I joined the engineering team with Jeff and the gang a couple of months ago, and I've been working on some slick new tools, as well as improving existing ones. In addition to software architecture, I also have an interest in data, so I spent most of last couple of weeks (and weekends) digging through the (many) survey results. I won't go into too many details here (check out the article!), but I did want to call out a couple of interesting points. If you have any comments about the article, feel free to drop them here.
Before I dig in, let me give you an IANAL-like disclaimer: I am not a statistician. Correlation is not causation, so we're not trying to call out cause-and-effect for any of these trends. If you are a statistician, please point out any mistakes I have made, or feel free to make any other observations you might have. We did not compute the margins of error for these results, or do any other statistical wizardry. Rather, we're hoping to release the results to you so you can dig in and find the interesting results. I'll include more about that near the end of the post.
First, I wonder from time to time what it is successful people do that I do not. I know income and success can be two very different things, but since I have income data here, that'll have to do. One thing I did notice was an interesting trend in income compared to number of daily blog feeds consumed:
What you can (or hopefully can) see is that to the left of the chart, near the $30k/year level, the percentage of respondents with 100+ daily blog feeds is less than the average: for the $30k group, the tan bar is less than the average of the other bars. But once you get to the $150k/year or even $250k+/year level, the percentage with 100+ daily feeds is above average: the tan bar for the $150k-250k group is way above the average of the others. Hmm... sounds like you better add SEOmoz to your feed reader.
Ok that one's a little tongue-in-cheek, as well as being statistically tenuous (correlation != causation). Check out a more serious look at income in the article. But for now, how about this data:
This one's a little more revealing. Only a small percentage (~12%) of respondents to our survey believe that verifying with Webmaster Central has negative consequences, which will make Google happy. However, nearly 42% are unsure about this issue! That's a lot of confused webmasters.
I promised just a taste here and that's what you've gotten. There's plenty more discussion in the article. For instance, in addition to what I've already discussed, we've got information about monthly PPC spending (that surprised me!), as well as all the results from lots of questions about demographics, getting started in the industry, occupations, employers, tools, media, and, my favorite, SEO speculation. So go check it out.
If you're interested in playing with the data in a more in-depth way, you can download the data (be sure to right-click and save as) in csv or sql formats. The csv has enough rows that importing it crashes OpenOffice, so your best bet might be something like SQLite. The schema is pretty straightforward... well, somewhat. If you need some tips, feel free to comment below or private message me and I'll try to get you squared away.
It's been a pleasure to sit on the other side of the blog, and I'm looking forward to sitting on the other side of the screen around here some more. Cheers!
There's so much interesting and remarkable data in here, it's almost hard to get my head around it (and I've been watching the project develop right from the start!)
First off, congrats to you Nick and to Rebecca and Jeff as well for their hard work. This is an impressive achievement. Second, I have to say that I love the raw data graphs available here. So many cool takeaways.
The salary number is really interesting, but I'm glad to see that search marketers in the US are closer to earning what we expect - a lot of that under $30K data comes from countries where earning power distributions (and averages) are much lower in all sectors.
Also fascinated that almost 80% of our respondents are male, 10% are based in the UK, 3.3% are in India, and there are high numbers from Australia, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Canada as well. We'll have to chart that breakdown at some point :)
Final thought - really interesting to see this data about how people learn/keep up with SEO. 72% read books and 92% read blogs, but only 37% have attended any type of events.
Edited to add - which blogs to SEOs read most? Answers definitely shocked me.
Rand, I'm curious. What about the "most read blogs" shocked you?
What shocked me was that the majority of SEOs don't read almost all of them...
I have to give most of the credit to Nick. Rand and I came up with the questions and Jeff did a great job building the survey, but Nick swooped in and digested the massive amount of data we received. He did a fabulous job, worked super hard, and was extremely passionate about the project. Thanks a bunch, Nick. :)
I'll second this. Nick did a fantastic job analyzing the data and getting something meaningful out of it.
I was most shocked by how few people rate Baidu as the Google's largest rival.
There seems to be too much of a tendancy within the industry to be UScentric - Yahoo! are so small in Europe and Asia that there is almost no competition, yet Baidu are moving across the East like a wildfire.
thanks, the survey helps me very much for my working study in the university!
I'm always glad to help out. I've got a soft spot for the academically inclined.
On SEO tactics to achive better rankings it's interesting that 70% of respondants still suggest editing/optimizing meta keyword tags. It was my understanding that this would have little or indeed no effect on ranking with modern search engines. Am I wrong?
