The Senior Manager will be responsible for driving industry best practices and coordinated Search approaches across American Express for both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search. The role will do this by developing channel standards for key word arbitration, paid search bid optimization, cross linking, and other approaches key to Search performance. They will partner with business and technology partners to drive standards implementation and coordination across the Enterprise.

Additionally, the Senior Manager will drive the development of enhanced reporting processes to define and measure channel success, as well as the creation of education for business partners new to the Search channel. Last, the Lead will serve as the relationship manager of American Express’s Natural Search agency.

EOE statement: American Express is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Required Qualifications:

• Expert in SEO best practices with a minimum of three years experience implementing SEO best practices in a large, matrixed organization.
• Deep experience with Paid Search best practices in working with all major Search engines with a minimum of three years experience in the space.
• Strong relationship skills with ability to collaborate and influence across all levels and functions in the organization.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong analytical skills
• Desire candidate with a strong drive for results
• Agency management experience required
• Agency negotiation skills strongly desired
• Omniture experience desired
• MBA preferred

Job Segments:

Credit, Customer Service, Customer Service Representative, Finance, Interactive Marketing, Law, Legal, Management, Manager, Marketing, Marketing Manager, MBA, Relationship Manager, SEO, Service

Salary Range: Unknown
Closing Date:  Unknown 
More Info From: [jobs.americanexpress.com]
Contact: Apply via link at [jobs.americanexpress.com]

For more Search Industry job vacancies visit Search Engine College Jobs Board

The Google Marketing team is responsible for marketing the company’s exceptional product portfolio to end users, partners and customers on a worldwide basis. The Google approach is to embrace the strength of their products and pace of innovation to drive marketing programs that are as entrepreneurial, data-driven and respectful of their users as Google itself. Google Marketing has a variety of roles, including product marketing, creative services, event management, quantitative marketing and field marketing.

The role: Lead Product Marketing Manager

The Search Marketing team focuses on bringing innovative search products to market. As a Senior Product Marketing Manager for Search, you will lead a team to launch and drive user acquisition and engagement of new innovative search products and features. Your responsibilities will include driving the marketing strategy and management of integrated marketing campaigns. This is an ideal role if you are a creative marketing professional with a proven track record in successfully driving consumer marketing campaigns.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and drive robust marketing strategy and plan to launch new products/features.
• Lead team to design and execute on integrated marketing campaigns to drive user acquisition and engagement.
• Coordinate and manage across cross-functional teams, international marketing counterparts, product and executive stakeholders.
• Work with external partners for co-marketing and partner opportunities.
• Identify, develop, codify and share marketing best practice processes across countries, channels and functions.

Requirements:

• BS/BA degree preferred or equivalent work experience, MBA a plus.
• At least 10 years of experience in general marketing and 7 years experience in product marketing with core responsibilities creating and executing successful consumer marketing campaigns.
• Strong leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills.
• Demonstrated strong performance in prior roles with outstanding execution and problem solving skills, resourcefulness, and creativity.
• Excellent analytical, quantitative reasoning, and strategic skills.
• Proven ability to manage teams and lead multiple projects in a cross-functional environment.

Salary Range: -
Closing Date: -
More Info From: [www.google.com]
Contact: Please apply via link at [www.google.com]

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!

——————-

Like to learn more about SEO? Download my free SEO lesson. No catch!

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.

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.

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

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!

I enjoyed reading your web site and blog today. I was recently laid off and am interested in pursuing the SEM field. Where would you recommend I start?

I have 30 years of marketing, public relations, broadcast production, journalism (newspaper columnist), publishing (owner/editor of niche market magazine)… plenty of transferable skills I think. I also developed two web sites, produced several radio and TV shows and through it all I have excellent copywriting and proofreader skills.

Thanks much! Wish I could meet you in Sydney!

Susan

————————————————————–

Hi Susan

First up, I think your idea to start a career in Search Engine Marketing is timely and sensible given the current economy and global demand for search marketing staff. Reading my article 11 Reasons Why You Should Consider a Job in Search Engine Marketing should get you fired up even more about the idea.

It sounds like you have a lot of skills that would translate nicely to a job in the Search Engine Marketing field. Journalism and copywriting especially will come in handy for writing blog posts and optimized page copy or PPC ads. But there is quite a technical side to SEO and PPC that you will need to study and gain experience in before you’re ready to take on client projects or apply for a job in the field.

