For employers · SEO specialist
Hire an SEO specialist: SEO specialist hiring without the agency fee
Hiring an SEO specialist is hard for one reason: the field is full of people who can talk about SEO and short on people who have actually moved a number. Job titles do not help you tell them apart, and a generalist job board buries your role under every other opening in the building, so you end up screening a pile of applicants who mostly do not do SEO.
Flat $199 for 30 days · no percentage of salary · marketers only
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The short answer
To hire an SEO specialist in the United States, expect to pay roughly $65,000 to $115,000 for a full-time in-house hire, $2,500 to $10,000 a month for an agency retainer, or $75 to $200 an hour for a freelancer. A recruitment agency will typically charge 15% to 25% of first-year base salary, which is $9,750 to $28,750 on that band. Posting the role directly to a marketing job board costs $199 for a 30-day post. The single best predictor of a good SEO hire is a candidate who can show a specific site, the change they made, and the traffic or revenue that followed.
Typical US salary
$65,000 to $115,000
Typical agency fee on that
$9,750 to $28,750
A 30-day post here
$199
What it costs
Every way to fill this role, priced
Honest ranges for the United States. Agency percentages are the industry-standard bands, and the right answer depends on how hard your role is to fill.
| Option | Typical cost (USD) | Speed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-house hire, full time | $65,000 to $115,000 per year | 4 to 10 weeks to fill | Ongoing organic growth you want owned internally |
| Recruitment agency (contingency) | Typically 15% to 25% of first-year base, so $9,750 to $28,750 | 3 to 8 weeks | Hard-to-fill senior roles, or when you have no time to screen |
| SEO agency retainer | $2,500 to $10,000 per month | Days | You want execution and a team, not an employee |
| Freelancer or contractor | $75 to $200 per hour | Days | A defined project: an audit, a migration, a content sprint |
| Post on MarketerJob | $199 for a 30-day post | Live the same day | Reaching SEO people directly, with no percentage fee |
Salary and fee ranges are typical US figures for 2026 and vary by market, seniority and company stage.
Why post here
A board built only for marketing roles
SEO people, not everyone
Your role lands in front of marketers who filter the board by SEO. You screen fewer applicants and more of them do the job you are hiring for.
A flat $199, not 20% of salary
A contingency recruiter on a $95,000 SEO role typically bills $14,250 to $23,750. A 30-day post here is $199. The math is not close.
Salary band shown up front
Every listing displays its USD band, so candidates who apply have already accepted your number. No offers lost at the last step over pay.
How it works
From posting to a signed offer
Write the role around outcomes
Say what the SEO hire will own in the first 90 days: a technical audit, a content engine, a migration. Vague scope attracts vague candidates.
Post it with the salary band
Post the role for $199. It goes live the same day, tagged SEO, with the band visible on the card so the wrong-fit applicants filter themselves out.
Screen for evidence, not vocabulary
Ask every candidate for one site, one change, one result. The people who actually do SEO answer this in under a minute. The rest cannot.
How to evaluate
What to look for in a seo specialist
MarketerJob is a board for marketing roles and nothing else. Post an SEO role here and it goes in front of people who filter the board by SEO, not to everyone with a resume. You pay $199 for a 30-day post rather than a percentage of the salary, and the board shows your pay band up front so the people who apply already accept the number.
- A specific site, the change they made, and the traffic or revenue that followed
- Technical fluency: crawling, indexation, site architecture, Core Web Vitals
- Content strategy, not just keyword lists: they can explain search intent
- Comfort in analytics, Search Console and a rank tracker, with real numbers
- An honest answer about a project that did not work and what they learned
- No promises of guaranteed number one rankings, which is the clearest red flag
Senior SEO Specialist
Your company · Remote (US)
Candidates see the salary band before they apply, so the people in your inbox have already accepted the number.
Good questions
Questions employers ask
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