The irony of a career in SEO is that nobody intends to get into this industry. It’s like a sand pit—you stumble into it on your journey elsewhere.
And every SEO you meet will have a different story of how they found themselves here. See my previous Twitter poll asking how folks got started. There are 85 wildly different answers, including my personal favorites, which involve creating World of Warcraft YouTube guides and starting a fan club website for the soap opera All My Children.
My own journey into the industry was a bit random, too. I graduated with a PR and creative writing degree and desperately wanted to work at an advertising agency.
The prospect seemed so glittery—rooftops overlooking the skyline, beer on tap, the chance to work with brands I grew up admiring… Agency life felt like more than a job; it was a lifestyle.
That dream quickly slipped away. There were maybe 80 advertising internship roles in my city and thousands of bright-eyed hopefuls like me. I ended up with a job as a Marketing Assistant at an electronics equipment reseller, which was about as sexy as it sounds.
A few months in, I noticed some blog articles were driving traffic with zero manual promotion. I Googled the very meta query, “how do you drive traffic from Google?” and tested optimization tips from Ahrefs and Backlinko. I drove a 40% increase in SEO traffic and went down the rabbit hole.
Since then, I’ve dedicated the last 8 years of my career to SEO, my time split between agency and in-house. I’ve had highs and lows in both work environments, and ultimately, I recommend that every SEO try their hand at both to become truly well-rounded.
I’ll cover the common SEO career paths and my experience with each (plus generalized experience from my peers). My goal is to shed some light on the different work environments so you can plan your ideal career journey. Our 5-year plans rarely work out the way we intend, but I firmly believe it never hurts to have an idea 💡
The Holy Trinity of SEO Career Paths
When deciding where to work, SEOs have three options: agency, in-house, or consultant. Let’s break it down:
Agency
An SEO agency is a third-party company that provides SEO services to multiple clients, acting as an external partner. Agencies work on a project or retainer basis, offering expertise in areas like technical SEO, content strategy, link building, and more. Some SEO agencies operate incredibly lean, with teams as small as 10, while others boast hundreds of employees.
A Few Popular SEO agencies:
- Amsive Digital, with Lily Ray
- Seer Interactive, with Wil Reynolds
- Rise at Seven, with Carrie Rose
- iPullRank, with Mike King
My experience working agency-side
I worked at the SEO agency Uproer for more than 4 years. I started as an entry-level SEO Analyst one year out of college, and was the agency’s first full-time employee. This is where my career really launched, and I dove headfirst into my passion for SEO.
I had a lot of autonomy because the agency was small and I worked directly with the founder. I independently managed the SEO strategies for up to 8 accounts at a time, which was challenging but taught me how to prioritize and communicate proactively with clients.
A note on workload: “Agency” has become synonymous with long hours and late nights. That was not my experience, but some of my peers agency-side definitely worked 60+ hour weeks. When considering agencies, check out their Glassdoor reviews or ask the hiring manager about the expected workload. Managing more than 5-8 clients is a red flag, as it’s impossible to do SEO effectively with your limited time.
Agency life was like a learning fire-hose—I crammed 10 years of experience into 4. In a week, I might audit a five million-page e-commerce website, build a hub-and-spoke content strategy for a healthcare company, and share monthly reporting insights with my clients.
Within three years, I was promoted to Manager, hiring and mentoring half a dozen SEOs and leading the agency’s marketing efforts. I enjoyed my time at an SEO agency but felt like my learning curve had reached its peak. I was ready to go client-side and sit at the table where broader product decisions were being made.
Biggest pros of agency:
- It’s a fantastic place to kickstart an SEO career since you can experience many different clients and projects in a fast-paced environment.
- You get to work closely with other SEOs, speeding up your learning and building a network and sense of community in the industry.
- Agencies typically encourage their employees to use thought leadership efforts like speaking and writing since it also benefits the agency. This helped me grow my career and network fast because I had the support to do so.
- Strict career ladders do not hold back internal growth opportunities. I didn’t need approval from four tiers of management to get promoted or expand my role; my boss was the founder, and we made decisions collectively.
- Agencies typically offer a flexible workspace, not beholden by strict 8-to-5 office hours, and often allow for hybrid or remote work.
Biggest cons of agency:
- The workload can be overwhelming. You almost always manage multiple projects, and your work-life balance can get skewed if you don’t communicate your capacity with your manager.
- The salary and benefits can be less attractive than in-house roles. I nearly doubled my salary by going from an agency to an in-house.
- Working agency-side could feel limiting—as an external partner; I had little control over client decisions, which sometimes put me in a reactive role.
- Title inflation is standard. I’ve seen agencies hire SEO Directors with 5 years of experience, but that same title in-house usually requires 10-12. Consider your ideal career trajectory, and be willing to potentially take a “step down” title if you go in-house.
In-House
In-house (also referred to as “client-side” or “brand-side”) refers to SEO work done within a single organization. An in-house SEO professional is employed directly by a company, focusing exclusively on its website(s). This role often involves collaborating closely with Marketing, Product, Engineering, and Design teams to execute the SEO roadmap.
A few well-known in-house SEO teams:
My experience working in-house
When I was leaving to go in-house, agency lifers warned me: “You’ll be bored.”
I can assure you, I am not bored.
I switched to in-house because I wanted to be in the room where it happens (Hamilton reference, IYKYK). SEO could be baked into product decisions rather than watching from the sidelines. I also was offered a significant raise, nearly double what I was making agency-side at the time.
