How I Got A Full-Time Job At An SEO Agency Without Any Formal Training Or Experience

My first ever “real” job in my life was at an SEO agency.

When I was hired, I felt I didn’t deserve it. I believed they made a mistake. I had no formal experience or training whatsoever.

I had never held a real “SEO job” anywhere, and even my results working on my own sites weren’t that great either.

But still, I was hired.

And that was a big deal for me since I wasn’t really making a lot of money at that stage of my life.

Here’s a stat to give you an idea of why I was excited. According to the University of Maryville, the median salary of an SEO specialist is around $45-50K per year. But the higher paid roles could earn up to $65-70K/year.

It also allowed me to explore SEM, another hugely popular facet of online marketing. According to the same study by Maryville University, SEM specialists could get paid up to $70-75K/year.

That’s a pretty big deal for someone just starting a career.

I remember the day of my interview so clearly.

It was a pretty big agency that worked with a lot of big clients. I felt I had no business being in there.

I was 100% certain that other candidates had much more experience than me. My confidence was at zero. I convinced myself that they were just giving me a shot only because I was so passionate about SEO in my cover letter.

We sat down. We talked. They asked questions.

It was all a blur to be honest. But it was going well. Better than I expected.

They were super nice and welcoming. They could tell I was nervous.

I explained to them about how I was freelancing as an SEO consultant (That was only 70% true. I only had like 2 clients who paid me $300/month. Not exactly enough to call myself a “consultant.”).

I told them of the horror stories I experienced dealing with them, and how I swore to myself I’ll never freelance again. I explained how they had no idea how Google worked, they were paying me so little, but expected the world in results.

They laughed and told me they knew exactly what I meant.

Nice!

In the middle of the conversation, they asked to see my blogs. I had mentioned them in my cover letter.

At the time, they weren’t anything special, just making me a few hundred dollars each month. I wasn’t very proud of them. I felt I could do a lot better than, and was embarrassed to reveal them.

They were quiet for like 10 minutes, as they clicked around, and analyzed the site. I awkwardly sat there, across from them, not knowing what to do or where to look while I waited.

Then, they asked me the question that gave me a boost of confidence. They noticed I got a link from a big university in Canada, and asked how I managed to do it.

I told him about the outreach strategy I used. They were listening to me carefully, and it looked like they were impressed.

I felt a lot more comfortable after that. And a few questions later, I was dismissed. They didn’t show any hint of whether they would hire me or not.

I went home feeling pretty good about the interview, but almost 100% certain that I wouldn’t get the job. I was sure there were dozens of other candidates who had much more experience than I had – people who’ve worked at agencies and received formal SEO training.

I chalked up the interview as a good learning experience and something I could use to apply to other SEO jobs at smaller agencies.

But that same night, I received a phone call. I GOT THE JOB!

It’s funny how clearly I can remember this. I remember what I was wearing, where I was standing, what my boss said to me, and all the emotions that went through my head as he explained everything to me.

It was one of the happiest moments in my life.

Why was an SEO job so important to me?

Up until that point, I had spent years trying to make a living through online marketing.

That was my dream – to work in digital marketing full-time. However, my own sites weren’t making nearly enough money for me to live off of. It was frustrating to say the least.

When I landed a salaried job as an SEO specialist, it kind of made that dream come true. I say “kind of” because my true dream was to work for myself.

But it was still a big turning point for me. I would be able to spend every day doing something I actually loved.

I’ve worked at several different jobs in my life. None of them lasted long. This was the first time I was proud to tell people what I do. It was the only time I was excited for my first day of work.

Why I was hired

A few weeks into the job, I asked my boss why they hired me. It was still bugging me. I was sure they had a ton of strong candidates.

So why me?

Here’s what they told me. And I’ll never forget these words, and I’ve already passed on this information several times to people who have emailed me asking for advice on getting an SEO job.

Here it is:

The reason they hired me was because I was the only applicant who had practical experience building and growing and managing my own sites.

The other candidates may have had more “agency experience” than I had, but that didn’t mean they were qualified. It just meant they were technically skilled, but didn’t have deeper knowledge of search engines and how everything works.

I, on the other hand, knew how to build and grow WordPress sites from scratch. I knew how to optimize on-site SEO for an entire site from scratch. I knew how to do keyword research on my own, and I knew how to build content that would rank. I knew how to do outreach effectively.

I had no experience with spreadsheets or using more sophisticated software to organize/track the outreach process, but that’s not a very important part.

This was an amazing thing to hear. It made me feel awesome. It made me feel like I truly deserved this job, something I hadn’t felt once even after I accepted the position.

The benefits of working at an SEO agency

The majority of people who follow BuzzLogic have the exact same dream that I had when I was hired at an agency.

