Are you an SEO Consultant? SEO Strategist? SEO GOD??? What’s the right title for you?

Titles are important. What’s the difference between a “Manager of IT” and “Director of Information Technology”? about 40k a year. Why is it important to pick the right title and build upon it? Why, especially in the field of internet related jobs, are there so many titles?

The internet is still relatively new. Traditional business has been around in the current form that we have for decades. With the rise of the internet, millions have migrated to jobs that no longer meet or qualify for the more traditional job titles. I’m sure you’ve seen it all. There are literally endless amounts of titles people call themselves now. Let’s narrow things down to focus just on marketing and SEO however. I’ve seen words thrown at me when meeting people that included “consultant”, “engineer”, “expert”, “manager”, “strategist”….the list goes on and on and i’m just talking about SEO here.

Since the Internet has only been around a couple decades there’s still really no way of identifying the competency level of people who specialize in internet marketing and SEO. Since there’s no school either and no degrees it’s hard to ascertain what a title should mean and include and what you should call yourself if you are an expert in the SEO field. One good way is to look at the current, more traditional way of titling something.

It typically goes like this: junior >>> senior >>> manager >>> director >>> vice president >>> president >>> CTO/CFO/CEO, etc.

I come across internet marketers who are very content with being a “internet consultant” or “independent SEO contractor” or “web marketer” but what if tomorrow these experts wanted to leverage their experience and title to get a kick ass more traditional job or job at a large structured corporation? What title is an appropriate title for a specific skill set or internet trade?

It’s important is to research what Titles pay the best and what skills those titles must have.

I’m an example. A couple of years ago I was promoting myself as an “SEO consultant” or “SEO strategis”t and I even managed to become a “Corporate SEO Consultant” and “INC 500 SEO Consultant” along the way. While doing my thing promoting my website, autoblogs, side affiliate rich websites and my small stable of clients which all provided me with monthly and yearly income I kept track of the market. Searching through Monster.com, Craigslist, CareerBuilder and a dozen other sites I quickly learned that in order to get the larger, more corporate clients I needed to tailor my title and skill set to include aspects of internet and even more traditional marketing.

I expanded my skills and experience to include email marketing, PPC, tradeshows, TV and radio advertising…and a lot more. I looked at the market and what companies were paying for the expertise I had and the skillset I was acquiring and I assumed the titles of what those companies were looking for.

Now my title is Director of Internet Marketing. I’ve also recently used Digital Marketing Director and Search Director…always using those two keywords “marketing” and “director”. I have the skills and experience to back up those titles for those companies that are looking for someone with traditional, off-line experience in marketing.

Let’s face it, most SEO experts have at least some competency in all aspects related to internet and even traditional marketing. The best of us SEOs could easily get a high level VP job as a VP or President of Marketing. Everything from traditional marketing to attending trade shows to email marketing, blah blah blah…most SEO experts dabble or have done at least their share of research into those areas to see if they might help in our SEO efforts.

There’s not much difference between a lot of SEOs and CEOs or internet startups…except maybe capital.

Just my thoughts but it bring light to a little know fact of SEO experts, that most of us are extremely well rounded and experienced in all aspects of marketing. Like the article? Feel free to leave me a comment below.