After Your PhD LLC

SEO Career Pivot Guide

What is SEO?

At its most basic level, SEO is about helping users find what they’re looking for through organic search channels like Google or Bing by optimizing web assets such as a website.

For example, if someone searches for “best purple hats” and your website sells purple hats, effective SEO helps ensure your site appears prominently in the search results so that users can find purple hats.

SEO can also be broken into other specialties. While there are others types you can explore, from my personal experience I often see these two types of SEO.

  • On-Page SEO – Optimizing elements on your website, like page titles, meta descriptions, headers, internal links, and content quality to match search intent.
  • Technical SEO – Improving the backend of a site so search engines can crawl and index it efficiently (site speed, mobile-friendliness, indexing, structured data, etc.).

Why I Pivoted To SEO From Academia

SEO is a perfect blend between art and science.

The field is open to those who love numbers, and people who aren’t numbers heavy.

One day you can be digging into numbers for a monthly report for a client, or you can be developing a creative outline for a client for a new webpage on their website.

In my informational interviews, I came across a ton of folks who also pivoted from humanities fields like English, journalism, and history. This was very comforting knowing that it was a path that faired well for other people.

My Past SEO Career Path:

Below is a brief highlight of my past roles that directly relate to SEO. You can view this on my LinkedIn as well. Overall, once I was able to get my foot in the door at my first SEO internship, things began to open up with the caveat being it was around the height of Covid where hiring and remote roles were up contrasted to where hiring is now.

Summer 2020: Business and Marketing Intern

Summer 2021: SEO Internship

2021-2023: SEO Analyst

Fall 2023: SEO Manager

November 2023 to Current: SEO Strategist

What Skills Have Transferred the Best So Far

Curiosity / Digging Into Problems
Academic research trained me to sit with ambiguity, ask better questions, and keep digging until patterns emerge. In SEO, that curiosity shows up in diagnosing ranking drops, understanding search intent, and uncovering why something works rather than just that it works.

Data Analysis
Interpreting messy datasets is second nature after academia. SEO relies heavily on analyzing performance data, spotting trends over time, and turning numbers into actionable insights, making this skill directly transferable.

Presentation / Slide Decks
Teaching and conference presentations translate well into stakeholder communication. Building clear slide decks, explaining complex ideas simply, and telling a coherent story with data are essential skills when presenting SEO strategies or results.

SEO Tools To Learn

SEOs typically have a large toolkit that varies depending on what’s available to them. Typically they would have a keyword research tool, some analytics tool like Google analytics, and also something for reporting like Sheets/Excel or Looker Studio.

  • Ahrefs and/or Semrush
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Search Console
  • ScreamingFrog
  • Google Sheets / Excel
  • Looker Studio (or other reporting tools)
  • Chrome Developer Tools
  • An assortment of Google Chrome Extensions
  • Python / SQL (can be helpful for data analysis for some senior roles)

Other Career Fields Related to SEO

PPC (Paid Search & Advertising)
PPC focuses on driving targeted traffic through paid ads on platforms like Google and social media. It pairs naturally with SEO by using keyword intent, audience insights, and performance data to test what converts quickly. For academics, PPC offers a data-driven environment with clear metrics and fast feedback loops.

Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing centers on content distribution, audience growth, and engagement across platforms like LinkedIn, X, and Instagram. SEO skills translate well here through audience research, messaging clarity, and performance analysis. This field rewards strong communication, experimentation, and an understanding of how ideas spread.

Email Marketing
Email marketing focuses on nurturing audiences through targeted, personalized communication. It complements SEO by converting organic traffic into long-term subscribers and customers. Academics often excel here due to strengths in writing, segmentation, and interpreting engagement data.

UX (User Experience)
UX is about designing digital experiences that are intuitive, accessible, and aligned with user needs. SEO overlaps heavily with UX through site structure, content clarity, and search intent. This path is especially appealing for academics interested in research, usability testing, and evidence-based design decisions.

Informational Interview Questions

  • Did you create a website to learn SEO?
  • Any tips about becoming an independent consultant in SEO?
  • What is the best way to learn SEO?
  • How do you use AI in your current role?
  • What tools do you recommend I learn?
  • Do you prefer technical or content SEO?
  • What do you prefer, agency or in-house SEO?

Recommended SEO Books

Note: Books are sourced from Amazon and After Your PhD may receive a commission for book recommendations.

Recommended SEO Websites

If you found this article helpful I recommend reading this too! Project management crosses SEO quite often and you may even find yourself a project manager for an account.

Explore Careers on After Your PhD Job Listings

Explore a growing list of jobs specifically tailored for academics exploring careers outside academia.

Support After Your PhD on Patreon & Kofi

Any tips are appreciated. As the owner of After Your PhD I work alone to bring free informational resources for those wanting to know what’s next after their PhD.