Back in March of this year, SEOmoz ran an industry survey that saw 6,491 respondents provide detailed answers to 53 unique questions. The survey formally ran from March 21st to May18th. From independent consultants to agency SEOs to in-house marketers, we got to see responses from a wide swath of the industry's demographics. Individuals from more than 100 countries contributed (as you can see below).
You can now see the results of this survey, including some excellent analysis by our very own Dr. Peter J. Meyers on the site.
Note that on the right-hand column of the survey, you'll see each of the individual sections Pete's analyzed in the formal survey results. You can also find the complete results as well as those from 2010, which shows some fascinating differences.
But, Pete's not the only one who did some data analysis on the survey results :-) In preparation for my webinar with Dharmesh from Hubspot, I looked at something I've been curious about for a while - the differences in salary for in-house vs. agency/consultant marketers. I filtered to just the US/UK/Canada/Australia/NZ for these results, and found it fascinating:
The common wisdom is that marketers at agencies have lower compensation, but a greater ability to build their portfolio and skills for the future. I can't speak to the latter assumption, but I can say that the former seems accurate, at least from this data.
Two final notes - the first, please be aware that SEOmoz is not a professional surveying firm, so our methodology and question formats are likely inferior to those run by formal statisticians. And second, I'd like to give huge thanks to all the organizations who helped support the industry survey, including Outspoken Media, Search Engine Land, Distilled, Hubspot, Search Engine Journal, Techipedia, AimClear, Blueglass, Marketing Pilgrim, and Search Engine Watch.
Buried in the data are treasure troves of fascinating information, and I encourage anyone with curiousity to dig around in the full stats and report on any interesting findings. This data is welcome to be used by anyone for private or public consumption (so yes, you can include it in your internal reporting/slide decks if you'd like), but of course, we'd appreciate source citation.
P.S. A very special thanks to Dr. Pete, Ashley, Devin, Erica, and Derric from Moz who went above and beyond to make this project happen (and apologies for our delay - funding+Mozcon+Followerwonk have made this a crazy few months!)
Very interesting facts & data, from 1st pie chart India is been quoted twice India - 4.0% & India - 0.8% this means a total of 4.8% right? why this is been quoted twice?
My mistake! Think that was a SurveyMonkey thing I messed up.
Thanks for the Clarification Rand. :)
Thanks for clarifying it Rand. :)
So that puts India ahead of Canda at number #3.
Hey Christy, good catch; INDIA having 2 times I'm sure it's Rand's by mistake.
Great analysis Rand, but still I'm not sure about salary :)
Just came to SEOmoz and thought I wonder where the survey results are its been a while.
AND HERE THEY ARE!!!
This may be a dumb question.
Under "Individual vs Team Priorities", you list 5 categories-SEO-On-page Optimization-Link Building-Social Media Marketing-Copywriting/Blogging/Writing
I have always thought SEO as a term that meant all aspects to show up in the SERPs, including On-page, link building, social, and blogging. So does SEO include all 4 of the other categories, or does it stand alone?
We were more just curious broadly and specifically, so we included both.
Got ya. Thanks
Having recently read why Google won't be in a rush to increase social signal weight unless they own the property, like YouTube, (https://www.seobook.com/social-media-bubble-implodes), the survey's participants don't appear to have taken this into consideration.
Everyone's jumped on the "social signals are REALLY important" bandwagon but in terms of the overall algo mathematical breakdown, aren't SEOs over-selling this?
YouTube Video views and other YouTube signals surely still trump all other social signals... combined? Search in Google for 'u2 with or without you' and look at the top results!
Would recommend people read that article over at SEObook before knee-jerking.
That was an awesome, in-depth, and thorough article. Wow! I'm impressed with SEOBook. They caught my attention. Thanks for sharing this, Andrew.
I remnd you that the survey was launched in Spring... while the SEObook post was written just few days ago.
For good or bad, Israel has the highest ratio of SEO employees compared to population size. Being an Israeli i can testify many of them are black hats / big time affiliates / gambling or porn experts (again, for good or bad)
There are plenty of white hat SEOs in Israel. Seems like you're making broad assumptions based on anecdotal evidence at best.
