How popular is Seo in your region?

I request all members to reply. Please share with us your region/country and how popular or well paid is seo as a profession there.
Thanks

I am belonging to india and its being popular here..and pay rate is also increasing..

Atlantic Canada [Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island] - the need for SEO is very poor.

Most businesses cannot fathom the need to spend money for Internet Advertising & Promotion and this generally causes three issues.

1. Low end (non-preforming) SEOs charging low cost services (less than $5K) just to make a buck 'locally'.

2. Most clientele become disillusioned with SEO very quickly.

3. The longer few local firms invest in SEO the more it costs as time passes by... cause someone gotta pay to do the "catchup on the ROW"... adding to the problems associated with #1 & #2.

Region: Pakistan
Seo Profession: Future looks promissing, growing quickly but the growth will be limited i guess. Hopes everyone don't jumps in like they did in call center case and spoils the image of whole industry.

i live in the philippines SEO is doing great here

I live in Florida, USA and we offer Custom Web Site Design and SEO services for clients mainly real estate agents and vacation rentals. Real Estate/Vacation Rentals is huge in Florida with many moving in and out of the state. It's the number one vacation destination and people come back to live and retire and buy second homes.

With so much competition SEO is key to getting your site to the top for traffic.

...ya in the rest of the world [outside of Florida] it's not really important to getting your site to the top for traffic... mediation is the key!

SEO is quote popular where I live. If you've ever used Wordtracker you'll see Dallas as a localized search stem for a lot of words rooted with seo and search engine optimization -- mostly because a lot of local companies are searching for their own company in the SERPs.
We're the home of Coppyblogger and SEO by the Sea (Bill Slawski).

There are a lot of fortune 500 companies here that are catching on Most are using outside firms (Interactive divisions of ad agencies or small boutiques like the one I work for), but some are starting their own inhouse division.

Most people I meet still don't "get" what I do in small talk, but it's getting better since the Wallstreet Journal and New York Times publish articles about it with ever increasing frequency.

Turkey - Istanbul; extremely popular.

doing good at most places except "Atlantic Canada" ... keep them coming guys

I'm not surprised by carrot's post; truly, the real estate market is insanely competitive down here. Judging from some of my sources, there's a strong awareness of the need for SEO in the US Northeast as well (big shock, right?).

It would be interesting to find out not only what regions of the world seem to "get" the need for SEO, but what kinds of businesses. I think I can make certain predictions, but I believe the question is still worth asking.

In honesty I'm more interested in when people think the SEO market will become over saturated, as every Tom and Harry from all over the world seem to be trying to get involved.

Southern California.

Not to hijack the thread...but...I think arena is already over saturated with firms similar to the ones mentioned by Fathom. I've had conversations here recently with a number of company owners in So. Cal saying they get a call a day from companies promising top placement for $149.00 and even more emails from companies. The owners state....I don't know who to believe so I don't respond to any of them.

The awareness of what SEO really is and how it can help companies is still very limited in my nearest local geographies and even in San Diego which is a rather large market. Having conducted presentations for my local Chamber of Commerce and for a batch of University Educators in San Diego this year, I would say 95% of business owners have little or no clue of what SEO really is and 95% of the companies masquerading as SEO firms are turn and burn with limited SEO experience but they have good phone banks and people on quotas.

As for how well paid are firms. It is all relative to the goal of the company you work with and the niche they are trying to dominate. Bruce Clay and SEO Inc. are the big boys in my market. Small firms such as my own make a very comfortable living. Most small firms probably make about 30 - 40K a year.

You might find the data from this survey recently conducted by SEOMoz where they surveyed a very large group of SEO people answers some of your questions.

http://www.seomoz.org/dp/seo-industry-survey-results

Small town USA. (really small - four stoplights and more campsites than houses). They still think you will build them a website for $300.

People ask me to work on their sites and I just say that I am too busy. They would faint if I told them how much it would cost.

In the past few months I've had three gift shops want a shopping cart site to sell the same candles and crap that are on at least a million other sites.

Then they ask me to recommend "someone local". The local designers will make you a framed site with java links that will drop you out of google.

Glad to be too busy with my own sites to need clients.

The market is saturated with cheap scam artists, always has been. Every webdesigner looking for a job seems to put SEO skills on their resume, but those that can prove those skills are the ones actually sought after.

I would say there are more experts now, then a decade ago, but they don't come cheap. Big companies are willing to pay for the success of experts, and even steal them if they have to. I get headhunters calling me at my present job asking if I'd be interested in an open position somewhere else all the time. Money's good when your experience makes a big business tons of money, but when you're learning the ropes by experimentation and floundering experience, the money isn't there.

If SEO popularity was determined by the attendance size of the different big SEO conferences each year, they just keep growing and multiplying. Companies send people from all parts of the world to these things. SES is like a rock concert now, get in late and you stand in back having to watch a screen to see who's on stage. 9 years ago less than 25 people squeezed into one little room.