In-House, Agency, or Independent: What's the Best Gig for You?
The author's views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
There are three main roles in the search marketing industry: you can work in-house, at an agency, or as an independent consultant. What role are you in today, and is it the right one? How can you be sure you're following the right path to achieve search marketing nirvana?
Like me, there are many search marketers who have worked in all three sectors. I tracked a few of them down for interviews on the topic and have included the most inspiring bits in this post.
Before we dive in, let's take a look at what Internet Marketing roles the respondents to the 2012 SEOmoz Industry Survey are in today. The 5000+ respondents shake out like this:
Take a peek at the unsimplified details here.
In-house roles represent 46% of respondents, agency roles have 22%, business owners represent 19%, and independents took the remaining 13%. You'll notice that I didn't specifically cover the business owners category in this post. That is because a business owner can, and likely does, overlap quite a bit with the other three role types. Agencies are often led/owned by a powerhouse search marketer, so that would land them in two categories, therefore skewing the data.
Now that you have an idea of the distribution of roles in our industry, maybe you're thinking about opportunity. "Look at all those in-house jobs! Sweet, I'm jumping in that pie." Or maybe, "Man I'd love to make a go independent. I'll show that boss of mine." It is so easy to make a leap into a new role without really knowing what your in for. You've done it. I've done it. Hold your horses.
What strikes me about the jobs I've held in an agency (SEOmoz), in-house, and as an independent (Keyphraseology) is how incredibly different they are from each other. Culture, day-to-day duties and tasks, income, purpose... everything is different! You'll be miles ahead if you know the differences and know what is best for you.
Lets take a peek!
In-house
Commonly described as: rewarding & limited
You might do well in-house if you are diplomatic, detail-oriented, and value stability. An in-house job can be very rewarding but you’ll have to be patient. It takes time to educate your colleagues, champion your cause, negotiate for resources, and see your projects to completion. Your in-house job may be limited to one or a few websites, but you will go deep into the details with them and see projects through from beginning-to-end.
Let's take a look at what some seasoned veterans have to say about in-house search marketing gigs.
CNET was an SEOs dream. I worked in an environment where my colleagues were smart and tattooed and in bands and hung out together after work all the time, and while at work we collaborated and brainstormed and learned from each other and built stuff. For SEO, we were not just working on the site issues, but also building an internal hub of best practices and an internal reporting system. Best job I ever had.
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I've held three in-house positions-: one at a multi-channel retailer, one with a large Fortune 1000 staffing company, and one with a pair of genius Ruby on Rails developers/designers. In-house, I got to see how SEO was simply a part of a bigger plan and was surrounded by just as many passionate individuals, but in very different roles. This gave me more perspective and more a analytical mind because we could get so granular with the data. In-house, the worst thing I faced was patience; I don't have it. Having to prioritize work and then wait six months before it goes live or gets changed into some bastardized form of the original idea was heart-breaking to me.
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I'm an in-house SEO for Forex Club, where I'm the Global SEO Manager, and I have also my own SEO consultancy that allows me to do independent work. I work for them remotely and although I have to travel a bit more (which I actually also enjoy), it gives me the flexibility I need to organize my own activities and timings (I do freelance SEO work, co-organize a local SEO event in Madrid, I write for State of Search, etc.) while also enjoying to work with people from different disciplines (developers, product managers, analysts, affiliates, communication, etc.) and cultures (from Moscow, Berlin, NY, Madrid, Taillin, Montenegro) in a highly competitive sector and in many languages and for different countries. It's all very challenging and also rewarding.
Agency
Commonly described as: fun, exhausting, & rewarding
You might do well at an agency if you hunger for a fun and fast-paced environment where collaboration and continuous learning are valued. You’ll be challenged with a wide-variety of project types and clients to keep you on those multi-tasking toes of yours. The environment can be exciting, but also exhausting. Be prepared for some long hours and late nights.
Lets see what our friends have to say.
