SEO Expert Salary: How much do SEO Specialists make?

Welcome to our “how much money do SEO Specialists make?” or SEO Experts/Specialists Salary page.

This is Joanna Vaiou, owner of this website.

I offer SEO Professional services to local, national, and international brands and enterprises who want to transform their organic presence on Google search engine, since early 2013.

SEO Specialist Salary

If you are looking for information on DIY SEO and how to become an SEO Expert, chances are sooner or later, you will ask yourself this 1 Million dollar question.

How much does an SEO Specialist make?

It is reasonable to ask yourself how much money you can earn in this major.

First of all, as it happens with all things SEO related, the money one can make as an SEO Expert or SEO Specialist depends on many factors.

SEO Salary Factors Introduction

  1. Where you live in the world and where your employer or clients live. It is only normal that if you live in the US, you’ll make more money as an SEO Expert/Specialist than what you’d make if you lived in India.
  2. What type of employment you operate under. It is only normal that if you are an SEO Specialist working as an employee full-time, the money you can make will most probably be very restricted than if you yourself are an SEO company owner/SEO freelancer with your own company and your own clients where you can choose all aspects of your business.
  3. How good you think you are as an SEO Specialist. Especially if you go to the freelance/agency route, you can literally work the hours you want, charge your own prices, and choose as many clients or projects you want. There is no limit to how much money you can make as an SEO freelancer or SEO Agency as it all depends on how good you are, how much work you do, and the type of results you bring.
  4. The niche you provide SEO services for. If you choose to support the high-end niches like Gambling, etc with your SEO skillset,  you’ll probably get paid more than if you helped small local business owners get more local incoming traffic to their store.
  5. Who your employer is. If you go the full-time employee route and you are working for Google, Facebook, Amazon, and alike companies, it is only normal that your SEO Specialist’s salary will be much higher than if your employer was a small local Technology company.
  6. The area of your specific SEO specialization. 
  7. Your SEO Seniority Level.
  8. The pricing model you apply as an SEO Company owner. It is normal that if you apply some type of payment models for your services that are performance-based let’s say for a high-end profit per sale company, you can potentially make much more money than if you charged the company a monthly retainer selling your time and expertise for a fixed amount of money.

The above factors apply to all Professionals so there is no one answer for our 1 Million Dollar question.

In more detail, let’s see how much SEO Specialists can earn in the US.

Average SEO Specialist Salary in the US according to Indeed.com

How much do SEO specialists make? Joanna Vaiou

SEO salary USA: How much do SEO specialists make in the USA on average? Browse sites like Indeed and Glassdoor to select your location and SEO Specialty to get a specific idea about the salaries you can expect accordingly. ~ Joanna Vaiou

 

SEO Salary for Different Levels in the US

As an SEO consultant, you can expect to work for marketing firms where you will be paid according to the level of your expertise and duties you are assigned at the firm on top of the usual search engine optimization specialist’s duties.

If you are wondering whether you can rely on SEO jobs for a living, the answer to that question depends on your particular level of skills plus how determined you are to pursue this career.

Below are the factors that determine the kind of salary you can expect for the various levels of employment in the SEO job industry.

Factors that influence SEO salaries

  • Areas of Specialization

The area in which you specialize usually has a big role to play in the kind of salary to expect.

While it is difficult to predict which areas of specialization will be in high demand in the near future, it goes without saying that the more money you can make for your client the more they can pay you.

Also, even though specialization is the key to success in SEO marketing, you need to have hands-on experience of other SEO practices so that you can offer more input to your employer’s firm.

  • SEO Remote Freelance Telecommuters Vs SEO Agency

SEO freelancers and those who work for agencies are not likely to have the same amount of pay. While working or agencies guarantees your pay at the end of every month, there is no limit to how much people can earn as SEO freelance telecommuters either.

Also, the no of hours you put in plus whether you work online or on-site will affect the salary you can expect.

  • Education background

This refers to any other degrees and qualifications that you might have. Usually, having business and commerce or IT and programming related certificates will get you better pay.

  • Seniority in management

If you are in senior management of the marketing team, then you are more likely to have better pay than if you are hired to do the donkey work. It’s not rocket science, the more you do the less you earn.

  • Other duties

If you, as an in-house SEO consultant, have other responsibilities apart from search engine optimization then obviously your salaries will be more lucrative.

This is where it pays to have more skills to bring to the bargaining table as a jack of all trades.

Read what are an SEO Specialist’s Key skills to get hired by a company.

That said, there is no real limit to how much you could make working as an SEO specialist either:

  1. As an SEO Freelancer or
  2. An Independent SEO Contractor/Consultant.

If you are interested to work as an SEO full-time as an employee for 1 company then it is easier to research your salary.

Simply check what the salary ranges are per level of expertise and title on Indeed.com in the city or country you are living in and planning to get a full-time job in the future.

Why I Personally never understood FULL-TIME Jobs

  1. As a full-time employee even if you are the most experienced and skilled SEO Professional you can only make that much money because there is the “full-time” restricting factor.
  2. A full-time job is a full-time job.
  3. You can only make that much money equal to the hours of your life that you sell to your employer.
  4. A full-time job eats up all of your productive time in a day.
  5. There is no extra time (or energy most of the time) left for you after your full-time job to create extra streams of income or build your own dream of financial freedom.
  6. You offer all of your skills, talents, time, and productivity to build your employer’s dream.
  7. At the same time, you own ZERO of it.
  8. Your full-time job can be taken away from you in a blink of an eye.
  9. No matter how many years of your life you may have invested in building someone else’s dream.
  10. It is a serious problem in my eyes to own nothing from what you build, from what you bring to the table.

In my eyes the only model making sense is ownership.

Own your sweat if you are the right Leader for yourself and your financial life.

I love the struggle that comes with owning my own business because I love and trust myself as a Creator of my own financial reality and situation.

I prefer ownership, the freedom and responsibility it brings as well as the uncertainty more than any full-time job, as safe as it may be presented.

Becoming a great SEO Specialist pays off (if you have the stomach and guts for it) and it gives you all the types of freedom that a full-time job can never do.

That is if you are head over heels in love with what you do and continue helping others improve their own financial situation through your amazing SEO skillset.

Here is how you can learn SEO & become an SEO Expert at home with my free training resources.

Contact

Email Joanna Vaiou