How to Get An SEO Job

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Confessions of an SEO Consultant

(also: tricks to getting an SEO job)

A recent email exchange about getting an SEO job inspired me to write this post. If your internet marketing career hasn't taken off yet, or is disappointingly nonprofitable, perhaps it is time to look into SEO consulting until your projects mature.

See, internet marketing is like growing a bonsai tree, it takes time, it can be boring as heck, and you don't see results for like a year. If you want to make money online, it takes the patience of a monk, the fortitude of that guy who hangs upside down for days on end, and the attention span of a... very focused person. What I'm trying to say is: while you are plugging away at your websites and blogs to earn income online, you might as well be actually earning some online income. Enter SEO Consulting.

But in a market so inundated with self taught SEO's, frauds, and the uninformed who still believe commenting on blogs is the best way to do SEO... how can you get a SEO gig? Let me share with you some of my tips and tricks, time tested and proven, for setting yourself apart and getting your first consulting job.

How To Get An SEO Job

•Getting your first client
Honestly, the first client I found kind of fell into my lap through one of my blogs. I offered to do some web design and advertising for them on the blog, and they asked me if I knew how to get them higher in the Google rankings. To which I replied "Um... yea, I kinda do." Web design + SEO and Internet Marketing = a very powerful money making combo. After that it spread by word of mouth, and a few inquiring emails.

Most of my clients are local, I think most people really like face-to-face time, so I'd look locally first.

The techniques and skills we know how to do from experience with our own blogs, and the networks and tools we have access too are very valuable and rare to find. What we have is very real and very applicable SEO knowledge. So that translates well into SEO consulting.

•Think local
Most of my clients are local. In this day and age, many business owners prefer real face to face time, so if you are looking for an SEO consulting gig, look locally first. A polite email to a local business, or a quick phone call can go a long way.

I find that a lot of websites would love to be higher in the SERPs, they just don't have the knowhow, or access to an SEO, or they think they are too expensive and exclusive. So just a short email to a few people offering to help get them up in Google works for me.

•Contact the business
I approach a new client personally if possible, if not, then through email. A polite email mentioning you liked their website and noticed their business had a lot to offer, and could do a lot better if it was higher in Google. Would you like to be higher in Google? I could help if you'd like. What have you done? Well here's what you can do right away to help, and here's what I can do if you are interested. Since I know you don't know me, maybe we could put a low hourly cap on how much work I do for you a week, and you can see if you want to keep me on...

•Check the attitude
Most of those guys offering SEO on craigslist and other online forums are arrogant, secretive, conniving, not able to communicate effectively, and so forth. Don't be those things, be personable and funny and open, it sets you apart.

Even if you don't have all the technical know-how- a good personality will win every time. You are working for them, so you have to keep them happy. You have to sell yourself as much as or more than your services. People are loosing more and more basic social skills these days, be charming, honest, and friendly. Doing so will put you ahead of the next guy.

•What to offer
As experienced IMers and SEO students, we have a lot of talents in our arsenal. It takes a broad skillset to get things rolling in this biz. Use that skillset to your advantage. I offer to do pretty much the whole package, as far as I can handle it for clients. I offer to manage their SEO campaigns, raise them in the rankings, I offer to do their KW research, I set up or optimize their PPC advertising campaigns, onsite SEO, I design their whole sales plan sometimes, Social media marketing, community building... and whatever else I can think of.

Be their guru, do everything you would do for yourself and more, show initiative. But most of all, listen to what the client wants, even if what they want isn't exactly what they need, do it anyway, and help them see what will really help.

•How much to charge for SEO
I usually charge by the hour, with a set cap of hours per week at first, until they can see that I am trustworthy and worth the money. If I do a good job, I find word of mouth spreads very quickly, and more clients give me a call. The hardest part is getting the first client. Work cheap at first, raise prices later

On the other hand, be careful, you want to charge enough so that the people will listen to you, but not too much so that they can't afford you. Offer a reasonable per hour rate with a 4-6 hour cap on work a week. Let them ask you to work more when they see some results. What is reasonable? That depends on how much you value your time, and how much real experience you are bringing to the table.

