigma
5. Marketing Departments are in a Brainstorming Cycle
6. Search Traffic Will Be Relatively Unscathed by the Market
7. Web Budgets are Being Re-Assessed
8. Someone Finally Looked at the Web Analytics

While I never would dare to compare my one man consultancy with a well-known SEO agency like SEOmoz, I personally can confirm that there is an increased interest in SEO. Although, as Search Engine Watch summarized recently in a great post, “the SEO process still requires an introduction at the onset of any presentation.”

Indeed, the majority of companies still seems to have a lack of knowledge when it comes to SEO. They either want you to be the miracle worker (”Can you help me to rank no. 1 in Google for keyword XY in one week?”), or prefer a paid search campaign only. As Rand explains perfectly in his post, SEO being discovered because company delivers more bang for the buck in times of marketing budget cuts.

Additionally, Forrester’s Kim Le Quoc and Jaap Favier stated in their report titled“How to Stimulate Consumer to Buy Online”:

“Creating preference with online buyers starts with search engine optimization (SEO). As search increases in complexity, marketing leaders need to move their teams toward advanced search marketing programs.”

These are my personal 4 tips when talking to a potential client:

• Consider SEO, because it doesn’t require a huge investment (unless you’re working with a top-tier agency that charges an excessive amount of money);
• Have an audit performed of your site to see where your site;
• Implement a simple rewrite of your URL structure. Often times, it can be enough to move your site into a position to be indexed by the search engines;
• Check to make sure that your navigation and pages are properly built with text links and easy to understand text. This can really help improve your site’s accessibility to search engines.

Do you have other suggestions?

I think most people in the industry agree that search engine optimization is both art and science. Although the SEO professionals have to adapt their techniques constantly due to the algorithm updates and changes of the big search engines, the many of the ‘core wisdoms’ in SEO remained the same over the last couple of years.

If your work in the SEO industry or are an SEO client, a webmaster or just web geek who is interested to learn how much he knows about Search Engine Optimization, check out my 8 favorite website to test your SEO knowledge:

SEOmoz Expert Quiz

SEOmoz Expert Quiz is the best online destination for testing your knowledge in search engine optimization, in my opinion. It includes 75 questions with a wide range of topics. You be awarded with a badge at the end. Depending on your final score, you’ll be an “SEO Novice” or “SEO Master”. Highly recommended.

SEO Test by SEMPO

The SEMPO SEO test is a good online quiz with some tricky questions. Although I expected that the official organization of Search Marketing professionals in the United States would have offered a more sophisticated test with a wider range of topics, it still give you a good idea where you stand with your SEO knowledge – especially, if you consider to enroll in one of the SEO or SEM online courses offered by the SEMPO institute. This online test has room for improvement with its 20 questions, but is still worth checking out.

Knowledge Tests By SEOconsultants.com

The Knowledge Tests by SEOconsultants offer 5 sets of questions for five different knowledge domains: “General”, “Google Guidelines”, HTTP Status Code”, “Internet History” and “Search Engine Trivia”. A good mix or simple and challenging questions. Answers come with useful explanations.

SEO & SEM Quiz by Vertical Leap

The SEO & SEM Quiz by the UK base search marketing company Vertical Leap is short and sweet – and requires some good insider knowledge about the search marketing industry. The 25 questions include some fun stuff, like “‘MSN Dude’ is a member of which forum?”. You’ll receive your score at the end, but unfortunately no explanation which the right answers are.

SEO Quiz by About.com

The SEO Quiz by About.com is a great online test which is embedded in the ‘web search’ section of About.com. Every question comes with a link list of topic related resources and related articles. This is a phantasitc quiz to test and expand your knowledge at the same time.

SEO Quiz by Webconfs.com

Webconfs.com, infamous portal for SEO tools and webmaster utilities, offers a good SEO Quiz with 10 questions. Despite its very generic design, the search engine optimization test includes some tricky questions and well-written, comprehensible explanations for the answers.

SEO Cartoon Quiz

The SEO Cartoon Quiz by Tel Aviv based internet marketing company AIMS is probably the most entertaining SEO test you’ll find on the world wide web. In the 15 ‘questions’, you have to guess what the cartoons represent. You don’t really test your own SEO knowledge – but it’s a lot of fun!

Needless to say that you need to take this tests with a grain of salt. Due to the fact-pace nature of the industry, SEO knowledge remains something fluid.

Did you find additional SEO online tests I should add to this list? Let me know!

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