#'is this why we spent so much on contractors last quarter??'

[digitalcactusblog]

man, imagine how embarrassing it would've been if knives didn't remember the right chord to play to send vash into the soup

like

knives: [smashes an ugly chord] the ground: [doesn't change] vash: … knives: … knives: [smashes a different ugly chord] the ground: [doesn't change] knives: i know it was something like this vash: take your time

#trigun stampede #trigun spoilers #trigun #tristamp #vash the stampede #millions knives #YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IMPLIES #THIS IMPLIES THAT HE SPENT TIME PRACTICING THE UGLY CHORD #PRACTICING OPENING AND CLOSING THE SOUP HATCH #one of his underlings comes in to deliver some news while he's practicing and he sends them to eeby deeby by accident #conrad in the corner watching the hatch open and close with repeated ugly chords like #'is this why we spent so much on contractors last quarter??'

[mldrgrl]

How Stella Got Her Groove Back

by: mldrgrl Rating: PG-13 Summary: Just a little something to celebrate spring...and Stella’s birthday!

They left Connecticut in September, with a fair amount of reluctance to go, but they needed to return to the city.  Becca had already gone and though both Karen and Fish insisted they were welcome to stay longer, stay forever if they had to, at a certain point, Hank and Stella had just been missing their loft and their life in New York too much.  Of course, they knew that what they were returning to was not the life they were accustomed to, but they would have to learn to adapt to the new normal.

Winter was long and brutal.  They did spend two weeks over Christmas and New Years back in Connecticut again and that was the first time they’d seen Becca since July, and the last time they would see her until spring.  Karen had tried to coerce them all to stay again and Hank and Stella nearly gave in.  If not for the fact that Stella left a project behind she’d been working on for her classes and if Hank had brought the pages he’d been working on for his new novel, they just might have done it.

When they got back to New York, and in a cabin fever-induced moment of weakness, they hired a landscape architect to design their rooftop terrace and though the noise of construction aggravated the hell out of both of them, they were both pleased with the results.  They now had an artificial lawn of soft green turf, an outdoor patio daybed in the shape of a cube with canvas shades on all four sides, a wet bar, strategically placed heating lamps, and a wood burning fire pit.  Unbeknownst to them, when Fish had heard their plans, he’d called the company they hired, ordered them a charcoal grill, and told the contractor to keep it a surprise.  They were very surprised by the barbeque that was suddenly part of the design, but it looked nice, even if it wouldn’t get any use.

Finding ways to fill the time with nowhere to go and no one to see was extremely difficult.  Neither of them were very much into television or movies.  The terrace, as welcome as it was, wasn’t finished until the end of February.  Stella had the classes she was teaching and the child psychology classes she was enrolled in to keep her fairly busy during the days, but Hank could only write for so many hours at a time and he found that he actually missed helping Fish with the guitar lessons.  He grumbled to Stella that ‘that damn Trout’ bewitched him somehow and then begrudgingly called him up and asked if he could still help out remotely.  Fish was delighted by the request and sent him an iPad and a teaching schedule.  

The close quarters had caused a few squabbles, though nothing major.  They took a few online cooking classes together which produced some mediocre meals and a testy exchange on the appropriate amount that constituted a ‘pinch of salt.’  Beyond that, they managed not to take out any frustrations on each other.

It was April 1st when Stella wandered from the bathroom to the bedroom in her t-shirt and sweatpants, rubbing lotion into her hands and arms.  Hank was in bed, perhaps naked, or perhaps wearing jockey shorts, she couldn’t be sure.  He had his guitar across his lap and his head back so that he gazed at the ceiling while he plucked lightly at the strings.

“Hank,” she said, leaning into the foot of the bed with slightly bended knees.

“Do you think ‘oral’ actually rhymes with ‘clorital’ or is it cheating?” he replied.

“You know that next week is my birthday.”

Hank splayed his hand out on the guitar and looked at her.  “Is this a trick question?”

