Ask Kalena

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Dear Kalena…

I just read your article on SEM careers at Pandia and I have a strong feeling that you probably are the right person that I can air my career-question to.

I am Raj from Hyderabad, India and I am an engineering graduate. I worked as a Software Developer and am planning to shift my career to SEM/SEO. I have been reading as many article as I possibly could on SEO/SEM but unable to get that first break. Could you please answer the following questions for me?

1. Is it possible for a newbie on SEM/SEO to work remotely (from home)?

2. Where does a newbie make a beginning and how?

Regards

Raj

Hi Raj

There’s no reason why you can’t start a successful career in SEO and/or SEM working from home. As you’ve already read my “11 Reasons” article, you’ll know the benefits of gaining employment in the search industry.

If you need SEO / SEM training, there are plenty of options available these days, (including *cough* Search Engine College *cough*) but you should also start practising on your own sites and others as soon as possible. Hands-on experience is essential to competency in the field.

Once you feel confident with your newly acquired skills, offer to SEO sites pro-bono or for very little compensation, to help expand your experience. Charity or Not-For-Profit sites often need SEO services but don’t have the budget to hire experts.

Monitor industry job sites such as our SEM Jobs Board and join sites like Elance to bid for projects to gain freelance SEM work. If there is an appropriate opportunity in your location, offer to be an unpaid intern for a SEM agency for a month. The knowledge you will gain will be invaluable. Likewise, you could offer to do some voluntary freelance SEO or SEM work online from home for an agency you respect that is not necessarily in your region.

Review all the posts here in the Jobs and Salaries categories for more inspiration.

Best of luck!

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Hi Kalena

I have to write an SEO instruction document that will be translated into 5 languages and distributed to 4,000 business owners who have signed up for an industry-specific web template program.

The document will guide the business owners through the process of optimizing their websites by means of simple instructions and screenshots. Many of them are not computer or web savvy so it will be an exact step-by-step process.

In the end, the document may be just a dozen pages, and it may take around three days to produce (approx) – but my gut feel is that the value of the document goes beyond just man hours. I feel that I should be charging for my expertise as well as the value of the document to these 4,000 businesses. Anyone have any feedback or past experience here? I’m having difficulty putting a price on this job.

Thanks
Carolyn

Hi Carolyn

You don’t say whether you are writing this document as a freelancer or as a full-time employee of an agency. If you are being hired as a freelancer, then definitely you should be asking for a premium fee for your knowledge. If you’re an employee and your boss has commissioned the document, you should probably discuss your concerns with him/her and ensure that you are rewarded for the project in a manner that you think is suitable.

If the document is being sold to the 4,000 businesses, perhaps you can ask for a commission or a performance bonus of some kind?

You might also want to consider copyrighting the information as your intellectual property or making it available to your employer / client with distribution restrictions (perhaps using a Creative Commons license).

Hope this helps.

Job Title: Online Marketing Specialist
Job Reference #: 2464
Position Type: Permanent
Name of employer: The Body Shop
Location: Raleigh – North Carolina
Date Posted: 30 May 2009
Position description:

The Online Marketing Specialist will be a member of the E-Commerce Online Marketing team and will work on several aspects of The Body Shop’s online marketing programs in both the US and Canada. This individual will be primarily responsible for the daily management of the company’s affiliate program, Amazon store. on-site blog and social networking efforts. They will also be responsible for tactically supporting a variety of the E-Commerce group’s customer acquisition efforts. They will work with the E-Commerce management team to successfully drive marketing activity and measure results.

Primary Job Tasks/Responsibilities:

Overall

Manage all daily aspects of performance analysis and reporting for Affiliates, Amazon, on-site blog, social networking and new partnerships.
Responsible for budget management, accrual process, and spend allocation
Report performance on online media acquisition/retention efforts including spend, conversions, number of customers acquired and ROI.
Track and report on campaign results, data analysis, and hold weekly campaign status calls with partners. Develop key learnings to apply to upcoming campaigns.
Developing marketing strategies, time lines, and action plans specific to each channel.

Affiliates

Manage the extensive affiliate network working with LinkShare to drive improved performance. Work with Online Marketing Manager to develop strategy for refining program to focus on top affiliates.
Develop and execute campaigns targeting affiliates (trial offers, web site specials) to meet monthly sales goals.
Understand relationship between affiliate marketing and SEO, PPC activities
Stay up-to-date on current trends, developments in affiliate marketing and tactics of competitors.

Amazon

Drive sales in our Amazon store.
Provide creative direction to designer on banners for events and promotions.
Upload and manage creative, new products and store design.
Manage Amazon customer metrics – reviews, refunds and overall customer satisfaction.
Manage/Launch new shopping portals as necessary.

