SEO

What Is Header Bidding?

Published

11 months ago

December 25, 2022

The header bidding technology started to develop in 2015, and has since helped many publishers to grow their revenue by as much as 40% (and even, in some cases, to levels of 100% or more.)

What Is Header Bidding?

Header bidding is a cutting-edge technique where publishers offer their ad inventory to many ad exchanges, also called Supply-Side Platforms (or SSPs), simultaneously before making calls to their ad servers.

Here are the steps a publisher needs to pass to have this technology power up its monetization.

Apply to SSP partners and get approval.
Implement Prebid.JS on website.
Configure ad server.
Choose a consent management system.
Test and debug.

Applying To SSP Partners

There are hundreds of SSP partners available in the list to apply, but I would like to mention what I believe to be the most popular ones:

TripleLift.
Index Exchange.
Amazon UAM/TAM.
Xandr (formerly AppNexus).
Teads.
Pubmatic.
Sovrn.
Verizon.
Magnite (formerly Rubicon).
OpenX.
Sonobi.
GumGum.
Sharethrough.
Unurly.

One needs to find their online application form and pass through the company’s verification process. For example, in the case of Xandr, the contact page looks like this:

Screenshot from Xandr, December 2022 Xandr tool

Pay attention to the minimum inventory size required to be eligible for applying.

Yes, that is a staggering high of 50M ad impressions a month.

You may need quite an impressive website to be able to apply to some of the ad networks. We will call them further bidders, as they bid on inventory in real time.

However, not all SSPs have such high thresholds for application. For example, Sharethrough only requires 20M ad impressions.

Besides, they consider also audience quality, traffic geolocation, how much time users spend on the website, etc.

It typically takes a few weeks after applying to be approved and onboarded with them, so it can be a fairly time-consuming process that may even take months to finish.

How Does Prebid.js Work?

In nutshell, here is how Prebid.js works.

When a user opens a webpage, an ad request is made to all bidders (SSP partners).

Bidders respond with their CPM bids – let’s say $1 and $1.50 – and Prebid.js makes a request to the ad server, with the highest CPM targeting. In this case, that would be $1.50.

At the ad server, in our case, Google Ad Manager, the request is received and it knows that someone is paying $1.50 USD CPM for an ad. It runs another auction with Google Adsense or AdX.

If Google offers a higher CPM, then the Google Ad will be served.

If not, our ad with $1.50 CPM will win, and be served by our SSP partner.

Screenshot from Google Ad Manager, December 2022

The trick here is that auctions happen in real-time, which creates buying pressure on Google AdX to pay the highest CPM possible.

If Google AdX doesn’t have any competition, it will offer the lowest CPM possible –as it wants to buy inventory for the cheapest price possible.

With header bidding, bidders are able to compete and push CPMs (and therefore revenue) up.

There are two ways to implement header bidding:

Client-side: When the auction runs via JavaScript in the browser.
Server-side: When the auction is run on the server.

Let’s discuss client-side header bidding.

How To Implement Client-Side Header Bidding

In order to set up header bidding, we need to implement Prebid.js on our website and configure our Google Ad Manager (or ad server).

Implement Prebid.js On Your Website

Prebid.js is a header bidding platform that has more than 200 demand sources integrated.

You need to select the SSP partners you are working with from the customize page and download the library built for your specific configuration.

Don’t forget to select Consent Management modules to comply with GDPR and GPP privacy standards.

Below is the sample code taken from the official documentation.

<html>

    <head>        
        <script async src="https://www.googletagservices.com/tag/js/gpt.js"></script>
        <script async src="https://your-customized-prebid.js"></script>
        <script>
            var div_1_sizes = [
                [300, 250],
                [300, 600]
            ];
            var div_2_sizes = [
                [728, 90],
                [970, 250]
            ];
            var PREBID_TIMEOUT = 1000;
            var FAILSAFE_TIMEOUT = 3000;

            var adUnits = [
                {
                    code: '/19968336/header-bid-tag-0',
                    mediaTypes: {
                        banner: {
                            sizes: div_1_sizes
                        }
                    },
                    bids: [{
                        bidder: 'appnexus',
                        params: {
                            placementId: 13144370
                        }
                    },
                     { 
                      bidder: "conversant",
                       params: {site_id:"122869",secure:1}
                     }
                   ]
                },
                {
                    code: '/19968336/header-bid-tag-1',
                    mediaTypes: {
                        banner: {
                            sizes: div_2_sizes
                        }
                    },
                    bids: [{
                        bidder: 'appnexus',
                        params: {
                            placementId: 13144370
                        }
                    },
                    { 
                     bidder: "conversant",
                     params: {site_id:"122869",secure:1}
                    }
                     ]
                }
            ];
            
            var googletag = googletag || {};
            googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || [];
            googletag.cmd.push(function() {
                googletag.pubads().disableInitialLoad();
            });

            var pbjs = pbjs || {};
            pbjs.que = pbjs.que || [];

            pbjs.que.push(function() {
                pbjs.addAdUnits(adUnits);
                pbjs.requestBids({
                    bidsBackHandler: initAdserver,
                    timeout: PREBID_TIMEOUT
                });
            });