I wondered about that one too. I don't even bother putting up the meta keyword tags any more.
Many SEOs I've spoken with still do it for these reasons:
They never know when it will be included again in the algo...
It's highly unlikely since it requires the skill of a 3-year-old to target meta keywords, and your grandma could easily don her black hat (bonnet?)
Some smaller search engines still use it...
That's possibly the reason why they're small fry. Stuff like Pitcairns Search
Hmmm... I don't think keywords are still used - one SE have said they were...
But title and description is old fashioned marketing. SEO is not keyword stuffing and these days involves as much marketing as algo understanding.
Never underestimate the power of a good call to action
:)
As someone who responded to the effect that I suggest optimising or editing meta keyword tags to clients, perhaps I should explain myself.
I do not believe that the use of meta keywords has any direct effect on rankings in any major search engine. I have recently heard quite a lot of noise about Yahoo! considering them again, but I do not believe this based on my own test-beds. There are examples of small engines who do use this meta data, but unless these are very specific to the client's vertical these are not a consideration.
I know that some people in the industry use meta keywords merely as reminders to keep a targeted focus for the page, but to me this seems like something to record off-line. On-line it is more like an advertisement to your client's competitors as to which keywords you are targeting and I am not generally in the business of giving away keyword research.
A better reason to edit met keyword tags is that a client has an identical 400 long list of keywords on every page. I would edit the tag to remove these, rather than to optimise them.
Huge swathes of irrelevant characters before the main content, especially huge swathes of duplicate characters, are far better edited out of the page.
I'm one of the minorities in this survey (a woman) and probably the oldest one too (old enough to qualify for medicare) so I would like to see the survey broken down into how women fare in the web design/SEO business.
I noticed that the site I inhabit the most and where I've learned the most was not listed in the survey - webmasterworld.com (well, until I found SEOmoz at least). I'm also mostly self-taught other than a few classes in college and have never attended a SEO event (too busy working) and rarely read books on SEO (by the time they are publsihed they are out of date). I turn down several jobs a week I'm so busy. My friends and family think I'm a work-a-holic but I love my job. I don't pay per click, never have and don't need it. Finances are not that important to me - helping people with crippled websites provides me all the fullfillment I need. And for the above reasons I problably really messed up your survey not fitting into the usual mold :)
Yes, no doubtedly this is a fentastic survey and the results are to everyone's shock (in a good way) and are very very informative and throws lots and lots of light into the SEO market and related fields.
I personally would like to see some more questions around the following areas:
1. What Ad group you support
2. What Ad group(s) you use on your blog
3. What kind of Ads you want to post on your blog/site
4. What kind of Ads the readers of your blog/site want to see
5. What formats of Ads do you want to post (including size, audio, video and full page ads)
6. What is your ad revenue forecast for the next year.
Who won the iPhone, by the way.
Because survey respondents were anonymous, we privately contacted the winner.
Was it you?
No, it was Bleebecca Relley. Duh. ;)
Oh well, that's alright then
;¬)
For anyone who has more questions about the survey results, we've provided the data in an openly accessible format, so you're welcome to download and do your own analysis :)
As a new member of the SEOmoz community, as well as a greenhorn in the world of corporate blogging (for my company), this post was extremely fascinating.
Kudos to you for putting together such a great compilation of research and insight. Given that many or most of the people reading this article have some type of vested interest in SEO, it was interesting to see how my own opinions measured up.
Coincidence or not, I blog about surveys actually. One of the products and services my company offers is that of online survey software and related consultation services. Interestingly enough, I am also a huge advocate of using surveys creatively to generate new and compelling content for your blog or other publication.
Alas, when I found myself reading through your blog entry with fascination, I couldn't help but grin a little, seeing that my own interest in your post somehow validated what I've advocated... I hope that made sense.
We should talk about different ways to use surveys to not only generate content, but from an SEO perspective, come up with some specific action steps (strategic and tactical) that can help bloggers and online marketers achieve specific goals. Sure, coming up with content is a great way to generate buzz and interest -- but where it really becomes valuable is when you can add business processes to the mix.
If you have another survey in mind, it might be worth putting our heads together.
Congrats on the undertaking, and welcome to the blogosphere Nick.
Something to keep in mind with the blog numbers is also the level of involvement... skim, read, comment, and rounds of commenting (by that I mean like here, it isn't uncommon to see comment conversations where a number of "rounds" of comments take place, which is probably a bit more unique); as well as how many are truly followed "daily." Still interesting none-the-less.
