There is suddenly a newfound interest in search engine optimization, writes Eli Schwartz, a growth advisor and SEO strategic consultant, in a guest post on LinkedIn.

There are 47,500 job openings that match the keyword SEO on LinkedIn and about 909,000 that match the same keyword. To get a sense of this ratio, Schwartz looked at the same metrics for other job roles. For software engineers, the ratio turns up at 10:1; product managers at 30:1 and designers at 23:1.

Since the title SEO is a pretty broad description, Schwartz broke down the numbers further.

Of the 909,000 people who matched SEO, only 26.5,000 had the words SEO in their title. Digging into just this subgroup, he discovered 1,166 changed jobs in the last 90 days, a turnover ratio of 4%.

Some 8,588 work in marketing and advertising, while 3,677 work in internet, 2,002 work in information technology, 1,054 in computer software and 806 in writing and editing.

It’s interesting to note that the majority — 24,000 — work in marketing, with the remainder in engineering.

The majority of people work at smaller companies. Some 864 are self-employed, while 4,347 work in companies with 1 to 10 employees, 4,954 work in companies with 11 to 50 employees, 3,256 work in companies with 51 to 200 employees, 1,801 work in companies with 201 to -500 employees, 1,077 work in companies with 501 to 1,000 employees, 1,837 work in companies with 1001 to 5000 employees, 611 work in companies with 5001-10,000 employees and 1,836 work in companies with more than 10,000 employees.

The data around seniority and years of experience is interesting. There are 2,265 owners, 2,138 directors, 1,405 managers, 11,611 seniors and 16,081 entry-level employees.  

The data goes further to break down years of experience and location, such as 5,000 people that have the title of SEO in California.

What makes this even more interesting is the ability for anyone to go into LinkedIn and search for a targeted audience to serve ads.

Happy Holidays.