All About Content

Rand Fishkin, in another excellent example of link bait done right, just published a post guaranteed to generate links from people within the SEO industry: he outlines how much SEOs should expect to make a year. This kind of info oft searched and seldom found.

According to the post, in-house SEO practitioners can expect to make:

• VP/Director of Search Marketing: $100,000 - $350,000+
• Director/Manager of Organic Search: $75,000 - $150,000
• SEO Guru: $75,000 - $200,000
• Campaign Manager: $55,00 - $100,000
• SEO Specialist: $40,000 - $80,000

If you work at an agency and run SEO campaigns for clients, the pay scale Rand lays out is:

• SEO Director: $50,000 - $100,000
• Search Marketing Consultant: $60,000 - $200,000
• Link Builder: $35,000 - $100,000
• Content Writer: $35,000 - $75,000
• SEO Researcher: $30,000 - $60,000
• Client Relations Coordinator: $35,000 - $75,00

For details and descriptions for each of these job titles, visit SEOmoz: SEO Salaries - How Much Should You Make.

And, no, I don’t make nearly as much as you think I make. But I’m open to negotiations.

Update:
SEMPO released its own survey of in-house SEO salaries in January 2008.

According to consulting firm McKinsey, about two-thirds of all economic activity in the United States is influenced by shared opinions about a product, brand or service. And on the Internet those shared opinions are reaching more eyes and ears than ever before.

“More than 90% of large companies believe that consumer recommendations are important in influencing other consumers’ purchase decisions,” said Emily Riley, a JupiterResearch analyst. “Yet many large companies are not focusing efforts on managing the conversation among consumers.” Of small companies, 66% monitor word-of-mouth (WoM) on a regular basis, with large companies only doing so 33% of the time.

Jupiter says large companies, if they are following word-of-mouth, “are more likely to assign WoM management to PR and marketing groups or third-party agencies, a practice that largely insulates employees from the affects, both positive and negative, of the feedback and means missing key opportunities.”

Obviously monitoring word-of-mouth alone isn’t going to be very effective in the long run. Instead, companies need to actually be able to shape and influence those discussions.

A conference starting tomorrow — Word of Mouth Basic Training (WOMBAT) organized by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) — addresses this topic in more depth.

Which brings me to a subject I want to blog about in the future: Astroturfing.

Wal-Mart has been outted as cozying up to bloggers. Actually, the article is very PR-firm-friendly, saying basically that if the line between PR firms and bloggers is blurred it’s because the bloggers are failing to properly reveal their sources. It could have turned into a mini-scandal, but both sides appear to have come out of it relatively unscathed. (Jeremy Zawodny’s rant notwithstanding.)

The PR firm behind Wal-Mart’s blog outreach is Edelmann, coincidentally the firm Steve Rubel just joined.

Rubel runs Micropersuasion.com, one of the most popular blogs on the Web, which looks at how online trends are influencing marketing and public relations. (Full disclosure: several months ago I asked Rubel if he’d do an interview for this blog, but he declined.)

Steve Rubel participated in an online chat at the Washington Post to discuss Blog Buzz Helps Companies Catch Trends in the Making, a Washington Post article that was published before the Wal-Mart story ran in the New York Times.

During his chat, Rubel answered some of my questions… sort of. To my question “when do you face bad buzz head on?” he answered “before it’s too late, but not too early.” Insightful.

When I asked if there was anything he would have done differently, and what the plan is now that they’ve been “outted,” Rubel says, “We will continue to build relationships with bloggers and strive to make them as transparent as possible.”

Increasingly, PR firms take the same approach toward bloggers as they do journalists in traditional media. The expectation is that the same standards (of journalistic integrity) apply, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet. I think public relations firms that pursue an aggressive blog outreach strategy are going to have to take some responsibility for making sure their bloggers aren’t just shilling. Otherwise it will reflect poorly on everyone involved and undermine the influence of citizen journalism.

Added March 21: The Economist ran an article February 9 about how corporations can use negative blog chatter to their advantage, The Blog in the Corporate Machine.

Over a WebProWorld, it’s been reported that Mazda’s marketing people have taken advantage of the search-savvy Pontiac commercial with a rather crafty strategy of their own.

Mazda is buying PPC ads for the keyword “Pontiac” and inviting a comparison between Pontiac and Mazda. They are riding the coat tails of Pontiac’s SEM spending, since the latter is encouraging everyone to google them (If I’m using it as a verb, it’s lower case, right?). The organic positions are still held by Pontiac-related sites though, and the price of those PPC ads will go up as the two car makers jockey for top position. So while Mazda’s strategy is very clever, it’s not likely to yield them a huge amount of free or low-CPA traffic.

You know when it’s time to give your in-house search marketers a big bonus when you want your customers to visit your website and you don’t have to give a URL, you just tell the audience to “Google us.” According to a The Search Insider article, a new 30-second TV spot produced by GM ends with this unusual call to action, and a screenshot of the Google interface with “Pontiac” typed in the search field.

The article goes on to explain:

GM’s campaign implies tremendous authority and trust in the Google brand. It’s almost as if Google is moving into the territory of J.D. Power & Associates as the ubiquitous barometer of customer satisfaction, so often plugged into automotive advertising. GM sales and marketing chief Mark LaNeve said in a recent Business Week article by David Kiley: “We’re touting Google, frankly, because it stands for credibility and consumer empowerment, and we like the association.”

… While association with Google’s credibility is understandable, no responsible brand manager would widely promote a search for his brand, without some degree of confidence that the results will support the brand objectives.

Tell me about it.

Update: Feb 1
I just saw the commercial. Slick.

I was recently asked what purpose a blog could serve for a small business. It’s true that “blogging” is very trendy for corporate communications now - but it is also a very effective and low-cost way to build online visibility for a small business.

Blogs are more personal than online advertising and easier for the technically inclined as well. Best of all, it costs as little as nothing (except your time) to post about happenings in your industry or to give users advice and how-tos on things you already know well.

Business blogs, filled with original content written with a unique point of view, also give entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to come across as real people. And consumers generally prefer dealing with a real person over a cold, faceless corporate entity. On the Internet no one knows you’re a dog, so a blog can help you put a sympathetic human face on your business.

Take for example GoDaddy.com, which sells domain names and hosting solutions. Bob Parsons, president and founder of the company, uses his blog to share his small business marketing insights with anyone who cares to visit. Sometimes he shares his opinions on industry news. What Bob doesn’t do is blatantly promote his company or treat his readers like marks.

These days, the domain registration business is hyper competitive - with some registrars selling domains for as low as $3 a year; and there’s nothing to prevent shoppers from simply picking the lowest prices. But you can be sure that loyal readers of Bob’s blog will consider GoDaddy.com when it’s time to buy a new domain or upgrade their website because they like and trust him.

Engage your readers in conversation, solicit feedback, don’t try to disguise advertising as information, and most of all be helpful and informative - then you’re on the right road to developing a larger and more loyal customer base.