From the looks of the following chart, we’re seeing a downturn in demand for SEO – but in reality, there is likely to be a whole host of other reasons for this.

My experience of the SEO labour market lately doesn’t support what we see in the following diagram, but that said it’s interesting all the same as it’s the first time that we have seen this fall in the number of instances of SEO being referenced as part of IT sector job descriptions.

We can quite clearly see that since September 2009, the number of instances of ‘SEO’ being quoted by in job descriptions has reduced from almost 3% of IT sector roles to 2.2%.

Naturally, this is just the IT sector that is reporting on this metric, so it would naturally be missing a whole host of other foundational sectors that feed in to the SEO community, but learning more about this drop after such an impressive incline seems quite interesting.

What might have caused this drop?

• Seasonal drops in recruitment?
• People taking SEO skills for granted?
• The chart is not reporting on the whole labour market – just IT job descriptions that reference SEO.  Maybe we’ll see SEO referenced more as a marketing specification rather than IT – where it’s foundations lie.
• We know little about the dataset – a 26% fall on 3% can be easily influenced on a relatively small dataset.

Looking in more detail, we can see that the professions noting SEO as a criteria are heavily IT-led, but in reality people may well be investing more heavily in online PR, manual link-building, social media folk, etc etc – all with the view to influence organic visibility:

1. 925 (35.91 %) – Developer
2. 527 (20.46 %) – Web Developer
3. 200 (7.764 %) – PHP Developer
4. 199 (7.725 %) – Designer
5. 181 (7.026 %) – Web Designer
6. 162 (6.289 %) – SEO Specialist
7. 156 (6.056 %) – Senior Developer
8. 155 (6.017 %) – Front-End Developer
9. 150 (5.823 %) – Analyst
10. 134 (5.202 %) – Marketing Manager
11. 111 (4.309 %) – Consultant
12. 105 (4.076 %) – SEO Manager
13. 101 (3.921 %) – .NET Developer
14. 87 (3.377 %) – Web Manager
15. 78 (3.028 %) – Account Manager
16. 77 (2.989 %) – Online Marketing Manager
17. 68 (2.640 %) – Front-End Web Developer
18. 62 (2.407 %) – C# Developer
19. 61 (2.368 %) – Web Analyst
20. 59 (2.290 %) – Project Manager

Interesting to monitor the sector evolve in this way.  I wonder what the next quarter will bring.  My understanding of the market in Manchester is that almost all SEO’s that I know are part of SEO teams that are recruiting.  And whilst I’m at it, if you’re in the North West and looking for a new role, get in touch: Ben McKay on LinkedIn or Ben McKay Twitter.

Source: data provided by ITJobsWatch.

The biggest tip I can give you to help you get a job in SEO is to get out there…answer and ask questions on the SEO blogs and forums, and ensure that you are not just a SEO sponge but that you challenge and test your own theories.

There’s a load of rubbish SEO content out there too, so here’s a starting point for a few great SEO sites to get you on your way…

• Search Engine Land – industry news, views and advice
• Search Engine Roundtable – more industry news, views and advice
• Search Engine Watch – even more industry news, views and advice!
• SEOMoz – provides stacks of research, training and tools.
• SEOBook – one of my earliest favourite SEO sites and an industry leader in the provider of SEO tools and resources.
• Search Engine Journal - a writing co-op for PPC, SEO and social media guys to share their ideas, research and discoveries.
• Wiep – awesome link-building tips (if you’re good at link-building, you’ll never be short of a job offer or two).

More Advanced SEO / IR Blogs

Once you’ve had a taster of what SEO is and what it can do for websites, you might want to learn more about the technology behind them, these might be good starting blocks:

• Bill Slawski – top notch IR geek (and I’m sure he won’t take offense to me saying that)
• David Harry – he now run’s a superb higher-level SEO forum,
• Science for SEO – SEO geek doesn’t cover it, uber IR geek might though

Or even check-out my SEO blogroll for more ideas!   If you want a few more ideas or help with getting started say hello on Twitter.

Regardless of all my hopes and dreams for this website, make sure you get in touch and say hello!
Email: ben {at} justmeandmy dot com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/yetanotherben

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/benmckayseo

I write here, so pop-by and say hello: Ben McKay’s Blog

Ben McKay