            function initAdserver() {
                if (pbjs.initAdserverSet) return;
                pbjs.initAdserverSet = true;
                googletag.cmd.push(function() {
                    pbjs.que.push(function() {
                        pbjs.setTargetingForGPTAsync();
                        googletag.pubads().refresh();
                    });
                });
            }
            // in case PBJS doesn't load
            setTimeout(function() {
                initAdserver();
            }, FAILSAFE_TIMEOUT);

            googletag.cmd.push(function() {
                googletag.defineSlot('/19968336/header-bid-tag-0', div_1_sizes, 'div-1').addService(googletag.pubads());
                googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest();
                googletag.enableServices();
            });
            googletag.cmd.push(function() {
                googletag.defineSlot('/19968336/header-bid-tag-1', div_2_sizes, 'div-2').addService(googletag.pubads());
                googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest();
                googletag.enableServices();
            });

        </script>

    </head>

    <body>
        <h2>Basic Prebid.js Example</h2>
        <h5>Div-1</h5>
        <div id='div-1'>
            <script type="text/javascript">
                googletag.cmd.push(function() {
                    googletag.display('div-1');
                });

            </script>
        </div>

        <br>

        <h5>Div-2</h5>
        <div id='div-2'>
            <script type="text/javascript">
                googletag.cmd.push(function() {
                    googletag.display('div-2');
                });

            </script>
        </div>

    </body>

</html>

Let’s break down the code above.

The first lines load all required JS files and our customized Prebid.JS file.
Ad slots are defined in the adUnits array variable.
In the adslot definitions, you can see the SSP partners’ names and IDs you will be given when onboarding when them.
googletag.pubads().disableInitialLoad(); is called to disable ad request to be sent to Google Ad Manager until Prebid.js finishes the auction.
pbjs.requestBids function calls SSP partners and determines the winner.
initAdserver() function is called to send an ad request to the Google Ad Manager with hb_pb key, which contains the winning CPM value, e.g. hb_pb=”1.5″. (This step is connected with setting up Google Ad Manager in the next step.)
When Google Ad Manager gets the request with the winning bid, it runs its own auction in Google AdX, and sends back either the AdX ad with a higher CPM, or the ad of the winning SSP.

For your specific case, you may need to code differently and change the setup, but the principle stays the same.

Other than that, I would like to quickly go over how to implement lazy loading, because it is a little different.

How To Implement Lazy Loading

The Google tag for publishers has a lazy loading framework which will not work in the case of header bidding.

This is because you need to run an auction, and determine and set key values before sending a request to the ad server.

Because of that, I would advise using the Intersection Observer API to determine when to load the ad in the HTML <div> tag when it is about to enter into the viewport.

options = {
root: null, // relative to document viewport
rootMargin: '1500px', // margin around root. Values are similar to css property. Unitless values not allowed
threshold: 0 // visible amount of item shown in relation to root
};

your_observer = new IntersectionObserver( observer_handler, options );
your_observer.observe( goog_adslots[i] );

In the observer_handler call back function, you can run the prebid auction and call the ad server.

function observer_handler( entries, observer ) {

dynamicAdUnit =[{
code: 'your_html_div_id',
mediaTypes: {
banner: {
sizes: [728,90]
}
},
bids: [{ bidder: 'appnexus', params: { placementId: 13144370 } }, { bidder: "conversant", params: {site_id:"122869",secure:1} } ]
}];

pbjs.addAdUnits(dynamicAdUnit);

slot = window.googletag.defineSlot('/1055389/header-bid-tag-0', [728,90], 'your_html_div_id' ).addService(googletag.pubads());

lazySlotPrebid(slot, 'your_html_div_id')

}

function lazySlotPrebid(slot, div_id) {

pbjs.que.push(function() {
pbjs.request bids({
timeout: PREBID_TIMEOUT,
adUnitCodes: [div_id],
bidsBackHandler: function() {
pbjs.setTargetingForGPTAsync([div_id]);
googletag.pubads().refresh(slot);

});
});

} 
}// endd of initDynamicSlotPrebid

Now, let’s jump on setting up the ad server using Google Ad Manager.

How To Set Up GAM For Header Bidding

Ad servers need to have dozens of price priority line items with key hb_pb targeting all possible CPM values, such as hb_pb=0.04, hb_pb=0.03, etc.

hb_pb key value targeting

This is the key point that makes the header bidding engine work.

The auction runs in the browser on page load.
The winning SSP partner is sent to GAM with a key value targeting hb_pb = 2.62.
Since the order has the same CPM value, GAM understands that there is a bid at $2.62.
GAM runs an AdX auction and has to pay more than $2.62 in order to win the bid and display a Google Ad.

As I mentioned above, you would need to build line items in GAM with certain granularity, say 0.01 – and for the CPM range $0-$20, you would need to create 2,000 line items, which are impossible to do manually.

For that, you would need to use GAM API.

Unfortunately, there are no solid solutions that you can simply download and run in one click.