“Not at all.”

“So, if I say ‘yes, of course, your birthday is April 7th and I already know I’m not to mention it to anyone,’ is that the wrong answer because I’m not supposed to acknowledge it in the first place?”

“I am aware that in the past I have requested that my birthday be treated as any other day.”

“Mmhm.”

“I’ve been thinking that perhaps...I might like to celebrate this year after all.”

“Oh, I get it.  April fools.  You could’ve just put plastic wrap on the toilet or secretly replaced my regular coffee with Folgers.”

“I’m serious.”

“Ah, so the one year it’s impossible to throw a party, you want to have a party?”

“God, no.  Parties are awful.”

“Well, what then?”

“Brunch?  With Becca?  This weekend, or the next, perhaps.  There are more places opening up now.  We could-”

“Absolutely, Sherlock.  Whatever the suggestion, I am all in.”  He pushed his guitar aside and she was mildly disappointed to discover that he was in his jockey shorts after all and not naked. He scooted forward to the end of the bed and wrapped his arms around her hips.

“A walk in the park, maybe?”

“Not sure if my legs remember what walking is at this point, so it’ll be good to remind them.”  He moved his hands down to the backs of her thighs and gave them a squeeze and then cupped her ass.  “Why the sudden change of heart, Sherlock?”

“I’ve just been thinking lately that it’s perfectly acceptable to want to celebrate being alive.  After the year we’ve had.”

“I agree, but as long as I get to have my breakfast in bed in bed that day, I’ll be happy.”

“It’s my birthday, I’m not bringing you breakfast in bed.”

“Oh, honey, you are the breakfast,” he growled, wrapping his arms around her again and pulling her into him as he fell back onto the bed.

*****

The Saturday before her birthday was Easter weekend.  There was no rain in the forecast and Becca was available, so it was perfect.  They took a Lyft to the upper west side and met her at a French bistro that had outdoor seating.  Stella could tell right away that something was bothering Becca, that she was putting on a false front of cheerfulness, which was very unlike her, but if she did know her stepdaughter, she knew the girl could not keep up pretenses for long.

They ordered and waited for their food over bottomless mimosas and miniature ham and cheese croissants served as an appetizer.  It wasn’t cold, but a cool breeze would drift by every so often and Stella was glad she had left her hair down so that her ears were covered.  She wished she’d been a bit more practical though and worn pants.  She’d just felt like dressing up and at the last minute, put on an olive-colored dress with small printed white flowers on it, but at least it was long-sleeved and she had a white sweater.  Becca and Hank were like twins in their matching leather jackets and dark jeans.

“Are you working on anything?” Becca asked Hank.

“Almost finished,” he answered.

“Oh.  What’s it about?”

“A couple that’s been married for fifteen years, but they’re on the brink of the divorce when the pandemic hits and then they go from spending almost no time together to all of their time together and it’s disastrous at first, but then they end up learning a lot about each other.”

“So, they save their marriage?”

“No, they end up getting divorced anyway.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“It’s fiction, sweetheart.”

“People like happy endings.”

“People are stupid.  I didn’t say it didn’t have a happy ending though.  Are you working on anything, Daughter?”

Becca sighed and picked at her nails.  Stella put a hand on Hank’s knee under the table.

“Is something bothering you, Darling?” Stella asked.

“No.  Yeah.  No.  I don’t wanna ruin your birthday or anything when it’s the first birthday we’ve ever celebrated together.”

Stella gave Becca a brief smile.  “I don’t know if your father has told you why I’ve always been rather reluctant to celebrate my birthday.”

Becca shook her head.  Hank stretched his arm out behind Stella’s chair and put his hand on her back.  She gave his knee a squeeze of appreciation.

“My father passed away on my fourteenth birthday,” Stella said.  “So, Darling, you have a high bar to overcome if you think being in a low mood will ruin my birthday.”