This is great to have and see, and while I'm sure the work that went into it was tremendous, hopefully it will be repeated at least annually, since like all data, the trends over time will be even more revealing than the individual data points...
Nice job Mozzers!
You make a great point about blog engagement. A more in-depth survey about media engagement in general might yield very interesting results. And coupling that with direct observations about comments on blogs would be very valuable to certain members of our audience.
Sounds like a very slick YOUmoz (or anywhwere-moz) post. Or maybe we'll just hang onto that idea (it's not like I had plans for the next three or four weekends...)
I'm intested in the results for metrics that influence rankings on Google. The second highest metric (after clickthroughs on results) is Google Analytics data. I guess the interesting part of this is in the wording of the question.
Are people saying that if you have Google Analytics enabled for your site and the traffic recorded to your site is high then it will positively influence your rankings? Or are they saying that if you have Google Analytics and the traffic is low then it will negatively influence your rankings? Or are people saying that if you don't have Google Analytics then it will negatively impact your rankings?
I don't think the data really shows this... so what are your thoughts?
You're asking a really good question. I'm not suggesting that this is actually the case, and there was some ambiguity. Hopefully we'll have some of our community chime in here, since this question is about beliefs.
So what do you guys think? If you believe that analytics data is affecting rankings, how do you think it affects rankings?
I don't think that Analytics data would cause an effect on rankings because there is such a wide array of methods in which webmasters can skew the results: blocked IPs, filtered variables, source off-sets, even organic searches being treated as direct referrals. Reporting limits like these may help a webmaster, but I do not see how this kind of polarization would benefit G, or anyone other SE. The way I'm seeing it, Google needs the 'pure' data from clickthroughs which may or may not be reported accurately in any individual analytics account.
But dude..where is my IPhone? :)
Welcome, Nick.
Thanks for take the time to introduce yourself. I can't wait to dive into this data. Although right now I think everyone who filled out the survey is looking at the article because I can't get the site to load :)
One thing I noticed was in the simple month since I filled out this survey some of my responses now would be a bit different. It's nice to know that I am doing things similar to others in the industry.
I can echo this - I think my answers would change from when I first answered the survey. It would be interesting to see how things change if another survey is run in a year's time. The industry moves forward and we all learn more.
Bravo to the SEOmoz team for an outstanding piece of work. If this had been done over at MarketingSherpa, it would be selling as "The SEO Industry Guide", for $275 a copy.
Value, value and more value...
I agree with Sean wholeheartedly - this work is absolutely fantastic and all those who planned the survey and managed the process from concept to release should be very proud.
To echo Sean, it's an outstanding piece of work.
I'm glad that you guys appreciate this! Whenever I work on this sort of thing (never as my primary position), I always have to be very careful and double check results. So I can understand how some places might want to recoup some of those losses.
For me I guess it's just all the free coffee the rest of the gang feeds me.
i cant see how registering on webmaster is a bad thing, all your doing is giving google a helping hand. Aslong as you dont do anything black hat what could go wrong?
I agree, is there something I haven't read about Webmaster Central? Looking at my pitiful RSS count of 47 I guess I'm living in a glass booth of optimization!
the fears are that , google could see exactly which sites you own; and cancel any cross links between them. (there is already a "scent" that they might be using whois data in the same manner or fashion
.rb
It is crazy all the information you where able to gather on this. Can I ask why the question about the number of emails you get a day? I just find that one somewhat interesting...What where you hoping to find out with this? Or is it a random question?
Interesting how the number of blog feeds read drops as the income goes higher. Guess that means the folks making more money are doing things besides reading blog feeds all day!
Oh, to have the time to read all those feeds...
very good piece of work! thank you for letting us have a look at the results and very interesting datas. Knowing what I have answered, I get a better idea of what's going on world wide, as I am planning to move abroad.
About blogs : I just can't figure how someone could read all the blogs on a daily basis...
100+ feeds per day? I'm going to take that one with a grain of salt. Or maybe I'm doing something wrong. I read a lot each day but damn... Maybe I should stop doing my work and start reading more ;)
Who won the IPhone ?
Curious ...
What will i do if i win the IPhone ...
As it may be difficult to arrange for shipping an electronic item, i will exchange it for a couple of links ...
Krishna
https://www.vkinfotek.com
Thanks for the research! Interesting stuff.
Looking at the income by region, maybe I should move to Australia! Being from Canada I'm not surprised that there's more SEO/SEM folks getting paid on the lower end of the scale compared to our US brethren. This likely mirrors the demand of SEO in those regions.