It is a somewhat complex task, but thanks to contributors who built API tools (even though they are not actively supporting them), we can still modify it a little and make it work.

Let’s dive into how to set up Google Ad Manager and understand the following:

Step 1: Enable API Access

In the Google Ad manager Global > General settings section, make sure API access is enabled.

Click on the Add service account button and create a user with the sample name “GAM API USER” and email “[email protected]” with admin rights.

Screenshot from Google Ad Manager, December 2022

Step 2: Create A New Project

Navigate to Google API Console Credentials page.

From the project drop-down, choose Create a new project, enter a name for the project, and, optionally, edit the provided Project ID.

Click Create.

On the Credentials page, select Create credentials, then select Service account key.

Select New service account, and select JSON.

Click Create to download a file containing a private key.

Screenshot from Google API Console Credentials page, Deccember 2022

Screenshot from Google API Console Credentials page, Deccember 2022
Fill in the service account details you’ve created above.

Assign the role “owner” and create the service account OAuth2 credentials.

Then, click on the created user and create JSON type key, and download it.

Screenshot from Google API Console Credentials page, Deccember 2022

Step 3: Download Project

Download the project zip file and unzip it, directory (alternatively, you can use the git command tool to clone the repo).

Install composer for your operating system in order to build the project.

Step 4: Change your PHP.INI

Change your php.ini (located at /xampp/php/php.ini ) file and enable “extension=soap” by removing “;” in front of and set “soap.wsdl_cache_ttl=0” and restart Apache from the control panel of XAMPP.

Step 5: Create Subfolders And Build The Project

Once you have everything set up and unzipped, open composer.json file and change “googleads/googleads-php-lib”: “^44.0.0” to use the latest version “googleads/googleads-php-lib”: “^59.0.0”.

Check for the most fresh version at the moment you perform this.

Search and replace in /app/ folder of the project “v201911” with “v202202”, because that git project wasn’t updated since 2019, to use the latest version path of libraries.

Open the command line of your PC and switch to the directory where you’ve unzipped the files (using cd command or right-click inside the folder “Git bash here” if you have git installed), and run composer update in the PC terminal or git terminal.

It will create subfolders and build the project.

Step 6: Set Up Your Google Ad Manager Credentials

Move the downloaded JSON key “gam-api-54545-0c04qd8fcb.json” file into the root folder of the project you’ve built.

Next, download adsapi_php.ini file and set up your Google Ad Manager credentials in it.

networkCode = "899899"
applicationName = "My GAM APP"
jsonKeyFilePath = "D:xampphtdocsdfp-prebid-lineitemsgam-api-54545-0c04qd8fcb.json"
scopes = "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/dfp"
impersonatedEmail = "[email protected]"

jsonKeyFilePath is the absolute directory path to the JSON key file in the folder root.

Step 7: Set The Content Of The File

Finally, navigate to the file /script/tests/ConnexionTest.php and set the content of the file like below:

putenv('HOME='.dirname(__DIR__)."/../");
require __DIR__.'/../../vendor/autoload.php';

$traffickerId = (new AppAdManagerUserManager())->getUserId();

if (is_numeric($traffickerId)) {
echo "n====Connexion OK====nn";
} else {
echo "n===Connexion KO====nn";
}

In your terminal (or git bash console) test the connection by running the command (if you are in the /script/tests/ folder).

php ConnexionTest.php

You should see a message “====Connection OK====”

Step 8: Configure The Parameters

Navigate to the file /script/tests/ConnexionTest.php in your project and open it.

Copy and paste the below code into that file, and configure the parameters in the $entry and $buckets arrays per your needs.

putenv('HOME='.dirname(__DIR__)."/../");
require __DIR__.'/../../vendor/autoload.php';

use AppScriptsHeaderBiddingScript;

$bucket_range = array();
$Your_Advertiser_Name="Sample_Advertiser";
$buckets =
["buckets" =>[
['precision' => 2, 'min' => 0, 'max' => 4.00, 'increment' => 0.01],
['precision' => 2, 'min' => 4.01, 'max' => 8.00, 'increment' => 0.05],
]
];

foreach ( $buckets["buckets"] as $k => $bucket ){

$request_bucket = array( 'buckets' => array( $bucket ) );

$order_name="Your_Order_name ".$bucket['min'].'-'.$bucket['max'];
// echo $order_name.'<br/><br/>';


$entry = [
'priceGranularity' => $request_bucket, // can be 'low', 'med', 'high', 'auto','dense', 'test'
'currency' => 'USD',
//'sizes' => [ [1,1] ,[160, 600], [250, 250], [300, 250], [300, 600], [320, 50], [320, 100], [300, 100], [336, 280], [728, 90], [970, 90], [970, 250]],
'sizes' => [ [250, 250] ],
'orderPrefix' => $Your_Advertiser_Name, //prebid advertiserName
'orderName' => $order_name
];
$script = new HeaderBiddingScript();
$script->createGlobalAdUnits($entry);

}

Optionally you can also specify ‘geoTargetingList’ => “dz, pk, ke, pt” or custom key value targeting customTargeting’ => [‘amp_pages’ => yes’] if you want your header bidding to work only when the custom key value is set.

