2013 may be known as the “Year of the SEO Analyst.”  Studies have confirmed a 112 percent increase in demand for SEO professionals over the past few years and starting salaries as high as $94,000.

In another survey, 93 percent of all business respondents expected their SEO businesses to grow by the end of 2013.  Of these, 82 percent reported plans to hire more SEO staff by year’s end.

A career as an SEO analyst can very rewarding.  Unlike many technology jobs, stress levels are relatively low and employment opportunities are at an all-time high.  Mid-level employees can expect salaries around $60,000, and senior analysts may earn as much as $100,000.

What Do I Need To Become an SEO Analyst?

In order to become a successful SEO analyst, you should have certain qualities that lend themselves to the performance of SEO analytic tasks.  These qualities include:

• Excellent communication skills.  SEOs must communicate with both marketing and IT co-workers and must be able to translate what each type of expert says.  SEO analysts must also be able to communicate with clients and review content for appeal to average readers, so they must be fluent in many forms of communication.
• Thorough understanding of programming languages.  HTML, CSS and other web programming languages are important to SEO analysts even if they do not program.  The must understand these codes in order to be able to manage SEO projects and review work by others for consistency or errors.
• Knowledge of Google Analytics.  Google Analytics changes consistently, so SEO analysts must stay abreast of the latest updates and changes.

It is helpful if an SEO analyst has at least three years of SEO experience before taking an analyst position.  Experiences should include testing optimization, interacting with search features, studying Google rules and guidelines and interacting with clients.

Where Can I Find SEO Training?

Although most SEO analysts have some type of background in computers, very few have a specific SEO degree.  SEO is still one of those job fields in which experience is far more important than initial training.  However, workshops and seminars are available that can build on general SEO experience to help an individual pursue a higher-level job in SEO analytics.

What Is The Job Outlook for SEO Analysts?

SEO analysts will find jobs everywhere, but certain cities are much more likely to have jobs than others.  According to recent surveys, the top ten cities for SEO analyst jobs are:

1)    New York

2)    San Francisco

3)    Los Angeles

4)    Chicago

5)    Boston

6)    Washington

7)    San Jose

8)    Seattle

9)    Atlanta

10) Dallas

Salaries range from around $44,000 for entry-level positions to $96,000 for executives.

Searching for an SEO analyst job may be challenging, and you may find yourself taking a variety of positions as you work your way up the ladder.  However, the more you refine and hone your SEO skills the more productive you will be and the more opportunities that will open themselves to you.

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Data Privacy Day is a big event in SEO circles.  This infographic covers information on Data Privacy Day. This “holiday” is held annually every January 28th. Data Privacy Day has the goal of increasing awareness of privacy and protection of data issues with consumers, government agencies, officials, and other organizations.

It is vitally important that you manage your online reputation carefully.  With the whole world on the web, a misstep in the area of reputation management can harm your business and your personal life.  Here are a few facts about your online persona that you may not know:

• 56 percent of adults admit that they do not consider the consequences of their online activities.
• 14 percent of adults say they have experienced negative consequences from online activity.
• 21 percent of those experiencing negative consequences were fired from a job for something they did online.
• 16 percent lost the opportunity to get a job because of online activity.
• 16 percent lost their health insurance due to online activity.
• 14 percent lost their opportunity to go to a particular college.
• 15 percent were turned down for a mortgage due to online activity.

It is clear that what you do, say and post online can have an impact on your life, even long after you have forgotten it.

Because the Internet is not regulated, it is easy for people to post negative things about you, as well.  These negative posts can come back to haunt you in a variety of ways.  It is not only necessary to monitor your own online activity but also to monitor what others are saying about you online.  This means strategies that identify possible negative material and deal with it in a way that neutralizes its effects if possible.

This may sound impossible.  After all, the Internet is a big place and it is easy to get lost or to fail to find everything posted about you.  The good news is that if you can find it, it is probably fairly easy for others to do so, so you can concentrate your efforts on those items.  Conversely, if you cannot find it, it is probably harder for others to find as well, so may not be as important.

However, ignoring obvious negative online topics or posts is not an option.  The way you choose to handle negative information can also have an impact on your online reputation.  For example, you may find that you are tempted to respond negatively to a complaint or negative post.  However, your negative reaction may make the problem worse instead of better.  There are ways to handle negative publicity that can increase others’ respect for you; there are also ways to handle it that may cause others to perceive you even more negatively.

Your online reputation is important and you cannot leave the results to chance. If you need professional help with your business or personal online reputation management, please contact Orange County SEO to learn how we can help.

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What is link building and link baiting?  Customers who do not understand these terms may be missing out on significant market traffic, because links are what drive customers to your site.

In essence, links are maps or pointers to send customers where you want them to go.  Unless a customer already has your URL or web address, he or she does not know you have a web presence.  There are millions of web sites on the internet, so customers usually search for companies they want to use by putting key terms into a search engine.  However, they may also arrive at your site by clicking on a link that takes them there from another, trusted website, and this is where the power of link building becomes so important.

If you can manage to build links on trusted websites, customers will be more likely to visit you and to browse your products or services.  This infographic shows the best ways to build links and defines some of the terms used in the process such as “link bait.” Effective link building is a great way to get your company noticed, since links to other websites drive up your natural organic search engine rankings and pull in users from other sites. According to the infographic, you should think about content, video, and images as you begin to build links to other sites.

