Top 30 Cities to Earn a Big SEO Salary

After the positive feedback I received from my use of Indeed’s job trends tool, I decided to take a look at what their salary tool might have to say about search marketing salaries in the United States.  This tool provides an average salary based on a keyword and geographic search of their job listings.

I kept my search terms simple — using SEO, SEM, and PPC — while limiting the number of unrelated results that would be included in the data.  The first query I did was on a national basis in order to establish the national averages:

 

 

 

So in other words, this is showing that based on Indeed’s data the average salary across the U.S. for job postings which contain “SEO” is $59,000;  for “SEM” is $79,000; and for “PPC” is $62,000.   Two points to note are: 1) given these queries are based on keyword searches, some of the listings will overlap between each search; and 2) these queries include positions across a range of experience and responsibilities.  As an example, these are some of the professional titles listed under the “SEO” search:

• SEO Manager
• SEO Analyst
• Web Design SEO Specialist
• SEO Marketing
• Internet Marketing Manager

I then decided to take the next step by compiling a Top 30 List of the cities with the highest search marketing salaries by researching the average salaries in the 100 largest cities by population (using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics).  Below is the result of the Top 30 search marketing salaries with their population rank, and average salary numbers for SEO, SEM, and PPC.

 

Top SEO Salaries (in thousands) by City

 

 

 

Salary Rank	Population Rank	City	SEO	SEM	PPC
1	1	NY, NY	$    79	$  105	$83
2	64	Newark, NJ	$    79	$  105	$83
3	73	Jersey City, NJ	$    78	$  105	$83
4	10	San Jose, CA	$    74	$  100	$78
5	25	Washington, DC	$    73	$    98	$77
6	99	Arlington, VA	$    73	$    98	$77
7	97	Fremont, CA	$    71	$    95	$75
8	14	San Francisco, CA	$    71	$    94	$74
9	11	Detroit, MI	$    70	$    93	$73
10	44	Oakland, CA	$    69	$    93	$73
11	23	Boston, MA	$    69	$    92	$72
12	80	Baton Rouge, LA	$    68	$    91	$72
13	3	Chicago, IL	$    66	$    88	$69
14	19	Baltimore, MD	$    65	$    87	$68
15	93	Durham, NC	$    65	$    87	$68
16	34	Atlanta, GA	$    65	$    86	$68
17	51	Raleigh, NC	$    64	$    86	$68
18	60	Toledo, OH	$    63	$    84	$66
19	52	St. Louis, MO	$    62	$    83	$65
20	15	Columbus, OH	$    61	$    82	$64
21	40	Cleveland, OH	$    61	$    82	$64
22	86	Garland, TX	$    61	$    82	$64
23	96	Montgomery, AL	$    61	$    82	$64
24	9	Dallas, TX	$    60	$    81	$63
25	20	Charlotte, NC	$    61	$    81	$64
26	69	Plano, TX	$    61	$    81	$64
27	78	Greensboro, NC	$    61	$    81	$64
28	83	New Orleans, LA	$    60	$    81	$63
29	4	Houston, TX	$    59	$    80	$63
30	49	Arlington, TX	$    60	$    80	$63

If you would have asked me before I put this together which cities would have made the Top 10, I definitely would have predicted New York, San Jose, Chicago, and San Francisco.  Detroit and Washington were the biggest surprises to me.

In any event, I’m looking forward to hearing what you think and how Indeed’s data matches up to your personal experience and view of the market!