Run the command below and it will start creating line items per the bucket settings you’ve specified.

php ConnexionTest.php

There is a tool using Python that is used similarly; you may want to give it a try as well.

Debugging

For debugging, there are a few browser add-ons you can use to see if the auction runs without errors.

Alternatively, open your webpage URL using “/?pbjs_debug=true” parameter at the end of the URL, and watch console logs messages.

You need to make sure that hb_pb key values are passed to Google Ad Manager. Use “/?google_console=1” at the end of the URL to open the GAM console, and click on “Delivery Diagnostics” of each ad unit.

You should see that hb_pb values are set and passed to the ad server.

Screenshot from Google API Console Credentials page, Deccember 2022

Choose A Consent Management System

Users’ privacy is one of the most important factors, and you want to make sure that you comply with both GDPR and GPP.

The detailed instructions on how to set up a consent management system in your wrapper are here.

There are many providers which comply with IAB’s latest standards, and here are a few of the most popular ones:

Conclusion

You may find it surprising that setting up header bidding involves so many steps, but it is really worth it to implement. It can easily boost your revenue by +30% or more by creating selling pressure on Google Ads.

This guide is for technically savvy users – but if you have questions and issues, there is an Adops slack channel you may subscribe to and ask questions to the community.

I hope that after reading this article, you will find it easier to set up header bidding and enhance the monetization of your website.

More resources:

Featured Image: Search Engine Journal

window.addEventListener( ‘load2’, function() {

if( sopp != ‘yes’ && addtl_consent != ‘1~’ && !ss_u ){

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);

if( typeof sopp !== “undefined” && sopp === ‘yes’ ){
fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, [‘LDU’], 1, 1000);
}else{
fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, []);
}

fbq(‘init’, ‘1321385257908563’);

fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);

fbq(‘trackSingle’, ‘1321385257908563’, ‘ViewContent’, {
content_name: ‘header-bidding’,
content_category: ‘programmatic’
});
}
});

Source link

SEO

SEO Salary Survey 2023 [Industry Research]

Published

6 hours ago

November 29, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

SEO Salary Survey 2023 [Industry Research]

How much do SEOs earn? I wanted to know, so I ran a survey at Brighton SEO and asked 111 attendees what they earned.

Editor’s note

We realize that this is a small sample set and not representative of all SEO salaries as it’s focused on UK and EU data. If you want to be part of the next Ahrefs salary survey, you can submit your details anonymously here.

Here are the top takeaways:

The median annual salary for SEOs we polled was $49,211
The highest annual salary we polled was $229,652
To earn the higher salaries in SEO you need be a technical SEO expert—Heads of SEO, SEO Directors and SEO Leads all said that their main specialization was technical SEO
Only 5.4% of respondents learned SEO through a course—most learned on the job (52.3%) or by themselves (42.3%)
36.9% described themselves as content specialists, 30.6% described themselves as technical specialists, 6.3% described themselves as specializing in link-building
49.5% of respondents worked in SEO agencies, 42.3% in-house and 8.2% were self-employed
Most respondents (28.8%) worked in companies that had 11-50 people
The average SEO experience of our respondents was 6.9 years
Self-employed SEOs earned the most on average ($60,232k)—the median annual salary for in-house roles was slightly lower at $56,789, and agency SEOs had the lowest median annual salary at $44,169

There were also a few surprises:

Few SEOs in our survey said that they specialized in link building compared to technical and content. This is despite the fact that links are still one of the most important Google ranking factors.
The average level of experience between SEO Directors and Head of SEO is not that different—10.4 years for a SEO Director and 10.6 years for a Head of SEO—but the salary difference between the roles was ~$11,552—quite substantial.

Overview

Role	Median annual salary ($USD)	Average experience (years)	Main specialization	Main work location
Head of SEO	$92,988	10.6	Technical SEO	Agency and in-house
SEO Director	$81,436	10.4	Technical SEO	Agency and in-house
SEO Lead	$38,289	7.4	Technical SEO	Agency
SEO Specialist	$49,229	5.8	Content	In-house
SEO Account Manager	$43,850	4.2	Content	Agency
SEO Consultant	$49,240	6	All-rounder	Agency
SEO Executive	$31,956	3	All-rounder	Agency
SEO Analyst	$56,393	5	All-rounder	In-house

Here’s how annual salaries broke down across our respondents:

According to the SEOs we polled, most of them learned SEO on the job or were self-taught.

Chart displaying how individuals learned SEO.

Most of our respondents had a couple of years of experience under their belts. The amount of experience Head of SEOs had versus SEO Directors was not that different, at around 10 years.

Across all respondents, the average experience was 6.9 years
For Head of SEO, the average experience was 10.6 years
For SEO Director, the average experience was 10.4 years
For SEO Lead, the average experience was 7.4 years
For SEO Account Manager, the average experience was 4.2 years
For SEO Consultant, the average experience was 6 years
For SEO Executive, the average experience was 3 years
For SEO Analyst, the average experience was 5 years

Technical and Content were the two top skills that SEOs we surveyed specialized in.