That said, in-house can be lonelier because you might be the only SEO on the team. This has been the case for most of my time on the brand side. To counteract the isolation, I regularly network with other SEOs through happy hours and LinkedIn and build relationships with my wider team.
I’ve been an SEO Product Manager at Scribd, Inc. for 2.5 years, and my role involves defining the SEO roadmap—ensuring the projects my team of engineers and designers work on help us meet our traffic goals. I often need to collaborate with different teams to complete my projects, like Marketing on the blog strategy or the Generative AI team on a summarization project.
Example: My product pages contain recommendations, and if I want to change those recommendations for SEO purposes, I need to work with a separate team. I outline what I want to do and why, then connect with that team’s manager to prioritize the work on their end.
Despite working for one company, I still manage multiple projects, which is often the case in-house. You might be managing strategies for different business areas or customer segments (this is the case for me). So you still get the variety but within a specific industry.
My role has been more clearly defined since moving in-house. I serve as the company’s SEO expert and focus primarily on my metric, which is increasing SEO traffic to our highest-converting pages. However, since my company is mid-size, there was flexibility for me to expand my role to include conversion rate optimization, which I happily added to my repertoire of “things that make websites better” experiences.
Biggest pros of in-house:
- You get to be the decision-maker. I enjoy owning the SEO roadmap from start to finish and “controlling my destiny.”
- Salaries and benefits are generally better than agencies. If you have 5+ years of experience, you should expect at least $100,000 annually for an in-house SEO role. I do see large agencies offering fairly high salaries, but you’ll likely earn more brand-side.
- Growth opportunities feel “bigger” in-house. For example, climbing a company’s Marketing or Product ladder could lead to a CMO or CPO role with a well-known brand. Transitioning from a very senior agency leadership position to an equivalent brand-side role might be more challenging. This goes back to the point above: consider your career trajectory and where you see yourself growing.
- I like working for a company whose product I love—it motivates me. On the agency side, you have less control and might get stuck working with a brand you don’t care for.
- You are not the product. At agencies, when you aren’t working, the clients aren’t getting value. I get peace knowing that my company is chugging along and making money even while I’m asleep or on vacation. So when I’m checked out of work, I can really check out.
Biggest cons of in-house:
- You still get left out of decisions! In-house SEOs have to proactively communicate with other teams to ensure you’re involved in any product decisions affecting your website. And if your metrics are impacted, you’re usually the one who has to answer for it.
- So. Many. Meetings. I went from 4-5 hours a week of meetings at my agency to 15-20 in-house. Recurring syncs can get away from you, and I recommend conducting a calendar audit every 3 months to free up more deep work time.
- Despite a higher base salary, in-house typically sees longer promotion and raise cycles. I advocated for 10-15% salary increases at my agency annually. In-house, I have much less flexibility. It’s common for annual raises to meet inflation (2-3% annually) and only increase substantially when you receive a promotion, which could take 2-3 years.
- Getting conference travel and tools approved is much more complicated than agencies. I miss out on events like BrightonSEO and am rarely able to test out new SEO tools because of how difficult it is to obtain approval.
Consulting
SEO consulting involves independent professionals or small firms providing expert SEO guidance, audits or training to businesses. Consultants are generally a more affordable and flexible resource for companies compared to large SEO agencies.
I will note that the consulting career path requires at least several years of SEO experience. Spending time in the industry before going out on your own helps you build relationships and a portfolio of case studies, both of which are essential to landing clients and forging a sustainable business.
Since I have not worked as a full-time SEO consultant, I will not cover this career path for the sake of this article. [Nick LeRoy, owner of SEOJobs, which you’re reading this article on right now, is an SEO consultant. He writes extensively about his experience on LinkedIn and provides weekly consulting tips in his weekly newsletter, #SEOForLunch. (Note from Nick: Thanks Abby!)
Other well-known consultants include:
SEO Is Just One Channel, Not the Whole Sea
Whether you work at an agency or in-house, consider thinking beyond SEO for your long-term career plans. I know this might sound counterintuitive, considering this is an article about SEO careers. But ultimately, your goal is to drive revenue growth for your business or clients. SEO is one channel of many that you can use to drive growth.
You could spend a 40-year career building channel-specific expertise like SEO, email marketing, or social media, and that’s a perfectly viable option. The digital landscape changes so frequently that you’ll always have something to adapt to, and channel-specific roles can be lucrative, as shared above.
However, as Tom Critchlow so aptly says in his iconic article, there is no “VP of SEO” role. To be a leader in your field, overseeing teams and broader roadmaps, you have to expand beyond your channel.
Long-term Career Paths from SEO
I asked on LinkedIn if folks could share their career path from SEO to a wider discipline. Turns out, organic search expertise can provide the foundation to grow into coveted senior roles like VP of Growth, Head of Web Experience and even CMO.
Follow these talented folks, whose start in SEO helped them grow into broader leadership roles:
- Jochen Koedijk, CMO of Expedia
- Taylor Berg, Group Manager of Web Strategy & Experience at Headspace
- Heather Physioc, Chief Discoverability Officer at VML
- Tess Voecks, VP of Operations at Rickety Roo
To expand your role, invest time in learning how the marketing ecosystem works as a whole. If you’re on the agency side, schedule a call with your client to discuss the wider product strategy; if you’re in-house, schedule regular check-ins with other product and marketing teams to learn about their work. I did this last week with our influencer marketing expert, and I learned a ridiculous amount with just 30 minutes of her time.
I’d love to stay connected and hear your thoughts on SEO career paths. Feel free to drop me a line on LinkedIn; don’t be shy! https://www.linkedin.com/in/abby-gleason/