There are plenty of SEM training options to get you prepared for the industry, 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.

Best of luck and do pop back and let us know how you get on. If you do happen to get to SMX Sydney, make sure you say hello.

I have just turned 40 & am looking for a new career having previously been in sales management. I am interested in finding out how I would go about getting a position within a company as a S.E.O. and what qualifications are currently internationally recognized within the industry. Any advice would be appreciated.

Second question: is a blog type website such as a WordPress site better for optimization than the typical site a web designer would build?

Mark

————————————————————–

Dear Mark

1) There’s no reason why you can’t start a new career as a Search Engine Optimizer, heck I’ve written an article called 11 Reasons Why You Should Consider a Job in Search Engine Marketing. BUT, (and this is a big BUT), it takes more than theoretical knowledge and qualifications to be a good SEO.

There are plenty of online and offline training options for learning Search Engine Optimization, including the SEO courses we offer at Search Engine College. But they need to be paired with practical, in the trenches experience before you really understand how to optimize a web site successfully.

I attended a powerful presentation by Nat Torkington at Webstock last week about how to have successful failures and I would say that failures are a MUST for anyone in SEO. It’s only when you fail to get a page ranked highly in search engines and then tweak it to out-rank your competitors that you really grok SEO.

Regarding SEO qualifications, you should be aware that the search industry does not have an official accreditation body and therefore no standardized certification levels. At Search Engine College, we consistently check our lesson methodologies against the guidelines set down by the search engines themselves and I believe many of the other training institutions do the same.  We also set quite strict performance benchmarks for tutor-graded assignments and assessment items before allowing our students to gain certification.

As a result, we believe SEO / SEM certification has become increasingly recognized by employers in the search industry and we’ve had students tell us that having our specific certification has given them an edge over other applicants when applying for jobs.

2) In answer to your second question, any web site can be designed and optimized well enough to be search engine friendly, but yes WordPress blogs do seem to be indexed by Google very quickly and ranked well so you can feel comfortable building and optimizing a site using WordPress. It’s so much more than a blogging platform! Just make sure you download WordPress to your own domain and don’t build your site as a hosted blog on WordPress.com

Direct Partners helps clients to acquire customers, measure behavior and develop meaningful relationships through targeted, results-oriented direct marketing. They are located in beautiful Marina del Rey and offer a friendly work atmosphere, room to grow and learn as well as innovative thinking.

They are looking for an experienced marketing professional to provide strategic leadership, tactical execution and analytic support surrounding the development of SEM programs for various clients. The perfect candidate will create, implement, track, analyze and optimize keyword campaigns across multiple search engines while helping to drive the company’s overall paid search strategy.

As a key member of the media team, the perfect candidate will play a central role in driving customer acquisition, revenue growth and profitability. The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience managing SEM campaigns.

Job Responsibilities:

• Lead efforts to drive profitable customer acquisition and increase the long-term effectiveness of search engine marketing.
• Manage day-to-day relationships with multiple paid search engine partners.
• Manage budgets, analyze keyword costs, and develop all business processes for maximizing return-on-investment (ROI).
• Test and optimize keyword bids, ad copy and landing pages.
• Conduct competitive research and make recommendations on keyword selection.
• Maintain a database of keywords, categories and campaigns.
• Employ advanced search marketing techniques such as contextual ads, geo-targeting and day parting, etc.
• Contribute to senior management communications concerning online marketing issues and initiatives.
• Stay abreast of industry trends and best practices.

Minimum Job Qualifications:

• Strategic mind and creative problem-solving skills.
• 2-4 years experience in online marketing, direct marketing, consulting, strategic planning and strong expertise in search engine marketing.
• Aptitude for analyzing large datasets in order to gain insights and drive business decisions.
• Solid understanding of web analytics tools and advanced Excel skills required.
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced work environment.
• Adept at project management and multi-tasking.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.

Direct Partners
4755 Alla Road
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Phone: (310) 482-4459

Salary range: Up to $75K, DOE
Closing date: Unknown
More info about company from: http://www.directpartners.com
Contact: Send resumes to address above. Further enquiries email jmcruer[at[directpartners.com

For more search industry job vacancies visit Search Engine College Jobs Board.