I own an agency today and it's my second love after my family. I'm addicted to the speed and atmosphere of agency life. I need to be in an environment where I'm constantly generating new ideas and collaborating with teams of equally driven marketers and technicians. In the agencies, I found incredible teams. They were people that were as driven and passionate as me. They were competitive and thrived on the discovery of new tools, techniques, or industry information. At an agency, the biggest problem is often burn out. You've got so many people working so intensely that it's easy to have personalities clash and compete for attention.
I work agency-side primarily. This is because I love the variety of clients and sectors that I work on. Since working agency side, I’ve never gotten bored. Boredom is my greatest fear, and my experience working within client-side was just that. Although client-side work is really exciting during the first three months, work tends to become repetitive afterwards.
The best parts about working at an agency can also be its negatives. The best part is that you get to work with a number of different clients and websites, each with their own different business needs. The worst part is that you get to work with a number of different clients and websites, each with their different business needs.
Independent
Often described as: exhausting, lucrative, rewarding, & unrestricted (free)
Done well, independent search marketing work can be lucrative and rewarding. You’ll be the boss, the owner, the search marketer, and more, so it can also be exhausting. If you’re eager for the freedom to choose your projects and clients, the flexibility to set your own hours, and the responsibility of doing it all, an independent gig might be right for you. The lack of coworkers can make this option a lonesome one.
Check out these bites from those who have been there.
Throughout my career, I’ve benefitted most from being aware of and identifying when good opportunities present themselves. Jerry said it best: “Once in a while, you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.” I was the Head of SEO at a small marketing company from 1997-1999. I was green, as was the industry, so I fit in well. Working there, I got the chance to help small companies succeed via search and marketing promotion. This experience lead me to one of, if not the first, in-house positions as Chief Search Strategist with a young About.com in New York City in late 1999. The lesson learned from About.com was enterprise management of an SEO campaign across many verticals and reached over 1200 employees and writers.
In 2005, About.com was acquired by the New York Times Corporation, which presented the unique role of shaping online strategy for one of the most influential (and largest) news organizations in the world. The opportunity also fostered the beginning of Define Media Group, a boutique digital strategy consulting arm of the NYTCo. By design, I left the NYTimes five years later. The goal was to establish an SEO program and integrate it deep into the content creation process in the 150+ year old company, all-the-while building up Define. In January of 2011, the time and ‘light were right’ and I spun Define off and officially went independent. Not only has my path been one of identifying opportunities, but also when it was right personally and professionally. I wanted and needed experience at all levels before going out on my own. This approach serves me well today and taught me patience, diplomacy, and perseverance.
I’m a very social person and thrive on having people around me. At first, taking the leap to go solo was exciting, invigorating, and for the first time I really felt fully in control of my own future. I was becoming successful, winning clients, and I got an incredible amount of work completed. I grew the business to a turnover of around £150,000 a year just from a bedroom! I should have been happy with that – but like I said, I was going stir crazy from spending so much time in the house on my own. Obviously, I went out to meet clients and friends a lot. Tom Critchlow was awesome during this period, we’d meet up for chess in the morning (he would always win), and chew the fat over search marketing, SEO, and life in general. I have a few industry friends in the UK that were awesome during this period – very supportive and keen for a hang out. I’m extremely grateful for having that. I quite enjoyed having some regularity and structure in my life, even if it was just a meet up every other Tuesday! Eventually I decided just to get some shared office space, knowing that I’d have to get up in the morning to use it. I began the hunt for a desk. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for.
I moved in with a small design agency just around the corner from where we are now, around 6 months after I’d started SEOgadget. Within about a week, I was talking with the agency about reserving all 3 remaining spare desks, and a few days after that I’d decided to start hiring. Getting out of the home office acted like a catalyst to start building what I have now. Now, we’re 14 strong and turning over slightly above 10X what we did in our first year, or almost triple last year.
How about you? What roles have you held and what were your experiences? Don't be shy!
Today, I'm an in-house SEO. When you work in an agency, you don't really get the time to focus on one project, one client, and one website. In an in-house role, you have to think long and hard before making any recommendations, and you start caring for the website like it’s your baby. The best part about being "in-house" is that you have the opportunity to truly conceive an idea, follow through on your recommendations, and see the website grow before your eyes.