I usually do a nice little workup for how their website could be improved, what I could do to make it rank better, what direction to take the site to enhance their sales, ideas for future expansion... and always always a long term plan so that you have work with them for as long as possible. Always be thinking ahead, that's basic consulting 101.

•Doing SEO for the uninitiated
You will probably run into the problem that you had at first with your own blogs. Results take time, and many clients don't understand that little factoid. Results do take a while, so try to be completely open and honest with your client about how you are going to go about doing the work and how long it will take.

Be the bearer of good news. I try to keep them updated weekly of the changes in the SERPs, traffic increases, basically any good news I can think of so they feel like they are getting their money's worth. Then I make sure to tell them what my plan is for next week, next month, the next couple months, so they keep on wanting my business and seeing the results.

There's a lot you can do initially with onsite optimization, which usually will give a quick and easy boost to their rankings, designing a keyword targeting strategy, optimizing the way traffic flows through the site to increase conversion rates, A/B testing... you know the drill.

I don't think your average person has any idea what PR is, and I doubt they would care to get high PR links since they have no idea of their value. So don't work on a "I'll get you ### PR4 links for $ ammount of money." Part of what I do with my clients is educate them as well, that way they see the value in what I am doing and why I am doing it.

My favorite slogan, and I don't remember who I stole it from (I think it was Rand at SEOMoz) is: "SEO isn't an event, it's a process." Clients love that.

•A word on web design
I HATE WEB DESIGN. Let me make that clear. I can do it, and do it well, but I don't enjoy one bit of it. However, sometimes it is inevitable. The client needs a new website, or knows somebody who wants one. The best, easiest, and fastest way to go is sell them a personalized WP theme with static pages. I will go out and buy a proffessional theme for them if the situation calls for it, edit it up to their specifications, slap it online, and send them the bill. Looks great, solid backend, easy to update, simple to create, and everybodies happy.

If that just won't fly this time, then consider outsourcing. Web designers will work for peanuts right now... sometimes literally. Outsourcing can be a very effective use of your time. Especially if you are like me and hate web design.

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So, that's my process for getting an SEO consulting gig. It's worked out quite well for me so far, and I hope it keeps working. As Internet Marketers, Online Privateers, and SEO Ninjas, we have access to a number of very usefull resources that can also be used to get you a job as an SEO consultant. Hopefully these tips have helped inspire you to go out there and use your skills to earn some immediate income.

Part 2 of this series can be found here: Getting an SEO Job Part 2

Blogging to Make Money or Making Money Blogging

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The Difference Between Blogging To Make Money and Making Money Blogging

You know, there is a huge difference in how you approach making money online depending on what your ultimate goal is. There comes a point where all of us have to ask ourselves, are we trying to make money with our blogs, or are we blogging to make money?

On the surface, these two things may seem very similar. But dig down a bit and they reveal two underlying philosophies that are fundamentally different. And it is good for each of us to identify which philosophy we subscribe to. So let's examine both of them more closely:

Make Money Blogging:

A person to wants to make money blogging is a specific kind of person. This kind of a person has a blog or two. He puts his heart into the blogs, he has designed them just right, they are beautiful and appealing to the eyes, they are easy to read and attractive. He puts his soul into the content, not just any content but "quality content," original stuff, good stuff, opinions and tips and suggestions and reviews, meaningful posts that add something to his readers life. He is concerned about things like the "stickiness" and "bounce rate" of his website, the appeal and value his blog offers, he believes that "Content is King" and aspires possibly to one day become a problogger where people hang on his every word.

He wants traffic to come to his website, he spends his time commenting on others websites, trying to get his link on their blogrolls, researching his next great post, and reading all his favorite blogs.

He also wants to make some cash off his blog. So he does all the research he can, like a dutiful problogger. Trying out different advertising networks, different affiliate programs, every new system that comes out the door. He signs up for adsense, and puts one or two advertisements on his site- in aesthetically pleasing locations that is, along with well placed affiliate advertisements. He dreams of the day when advertisers will be calling him to place an ad on his website.

In general, he is a happy fellow, and his followers and RSS subscribers like him and have a relationship with him. They submit his carfully crafted posts to social media sites, and he dreams of his content "going viral."

