• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 29, 2012

What's the annual salary of search engine optimization marketers and will the need to optimize content, both new and co-created with consumers, based on behavior change educational requirements for specialists? In 2013, the shift to behavior analysis from demographic targeting will put a hire demand on employees with the ability to analyze human behavior.

University marketing science programs will become more in demand, compared with marketing arts. Aside from mathematicians and statisticians, marketers delving into anthropology, sociology and English studies requiring the study of human behavior and characteristics will prove valuable for content marketing.

Meanwhile, Conductor put together some numbers in an annual survey that details SEO salaries by city and job title, from SEO coordinator, SEO specialist, director of marketing, marketing manager, SEO analyst and strategies, and account manager. Where do you rank?

SEO salaries, of course, differ by city and job. It's not surprising Conductor's guide names the director of marketing positions as having the highest annual salary. And it may seem surprising that the title in San Francisco brings an annual salary between $90,000 and $130,000, the highest in the nation. San Jose follows with an annual salary between $82,000 and $127,000. New York comes in third with between $80,000 and $126,000.

Specialists researching higher-paying SEO jobs might want to look in San Francisco where marketing managers get paid between $54,000 and $90,000 annually. Chicago and San Jose tie for second place where salaries for this position range from $51,000 to $87,000.  Denver, Baltimore, and Minneapolis SEO marketing managers get paid the least, between $48,000 and $79,000.

One of the lowest paying position, SEO coordinator, brings home between $32,000 and $45,000 annually in Miami.

A blog post earlier this year talks about the number of jobs with SEO in the description.

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