← Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
SEO Jobs Week - In demand SEO Skills
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- [00:00]
Podcast Announcer
The Voices of Search Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice then visit iheareverything.com welcome to the Voices of Search Podcast. A member of the I Hear Everything Podcast network, ready to expedite your company's organic growth efforts. Sit back, relax, and get ready for your daily dose of search engine optimization wisdom. Here's today's host of the Voices of Search podcast, Tyson Stockton.
- [00:43]
Tyson Stockton
Hey, what's going on? My name is Tyson from Previsible IO, and joining me today is Nick Leroy, founder of SEOjobs.com and today we're continuing the conversation on the SEO Jobs Week on the Voice of Search, where we've been breaking down a different aspect of the report, hopefully to help those SEOs out there, hiring managers, whoever. But yeah, we want to use this as one more piece of information to help kind of navigate the industry. So with that. Nick, how are you doing? Welcome back.
- [01:15]
Nick Leroy
Hey, thank you so much again for having me. I'm very excited to continue to deep dive on this report.
- [01:21]
Tyson Stockton
Yeah, I mean, we've already covered a lot of ground, but I feel like two of the more exciting ones, you know, we've, we've held in our back pocket for the tail end of the week. So today we're going to dive into skills. And I know everyone's like, hey, just get to Friday and talk about salary. But like, this is the one area of this report that we have the most control over. And so I think, like, this, as far as, like, we know it is a tough market out there. We've talked about it earlier. Although they're bright spots within the industry, there is still a lot of competition and it is a buyer's market. And so the more competitive you can be on the skill front, I think it's like, that would be my biggest recommendation to those out trying to land a job is like, this is the area that you should focus on because this is the area that you can control. Nick, how do you think about it and how are you looking at this kind of section?
- [02:18]
Nick Leroy
Yeah, I think this is really like table stakes, really today, checkbox SEO is only a portion of what it takes to win. I think getting buy in and these, you know, effective communication and just communication as a whole is really going to be the strength behind a lot of candidates. So if you feel like any of these specific tactics or areas are a little Bit weak. I would definitely brush up on it because I think it's going to be a new expectation that you can all do it versus it's great. You can check these boxes.
- [02:53]
Tyson Stockton
Absolutely. And I think it's also, as we dive into these skills, it's also kind of worth, you know, revisiting a little bit of like how we approach the study because like this is an area that we heavily had to rely on clustering of different descriptions because there's a million different ways that people are going to like state things in job descriptions. And so if we take an area like data analytics, there's also going to be certain call outs to business intelligence data driven strategies. And so it's like you have elements that dance around a similar vein. And so we clustered a lot of these together. And I think, I mean that in both a precursor to not get too hung up on the exact word choice, but also it's like you do want to lean into obviously the hard skills that a specific job has that you're applying for. And I was recently working on one that had a requirement for SQL and having like, if you see something as specific as that in a job posting, more than likely that is a requirement then for the role. So it's like if you can reflect more specific and granular someone is on the skill requirements, on your own CV, on LinkedIn, whatever, it's going to increase your chances of actually kind of landing these type of roles.
- [04:26]
Nick Leroy
Yeah, without a doubt. I think you summed that up perfectly.
- [04:29]
Tyson Stockton
Vinny kind of leads us what are some of the most heavily required skills across all the jobs that we looked at? And no surprise, the most common ones that were used in about 20% of all the job descriptions we came across, tech, SEO, content marketing, data analytics. Those are to Nick your point, those are the table stakes that almost all of the jobs have in some form or another going into it. So then it's like, well, what's on the rise? Like what's maybe correlating to higher salaries or like what correlates to lower. And I think that's like then when we're looking at the type of SEO job that it is and in the areas that I feel like are kind of correlated at least to a higher salary or kind of in that growing demand is going to be the data analytics, AI, tech, SEO and stakeholder management.
- [05:26]
Nick Leroy
Absolutely.
- [05:28]
Tyson Stockton
And I think like from that, like AI, I kind of expected that, like, I mean it was very quick how you know, the industry started including it in job descriptions. To me personally, I Feel like maybe there's a correlation. Not correlation, but maybe there's some connection to the softness in some of the more content roles of having, you know, AI filter in more that they want. You know, if you're hiring in an uncertain time, you're going to want to have that skill set that you're a little nervous of. So I feel like that was kind of like my take on seeing some of those stakeholder management also is like, yeah, any leadership SEO role is going to have that as being like one of the number one skills. So it's like that's the area that I think, especially if you're trying to make the jump from an SEO manager to SEO director, like that focus on your resume in the interview process is absolutely critical. Yeah.