The other group of people are people who:

Blog to Make Money:

People who blog to make money are different from the above group. These people also go by the name of Internet Marketers. They have no desire to create beautiful websites, flashy content, quality or crafted posts, viral comments, or gain RSS subscribers. They couldn't care what people thought of their websites (notice the plural on website's'), and they wouldn't shed a single drop of sweat trying to become a "problogger." The only thing these people care about is money. Visitors are only numbers to them, the more the better since that means more ads that will be clicked on. These ones know darn well that when you read a review of site build it, most of them are scams and frauds.

These people spend their time creating websites, hundreds of them. They whip them out in cookie cutter formats and slap them on the web. They carefully research keywords, niche compitition, adwords payouts, and places where they can leave links. They spend their time writing crappy articles and posts, as many as possible, and putting them on their websites and submitting them to article directories, as many as possible. They build farm blogs, worry about things like C-class IP addresses, anchor links, PR, backlinks, duplicate content, footprints, Google in general, niche SERP rankings, new niches, marketing tools, and ad placements.

They have a system to make money, and they stick to it. More often than not it is adsense with a sprinkling of affiliate, ebay store, or clickbank thrown into the mix. They dream of attaining #1 position for their primary keywords, getting high PR backlinks, and their ultimate goal is to have enough online profit and online income coming in on a regular basis from the internet that they no longer have to work at all.

These guys tend to be a less than happy lot of people, kinda greedy, very sneaky, and a few of them are very very rich.

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It is important for you to decide which philosophy you want to live by. You can't half-ass both. Well you can, but it would be... half-assed, and you would not succeed at doing anything of note. Neither path is wrong, but decide which path you will follow and stick to it. This will make your goals clear and give you a direction to head in.

This is the Internet Privateer signing off.

Getting the Most Out of AMA

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Getting The Most Out of Article Marketing Automation

As you know, I'm a huge supporter of the AMA system. I haven't yet signed up for the PLRpro system that is part of the bigger picture, but their project green button looks very promising and if I manage to juice up my online income a little more I will for sure be signing up with them just to see what it's all about.

But for now, I want to share a few tips and tricks with you about getting the most out of the AMA system.

See, AMA is amazing, let me first make that clear. It is worth twice what they charge (but i hope they don't double their fees). With this system you can have unique, quality, optimized, and anchored content sent out to the whole network. You can receive it as well. But because of the nature of the beast, your posts are going out to some very low PR web pages, if they have any PR at all.. a good portion aren't even spidered yet. But don't let that frustrate you! Every challenge is an opportunity to profit in disguise.

Booster Articles

What I do to fix this, is I have a few general "booster articles" that I allow me to put in a broad range of anchor text and still be mostly relevant. When I start getting my article out there on websites, I check some of the links manually.

Some questions I ask are:

• Do they have PR?
• Are they indexed?
• Is the site gonna be there for a while?

If the answer is yes, then I change the anchors in some of my booster articles to throw out some links to 1-3 of those articles, letting them run in the system for a while. Thus you are driving links to those articles, boosting their PR, giving them more juice to give to you. Just be sure that the anchor text you are giving the booster articles aren't KW's in direct competition with your own. Also, make sure your booster articles are VERY rewritten. Like 300+%. It's better to spend a little more time and make a good article that will stay fresh in the system for a long time. Non fresh articles are like 3 day old fish. They stink.

Post articles linking to your site. Send out links to posted articles. Boost PR of links coming to you. Reap the rewards. It's the three tier system, entirely through AMA.

Creating a niche blog

This wasn't completely my idea originally. I got it off a good friends Make Money Online website: Lost Ball in High Weeds.

What you do is add a general site to the network and watch what kind of articles you get on the site. Once you get a good number of articles, check out what the majority are about. If you get a ton of articles on one subtopic, then you've got yourself a niche blog in the making. Go through and optimize the blog. Delete the off topic posts (this may not be totally kosher with AMA...), add some backlinks, and you've got yourself an instant, minimal work, targeted niche blog. Throw on an Ebay store or whatever you want and watch the profits roll in.

There are more tricks I could share with you, but I'm in a rush right now and I have to go. What are your favorite AMA tricks?