“That sucks about your dad, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”  Stella looked to Hank for a moment and then back to Becca.  “I’ve spent many years trying to ignore the date as though if I didn’t acknowledge it, it’s like it had never happened.  I don’t think I really understood until quite recently that one is capable of being sad and grateful at the same time.  And that life should be celebrated.  Especially now.”

“I guess I’m just...when we were up at Mom’s house, everything was so easy and nice and I had a really hard time writing.  That’s why I wanted to leave.  It was way too peaceful.”

“You know if I had a dollar for every time Becca claimed my shit was fucking her up, I’d be richer than that fucking Amazon guy, and now it sounds like she wants to file a grievance that we’re not fucking her up enough.”

“Am not.”  Becca rolled her eyes.

“Don’t listen to him,” Stella said.  “He’s been so mired with boredom lately he has regular calls with Fish.”

“No!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Hank protested, putting his hands up in defense.  “There was and will only be one bromance in my life and that’s with one Mr. Charles Runkle, that follically challenged motherfucker.  No better pairing existed except for maybe Bert and Ernie, or Sid and Nancy.”

“I think we should let Becca continue with what she was trying to say.”

“Thank you.”  Becca put her hand up as though she was blocking Hank from her view and he reached over and slapped her palm away.  “As I was saying, I left because I thought the serenity was blocking me in some way, but since I’ve been back, it’s like the opposite.  It felt so apocalyptic at first and desperate.  It was like impossible to sit down and put words together when there were so many shitty things happening outside.  What if...what if the next thing I finish, people will be like oh, she was just sitting inside writing while everyone else was dying?”

“There will always be shitty things happening outside,” Hank said.  

“Great advice, Dad.”

“I don’t mean to bitchslap you with reality, but the world being shitty isn’t a reason to give up.”

“I’m not giving up.”

“Good, because you are way more fucking talented than I could ever even hope to be.”

“I just don’t know if it matters.  If anyone should care.”

“Why should you concern yourself with that?”

Becca glared at Hank, clearly annoyed with the answer.

“I know you think I’m being facetious,” Hank said, quickly.  “But, I’m not.  If all anyone wanted to read was about things that ‘mattered’ that 50 Shades of Hot Garbage would never have sold a single copy.  You don’t know why people read what you write.  Maybe they want to escape the shitty things happening in the world.  Maybe they want to laugh or cry or be turned on.  Maybe they just need something to pass the time.”

“Five minutes ago you just said people were stupid for wanting happy endings, now you’re saying I should just give them garbage, if that’s what they want.”

“Yeah, I’m a fucking hypocrite, what else is new, but I just want you to be happy with what you’re doing.  You want me to buy you a new laptop?”

“I’m not twelve anymore.  You can’t just buy my happiness.”

“Worth a shot.”

“Becca,” Stella finally interjected.  “I think it’s obvious by now that your father may possibly be the world’s worst motivational speaker.”

“Or the world’s best unmotivational speaker,” Hank said.  “You see what I did there?  I turned a negative into a positive.”

Both Stella and Becca ignored the comment.

“I think I may understand what he’s trying to say though,” Stella said.  “I’m not a creator, but I’ve been a consumer.  When I was reading for pleasure, I certainly wasn’t reaching for mystery novels.  And I think that...popularity and quality are two different things.  Certainly, one would hope for both, but it isn’t always the case.  I know you and I know that quality is important to you, so perhaps you should only focus on if what you’re working on is the best that it can be and not on whether or not it matters.”

“Can I add something to that?” Hank asked.

“Not if you plan on fucking up everything Stella just said,” Becca answered.

“I’ve done at least a dozen online events this year and at every single one, someone has asked me when the next Rebecca Moody novel is going to be released or they want to know what you’re working on.  I’m not even entirely sure all of them are there to hear my Q&A or if they just showed up because they know I’m your dad and they think you might make a guest appearance.  And if one person takes umbrage with you for creating something during a time of utter hell, fuck them.”