- [06:23]
Nick Leroy
Tyson, one other thought that I had, and I suspect you would agree, is now is the time to develop your POV on AI. Every interview that you're going to go into, people are going to ask you what's your take on it? And I'm not here to tell you that it's taking over the world or it'll die or anything in between. But I think just understanding what value it potentially adds, where it can cause issues is really important. And that's going to be an answer that I think a lot of hiring managers are going to be looking for.
- [06:57]
Tyson Stockton
100% and I think it's one of those things that is definitely sought after and it's something that I think like is, is there for people to, you know, play into and yeah, like leverage to their benefit. An interesting one though, which actually, I mean, these ones surprised me. And so I don't know, like Nick, when you came across it, like if you were also by it, but like two areas that were on the increase was one, just a generic growth marketing and UI and ux, which for me, UI and UX I got, that makes sense to me. It's kind of like we're seeing more and more SEO roles have some overlap with CRO. And so like to me, I'm like, yeah, okay, that's a little bit of a forward thinking company, maybe on the extent of where SEO kind of ends, so to speak. But the growth marketing one, I was like, what's going on here? Like, are we going backwards into like a generalist, like kind of marketing, like digital marketing kind of piece, like growth marketing in a skill set, like, it's wild.
- [08:12]
Nick Leroy
I think a lot of it, I suspect is these are the type of terms that hiring managers are having to use to get buy in, you know, with the idea and the conversation, as heavy as it's ever been about, you know, SEO is dying. I think the ability to say, well, this person can kind of wear multiple hats. Whereas like you said, I would argue that, you know, organic growth or, you know, all this stuff that you had just mentioned is already a quality or a skill set of a good SEO. It's just not a formal skill set that you normally have to review and seek. But fair, I think, especially going into 2025 when there is so much question around the channel and it's only going to get more and more difficult to measure, I think we're going to see a lot more of these secondary, you know, I don't want to call them solutions, but it's like secondary, you know, value adds, you know, Nick can add value to our QA team, Nick can add value to our analytics team. And I just think that's what hiring managers are viewing right now as just an opportunity to continue to get investment.
- [09:24]
Tyson Stockton
And support, which that's a much more positive take than I had on this where so it's like, I mean, this is good. I was, you know, earlier in the week I was being more optimistic. You know, now I can go back to my natural pessimistic state. But for me, like growth marketing, I was like, man, like, this is someone that's writing a job description that doesn't know what the role of an SEO is. So I was, I couldn't, I guess, almost instinctively being like disappointed by seeing how frequent growth marketing was. Which I do like your take on it. And I think there is, you know, a glass half full of, hey, who knows what that individual on the other side was needing to do to get something through the system. And so I think like, that is a very like, call and also like realistic call out too. So regardless, growth marketing, maybe that's one that you don't want to be like, okay, I'm going to write out explicitly, like, maybe you don't, maybe you don't. I don't know. For me it's a weird one, but I think like the UX ui. And I guess an area that I was a little, kind of almost again slightly disappointed from is like, it was cool seeing like the UI ux, but like I was really thinking this was going to be a turning point to see more CRO type stuff. I feel like the opportunity is right there. AI, of course, but CROs, it's right next door. And so I'd expect especially in the leadership roles to see that as a higher overlap area.
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Nick Leroy
Well, it's interesting, Tyson, because I agree with you 100%. And it's interesting because you're right. Earlier in the week I was definitely the half empty and I'm kind of looking at things half full right now. But I'm wondering if leadership is seeing correlation between work in ui, UX and CRO and they're not just calling it crow because they feel like it's not deep enough and not explaining what it is that they're trying to accomplish.
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Tyson Stockton
That's a good call out. That's a good call out.
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Nick Leroy
Would you agree? Even though it's a buyer's market right now, to me, like using a lot of these softer terms, to me that is just a little bit of a red flag or a responsibility that the interviewee has to take on. Because remember, like, even though the market is a little bit difficult right now, Tyson's 100% right. Like, you don't want a job that's going to set you up for failure. So make sure when you're going in that you do specify. It's like, if you're a growth manager, is that a growth management mindset within an SEO position or is growth manager mean you're now the SEO, the email, the SMS and social media person? Because that is a position where you're not going to succeed.