The proportion of SEOs that said they specialized in links was much lower despite links being a major ranking factor.

Our survey showed an almost 50/50 split between the UK and Europe. 48.6% of respondents were from the UK—perhaps not surprising given that BrightonSEO is based in the UK.

Most of the respondents we spoke to worked in agencies or in-house. It does mean, however, that our salary data was mainly focused on these two employment types.

Across all respondents, the most common company size was 11-50. A large proportion of SEOs also worked for substantially larger companies that had over 1000 employees.

Here’s the full breakdown of each role.

Head of SEO salary

It’s probably not too much of a surprise that the Head of SEO role was our highest-paying SEO role surveyed. What’s more of a surprise was the variation in salary—our survey showed that a Head of SEO can earn anything from ~$25k to ~$229k.

head-of-seo-salary

Average experience

According to our survey, a Head of SEO has ~10.6 years of experience.

Type of company

46.7% of respondents worked for an agency, and 46.7% worked in-house. 6.7% were self-employed.

Education

66.7% of respondents said they were self-taught, 26.7% said they’d learned on the job, and 6.7% said that they had learned SEO from a course.

Specialization

40% said that they specialized in technical SEO, 33.3% in Content, and 13.3% said they were a generalist. The remaining 13.4% said they focused on people management.

This is surprising, as it implies that 73.3% of people in Head of SEO roles are actively providing SEO services for their clients rather than focusing on managing a team.

Company size

There were two company sizes that were most popular for Head of SEOs to work in. 40% of respondents said they worked in companies with 11-50 people, and 20% said they worked in companies with over 1001 people.

Location

40% of respondents were from the UK, 13.3% were from the Netherlands, and the remainder were from mainland Europe.

SEO Director salary

The salary variation wasn’t quite as extreme for SEO Directors, but salaries ranged from ~$42k to ~$121k—still quite a difference.

Average experience

SEO Directors in our survey had 10.4 years of experience on average.

Type of company

There was a 50/50 split between SEO Directors’ backgrounds, with 50% from agency and 50% from in-house

Education

62.5% of SEO Directors described themselves as self-taught, and 37.5% said that they learned SEO on the job.

Specialization

75% of them specialized in technical SEO, whilst 25% described themselves as generalists or Other.

Company size

According to our survey, SEO Directors typically work in medium to large companies. 25% said that they worked in companies that had over 1000 people, and 25% said they worked in companies that had 51-100 employees.

Location

Most SEO Directors we surveyed were from the UK (62.5%). The rest were equal splits between India, the U.S., and Germany (12.5%).

SEO Lead salary

SEO Leads typically have a lot of experience, but our survey shows that they only earn slightly more on average than SEO Specialists.

Average experience

SEO Leads in our survey had 7.4 years of experience on average.

Type of company

50% of SEO Leads came from an agency background, 41.7% came from in-house, and 8.3% were self-employed.

Education

69.2% learned on the job, 23.1% were self-taught, and 7.7% learned SEO through a course.

Specialization

30.8% of SEO Leads specialized in technical SEO, 23% specialized in content, and 23.1% specialized in links. 15.4% described themselves as generalists. The remaining 7.7% described themselves as specializing in SEO strategy.

Company size

46.2% worked in companies that had 1001+ people, and the remaining 53.8% worked in smaller companies.

Location

23.1% of SEO Leads came from the UK, with the remainder coming from the Netherlands, Italy, and Sweden (15.4% each) and 30.7% from other European countries.

SEO Specialist salary

SEO Specialists we surveyed had around 5-6 years of experience, but they typically got paid better than SEO Leads. Based on my experience, this may be due to in-house roles paying better than agency roles in the UK.

Average experience

SEO Specialists in our survey had an average of 5.8 years of experience.

Type of company

41.2% of SEO Specialists came from an agency background, while 58.8% said that they were from an in-house background.

Education

58.8% of SEO Specialists said that they had learned SEO on the job, 35.3% said that they were self-taught, and 5.9% said that they had learned SEO through a course.

Specialization

52.9% of SEO Specialists specialized in content, 29.4% focused on technical, 11.8% described themselves as all-rounders, and 5.9% described specialized in links.

Company size

41.2% of SEO Specialists said that they worked in companies that had 11-50 people. Only 17.6% of respondents said that they worked in companies that had 1001+ people. 23.6% said they worked in companies between 51-500 people. The remaining 17.6% worked in smaller companies with less than 10 people.

Location

23.5% of SEO Specialists said that they were from the UK, with the remainder from Europe.

SEO Account Manager salary

SEO Account Managers in our survey were one of the most consistent salary bands earning between ~$40k and ~$55k.

Average experience

SEO Account managers in our survey had 4.2 years of experience on average.

Type of company

85.7% of respondents worked for an agency, and 14.3% worked in-house.

Education

71.4% of respondents said they learned SEO on the job, and 28.6% said they were self-taught.