Social

Manage on-site blog and monitor online dialogues (blog posts and comments, user and professional reviews, forums, etc.).
Engage in dialogue with consumers in niche and popular social media communities.
Keep track of innovations in blogs, social networks, UGC outlets, social bookmarking sites, and other appropriate social media destinations relevant to the brand
Liaise with interactive agency on new event launches, blogger outreach, and campaigns to ensure flawless execution.

Other Responsibilities

Perform other related duties as assigned or requested.
Responsible for maintaining the ethical standards of The Body Shop including minimizing the environmental, health and safety risks in the workplace. Report potential risks, near misses and real accidents to relevant managers.

Skills

Thorough knowledge and understanding of key metrics and tracking for each assigned channel and ability to define and maintain critical reports.
Experience using Amazon to sell products within a business environment.
Experience with major social media outlets (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter), niche social media environments, popular message boards/forums, social bookmarking outlets (Digg, Delicious, Stumble Upon), video portals (YouTube, MetaCafe, Vimeo), knowledge place sites (Mahalo, Yahoo! Answers, eHow), etc.
Outstanding verbal and written communication skills.
Exceptional attention to detail and ability to effectively multi-task in a deadline driven atmosphere.
Familiarity with e-commerce platforms, email marketing and standard online marketing tools, including Web analytics tools (Coremetrics experience a plus).
Motivated personality to “own” channel/segment and grow revenues.
Superior analytical skills and ability to drive results.
Great relationship –builder and adept at working with a team.
Creative free thinker who loves being social online.

Additional Technical Competencies

BA/BS in Marketing, Business, Advertising, Market Research or other related field.
3+ years in online marketing, direct marketing, brand marketing, product marketing, or marketing analysis.
2+ years in the Internet industry or at an interactive advertising agency.2+ years overseeing online performance analysis.
Successful candidate will be highly organized, have excellent analytical, quantitative and problem solving skills.
Proven ability to establish, foster, and maintain relationships with key partners.
Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment with strict adherence to deadlines and project schedules.
Excellent Microsoft Excel skills.
Undergraduate degree required.

Salary range: Unknown
Closing date: Unknown
More info from: [careers.peopleclick.com]
Contact: [careers.peopleclick.com]

For more search industry jobs, or to post a job vacancy visit Search Engine College Jobs Board.

Dear Kalena…

We are in the early stages of the SEO service development within our company and are now wanting to start getting an idea as to what the going rates for this service generally are within the industry, and what factors effect pricing.

Do you have any knowledge or information regarding this?

Are there any leads/resources you can point me in the direction of for me to gather up information regarding this? How are costs usually determined/laid out within a company offering this service, I’m assuming there are typically multiple levels of SEO one can offer, yet I do not know what the variables are that put someone in one level, and someone else in another.

If you can, please let me know anything about this topic that you can. I’m sure any help will go a long way in helping us sort things out.

Thanks

Myles

Dear Myles

There are many ways you can promote a website online ranging from paid advertising, organic optimisation, social media marketing, local business directory and search listings, article marketing/distribution, viral/linkbaiting etc. etc.

Just like there are many flavours of SEO – there are also just as many types of companies providing these services ranging from large corporate SEO agencies, freelance consultants and specialised boutique providers that focus primarily on one aspect of SEO (and then do it really well).

So as you could imagine, the pricing will differ considerably – and sadly, you don’t always get what you pay for.

Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz wrote a great article on the topic which should give you some more specific information regarding costs and services: SEO Pricing & Costs – What Should You Charge / How Much Should You Pay?

SEOmoz also has a directory of well respected SEO firms in their SEO Services Marketplace. Or the Search Engine College Jobs Board will give you an idea of what price some companies are willing to pay to hire in-house SEO consultants.

At the end of the day, you have to feel comfortable with the SEO provider you decide to work with, so ask lots of questions and if you’re not satisfied with the answers move on. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is… oh, and one last thing – avoid any company that guarantees top 10 rankings.

Hope this helps!

Peter Newsome
SiteMost SEO Services

Do you like problem solving? Helping people? Think you know a thing or two about search engines? We’ve been inundated lately with so many search engine questions that I simply don’t have time to answer them all.

Can you help us out of this tight spot? We’re looking for a  couple of Guest Bloggers to help us answer the search engine Q and A’s here at Ask-Kalena.com.

You’ll need to be a confident writer with a fun, readable style and excellent grammar. It would also help if you didn’t make spelling mistakes very often or at least when you did, you made them entertaining.

To get an idea of what we’re looking for, search our “Q & A” categories under the “Topics” drop down list on the left.

Ready to be a Search Engine Superhero? Give me a shout via kalena [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line “GUEST BLOGGER” by Sunday 24 May.

In your email, please include:

1) A 1-2 paragraph summary of your experience in the search industry

2) Links to one or more of your recent articles or blog posts.

Please note that the role of Guest Blogger is unpaid but authors do receive a byline as well as a link to their site/blog from each post, not to mention the enormous kudos from being syndicated on hundreds of sites.

Thanks!