- [12:19]
Tyson Stockton
That's a, that's a good question. I feel like it's hard to say in a blanket term and I think like, there's probably room for like both of these interpretations to be true. And it's like in some cases where maybe they are trying to elevate the role and it's like a director level or above, I think, yeah, actually that seems quite promising. But also, yeah, if it's in that same vein of your last point, like if it is smaller organization kind of trying to do everything and you are like, no, I want to lean into the specialization of SEO. It's like there is a level of, I think being realistic of, hey, maybe this is not. It's not the direction or it's not the place that I want to go. And I think in general, to me part of this is like the illustration of the disconnect from traditional recruiting and traditional HR having, from the discipline where I think for a long time you've seen companies struggle with hiring for SEO because they don't understand it. And it's like in the same way of why we get so frustrated for not getting the resources and not getting, you know, the bandwidth and stuff. It's like those Same reasons, I think, facilitate into the recruiting world. And as a result, I think especially in some of these really competitive job postings, you have systematic, like elements that are removing candidates because they don't have specific language. And it's like, why we are like zeroing in on some of these skill sets is because even like, as, as a recruiter, as someone that's hiring, we'll get at least a thousand applicants per job posting. No question. It's a lot to go through and as much effort as we do to try to get through everybody, it's like, I know we're not giving a hundred, like, and there's no way that I think a hiring manager could say we give 100% the exact same effort to everyone that applies. It's like, nah, I'm like, more than likely there's a certain wave that came through the application pool that you gave 100% and then you just weren't able to get through everybody else. And so coming back around to the skill sets, that's why I think it's so much like you have to customize the CV or your LinkedIn because you don't know the auto filter elements that a company has to whittle down to an actual manageable volume of candidates to realistically review.
- [15:00]
Nick Leroy
So you brought up a fantastic point. You know, I think you and I at first were getting very caught up in assuming we're getting the interview and we're sitting down with people. So there's an entire skill set to creating a resume. Not only that paints you in a good light, but as you said, if there are thousands of resumes and these companies are using AI or some sort of tool just to be able to identify what maybe the top 10% is. You know, Tyson, I know on the recruiting side, this is where you help people. Do you think is it important to have like a skill set and like bullets in there, or do you think that, you know, there's certain formatting, you know, where it's like almost like old school SEO. It's like you just try to keyword stuff to be able to make it through these.
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Tyson Stockton
No, I think it's actually keyword stuff like in the same way that we used to talk about it in content is make it natural, don't make it obvious if it reads weird search engine, same rules, I guess would reply in this regard. And I think everyone has their own preference to it. For me, it's like, yeah, I think it's great if someone has a couple bullet points of key skill sets that they use for specific roles. Like, I would love seeing, hey, I had to do, you know, stakeholder management, internal linking and whatever. And these were the results that I generated from it. So, sure, like, you're not going to attribute a growth, I mean, maybe like your overall to like something like stakeholder management, but it's like. And actually we'll bring this around to skill sets for me personally also, I don't give a shit about the college that someone went to. And it's awkward for me when someone's like overly calling attention to it because I just want to know about your work experience. Like, I love seeing that someone went to college, also got a master's, but for me it's more of a checkbox and spend the time talking or even listing out your work experience and then skills and performance metrics that you had towards those. Like, I'm not a big fan of the generic skills unless it's like fitting in something that's like a technical requirement, like SQL, knowing if it's an enterprise organization and they have SQL in the job posting, you know that probably the only way to get access to their SEO data is through making SQL queries. And if you can't make them on your own, you're going to be a little bit of kind of liability on the team because now you're leaning on someone else. But like, those things, I think in general, and we did look at like, what was the percentage of jobs that had the different education levels. I thought bachelor was going to be almost all of them because it's like I always have it on mine. Again, it's like table stakes. I like seeing it, but it's not going to be a deal breaker only. And depending on the quarter, between 34 and 36% of all SEO jobs that we came across had any sort of language around a bachelor's degree. 2% had a master's or above. So somewhere there's like my own grad teachers kind of like shedding a tear from this. But it's like, yeah, masters, I hate to say it, it's not going to give you a leg up in what we're seeing on the SEO jobs. Bachelor's like, yeah, maybe, but it's like, really, you got to lean into work experience and you got to lean into, like, what experience you've had to date and how that sets you up for the next role.
- [18:40]
Nick Leroy
Tyson. I think all of that is really important. It just reminds me of like, after I graduated college and everybody puts, you know, proficient in Microsoft Word. It's like you don't want to do the equivalent of that for SEO. It's like you don't want to write every on page, you know, tactic there is. But one thing I did want to mention, I'm with you experience, you know, passion registers much higher than what school you went to. I will say though, in my experience in house jobs, bigger brands tend to lean and prioritize that a bit more. And from what I've heard, it's especially more valuable in more of the entry level roles because that is a way for them to be able to weed out the first 5,000 applicants. So again, I don't think anybody listening is going to be like, oh, okay, I just won't put that I went to college, but if you went to a prestigious college or there's something of notoriety there, you know, definitely put that there. I think what Tyson's just trying to say is like, that should never be your make or break. Like you should have so many other reasons why people want to talk to you.