• Content.  At the end of the day, content is king in all aspects of your website.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that checking your content is an important part of link building.  In order to attract links from other sites, your content must be high-quality, original and informative.
• Videos.  Customers love videos and other websites are more likely to link to you if you have interesting video content to show them.
• Images.  When it comes to link building, a picture really is worth a thousand words.  A good image or infographic can give you much higher rates of traffic than simple words.
• As you concentrate on link building, do not forget about forging relationships with other websites that can support your efforts.  You should also focus on utilizing all link-building resources such as social media and local business promotion.

Linking to trusted websites is one way to maximize your own online presence.  However, this can be a slow process, especially if you aim too high too soon.  Managing your content can make you attractive to the websites to which you want to link and help you build online relationships with trusted sites that will raise your own value in the eyes of your customers and the search engines that lead them to you.

At Orange County SEO, we have experts who can help you build links quickly and safely that will drive up your internet traffic as well as help you raise your value with search engines.  Talk to us today about how link building strategies can work for you.

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Internet marketing is constantly changing, so it is important to keep up with the latest information on new techniques or trends that can benefit your marketing stragegy.  Keeping up with current thoughts on marketing strategies is well worth the investment of time you make when you see how much better your website looks and how much more traffic you drive to your site.

The latest web trends are summarized in this infographic and illustrate visually what is currently happening in web design. Here are a few points to think about as you study the graphic regarding current trends in internet marketing:

• Responsive web design has become the standard. Fluid layout appropriate for smart phone users is now the industry standard, and as more people move to tablet- or phone-based web browsing, that is not likely to change. Designing websites that can adapt to a variety of environments in a skill that web designers must cultivate to stay relevant.  If it cannot be put on a smart phone, it is rapidly going to become obsolete.
• Circles instead of drop-boxes. With the advent of CSS3, it has become easy to use circles as avatars for portfolios or radio button choices.  Visually, circles are easier to find and they are easier to click than drop boxes that may disappear when a user moves the cursor.
• Vector art captures user interest. Vector art with its big, colorful cartoons is appearing everywhere, and users enjoy the large, easy-to-process images.
• Simplicity is important. Users complained of information overload with some websites where an overload of graphics and video caused them to be unable to focus. The trend now is to use minimalistic design that still gives users the information they need.  Sophisticated, streamlined websites have become the order of the day.
• Infographicsare growing in popularity. Giving information to people in easy-to-read graphic format is a trend that is going to continue. Users respond well to interactive and colorful graphics that put information into an understandable format and share important facts quickly and simply.
• Top-sided menus. Sidebars may one day go the way of the dodo, thanks to formatting software improvements that allow designers to place menus at the top of the page–something users respond to in a positive manner.

These are only a few of the projected trends for 2013 in web design, but they all point in one direction–making a user’s web experience effortless and fun. As web designers refine their craft, they will ultimately continue to simplify content and create great visual representations of data.

Orange County SEO can help you determine which of the latest internet marketing trends can benefit your company and help you grow your business.  The experts at Orange County SEO have the knowledge and experience to guide you through the complicated world of internet marketing successfully.  Call us today for information on how to use internet marketing to build or grow your business to its greatest potential.

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Content creation is one of your best tools in marketing. Original, eye-catching content can give your site a boost and drive business to your company.  In fact, content is the single most important factor in both driving business to your website and keeping customers interested once they arrive.  Content also affects your Google rankings and those of other search engines.  Original, quality content brings your rankings up; copied, stale content drives them down.

Obviously, content is important.  However, many business owners are stymied when it comes to creating content that others will want to read.  Because content can seem so overwhelming, many business owners take the attitude that “getting something up” on the website is the best they can do and convince themselves this will be enough.  Remember—having a website is a means to an end, not an end in itself.  If you are going to invest your time and resources in having a website, be sure to do it right with valuable content.

This infographic shows the basic components of content marketing and gives you an idea of just how effective this strategy can be when used properly.

• Thought leadership.  Content consists of many things:  blog posts, white papers, ebooks, podcasts and other items.  Choosing the right type of content is the first important decision you must make.  The type of content your readers want depends on your target audience.
• Word of mouth drives 50 percent of buying decisions.  The way to get people talking about your website is to create original, inviting and interesting content.  This has an exponential effect on your website’s popularity as more and more people tell others about your great site.
• Increased visibility.  Blogs increase visitor traffic by an average of 55 percent.  Websites with blogs also garner 97 percent more inbound traffic and 37 percent of experts agree that blogs are the most valuable type of content marketing.
• Improved sales.  Marketers agree that good content drives sales.  67 percent of Twitter users buy from brands they know and blogs are 63 percent more likely to drive sales decisions than other written media.
• Social media marketing.  63 percent of companies agree that social media use has increased their overall sales figures.
• Solid footing.  70 percent of customers are more likely to remember and buy a brand about which they have read an article than those which they have been exposed to only by ads.  60 percent of customers state that they feel more comfortable with a company after reading about it in a blog or in marketing content, and they have more positive feelings toward the brand.

It is clear that content is very important in your overall marketing strategy, so taking the time to write original content is an investment that pays off.

Orange County SEO can help you create original, valuable content for your website that will give your business the website traffic you want.  Contact us today to find out how we can help you with good content marketing strategies.