They want to build their own profitable content businesses and work for themselves.

That’s the ultimate goal.

But if you’re in a similar position that I was in, working at a job can be extremely beneficial for you in several different ways. [Looking for SEO job? Our HARO link building agency is always hiring! Drop us a message.]

Here are some of the ways an agency job can help.

#1. You learn what really makes sites rank

An SEO agency can’t survive if they can’t rank their clients’ sites. Sure, creating amazing content helps.

But what really makes sites rank is link building. And when you work at an SEO agency, you learn the most effective link building strategies that are working best.

#2. The fastest education

You’re not going to waste time testing different things to see what works. They already know what works. They’ve done the testing long before you became an employee.

Instead of throwing a bunch of different things on a wall and seeing what sticks, you’re going to be guided along a proven process that they depend on to keep their business alive.

That’s invaluable (practical) training you’re receiving WHILE being paid!

#3. You’re forced to take action

Unfortunately, the majority of people are readers, not doers. I was the same way (and kind of still am). You can read all the strategy you want, but once you’re in the trenches you’ll be lost without any actual hands-on experience.

It’s tough to find the motivation and confidence to put something you just read about into action. But when you’re working at an agency, you’re not allowed to just consume strategy. It’s your job to execute them.

And if you’re doing it every single day, it becomes second nature and you develop a really good mindset for all this stuff. That makes it 100x easier to slap up a new site of your own and get building using exactly what you learnt from work.

#4. Use all the newest software

When you’re not making much money on the side, it’s tough to swallow the costs of marketing tools. Most will run you $100/month on their own.

When you’re working at an SEO agency, you have access to every and any tool you want. For me, I was free to try out whatever tool I wanted. There was no need for a long discussion about whether we should get it.

We just bought it. If it worked, we kept it. That’s awesome and it allows you to fully grasp a working knowledge of what tools are best, and which ones you should invest in for yourself outside of work.

#5. Get to know people who actually know what you’re talking about

My friends or family had no idea what I do, even when I tried explaining it to them dozens of times.

Working at the agency gave me the chance to truly dive into deep conversations about marketing and SEO strategies. This is something I could never find before.

The cons of working at an SEO agency

It may sound like a ton of fun to work at an agency from what you’ve read so far. But let me tell you some of the bad things I’ve experienced as well.

#1. You will hate client work forever

This is the biggest one. And it’s 100% the reason I turn down client work every single day, even when offered a decent amount of money.

Client work is the worst. Yes, there are some people who enjoy it. Personally, I hate it.

SEO is fun when I’m working on my own projects. It’s fun to grow a site from scratch and try to build it as big as I can. It gets my heart racing to see a blog grow to a million uniques in a month for the first time.

It’s not really the same feeling when it’s all happening on a site you don’t own.

#2. It can get tedious

A lot of the work is systematic, and it can get repetitive and boring.

Unless your agency has really efficient processes in place, 99% of the time you’re going to be doing work that you feel isn’t worth your time.

#3. Day jobs suck

I guess this isn’t specific to an SEO agency job, but I absolutely hate working for other people. This has always been true, and I have always felt that way in my life ever since I was a teenager.

Some people don’t mind jobs. They prefer the security of a steady paycheque.

Not me. And this hatred of day jobs grew so strongly when I was at that agency. I hated coming in to work everyday like a robot.

30 minutes late? Need to text my boss and apologize.

Want to take some time off because I’m feeling burned out? Need to awkwardly ask for permission.

That kind of stuff really bugs me a lot. Again, this won’t be true for everybody. It’s just the way I feel about jobs.

The upside of this all is that it really drove me to work harder on my side projects and grow them big enough where I could quit.

One last tip for people who want to look for an SEO job

For your first job, make sure you’re an apprentice and not the lead.

What do I mean by that?

I mean get a position at an agency where you’ll be working under somebody with a lot of experience.

This is the best way to learn, and it’s the biggest reason for why I was able to successfully grow my own projects so quickly.

I often get emails from readers of the blog that they’ve been offered a job to do SEO in-house for some random company.

Usually, these are companies that hire individuals who will work for cheap and do SEO exclusively for them full time because it’s cheaper than hiring an agency for $10K per month.

Unless you’re an expert at SEO and growing traffic, and already have experience growing multiple blogs to 100,000+ uniques per month, (and will be paid at least $5K/month) do not accept these jobs.

You will learn nothing, and you will be required to do everything yourself.

Plus, these companies usually know nothing about SEO. You’ll be given a tiny budget, and unrealistic goals/deadlines.

The point of getting your first job at an SEO agency is to learn and grow. Whether it be to advance in the agency world, or to make a living while growing your own business.

So make your decision on where to work based on which company will provide you with the best education.