“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable,” Stella quoted.

“That sounds so much hotter when you say it than George Bernard Shaw,” Hank replied, rubbing his hand across Stella’s upper back.

“Okay, I don’t want to spend this day being miserable,” Becca said, shaking her head and shoulders like she was trying to rid herself of negativity.  “Thank you, Stella.”

“You’re welcome, darling girl.”

“Hey, what about me?” Hank asked.

“There is this jacket I saw online that I want,” Becca answered, cheekily raising one of her eyebrows and tilting her head.

“I’ll text you my credit card number later.”

“Thank you, Father.”

*****

Brunch was followed by a stroll in Central Park and it seemed that at least half of the city had the same idea.  It was interesting being in a place so crowded and yet also so open.  The decent weather and the cherry blossoms in full bloom probably had something to do with it.  What also would have felt strange a year ago, seeing everyone wearing face masks and wearing them as well, was oddly comforting.  When Stella had put hers on that morning before they walked out the door, Hank told her she looked like a sexy brain surgeon or cardiologist, whichever one was smarter or made more money.

When they came upon Bethesda Fountain, there was a small band playing salsa music and a few couples dancing.  Hank tried to imitate the steps and then grabbed Becca’s hand and spun her around under his arm.  She laughed and tried to break free of him, but he pulled her back in and tried to get her to dance.

“Da-ad,” Becca protested.

“Dance with me, Daughter.”

“I don’t dance.”

“You’re no fun.”  Hank let go of Becca’s hand and then grabbed Stella’s.

“Oh, no,” she said.

“Come on, Sherlock.  I know you’ve probably got some moves I’ve never seen.”

“I assure you that’s not true,” she answered, letting him spin her away though and then laughed as he gyrated his hips dramatically as he stepped back towards her.  “Whatever it is that you’re doing does not resemble the salsa in any way.”

“Let me see you do better.”

Stella looked past Hank to the other dancers and mimicked the forward and back steps.  She put a hand on Hank’s chest to keep him at arm’s length and prevent their knees from colliding as he tried to fall into the same step with her, moving forward when she stepped back, and back when she stepped forward.  What he lacked in grace, he made up for with enthusiasm.  As soon as they fell into sync, he grabbed her hand and lifted her other arm in a more formal dance frame like the other dancers had.

What followed was probably the worst and most amateurish version of a salsa that had ever been danced, but Stella laughed so hard it brought tears to her eyes.  When the music ended, Hank stopped and pulled Stella’s face mask down under her chin before lowering his own and then kissing her through both of their laughter.

The dancing couples broke apart and drifted back into the crowd.  Becca went over and dropped some money into the cup on the ground in front of the band and thanked them for playing.  Stella took Hank’s hand and then Becca linked her arm with Stella’s as they continued on.

Later that night, when Stella came out of the bathroom as she rubbed lotion into her hands and arms, she stopped at the foot of the bed and watched Hank read over the latest pages of his novel.  When she was finished, she climbed onto the bed and walked over to Hank on her knees until she was straddling his lap.  He threw his pages down, took his reading glasses off, and pulled her close with his hands on her ass.

“Thank you,” Stella said, as Hank kissed the side of her neck.

“For what?”

“This truly was the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

“Your birthday’s not until Wednesday.”

“Perhaps next year we’ll even be able to invite Karen and Fish to town.”

“We’ll make The Trout christen that barbeque he forced on us.”

“It does look nice though.”

“It really does.  You want your present now, or should I wait until Wednesday?”

“I might be interested in a preview,” she said, sliding her hand down his chest and then into his shorts.  “A little peak at the package ahead of time.”

“You just assumed I was talking about fucking when I said I had something for you?”

“Weren’t you?”

Hank paused and then grinned.  “Yeah, I was.”

