by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, March 15, 2017

There are four times as many content marketing jobs available in the United States as search engine optimization jobs, and one in two content jobs require SEO skills, according to survey findings released Wednesday.

Nearly 47% of content marketing specialists, content manager, content director and marketing manager positions require SEO skills, according to the Conductor survey findings.

Pure SEO skills are still in demand, but the requirements within the position have shifted as technology changes and advances. For example, a white paper released Tuesday by Microsoft Bing and iProspect shows the importance of optimizing for voice search and explains what the two companies call a “relevance score.”

Conductor’s study analyzes the job demand and salaries in 2017 for nine marketing titles: Director of Marketing, Marketing Manager, Account Manager, SEO Specialist, Content Marketing Specialist, Social Media Manager, SEO Manager, Content Manager, and Content Director.

The findings from this year’s survey shows the demand for content jobs is on the rise, but those positions require SEO skills. The report also calls out how SEO skills are becoming more of a requirement. In fact, there has been a 22% increase in open SEO job positions in the top 20 cities, from 3,665 jobs in 2012 to 4,473 jobs in 2017.

While New York and San Francisco remain the top two cities in the U.S. to find a job in SEO, Los Angeles comes in at No. 3 and Chicago comes in at No. 4. Boston rounds out the top 5. The remainder include San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, Seattle, Atlanta, Austin, San Diego, Denver, San Jose, Minneapolis, Dallas, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Miami, Houston, Baltimore, and Cleveland.

The best U.S. cities to find content marketing jobs, in order, include New York, NY; San Francisco; Chicago; Los Angeles; Boston, Seattle; Washington, DC; Atlanta; Austin; Dallas; San Diego; Houston; Philadelphia; Denver; San Jose; Miami; Phoenix; Minneapolis; Charlotte and Orlando.

The average annual salary for a director of marketing came in at $105,038; followed by content director at $77,062. SEO managers make on average $71.991; followed by marketing manager at $74,820; and content manager at $64,313. The survey also breaks down salary by location.

The salary data for the survey was gathered from indeed.com, payscale.com, and glassdoor.com. A weighting algorithm was applied to the data to determine the salaries based on the number of listings.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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