Jamie MacMillan ⋅ Fairfax, CA Cosmic Cart ⋅ 20 years experience

Hi Matt,

Since I don't know your experience level I'll suggest making sure your skills are as well developed as possible. If you do good work and achieve good results you won't have a hard time finding clients.

The SEO space is crowded, but that doesn't mean it is crowded with quality providers that know what they are doing. I think there is room to build a practice there, but you might want to look at emerging fields that have relatively less competition. For instance, the mobile side of many companies' businesses are massively under-performing, despite the fact that consumer demand has shifted heavily from desktop to mobile.

That said, if you want to be competitive in the SEO space here are a couple of resources:

Seobook.com - Aaron Wall puts out a lot of great material for free on his site and the paid section is even better. Start out by reading everything he's posted on his blog (it goes back years, tons of good info there).

johnon.com - John Andrews has put out a lot of great material as well, though you'll need to read between the lines a bit as he's not going to just lay out every tactic or shift in black and white. He'll suggest things to consider and in general he's way ahead of the curve. Read everything on his site and sign up for his newsletter.

bluehatseo.com - I haven't read Eli's stuff in a while, but the stuff I read a few years back was very good and quite descriptive with tactics. The tactics have likely been degraded by now, but read his stuff and you'll get an idea of the mindset of the types of folks that push the boundaries and test to find an edge. Start with "The Original" and read everything there.

Matthew Day ⋅ Woodside, NY U.S. Marine Corps, Sergeant ⋅ 4 years served

I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I am currently looking into http://www.topcoder.com and hustling and networking is a consistant theme of success in life. Also I do hope to one day be in a position to give back my time and knowledge in the same capacity!

Semper Fidelis,
Matt Day
unlimitedday.com

Steve enlow ⋅ Plainfield, IN EBSINTERNATIONAL ⋅ 11 years experience

I definitely have some connections and options. 317.446.5269. Steve Enlow

Peter Carruth ⋅ Sacramento, CA Strato Communications, Inc - Former USAF ⋅ 15 years experience

I certainly admire your desire to round up and do your own thing Mathew.

My firm is around this vertical daily. Don't want to say it cannot be done - though, consider the e-commerce web development space is hugely saturated and high end cost effective products are now off the shelf.

As president of a firm, I am baraged daily by emails and calls by SEO/Web Marketing individuals and firms.

Not to rain on the parade my friend, this is a tough space to crack into.

Start local, free lance, have garner experience / expertise (may have to do pro-bono) to build your portfolio.

Other areas: Wordpress/Joombla all have online tools... any one can pick up for free right. But fact is, SMBs still have to learn it - and they simply do not have the bandwidth.

As a consideration, if you can pick up some cool template, and offer your time and expertise to build out.. that is a start.

Also, consider getting yourself out and going to networking events.. important to be seen by same business people on a regular basis. Nothing happens over night.. stay the course and at some point something pops.. then another then another.

Remember the value you brought to your unit you made a name for yourself.. same thing here.. takes time Friend.

Hope this helps hone your thoughts.

Respectfully,

Pete

Mark Thacker ⋅ Jeffersonville, IN ⋅ 8 years experience

Hi Matthew,

Thank you for your service. There are several placement/recruitment agencies out there that can get to know you, and perform job searches on your behalf. The hiring organization usually pays a nominal fee to the recruitment organization for finding the right candidate. Just do a search for "web developer recruiter" or something similar and you will find plenty.

If you are looking for more freelance-style work, there is also a service called "TopCoder" that allows an organization to issue a request for some type of work. Several competitors sign up for the request and essentially offer bids with a preview of their work. The organization then narrows it down to the top 2-3 competitors who actually build the product. The winner gets paid based on the rules of the competition. Sometimes the second place contestant will also get a smaller amount. It just depends on how they have set up the competition.

I know this is not exactly what you were asking for, but hopefully this will help. Once again, thank you for service!