In the world of Internet marketing, many students are stepping into a side of social media, Google and other search engines, and web development that they never saw before. Who would have thought that the same tools that you use to communicate and keep in touch with friends are some of the most important factors of Internet marketing?

The world of SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) can be very confusing at first and explaining the concepts of SEO and SEM is like rocket science for first time listeners.

“S.E…what?”

“What’s that mean?”

“A backlink? What’s that?”

“You mean that there is an actually strategy to getting at the top of Google? I thought that… – well I don’t know how that happened!”

These are your typical responses when trying to explain search engine optimization (make sure to say it slowly the first couple times) to somebody who has never heard of anything like it before.

But beginning to explain it to people will come after you learn it yourself first. Learning all the jargon is obviously the first step to entering the search engine marketing world. You will be amazed at what can be done, in terms of making money, with a solid computer and a connection to the Internet.

Steps towards Your Internet Marketing Career

If you are a recent graduate, and are searching for your first Internet marketing job, here is what you can expect in terms of requirements in most sorts of job postings (your typical job posting):

What your job will require:

• based on business opportunity, you will identify opportunities to further increase search engine visibility
• Identify patterns of pages that ranks and determine the relationships and factors of those patterns that make those pages rank on different search engines
• Come up with ideas to improve search engine visibility
• Create technical and product requirements for SEO
• Keep the product, development, and international teams up-to-date on SEO
• Network analysis: Analyze internal and external linking structures of websites

Our Ideal Candidate for Employment:

• Has a passion for Internet marketing, SEO, and SEM
• Is always on the lookout for learning new things
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, finance, marketing, computational mathematics, computational linguistics, or statistics

Side Note: If you are an Internet marketing entrepreneur, and have decided not to go to college (college isn’t for everybody), then take a look at this article about the co-founder of PayPal and his plan to give $100,000 grants to people that choose not to go to college. He says college is too expensive and not worth it, and in today’s Internet day and age he may be right…

STEP 1: Accept the fact that you will be doing a lot of the dirty work to start off.

Every Internet marketing company started off with one, two, or a few people keeping all of the work in-between them. This includes all of the tedious daily activities like data entry, writing, overviewing metrics and statistics, creating spreadsheets and reports for clients, networking and public relations, and many other hour to two hour long type tedious jobs.

This is not a bad thing however. In this “down and dirty” process you will learn the basic fundamentals of Internet marketing, and doing all of this tedious work will also make you a very valuable asset in the process. Not only is this type of work absolutely necessary in Internet marketing, but it will give insight into the company, how it works at its core, and will allow you to make insightful suggestions as well as give you a wealth of knowledge that ideas for the company may spring from.

STEP 2: Learn everything you can about the company.

Learning how the company got its start is a great way, and a great first step to understanding the basic fundamentals about why, what, and how the company does what it does. Many Internet marketing jobs are like the movie quote from The Social Network that goes, “Here at Harvard we believe inventing jobs is better than going out and finding them.” This is because many jobs on the Internet were literally invented out of thin air.

Jobs like this usually arise from software that has been created to make these jobs possible. Many jobs on the Internet are not possible without the use of custom software, so getting to know your businesses software, what is was used for, why it was created, current innovations, and the ultimate goal in terms of its functionality is a great way to get to know your company better. In fact, it may be the best way. This includes any and all software that your company uses or plans on using.

STEP 3: Learn about SEO, SEM, Link Building, and Social Media on your own.

Many people think putting up a website and getting it to be visible on Google all has to do with a bunch of coding and programming that takes rocket science to be able to do. While this does have a lot to do with web development and creating customs programs and software, this is not the case for things like SEO, SEM, link building, and social media marketing.

There are many types different strategies used to achieve the same goals in terms of search engine marketing and search engine optimization. One of the things you have to do when starting up is learn all of the different ways, and all of the different factors that go into what makes a website rank well in Google’s search engine, or for short, the “SERPs” (search engine results pages).

This includes many off-site and on-site SEO and SEM tactics. For example content writing for websites is one of the most important on-site SEO factors (if not the most important). It all has to do with the basic strategy of researching and targeting certain keyword phrases that are often searched for on Google and hence valuable to a particular company. Learning about the best and most proper placements of these keywords is very important, and is one of major starting points of getting your mind wrapped around SEO.

Link building is one of the most important off-site SEO tactics out there, and it is something you should spend some time and learn about for yourself as money Internet marketing companies provide a link building service. There are a lot of “SPAMMY” type ways to take part in link building, so when doing your research, steer clear of things that look too good to be true.

STEP 4: Learn The Basics of How Google (and other search engines) operate and stay updated.

Learning how Google mathematically operates using an algorithm gives SEO and Internet marketing service providers an insight on how to get theirs and their clients’ websites at the top of the rankings.

You will learn pretty soon that getting to the top of the SERPs is all about proving the best possible value on the Internet that you are capable of, and everything else will follow suit. Anything that is not created with pure value in mind is usually susceptible to an algorithm update like the types of website characteristics that were hit hard by the recent “Panda” algorithm update. Staying updated will help you adapt to changes in SEO strategy and structure and there are tons of great SEO blogs out there that will help you do so (including this one) as well the official blog of Google. They key is to foresee algorithm updates so that your company’s website your company’s clients’ web sites are not affected.

STEP 5: Get hands on experience by experimenting on your own.

