Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is being required and utilized a long time since, but it was not always as highly professionalized as nowadays. SEO Services professionalization has grown hand in hand with Google popularity and the increasing difficulty to position a website in top rankings for relevant and targeted keywords.
Given the high prices for publicity in other media, demand for search engine optimization service has notably increased, up to becoming an indispensable activity for every website wishing to become a stable business with an affordable budget.
The main business models for professional SEO nowadays are described below.
In-House SEO
The main benefit for having an SEO professional in the office is that he/she must dedicate exclusively to optimize the website and position it at the top rankings. The SEO professional will familiarize with the project and will clearly understand the goals of your business and the needs of the potential customers. As the man in charge for SEO, his main task will be to improve rankings, increase targeted web traffic and optimize the website to increase convertions.
The bad news is that, if you are a professional SEO, the growth of your expertise will have a limit, without any more challenges than applying your skills to the particular project you are working on full-time. This tends to be boring in the long run, you end up always repeating the same analysis and using the same tools over and over. However, those who just love the peace of a stable job, find this one very attractive.
Professional growth at the hierarchical level is practically zero when you are dedicated to an In-House SEO job full-time. Nonetheless, you can improve your economical situation by agreements based on positioning goals, so the company will not deplet your enthusiasm and will keep you highly motivated.
Search Engine Positioning Agencies
These companies are usually comprised by programming teams, analysts, link builders, copywriters, etc. That is, a group of individuals capable of jointly create and build everything necessary to achieve the customer goals. For many of these companies, time is spent more on generating monthly performance reports to track progress and quality, than doing the actual job.
One of the good reasons for working at one of these companies is that you learn teamwork, and you increase your expertise by learning from others about optimization and positioning. These companies will also send their employees to conferences and events (excellent opportunities for networking and link building), so you will incorporate collective knowledge and probably meet important people in your business area.
The problem of being part of an SEO company, is that in most of them, you have a strict deadline and budget, and many times the success of such companies depend on the success of their customers’ companies (and customers’ companies will not always work the way we want).
Working for a search engine positioning agency is very demanding and requires a special ability to track the progress for several projects at the same time and in an organized manner. Benefits for the SEO professional are usually the fixed salary income and a commission for achieving certain goals.
Independent SEO Consultant
In this model, you are your own boss, you have your own schedules, and you impose your own rules, your limits, logical working process, etc. Just remember that you need a great ability to interact with the customer and his development department, specially when the website modifications are not implemented by yourself.
When you are an independent SEO consultant, you are responsible for the success or failure of the website. This can be great for a customer and for you, if you succeed you build a name in your business area … or it can be totally lethal for the client, and at long last, for yourself.
The good thing about being an independent SEO consultant is that benefits can be abundant and the production costs can be low. On the other hand, you do not have support or critic eyes to evaluate your work and help you. You also need to do the everyday work, the nice work, the nasty work… all the work.
You should not forget that there are related financial and legal aspects of the business that you, as an independent SEO consultant must do yourself, and that requires a certain knowledge on the financial and legal fields. This also takes time and costs money.
Education, Training , Courses and Events
SEO professionals who give conferences or lead events usually earn a lot of money. Internet driven courses or program studies can be very profitable, however you need to build a name for you in your market niche and you need the acknowledgment of your colleges if you really want to succeed. You do not want people to remember you as the guy who screwed up the rankings of one hundred customers by giving the wrong advice in a course or in a book.
SEO professionals who give training are usually experts in the subject with several years of experience and hundreds of successful projects. They feature an army of scripts and tools developed over time, with the sole target of analyzing and storing data, and taking conclusions based on real cases.
Do It Yourself SEO
You are the owner of the website you are trying to optimize. You can be very creative in this regard and you are at the same time, the owner of the concept, so you know where to invest your efforts and when to accomplish a strategic turnaround if it becomes necessary.
You do not need anyone’s approval and you can dedicate all the time you want to the project, and you know that the project’s profitability is proportional to the success of your SEO implementation.