- [19:46]
Tyson Stockton
Yeah, and that's a, that's actually a really good grounding to this is absolutely have this on your resume. I think it's like, it's just don't expect it to do everything for you. Like it's gonna, it's definitely needed there. And especially it's a super common like auto filter. Really easy to have programs like accredited university, bachelor's degree or above. Yes or no, like solid.
- [20:11]
Nick Leroy
Right.
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Tyson Stockton
I think looking at like some of the percentages of frequency, because it's like, I don't think, I mean we called out kind of like, yeah, like the growth one, 50% of the jobs. Having it like that was surprising. But it's like, it doesn't surprise me that 85% of the jobs had some sort of content marketing element being how big it is, like how significant of a piece. Right. Similarly, like 71 to 75% had tech SEO. Marked analytics though again was higher. Like almost 90% had an analytics area. So again, if you're looking to acquire skills certifications, like I would almost say more than the SEO certifications, like lean into something like analytics and like data visualization ones. Like if you have a SQL certification, great. Probably going to hold a little more weight than like, I don't know, the one of the SEO platform certifications.
- [21:14]
Nick Leroy
And again, I'll interrupt this for one moment. I think there's an asterisk to all of this. It's not about have it or don't have it. It's how are you going to leverage this So a lot of people, you know, some SEOs are very good at the SEO tactics, but they're very bad at creating performance narratives. And that is something that any leader, whether you're in house or if you're agency side working for companies, that's a skill that you need to have. So again, even if you're not proficient, you're not a GA4 expert being able to speak to. I regularly pull narratives and performance reports using analytics as a platform. It's just a really good way to be able to check that off. It's like you can kind of control the narrative literally.
- [22:03]
Tyson Stockton
That's a great call out last one that I want to kind of like actually, I mean two that I want to hit on. One, it was a surprise for me, but it's like the more that I thought about it, the more that I'm like that makes sense. And I actually do expect to see more, I don't know it to develop even further. It's like a pendulum swing and I feel like it's coming back into style is link building. Link building. It's not in this like 50% plus like area and actually it was higher correlation to lower salaried roles. But across the year we did see a steady increase in jobs that had link building within it. I feel like this is going to be something that we are going to see similar to the UX CRO. I think we are going to see link building, digital pr, pr. It's going to come back especially with like all the different conversations around LLM optimization. Like the, the linking and PR element I feel like is coming back and, and we're starting to see it in the job postings.
- [23:13]
Nick Leroy
I agree. I think that's one of the big hot takes here is with LLMs kind of, you know, being optimized for those. It's yesteryear's SEO. So I think that again there's ways for you to be able to, you know, position yourself as somebody who's qualified and hopefully has some experience.
- [23:32]
Tyson Stockton
Yeah. And, and I think there's a, an angle in there to also kind of align yourself to the direction of the industry and like the way like where things are going, like the higher level position, the more confidence the hiring manager wants to have that you are someone that is, sees the trend and it's kind of like the Wayne Gretzky, you know, go where the puck's going type mentality that kind of, you know, is going to be something that's more sought after. And I guess the final piece that I'LL just kind of land the episode on is coming back again to the three skill sets that we saw. The highest correlation to higher salaries are stakeholder management, tech, SEO, and data analytics. And with that, that wraps up this episode of the Voice of Search podcast. Of course, thanks to Nick leroy, founder of SEO Jobs, for joining us and being a part of the study. And if you'd like to get in touch with him, be sure to check out his LinkedIn profile in their show notes and go on over and check out seojobs.com okay.
- [24:44]
Podcast Announcer
Thanks to Tyson Stockton, our guest host. If you'd like to get in touch with Tyson, you could find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes. You can contact him on Twitter where his handle is TysonST. Or if your team is interested in SEO consulting or organizational education, you can always head to their company's website, which is pre Visible IO that's P R E V I S I B L E I O Just one more link in our show notes I'd like to tell you about. If you didn't have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast, head over to voicesofsearch.com, where we have summaries of all of our episodes and contact information for our guests. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, and you can even send us your topic suggestions or your marketing questions, which we'll answer live on our show. Of course you can. You can always reach out on social media. Our handle is voicesofsearch on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or you can contact me directly. My handle is benjschapp. B E N J S H A P and if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of SEO and content marketing insights in your podcast feed, we're going to publish an episode every day during the work week, so hit that subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today. But until next time, remember, the answers are always in the.