People outside of the world of marketing rarely know what SEO is or what the initialism even stands for.
Within the industry, it’s a familiar term to all formidable marketers. Far less is SEO – search engine optimization – actually understood, though.
First, it’s important to understand that, while SEO stands for search engine optimization, it is also often used interchangeably to describe the people who do SEO (a.k.a., SEO professionals). An SEO – or search engine optimizer – does SEO. SEOs do SEO.
To avoid any further confusion, we’ll refer to the people who do SEO as SEO professionals.
SEO professionals are a special breed of marketers from many walks of life.
But there are some characteristics and experiences many of us have in common that I will attempt to organize as some of the most useful and shared professional qualities possessed by SEO professionals.
I’ll also cover what the career path to becoming one may look like.
How do you start an SEO career?
Historically speaking, most SEO professionals didn’t plan on SEO as a career – at least until recently (starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s). That was because they couldn’t, really.
Early in their educational journey, a marketer or digital marketer very rarely – if ever – declared, “I want to optimize websites and chase the Google algorithm for brands to revolutionize the way humans and businesses connect forever.”
The latter part of that dubious statement was probably similar to something many marketers-in-training did declare.
But getting there through website and brand optimization to gain organic visibility on a search engine was not likely the vehicle they had in mind at the time for accomplishing it.
It’s also rare to meet multiple SEO professionals who’ve forged the same path to becoming one.
But there are certainly overlapping journeys, professions and experiences.
Some common previous areas of expertise for SEO professionals that commonly intersection include teaching, journalism, various math-focused professions and the obvious traditional marketing focuses.
But as the worldwide web evolved the way it has over the last 30 years, opportunities to help brands and people in new ways arose in the marketing realm. And some became more specialized – and lucrative – than ever.
Organic search, paid media and social media are all suitable channels for successful marketing strategies. And they indirectly or directly were created (or adapted to be used) for the growth, prominence, and usefulness of websites.
Today, as a result, high schoolers and college students are able to set their aims on a digital marketing gig specializing in SEO. This will continue to become more common as secondary-education institutions evolve with the world’s needs, job demand, and technology.
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Possible SEO career routes
Like most careers, there are multiple directions an SEO professional can take.
It’s probably most likely to start at an agency, and that’s a wonderful place to kick off almost any career related to marketing (or design, account management, video