Specialization

42.9% said that they specialized in content, 28.6% described themselves as an all-rounder, 14.3% said they were technical SEO, and the remaining 14.2% said they specialized in links.

Company size

42.9% of respondents said they worked in companies with 11-50 people, and 28.6% said they worked in companies with over 1001 people. The remaining 28.6% was split equally between people who worked in companies with between 2-11 people or 51-100 people.

Location

85.7% of respondents were from the UK, and 14.3% of the remainder were from Europe.

SEO Consultant salary

SEO Consultants we surveyed earned up to ~$87k, which was lower than I was expecting—because our SEO pricing post suggested that SEO consultants charge between $100-150 per hour.

But as the data is UK-focused, the likely reason for this is the £85k VAT tax threshold.

Average experience

SEO Consultants in our survey had 6 years of experience on average.

Type of company

63.3% of respondents worked for an agency, and 36.7% worked in-house.

Education

45.5% of respondents said they were self-taught, 36.4% said they’d learned on the job, and 9.1% said that they had learned SEO from a course. The remaining 9% said they’d learned from other ways.

Specialization

27.3% said that they specialized in technical SEO, 27.3% in content, and 27.3% said they were a generalist. The remaining 18.1% said they focused on management and strategy.

Company size

SEO Consultants typically worked on their own or in smaller agencies according to our survey — 36.4% of respondents said they worked on their own, and 27.3% said they worked in companies with 51-100 people. The remaining 36.3% said they worked in companies with between 2-50 people.

Location

36.4% of respondents were from the UK, 27.3% were from the Netherlands, and the remaining 36.3% were from Europe.

SEO Executive salary

Average experience

SEO Executives in our survey had 3 years of experience on average.

Type of company

80% of respondents worked for an agency, and 20% worked in-house.

Education

80% of respondents said they were self-taught, and 20% said they’d learned SEO from a course.

Specialization

40% said that they specialized in technical SEO, 20% in Content, and 40% said they were a generalist.

Company size

80% of respondents said they worked in companies with 11-50 people, and 20% said they worked in companies with 1001 or more people.

Location

80% of respondents were from the UK, and 20% were from Belgium.

SEO Analyst salary

SEO Analysts typically had a few more years of experience than SEO Executives, but it looks like they earned roughly the same as them.

Average experience

SEO Analysts in our survey had 5 years of experience on average.

Type of company

33.3% of respondents worked for an agency, and 66.7% worked In-house.

Education

33.3% of respondents said they were self-taught, and 66.7% said they’d learned on the job.

Specialization

33.3% said that they specialized in technical SEO, 33.3% in Content, and 33.3% said they specialized in News SEO.

Company size

33.3% of respondents said they worked in companies with 101-200 people, and 66.7% said they worked in companies with over 201 people.

Location

SEO Analysts came from a range of locations 33% of respondents were from Portugal, 33.3% were from Brazil, and the remainder were from Serbia.

Sidenote.

We didn’t get many respondents for the SEO Analyst role—so take these results with a pinch of salt.

Final thoughts

SEO salaries aren’t often discussed in detail within the industry, so getting a snapshot of their current state from one of the biggest SEO conferences in the UK was insightful.

For our next salary survey, we’ll be opening it up to all SEOs. If you’d like to take part—you can enter here.

Got questions? Ping me on X (formerly known as Twitter)

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4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples]

Published

12 hours ago

November 28, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Many popular link building tactics produce low-quality links that don’t improve SEO performance.

Even if these techniques make an impact, it’s often for a short time, and Google can easily devalue them down the line.

Here are four tactics for building high-quality links that help you stay ahead of your competition, expose your brand to new audiences, and are less likely to be devalued in future algorithm updates.

Digital PR is the process of creating content that appeals to journalists and promoting it to them.

If they like the content, they’ll write a feature about it or include it in a piece they’re writing. This can land you many high-quality backlinks from big sites and news publications for free.

Examples

In the months following ChatGPT’s release, Fery Kaszoni and his team at Search Intelligence compiled statistics about Open AI’s popularity since launching ChatGPT and compared it to other popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

The result? 60+ free link placements, including mentions on Yahoo News (DR 92), The Wrap (DR 84), and Time magazine (DR 92).

A few examples of backlinks earned by a piece of content about Open AI’s popularity since launching ChatGPT

In another campaign, Fery and his team calculated how much money beloved video characters would earn in real life. This campaign earned 20+ free links including a DR89 link from British newspaper, The Daily Express.

Example of a high-DR like from Daily Express

How to do it

Successful Digital PR requires some creativity, but this is the process in a nutshell:

Find a trending topic
Create relevant newsworthy content around that topic
Tell journalists about it

For example, AI has been a major topic of conversation in all industries since it launched. Any new data or insights about it would go well in news cycles while it remains a topic of interest.

Once you have a topic, you need to come up with interesting content ideas that are relevant to your business.

This is the hard part. It’s really a case of brainstorming ideas until you land on something you think could be interesting.