Being a service based digital role/company technically there should be no borders (i.e. get clients from all over the globe) and pay "should" assumably flatten. However, my assumption is that businesses would rather interact with SEO's in their region than to work with someone facelessly online (unless you're looking for a bargain deal; and pursue offshore talent).
All hearsay from a relative newbie! (feel free to disagree!)
It's a cornucopia of awesomness. Thanks seomoz. I'm surprised to see the percentage of marketers who still use the keyword meta tag. Also the percentage who use 'none of the above' when it comes to industry norm SEO tactics. NONE? Come on.
Brilliant and lots of hard work done. Where I work they do a salary survey and it takes something like 20 man days.
Excellent work!
Well, I am a proud representative of an SEO community minority: a woman of 24 :)
Also I like how we, no matter what, have a strong believe in Yahoo...
Ok, gone to study the results...
It will be interesting to see how many women, and age-ranges, are SEOs.
Haven't seen you around recently Ann - been on your hols?
I wasn't commenting but I've always been here :)
Lindop said "It will be interesting to see how many women, and age-ranges, are SEOs."
Hey are you hoping SEOmoz will open up a new dating section? ;-) SEO seeks similar for social optimization and reciprocal linking... :>
Whereas I am an entirely average 33 year old white male.
I would be interested in seeing the average number of blogs read compared directly with each income bracket. The more senior I become the less time I have to read and the more research is delegated. I figure that the lower earners will on average read more, but it is hard to digest from the graph presented and I am too idle to work it out for myself.
[EDIT: My wife reliably informs me that I am, in fact, only 32.]
Great to see you on the blog Nick, I'm a bit of a data junkie myself so I look forward to your future posts.
I wouldn't say however that te 42% not sure about Google webmaster tools are 'confused' - there has just been so little conclusive testing and evidence on this point that many of us are holding back judgement.
I'm waiting until someone more clued-up than me *cough seomoz* can find a way to accurately A-B test it.
Nonetheless, it presents quite an opportunity for Google WC to do some quality assurance and clarify the benefits of verifying with them.
i did a-b testing extensively on the sitemap part before they expanded webmaster tools.. and while the data i gathered showed a positive impact but only after 30 days... the hard part was having a website that you could actually make controls on..
i tried the experiments like 4 -6 times (5? lol)
the hardest part was isolation of the website to not allow for any other influences as to only show the sitemap benefits...
but also testing in a vaccuum showed that sitemap has a connection with other Google factors... and when used with the other factors does absolutely provide a benefit to organic seo.
Very great data! Funny the comment about selling this data for $275. It's interesting to see the correlation between feeds and income...what a unique approach and welcome to the blog! Hope to see more articles soon!
Great to have you on the blog dude. Hope you'll be posting more like this soon!
Welcome Nick to the seomoz kingdom... I'm going to go through the results now, seems like very interesting data. Any information about latin americans that took the survey?
This is a really good idea. We've released the data, and in it you can link up respondents who answered the country of residence question to any other question you like.
If there's interest I'll try and write some more about doing this kind of analysis on the raw data (which is freely available).
I have to say I was a bit surprised by several of the results, one of which was the gender of the vast majority of SEO's.
My obvious conclusion is that I'm a minority in this industry. :-)
I also found interesting how many learned SEO. Like the vast majority of SEO's I learned it by reading and applyin what I learned and tickering here and there with projects. By profession I am a web designer, but got into SEO simply because I love research and reading and boy have I read! There has been so much to learn and honestly the more I read, the more I realize I need to read.
There were other surprising results, but definitely an eye opener and thanks to SEOmoz for taking the time and manpower to put this together for all of us!
Ashley (of the-minority-group-of-seo's) a.k.a. ProAssets
I really appreciate the SEOmoz team compiling the data for all of us. I am about to look through the stats. I usually like to print the guide(s) in word and read them later on. I do not see a version in word that I can download its entirety?
Thanks again for the data
I'll second that... word or PDF version would be great for printing and reading later
The answers to the importance of various marketing strategies show a very Web 2.0 bias (high response ranking for blogging, feed publication, viral content and SMO). This certainly shows the importance of Web 2.0 in the industry but I wonder if everyone uses these methods for marketting their site will the benefits will level out? How many blogs can you read? How much viral content can you see before you start filtering it out?
Whoops - just noticed your title tag on the page! Are you trying to optimize for the keyword <strong> ;)
Good Job!! this is certainly enlightening