I suppose that most of the readers of my blog are already aware of the fact that I am an SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) from last ten years. This is the reason why many people ask me about Search Engine Optimization as a career and weather we should choose it or not?

I am also sure why this question is being asked these days, is because of the fact that many people are considering SEO as a dying field now, and this is the reason why many fresher’s are a bit reluctant to possess SEO as a career opportunity.

Although in past I already have written two blog posts on is SEO dying? One being at my other website, in which I published a blog a few months back with the name is SEO dead or dying? If you read this blog you will realize that my conclusion was we can never say that SEO is dead or dying, while I also have written one blog post in other blog of mine on is SEO really becoming obsolete, in which I explained about SEO from these day’s perspective.

Yes it is true that SEO becomes a bit difficult after Panda and Penguin update of Google. This is the reason why many people are thinking so much when it comes to choose as a career option to them.

SEO as a Career!

To be very frank, still there are many people out here in my relation and friend circle, who are not yet aware about what things I do. When they ask me what you do, I simply respond them SEO. The response always make them shock, many of them think it as CEO, might be the chief executive officer of some company.

If some bank offers me credit card, which sometimes annoys me too, it becomes really difficult to pronounce them about my designation.

I still remember that it was late 90’s when we came through this term SEO as a career opportunity. It was the time when this dot com business was on a grow, especially in India this concept arrived lately in around the beginning of the 21st century.

The biggest issue which I found over here is the lack of proper education in this field, there is no such official course or curriculum for search engine optimization is present out here. To be very frank, there are a few concerns which stop SEO as a topic to learn in institutes. First one is the lack of good instructors, the reason being a good SEO is keen towards working in industry then giving proper training to others, the other reason being the lack of money in this field over here. Especially if you visit institutes giving education on SEO, you will realize the poor quality of the faculty or trainers, reason again being the lack of money with institutes provides to the trainers.

I once tried joining one institute to do train SEO as a part time trainer and to my surprise the amount which they offered was too less than what I normally can think about (at a minimum rate as well) and so I rejected. On the other hand when I was working in my last company which was one training institute, as an SEO Manager, they started a course on SEO without even consulting me, to my surprise they asked one instructor who was actually a trainer in PHP to take classes for SEO. It was later when one knowledgeable guy came as a student there and finally they consulted me to convince that client and I came to know about this.

Simply you can understand the poor quality of SEO as an education out here in India.

I personally have gone through around five institutes out here in New Delhi, which trains SEO to fresher’s, and to my surprise all the faculties were those who only has the knowledge through books or through websites, who don’t have any practical experience and not even know about any latest updates which has influenced the search patterns. How can you expect quality from them?

Pros and Cons of SEO as a Career

Many people say that SEO is dead now or dying in a few days, which is becoming the biggest cons of SEO as a career. Although I might say that if you really don’t know the basics of Search Engine Optimization properly, it is for sure a dead end for your career.

On the other hand the pros of SEO as a career are that it is the high time when the demand of really knowledgeable guys in SEO is increasing. It is the moment when you can really utilize this time, when websites are really getting it difficult to rank well in search results especially in Google, and then you can truly make way for yourself if you are interested in doing so.

Along with this SEO is a high paying job as well, initially you might have to face some real difficulties but then once you will have experience then you can really grow yourself.

How to Improve as an SEO?

Once you decided to choose SEO as a career, but then you might find yourself standing at a dead end, you might think how to improve now? You might have taken some course as well, which gives you some basic idea about SEO as well, but then once you reached to practical field, you might found yourself at a situation where you are not seeing any way to go ahead, what will you do now?

I can suggest one thing over here. SEO is a field in which you can really understand things after doing the same, and from learning. You should have the habit to follow some blogs, websites through which you can get quality education about it. If you really want to learn the basics of SEO then Google is one of the finest place to do so, go through Google webmaster videos and you will realize you can get answer to any questions related to SEO. Go through the Google webmaster blogs and you can come through all the recent updates about SEO.

Make a practice of visiting sites like Matt Cutts blog, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Round Table, SEO Chat, Moz Blog, etc. on a regular basis and you will definitely update your SEO knowledge very soon.

I am quite sure that you all will support that there are ups and downs in every field, which you might choose as a career; similarly you can think about SEO as a career opportunity. Although, I must say it is a very lucrative field and return quite well. Especially if you have the knowledge about Social Media Optimization, along with a basic knowledge of Pay Per Click analysis (or PPC analysis).

I am quite sure all these options associated with your basic profile will definitely help you to boost your career as an SEO. Other than this, what I can say is that you all can contact me anytime for any help related to starting your career as an SEO, or any difficulties which you might be facing in your profession, etc. at my email id inews@inewsindia.com and I will be happy to help you out in everything.