When Microsoft and Yahoo finalize their search consolidation sometime 9-12 months from now, nearly 28% of the U.S. search market will create the first “REAL” challenge to the Google search throne.

How do we SEO professionals combat that in our SEO approach for site optimization? It seems that the Bing algorithm is substantially different than the Google algorithm, so do we optimize our sites for only Google still? Or do we perhaps build multiple pages of the same content to appease both search giants?

“You’d effectively have two pages, one for Google and one for Bing,” said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com.

This could mean a return to the late ’90s when marketers would routinely create pages for Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista & Lycos, and as we currently do for mobile platforms, such as the iPhone.

Five is the new Ten

One of the main challenges for marketers is getting on the top five listings for our key organic search phrases. Whereas Google, shows the top 10 results… Bing only shows the top FIVE results in many cases, along with content groupings of videos, news, etc. Also, with the Google Ten-Pack starting to gain substantial visual impact on the SERP, if you aren’t in the top 5… your business may suffer.

Fundamentally, Google’s algorithms weigh inbound links as very important, while Bing focuses more on the on-page content or the keywords on each page. Keep in mind, that Bing is constantly changing it’s algorithm, so who really knows how it will be when Yahoo starts showing Bing results on its popular web portal.

If Bing/Yahoo are about to retain around a 25% search share, then it will be very hard for many marketers to ignore a strategy for it. When you consider that this is the very first time in many, many years that SEO’s and marketers will be able to optimize their websites for nearly 100% of all search traffic.

“You gauge the amount of effort and investment based on its potential return,” said Gregory Markel, CEO of digital-marketing firm Infuse Creative. “If you are killing it on Google and there is room to grow, or if Twitter is delivering traffic to you, you would maximize them first. But if you wake up one morning and Bing has 30% market share, then that’s a different conversation.”

Salaries in the SEO / SEM world always interest me. What are people in our profession earning and what SHOULD they be earning? We all know that great organic traffic is very valuable to your business bottomline. Well, apparently, we all DON’T know that… especially here in the midwest, where Advangel happens to be located.

A really good tool to gauge interactive salaries is the Salary Calculator at Indeed.com.

According to Indeed, these are the NATIONAL salary ranges for positions in SEO. For other reports that I have read, these appear to be pretty accurate.

• Online Account Director Seo – $82,000
• Seo Strategist – $57,000
• Seo Manager – $86,000
• Seo Specialist – $48,000
• Search Engine Optimization – $67,000
• Seo Analyst – $51,000

Now, I ran the same SEO jobs in the Kansas City area, here are the results:

• Online Account Director Seo in Kansas City, MO $63,000 [-$19,000, -23.2%]
• Seo Strategist in Kansas City, MO $45,000 [-$12,000, -21.1%]
• Seo Manager in Kansas City, MO $66,000 [-$20,000, -23.3%]
• Seo Specialist in Kansas City, MO $37,000 [-$11,000, -23%]
• Search Engine Optimization in Kansas City, MO $52,000 [-$15,000, -22.4%]
• Seo Analyst in Kansas City, MO $39,000 [-$12,000, -23.6%]

So, I ran the reports on SEM in Kansas City, and I found out that average Sem salaries for job postings in Kansas City, MO are 23% lower than average sem salaries for job postings nationwide.

Now, doing some research in some other Midwestern towns, the same range of percentage rings through. This tells me that clients in the Midwest DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF SEO or SEM.

In fact, check out the other cities in the midwest:

Milwaukee, WI – 31% lower than average seo salaries
Omaha, NE – 16% lower than average seo salaries
Des Moines, IA – 14% lower than average seo salaries
Indianapolis, IN – 17% lower than average seo salaries
Columbus, OH – 10% lower than average seo salaries
Minneapolis, MN – 13% lower than average seo salaries
Cleveland, OH – 8% lower than average seo salaries
St. Louis, MO – 4% lower than average seo salaries

It appears that many of the major cities in the Midwest really don’t get how valuable that an SEO Manager can be for their business. Not only for the rankings but for the massive amounts of traffic that those rankings can bring.

This right here was a doozy… so, to back up this information, I went to a couple career/job posting sites to see what was out there in the Kansas City area there are only 2 real jobs for traditional SEO positions. However, 12 included some form of SEO expertise, where they wanted you to do all the web design, web development, Paid Search and/or some form of Social Media Marketing for them. So, be a “jack of all interactive trades” for very little pay.

Here was one listing that stuck out to me on Craigslist:

Lee’s Summit based manufacturer representative is looking for a talented and inventive individual who can redo several websites for a more professional look and feel while keeping SEO and SEM as part of the central focus.

Additionally, the selected applicant will have the opportunity to plan, propose, and implement additional marketing strategies for new and existing manufacturers.

Desired Skills:
HTML/PHP/Flash/Java Script/etc.
Graphic Design
SEO/SEM
Social/Web/Print marketing experience

This job is a great opportunity.

Compensation: $10 / hour

Wow! You are right! What a GREEEEAAAAAT Opportunity. That $1600 a month will really get me going in the right direction in my life!!

This type of information is alarming to me. If you consider that most businesses should spend between 5%-15% of their annual revenue on marketing budget... why not include a solid SEO professional in your marketing budget?

It is our job to help inform the businesses in our community that interactive marketing is EXTREMELY valuable. If you do SEO/SEM in the Midwest and are looking for a job… consider moving to the East or West Coast.

What are your thoughts on this?

Connect with me via Twitter: @teedubya

Who are the top 25 SEO experts to follow on Twitter?

14. Travis Wright — Interactive Media Smart Ass. CrowdSourcerer. SEO Jedi. Part Skeptic / Optimist. Über Bullshittapotomus. ENTP. Evil Genius. Mad Scientist. I’m kind of a big deal.

Thanks for the add, Eric. We appreciate it here at Advangel!

See his post @ 25 SEO Experts on Twitter

Every two years, SEOMoz.org surveys 100 of the industry’s top SEO minds. In 2009, they surveyed 72 SEO professionals in the data gathering process & had then answer survey questions that consumed hours of time. The resulting document is an amazing aggregation of data about how search engines rank documents and should be read by anyone serious about practicing search engine optimization.

2009 SEO Ranking Factors

Alright, we’ve decided to take it to the streets, so from henceforth, we will be blogging at least once a week.

We have been so busy on client sites and marketing that sometimes you are unable to make time for your own blog.  But this changes now!

Look forward to great content and new research data.