Photo: Yahoo (CC BY 2.0)
Job description
The work is heavily analytical: collecting and interpreting web metrics like traffic, conversion rates, and cost per click, then using those numbers to optimize text, images, and site structure for search visibility. Strategists study search engine patterns to decide where keywords and content should live, coordinate with developers on site architecture and server configuration that affects how easily search engines can crawl a page, and report results back to marketing leadership. It's desk-based, structured work with a fast-growing demand outlook, reflecting how central search visibility has become to online business.
Pros
- High upside earning potential, with top pay reaching $155k
- Faster than average projected job growth (6.7% over the next decade)
- Large and growing field with over 87,000 jobs nationwide, offering broad opportunity
Cons
- Constantly shifting search-engine algorithms mean strategies and skills require ongoing relearning
- Success is tied to metrics and rankings that can shift for reasons outside your control
- Standard hours still carry real-time pressure to hit performance targets
A typical day
The morning starts in the dashboards: organic traffic dipped 8% for a key product category, and the strategist digs into whether it's seasonality, a competitor's new content, or the search engine's latest algorithm shuffle — diagnosis before prescription. Mid-morning is a content planning session: keyword research shows people asking a question the client answers better than anyone, but no page exists yet, so one gets specced. The afternoon splits between the paid side — adjusting bids and testing new ad copy where a cent-per-click change moves real money — and a client call explaining last month's numbers in business terms, not jargon. A technical audit finding (broken redirects bleeding authority) gets ticketed to developers. The field changes constantly; the reading never stops.
Tasks at the job
- Manage tracking and reporting of search-related activities and provide analyses to marketing executives.
- Optimize digital assets, such as text, graphics, or multimedia assets, for search engine optimization (SEO) or for display and usability on internet-connected devices.
- Collect and analyze Web metrics, such as visits, time on site, page views per visit, transaction volume and revenue, traffic mix, click-through rates, conversion rates, cost per acquisition, or cost per click.
- Participate in the development or implementation of online marketing strategy.
- Optimize Web site exposure by analyzing search engine patterns to direct online placement of keywords or other content.
- Coordinate with developers to optimize Web site architecture, server configuration, or page construction for search engine consumption and optimal visibility.
Workplace & working conditions
Work happens indoors in a climate-controlled setting, and most of the day is spent sitting at a desk.
There's a regular, moderate amount of time pressure, and you're expected to exercise significant independent judgment day to day. The work is highly structured, following set procedures.
Education necessary or common
Bachelor's degree
Common college majors
Licenses & certifications
- Google Analytics certification
- Google Ads certification
Career path
Related fields
Courses to take
- AP English Language — search marketing is writing that machines and humans both reward
- AP Statistics — testing and analytics are the day job
- Computer Science — technical SEO lives in site code
- AP Psychology — search intent is human intent
- Business/Marketing — the commercial context
Clubs, activities & competitions
- Run a website or blog and grow its traffic — the portfolio that matters
- DECA — marketing events
- School newspaper online edition — real content with real analytics
- Manage a club's social and web presence
First steps you can take now
- Start a site or blog on something you love and learn Google Search Console on it
- Take Google's free Analytics and Ads certification courses — free and recognized
- Do keyword research on a topic and map ten questions people actually search
- Audit a local business's site for basic SEO and share findings with them