I'm pretty familiar with the local industry. I forgot to mention FOREX as well
u.s holds the seo market with a agenda of outsourcing its work
India is mentioned twice under country of residence.
My bad - think that was a SurveyMonkey export thing I messed up.
Another interesting graph would be the distribution of pay packets in the agency and in house roles by the number of years in the industry.
That would be a great addition here.
wooo... THE RESULTS IN! I love doing the industry surveys!
Great work Rand et al!
As someone who's worked both sides, I can totally relate to the agency vs. in-house salary observation. I went from agency to in-house and then back to agency. My salary jumped up considerably when I went in-house, and when I went back to agency, I had to take a drop in salary, even though I'd gained more experience by that point.
Creative post Rand :)
I would like to see a SPAM survey.. Which country spams the most ;)
Thanks for sharing the information. Really a great post.
awesome survey Rand, I must say...
Also would like participate in this kind of survey.. Rand i would really appreciate if i come to know how can i participate in such activities?
(assuming this kind of survey would not be only for the specific or fix category ppl)
Thanx :)
How interesting that in-house marketers earn more. I wonder if we'll see consolidation where some consultants give up and join big firms
It is very interesting data i like these all analysis data of SEO industry.
Thanks for sharing the great news of seo industries. It’s very interesting to know the salaries of the SEO Employees in the globe.
Thanks for sharing data and the article is very gud...........
Interesting survey. Thank you.
Excellent Article. Its more fact and data based. SEO is growing and in near future it will boom more and more. Good to know more growth in India.
I was searching for great information like this
Interesting that the agency marketers have more employees on the lower earnings end but when it gets to the higher end of earnings the inhouse people have much bigger numbers.
I certainly appreciate your sharing the results of your survey.
But I wonder how meaningful are 'Spending & Budgets' and 'Annual Salaries' graphs are, when companies & individuals from countries with lower living costs and therefore lower income, although in the minority percentage wise, do present lower figures than countries such as USA, Germany, Ausrtralia etc
I was particularly interested in this piece of data:
- 6% Copywriting/Blogging/Writing
I would expect this figure to go up considerably in the coming months :-)
Great Post! Very helpful comparison. Thanks
Great post and research, thanks to the entire SEOmoz team.
A suggestion for next year, maybe a few questions that differentiates White Hat SEOs from Black Hat SEOs, like have you ever paid for a link, do you consider yourself black hat, etc.
Living here in the US, I am curious as to the geographic distribution of respondents within the United States.
I don't live in teh US - only work with the US so +1 for that. If possibile to be developed that will really be helpful to see the geo spread within US.I think there is enough data for US to make this addon.
Great analysis SEOmoz team good to be a part of this survey and great too see some industry specific research been done =)
Thanks to SEOmoz and all participants. Very interesting industry data.
77% Male - I expect to see that number even out a bit more in the coming years. Have recently met some great female Internet marketers.
This is really great news for the industry: growth and potential. The best part is that the concept or SEO and web optimization are becoming part of the language of all online businesses. I’m looking forward to growing with the industry.
The US does owe some of its prowess to India (both I guess :)) and the Philippines. I'm not a fan of the method, but it happens. One question I ask myself with this data set available is "Is SEO really dead?" which is kind of ironic considering the SEO that has gone into that term. The answer is no. And what we see here is that there is plenty of room for growth so long as evolution continues as well as good business.
Stay thirsty my friends.
Wow! Those are some sweet stats!
What caught my eye is "Google's Insights for Search" was among the top 5 content marketing and outreach tools. How does that work? I can understand it as a research tool, but how does it work as an outreach tool?
Very fascinating stuff! Thanks for putting this together.
Hi Rand,
This annually Income individually or all.
But I am happy for this survey.
really thanks.
Nice seo survey randfish!
That's a great survey by SEO moz... Thanks for sharing this post.
Excellent job to all of SEOmoz members. . . BIG thumps up!
I found it fascinating that out of 3 billion searches a day, 75% click on an organic result! And that 50% of keywords have no ads. In my experience, business owners are more willing to spend money on ads rather than content, social media, or design. Should be the other way around! At least now I have a statistic to take to clients. :)
Great survey! Thanks to seomoz .