Ignore SEO 2.0 Jobs for 3.5$/h

Job adverts make me furious! That’s surprising as it’s difficult to annoy me these days.

I’m over 40 now and not as easily infuriated anymore thanks to Zen meditation among others.

Also I’m a Web professional for 20+ years now and have seen plenty of strange things online and in real life. Thus most annoyances don’t bother me anymore.

Nonetheless there are things that get me raging. This was the first time that a tweet managed to get me that angry though.

Monitoring Twitter for Keywords

For a few years I have monitored mentions of “SEO 2.0” on Twitter. Most of them were not really relevant or intriguing. You can use TweetDeck to follow keywords on Twitter.

I ignored the majority unless Lee Odden – one of the original industry leaders who propagated the term SEO 2.0 – himself mentioned the term or something similarly important happened.

Then one day I read a tweet from three different sources announcing a job offer, or rather a wage slavery offer for SEO 2.0. It said:

#blog #writing #job: SEO 2.0 Researcher/Linkbuilder to drive traffic to
[defunct site]
… ($3.5/hr) –

It contained two broken links. One of them truncated, the other was down when I first checked. I could access it later on. Let’s quote the actual job offer:

SEO 2.0 Researcher/Linkbuilder to drive traffic to [defunct site]

“I am looking for someone to help me build a webpresence for [defunct site] specifically for the chicago, Illinois area Your duties will consist of posting ads on cl, posting premade post on blogs as well as finding relevant content on the web to post to blog”

The job advert goes on without heeding the rules of grammar and punctuation:

“Must be very proficient in using as well as possibly making pages on the blog, This will be an ongoing position so please be dedicated and hardworking. Keywords: Web Research, Data, Entry, WordPress, SEO, linkbuilding, freelancer
Reward $4/hr”

I replaced the website address because it has gone out of business ever since. Please note how the headline says 3.5$ and the body text contradicts that by saying 4$.

What’s Wrong with “Entry Level” Job Offers?

There are several things wrong with this “offer”. Even for a low paid job like low level writing for the Web or low quality blogging this is a really exploitative gig.

I assume that “residential cleaning experts” actually earn more than that. Nobody who is able to write for the Web or to blog needs such a job no matter how desperate you are:

You can earn more money by setting up a blog and writing for yourself, especially when you sell the right affiliate products.

You can sell anything. Affiliate programs like those by Amazon or Shopping.com cover almost every product conceivable.

Besides the ludicrous amount of money offered here I take offense with the use of the term SEO 2.0 to describe low value jobs like that.

By now you don’t build links, you earn links.

Also even a SEO 1.0 “linkbuilder” paid only 4$ per hour will never be able to build quality links. He’ll spam.

The search engine optimization business is still booming despite pundits declaring it dead for years. Some practitioners focus solely on outreach by now.

It’s one of the future industries that will strive for a long time, especially after struggling old media like print or TV will go bankrupt in many cases.

You Get What You Pay for

What is search engine optimization and link building actually worth? It’s more like 50 – 500$ per hour. Don’t sell yourself for cheap!

Have you read the Moz article about SEO pricing? Also an experienced consultant earns like 200$ per consultation. Digital Current explains in detail how much high quality SEO is worth.

In case that’s too expensive you might try to do it yourself but you need to invest a lot of time starting with an SEO audit. You can get a pretty good automate one for free at Woorank.

It’s probably a consultant using software to assess your site and get the keyword combinations. In any case: Quality SEO pays for itself.

Building links for yourself will make you much more than 4$ an hour. Don’t even think about doing it for someone else for that money.

In case you can build links you can set up a website for yourself and build them for your own business.

Now when you are bright enough to do even basic SEO you should at least charge double digits per hour. Everything else does not make sense.

I repeat: You can earn more by optimizing your own projects. When in doubt how much you should charge just charge more. No joke.

Expensive SEO Increases Value

The more you charge the more people value you. When you charge a too low rate they will assume that your products or services are of low quality.

Try to make a name for yourself. Don’t work as a nameless underground SEO drone. The better your name the more you can charge.

In case you live in the US I suggest you join the Freelancers Union to prevent getting ripped off.

OK. Enough said? No, not yet. Let’s take a look at what requirements there are to get the “SEO 2.0 job”:

1. “posting ads on cl” (Craigslist). It does make some sense – like the ancient “meta tag optimization”. It’s certainly not SEO 2.0
2. “posting premade post on blogs”? Sounds like posting the same comment “Thanks, nice post” all over the place for link building it seems. This is spam.
3. “finding relevant content on the web to post to blog”. Every content thief does that. This is an actual crime.
4. “proficient in using as well as possibly making pages on the blog”. Sounds like hacking blogs to create “pages” there. Otherwise it’s nonsense.
5. “dedicated and hardworking” – In case you are, skip such offers. You’ll be better off self-employed. Working hard on your own blogs will pay more.

This is more of SEO 0.2 if at all. You won’t get proper SEO 2.0 for 3.5$/h not even old school SEO for 4$. You get crap or spam instead. Just ignore such adverts!

You can hire me instead to get your blogging, social media management or search engine optimization tasks done for you.

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