Now, you certainly don’t want to go into competition with the company that you have been hired at, but perhaps creating a simple blog, or working with others that you know, including friends and family that own a website will help you tremendously on understanding online marketing. Getting accustomed with free tools like Google Analytics, Google AdWords, and the Google keyword tool will come with this, and from these three tools some of the most basic and fundamental concepts and principals of SEO and SEM arise.

Not only will this give insight on what it is like to own your own Internet company, but you will perhaps be able to make money yourself as there are all sorts of ways to make money on the side with your own Internet marketing ventures.

Benefits of Working at an Internet Marketing Firm

In today’s world, every company out there needs to apply some type of internet marketing to their business marketing strategy if they do not want to be left behind. At least one of the four following types of Internet marketing is used for most businesses these days.

Geo-targeting

Determining the geo-locations of a website visitor with specialized software and delivering different content to that user based on where he or she is from.

Niche Marketing

Business owners target users and consumers based on specific products or topics. Niches can be very specific and can be anything from toasters, to lanterns, to information on dog breeds.

One-to-one Approach

This method is usually used with PPC (pay per click) which with Google would be with their AdWords program. It targets specific users personally and the keywords that they use to search with.

Appeal to Specific Interests

Marketers place an emphasis on specific behaviors or interests of the consumer, rather than doing so by broad but yet defined demographics. Examples would be by age, gender, group, and geography – among others.

The fact that so many businesses are in need of Internet marketing ensures that your job will be around for a long time to come. The Internet marketing world is always changing and adapting to new techniques, which means that the strategies you use will never be the same for a long period of time. Staying ahead of the curve is what you want to try to do as an Internet marketing service provider, and you can be assured that if you are working for a large SEO firm, that you will be ahead of the curve.

Networking

Keeping track of your relationships that you meet will be one of the biggest, and most time consuming things that you may have to do as a newbie in the Internet marketing world. There are all sorts of software out there that can help with the automation of the tedious daily activities that comes with it. Your company may provide this software for you, but if they don’t there are some relatively low cost programs out there that you may just want to invest in.

Networking online comes in many different shapes and forms. Great relationships can be built through research and emailing, and you will find that you may never talk to many of your contacts on the phone – adding to the “trippiness” of the online world.

Many people know about making a website, but are very poorly schooled about the marketing aspects of it. This is predominantly true in the local business niche, where many business owners are completely “Internet illiterate.” If they have a great business, but absolutely no Internet presence, offering your services or your company’s services will be exactly what they are looking for.

In short, there are millions of people that own websites, but most of them have no time to promote their website, or take the action steps necessary (off-site mostly) to get the site to rank well in the SERPs. This is why Internet marketing is at such a high demand, and will be around for a while – ensuring that you can feel good about your job security (as long as you are doing a good job!).

Good Cities For Tech, Computer, or Internet Marketing Related Jobs in the U.S.A.

If you are looking to relocate for your new job, then these 6 Cities should help you find a job in no time. If you have the basic skills that an Internet marketing company would find valuable then you should have no problem at all finding a job in these cities – it will be the relocating that will probably be the hardest part.

Seattle, WA

If you are a person that cannot handle rain, then this is definitely not the city for you. This city is known for being constantly cloudy (and has the highest suicide rate in the US – ouch). But it is also known as the “brainy-city.” 47% of its population holds a bachelor’s degree or better. It is also one of the “Greenest” cities in America. Seattle boasts some great companies that call the city home like Tmobile, Amazon, Clearwire, Infopop, Zillow.com, and Expedia.com.

Austin, TX

Dell Computers is located in this sunny and warm city, and like Seattle, it has a high percentage (40%) of people that hold bachelor’s degrees or better. It is also located within one of the most economically stable states in the U.S.A. – that being Texas. The best thing about Texas however – is that is has no state income tax!

San Francisco Bay Area, CA

This is the city where Google started! That is really all that has to be said. However the percentage of people that hold bachelor’s degrees is 45% – second only to Seattle, and it was the home of the big bang of the beginning of the dot com era. Other notable startups include Craigslist, BitTorrent, and Digg. Just like Seattle, it is also one of the “Greenest” cities in America. Other companies that call this city home are big names like Salesforce.com, Typepad, Technorati (the biggest blog directory on the planet), Cnet, SBC Communications, and Sega.

Raleigh-Durham, NC

This is also known as one of the biggest college areas in the nation as Duke University, North Carolina, and North Carolina State are all within driving distance. At ages 25 and up (excluding all of the college students) almost 45% of the population holds a bachelor’s degree. The weather is nice and it is located near the Atlantic Ocean!

Colorado Springs, CO

Not only will this city help you find a good job, but it will help get your kids (if you have any or on planning on having any) through high school as the city has the lowest dropout rate! Hewlett-Packard and 17 other major electronics companies combined employ over 10,000 people and some of the other big named companies include Oracle, T. Rowe Price, Progressive Insurance, and Amtel. The city can be regarded as a mini “Seattle” – if you will (minus the suicide rate).

To Sum Up

Of course, no matter where you go however there will always be someone that is looking for Internet marketing services because there is such an overwhelming high demand for it and there will be no need to relocate if you would like to stay right where you are as long as you aren’t living in a very isolate location. The best part about it is that if you are working for a company that allows you to work from home, most of the time all you need is a computer and an Internet connection – so you could work from the middle of Alaska, and it would still be a great job!

Image Credits

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• Internet marketing related words
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• 3d rendering of the world