For example, here are a few random content ideas for a company that sells furniture online:

Have AI refurnish rooms from popular TV shows in new styles.
Have AI design a new item of furniture, create it, and sell it.
Ask 100 interior designers if they’re worried about AI taking their jobs, share the data.

After you find your winning idea, create the content, give it an attention-grabbing headline, and write a press release about the most interesting insights.

Then, promote your content to journalists. You can try services like Roxhill or Muck Rack to find journalists who might be interested in your content.

You can also use a tool like Ahrefs’ Content Explorer to find sites that have recently published content about your topic and reach out to them.

Here’s how to do that:

Enter your topic into Content Explorer
Filter for pages published in the last 90 days
Filter for pages on DR70+ websites (big sites that you probably want links from)

For example, if we do this for the topic of “chatgpt,” we see thousands of well-known websites that have recently published about ChatGPT including Business Insider, Tech Republic, and Wired.

Finding websites that recently published about a topic with Content Explorer

Data journalism is a way of enhancing or creating newsworthy content by analyzing unique data sets. It can fall under digital PR, though it typically requires more detailed research.

This technique works because reporters love a good statistic they can either quote or write an opinion piece about. Be the source of such data, and you can earn many high-quality links anytime your data becomes relevant to trending news topics.

Examples

Data journalism can be quite simple. For example, in another case study from Search Intelligence, Fery’s team used Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer as a data source for a cybersecurity PR campaign.

The study reveals the top UK banks where customers seek help with fraud, allowing journalists to report on which banks are more secure than others.

The data fuelling these insights is keyword search volume. That’s it.

Ahrefs' data that fuelled a cybersecurity PR campaign

This method doesn’t take very long, doesn’t need a data scientist and can very easily be replicated in other industries where search popularity can unearth interesting insights.

In another example (and perhaps one of our all time favorites), marketing firm Yard created a data study comparing the CO2 emissions of various celebrities and ranking the worst offenders.

Data study on the C02 emissions of celebrities

If you follow celebrity news, there’s no way you missed reports of Taylor Swift’s private jet emissions being among the highest compared to other celebrities.

Just a few of the thousands of posts about Taylor Swift's jet emissions following a successful data journalism campaign

Every single one of these news stories originated from the data study.

When the study was first released, it went viral and earned links from almost 2,000 referring domains within the first month.

But that’s not all.

This topic trended in news cycles again when rumours spread that Taylor Swift attended a Jets game to bury the original negative publicity about her private jet usage, earning Yard a well-deserved second round of links.

Google Trends data for "taylor swift jet"

Today, this post has 1,861 links from 1,155 referring domains, 77% of them are dofollow, and 38.4% are higher than DR 60.

DR distribution of backlinks to the celebrity C02 emissions content piece

Talk about drool-worthy results! That’s high-quality link building done right.

How to do it

Successful data journalism is similar to digital PR but relies on the intriguing, data-backed insights you can unearth.

In a nutshell, the process looks like this:

Find a data-driven content angle that gets links and media attention
Gather data to provide new or updated insights on the topic
Tell journalists about your findings

Start by considering “your money or your life” content angles that everyday folk care about. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking too narrow or pitching ideas only a small demographic may understand.

For instance, cybersecurity is not a sexy topic journalists or their readers will likely care about. There’s also not a high degree of literacy about the topic among the general population.

But everyone cares about whether their bank is secure and how safe their money is.

This concept needs no explanation and that’s exactly why data that helps answer the question “how safe is your bank?” worked exceptionally well as a link building tactic in the example above.

You can also use Content Explorer to gather more ideas like:

Evergreen yet stale topics that you can update with more recent data
Data you can visualize better or repurpose into a different content format
Trending angles in other industries you can apply to your industry

For example, on the topic of ChatGPT, we found Rand Fishkin’s post claiming usage has declined 29% between May and August 2023 and that 30% of its usage is by programmers.

Finding content ideas in Content Explorer

You don’t need original ideas to succeed. If you’ve got the data to back it up, you can easily take the angles of a “useage patterns” or “most popular audience segments” and apply them to popular tools in your industry.

Some decent data sources you can start with include:

Search data: Like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer for uncovering interesting search patterns.
Historical data: Like Google Trends for highlighting growth or decline patterns over time.
Scientific research: Like on Google Scholar or in specific research journals.
Public niche data: For instance, Yard’s study used the CelebrityJets Twitter page.
Proprietary data: From within your (or your client’s) organization.

When you find an interesting insight or pattern worth sharing, write a press release about it and share it with journalists who frequently report on the topic.

Statistics pages are curated lists of facts and figures in a particular industry. These pages attract evergreen links for as long as the statistics remain relevant.

It’s one of our favorite link building tactics. Here’s how we’ve used it quite successfully over the years.

Example

We first launched a detailed list of SEO statistics in 2020 and it has been naturally earning high-quality links ever since.

Backlinks over time to our SEO statistics page

Currently, the page has:

5,787 backlinks
2,282 referring domains
82% “dofollow” links
37.7% from DR 60+ websites

While we used some outreach techniques in the early days, most of the success has come from the page’s ability to maintain top position rankings for competitive keywords.

