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01.30.04
 By
June Campbell
Want to break into a good web job?
The days when a high school graduate could step into a lower-
level web design job are over, according to Jennifer Laycock, forum
administrator for JimWorld.com. Entry-level web positions require
a much wider skill set than was the case five years ago. However,
there is good news for the newcomer. Plenty of opportunities are opening
up for industrious self- starters who look for work in all the right
places.
Web technologies change so quickly that universities cannot keep up.
Therefore, employers are looking for people with skills that schools
are not yet offering. "New areas in web development are coming up,
and these jobs are being filled by industrious, self-taught young
people," Laycock commented. "For example, search engine optimization
and ROI analyses are not yet taught in schools in any depth, but those
skills are in demand." |
Self-taught
newcomers with the following skills will be attractive to employers.
1. ROI (Return on Investment) Analyses. When a company invests
their dollars in a marketing campaign, they want to know how much
they gained or lost because of that investment. While all industries
perform ROI analyses, web marketers employ unique practices that do
not apply to the offline world. The online marketer seeks answers
to questions such as, "How many web site visitors are converting to
customers?"; "What is my clickthrough ratio (CTR)?"; "What is the
CPM (cost per thousand) of my banner ad?" You don't need to be a statistical
wizard to do this work, but you do need to be familiar with basic
mathematics.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO specialists strive
to obtain a high search engine ranking for a web site. The days of
writing a decent META tag and submitting your site to a variety of
search engines are long gone. Today's SEO analyst keeps current with
the major search engines' ever-changing activities. He or she performs
an array of activities aimed at achieving the coveted high keyword
rankings. Getting it right is important. Search engines penalize those
who innocently or deliberately violate their policies. Additionally,
since many SEO tactics are not free, ROI analyzes is included in the
needed skill set.
3. Web Site Usability. Usability specialists study how a person
interacts when they arrive at a web site. Usability specialists attempt
to answer questions such as, "What makes a person click on a link?",
"What makes a person read a certain area of text, but not another";
"What makes a site visitor buy a product or service?" and "How do
people navigate through a site?"
Site navigation plays a major role in web site usability. "Setting
up navigation on a big site is complex," Laycock remarked. "Consider
a big site like Microsoft's and think how difficult it can be to find
what you are looking for."
4. Accessibility Analyses. A sub-set of web usability, this
skill involves analyzing a web site to determine how accessible it
is to persons with visual or physical impairments. For example, persons
with visual impairments often use a special accessibility browser
that reads the web's content aloud. The browser cannot respond properly
unless the site is coded in certain ways. Many large companies' web
sites wreck havoc on an accessible browser.
In the US, the government requires that any web site funded with government
monies must be accessible. Therefore, a consultant, or a job seeker
who is skilled in accessibility analyses would be at a hiring advantage
over someone who is not.
How do you learn these skills if they are not readily available in
schools? Laycock suggests spending time at forums such as Jimworld
(www.jimworld.com), Webmaster
World (www.webmasterworld.com/) and other online communities dedicated
to web site development. She comments that senior forum members are
often very helpful to newcomers. "It's rather like a free college
education; you get out of it what you put into it, but it's a learning
environment that costs absolutely nothing."
And, it pays off. Laycock reports that one large SEO company has recruited
its last several employees from online forums.
Entry-level positions no longer pay $35,000 or $40,000 to start, as
they did five or ten years ago. However, those willing to start at
a lower wage are able to work themselves up into higher paid positions.
A Computerworld survey, conducted in 2003, found that tech support
specialists earn from $46,000 to $52,000, depending on location. The
average salary for a programmer analyst on the East Coast was $75,000,
while an experienced project manager earned approximately $106,000.
About the Author:
How to Write Business Plans, Business Proposals, JV Contracts, More!
No-cost ebook "Beginners Guide to Ecommerce". Business Writing by
Nightcats Multimedia Productions http://www.nightcats.com
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| From
the Forum: |
| Page Rank Change |
 I am a web designer who, before retirement, worked for a corp in San Jose and published 200+ pages that were proprietary to the company. They existed on an Intranet site behind a firewall. I never had to contend with Internet Search Engines so PR never was an issue.
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