“Now’s The Perfect Time” For An SEO Side Hustle

Google’s John Mueller says the launch of the Page Experience update creates opportunities for SEOs to start side hustles, provided they level up their skills accordingly.

In a response to an SEO on Reddit, Mueller states: “now’s the perfect time to level up and get paid well for it.”

Mueller is referring to advancing one’s skillset to meet the demand for SEO talent that will be created by the Page Experience update.

Site owners everywhere will soon find themselves needing to optimize their website to meet Core Web Vitals thresholds, in addition to other factors that go into Google’s evaluation of a good page experience.

Those with the technical expertise to help site owners deliver an optimal page experience are well positioned to reap the rewards.

Here’s more context around Mueller’s statement.

Opportunities For A Page Experience Side Hustle

In a thread on Reddit about yesterday’s announcement regarding the Page Experience update, a user commented saying putting in the effort to meet all the required factors is worth it:

“I started optimizing our company’s WordPress website in August last year and we saw a nice increase in organic traffic the very next month (we’d had a downtrend for the previous 6 months).

However, the most dramatic increase happened this year – we’ve doubled the monthly organic sessions from January to March, thanks in large part to speed optimizations: for example, a 5 years old article rose in ranks for a high volume keyword from page 4 to position 3 and is now sitting behind a 99 DA website and a 98 DA website. Our website has a DA of 27.”

At the end of the comment they say they’re thinking of turning the experienced they gained from this endeavor into a side hustle.

Mueller replied to their comment, saying a side hustle dedicated to optimizing for the Page Experience has the potential to bring in a lot of money:

“Regarding side-hustle: speed improvements with an SEO-mindseet can be super-hard if you’ve never done it before. A good consultant who helps a site get into the green can be worth a lot of money. If you like this kind of work, if you like working on a low level on websites, and have practice with various setups / CDNs / plugins / frameworks, now’s the perfect time to level up and get paid well for it.”

Mueller points out there’s a distinct difference between optimizing for page experience and implementing other SEO improvements.

When optimizing for page experience it’s possible to use tools to check whether the work was done right, whereas the outcomes of other SEO improvements are largely uncertain.

“It’s not easy, and people can easily check if you did it right — it’s not like “hand-waving SEO improvements” where you can claim it takes time & all outcomes are uncertain, but the same simple checks make it easier to have a clear objective for delivery. Also, speed is not a one-time Google initiative – as long as users go to websites, they’ll care about a good & fast experience.”

With that in mind there’s even more incentive for SEOs to get their sites ready for the Page Experience update.

If SEOs can get their Core Web Vitals metrics in the green then it’s proof to other site owners the same can be done for them. That’s what will get SEOs hired over other practitioners who may not have demonstrable expertise in this particular area.

Source: Reddit