Do it right, and this tactic remains wildly effective for earning links naturally for many years.

How to do it

Start by entering a few broad topics related to your website into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. For example, we might enter the following for Ahrefs:

SEO
Content marketing
Link building

Then navigate to the Matching Terms report and apply the inclusion filter for things like stats, statistics, facts, or figures. Make sure your filter is set to include any of these phrases.

Then it’s just a matter of checking out the results to find a relevant topic you want to write about.

We went for “SEO statistics”:

Finding statistics keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

Once you pick your topic, it’s a just matter of curating linkworthy stats and publishing them on a page.

While you can earn some seed links with early outreach efforts, long term success comes down to keeping your content updated with the latest data. That’s the best way to compound performance year on year, earning many high-quality links with no ongoing outreach needed.

Relationship-based link building prioritizes long-term relationships with journalists, writers, and editors.

It is an effective addition to digital PR campaigns as you can shortcut the time it takes to find the right people to distribute your content.

Better yet, you can be a journalist’s first point of call when they write a story on topics you or your clients are experts in.

Example

Imagine having journalists contact you asking to feature your clients in upcoming stories. That’s exactly what growth marketing firm, EngineRoom, has achieved.

A journalist from Mamamia (DR 78) made a call out on Sourcebottle, the Australian equivalent of HARO, seeking expert advice on immigration law. EngineRoom’s link building expert, Don Milne, responded and won the story along with a high-quality link.

Example of a backlink built with relationship-based link building

Then, the real magic started.

Instead of ending things there, Don also shared a client list with the journalist in case they ever wanted to collaborate on future stories again.

Sure enough, a few weeks later, the journalist reached out, asking to connect with another client in the drug rehab space to develop a story on heroin addiction. The client is featured in about 30% of the completed article with detailed quotes from the founder and (of course) a link back to their website.

No pitching. No outreach. Just a genuine partnership and collaboration now earning multiple high-quality links for their clients.

How to do it

This technique is all about the follow-up after you collaborate on your first story with a journalist.

If getting the first foot in the door is where you’re stuck, you can check out our detailed guide on relationship-based link building by Irina Maltseva, the former Head of Marketing at Hunter.

Once you get that first story, make sure you keep the relationship going.

If you have a list of websites or clients you represent, create a professional document with a mini bio about each client. Make sure it’s also easily searchable for writers in a hurry and makes your contact details clear and easy to access.

Then, share it with journalists, writers, and editors you collaborate with so they can refer to it in the future if they need an expert on a specific topic for their content.

Final thoughts

Earning high-quality backlinks can be much easier than many people realize and cheaper too! All the examples shared in this post earned free link placements on high-authority websites and with minimal outreach.

These techniques have more staying power. They are also far less likely to be seen as “link manipulation” or devalued in future Google updates.

And, if you get your content angle just right, they also have the potential to be earning links many months, if not years, down the track!

Got questions? Ping me on LinkedIn.

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SEO

Google To Curb Microtargeting In Consumer Finance Ads

Published

15 hours ago

November 28, 2023

Max

Google To Curb Microtargeting In Consumer Finance Ads

Google is updating its policy limiting personalized advertising to include more restrictions on ads related to consumer financial products and services.

Google’s personalized ads policy prohibits targeting users based on sensitive categories like race, religion, or sexual orientation.

Over the years, Google has continued updating the policy to introduce new limitations. The latest update to restrict consumer finance ads is part of Google’s ongoing efforts to refine its ad targeting practices.

What’s Changing?

Google will update its personalized ads policy in February 2024 to prevent advertisers from targeting audiences for credit and banking ads based on sensitive factors like gender, age, parental status, marital status, or zip code.

Google’s current policy prohibiting “Credit in personalized ads” will be renamed “Consumer finance in personalized ads” under the changes.

Google’s new policy will state:

“In the United States and Canada, the following sensitive interest categories cannot be targeted to audiences based on gender, age, parental status, marital status, or ZIP code.

Offers relating to credit or products or services related to credit lending, banking products and services, or certain financial planning and management services.”

Google provided examples, including “credit cards and loans including home loans, car loans, appliance loans, short-term loans,” as well as “banking and checking accounts” and “debt management products.”

When Does The New Policy Take Effect?

The updated limitations on personalized advertising will take effect on February 28, 2024, with full enforcement expected within six weeks.

Google said advertisers in violation will receive a warning at least seven days before any account suspension.

According to Google, the policy change aims to protect users’ privacy better and prevent discrimination in financial services advertising.

However, the company will still allow generalized ads for credit and banking products that do not use sensitive personal data for targeting.

What Do Advertisers Need To Do?

Google will begin enforcing the updated restrictions in late February 2024 but advises advertisers to review their campaigns for compliance issues sooner.

Advertisers should carefully check their ad targeting settings, remove improper personalization based on sensitive categories, and adhere to the revised policy requirements.

Failure to follow the rules could lead to account suspension after an initial warning. Google will work with advertisers to ensure a smooth transition during the ramp-up period over the next six months.

Featured Image: SurfsUp/Shutterstock

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