The End

#i wrote this #hanella #hank/stella #californication #thefall #The adventures of the lady detective and the writer lives on

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

👑🏰🐲🐲⚔️ DMODT 81 full

Eren was literally buried in paperwork. Seeing Marley couldn't physically come to castle to murder him, they seemed to be attempting to murder him with the sheer volume of paperwork that had been shipped over to the castle. With the sunroom too small for both he and Armin to work in, Eren was working out of the royal library leaving Levi to split his time between both of them, a solution that required multiple kisses for bribery. Though the problem would be solved if Armin would simply work from the royal library like he was, but then there was the risk of mixing of their papers up and Eren already had to make duplicates of everything to be sent to Europe to be checked over. Not that they replied especially fast. He'd sent a letter asking for permission to marry Levi, then had to wait a fortnight for a reply that stated they were discussing the issue. What was there to discuss? Literally everyone knew he was bonded to Levi. Marriage was only two pretty fancy rings and the right to boss Levi around on a legal level. He wanted to hurry up and marry his mate before Levi left him over the fact he was having more of a relationship with his paperwork than with his alpha. Viren had his own cot set up in the corner of the room now, while Luca preferred to follow Levi between him and Armin, his son appreciating the freedom that being home brought. Hearing the library door creak open, Eren pushed his papers aside. Lunch times were now his favourite time of day. Much like when he'd been researching how to untether himself from Levi, Levi would bring him food and dote over him. The main difference now was that the alpha didn't shy away from whatever he was feeling, and Erwin wasn't ushering him out the door to do paperwork of his own. Carrying the loaded lunch tray over to the desk, his mate showed off his dexterity as he picked his way through the countless boxes in the room, to where Eren had set up in the far corner of the table space. He'd hoped to work himself out of the mess by now, yet Marley was a complete mess. After the first week he'd simply accepted that he'd never reach the end of everything by the end of his 6 month prison sentence "Have you taken a break since this morning?" Placing the tray down, Levi dropped a kiss on his head "Yes. Twice. Your son was hungry, then we cuddled while we worked. Then he spat up in my hair and now he's taking a nap" "Sounds fun. If I stayed down here..." "I would never get anything done" "It doesn't look like you've gotten anything done as it is" Slumping back in the chair, Eren's head lolled back. He couldn't help but smile as his eyes met Levi's "We both know that's not true. You're the one who told me Armin was cursing my name over using the all messenger eagles" "Pigeons are too slow" "His correspondence doesn't have to go to Europe" "I know. What are we working on today?" "Land rights again. If Marley is going to have a government with its own tribunal system, I'm trying to find suitable members from the countries and regions that originally made up the area is occupies now, so that everyone can have a voice" "That sounds like a pile of shit" "It is. They really didn't appreciate the work of a good cartographer" "Oh no! Whatever shall you do?" "I don't know. Give up? Let myself be lost and buried in here forever" "I've got a few choice words to say about that" "I am not surprised in the least. Can you stay for lunch?" "I can stay all afternoon. Mikasa is making Armin train, and with the weather being reasonable, Luca thinks it play time" "Has he been behaving?" "He climbed up into Armin's lap and didn't want to leave, if that counts as behaving" "That's my boy. Do you want to get Viren for me? I'll move the tray over to the table near the lounge. It's easier to feed there" "So bossy" Levi a small pressed a kiss to his lips "You love it" "I do" Moving to the tiny lounge area, Eren settled down to feed Viren with his back against Levi's chest, the alpha's arms loosely wrapped around his waist as the both took a moment to enjoy not looking at piles of papers "What else is happening upstairs?" "Nothing. Not much went ahead while we were away, but you already know that. Armin's sent Petra and her squad to triple check the grounds for the new orphanage, to make sure it's completely shrapnel and bomb free before work begins. That's about all at the moment" "That's good. I'm happy almost all the city wide repairs are done and the contractors paid. I haven't seen all the bills from Marley, and I'm finding everything but what I'm looking for" Eren was reluctant to use magic in case he damaged anything he'd need in the future. It was long and tedious doing things by hand, and he was really regretting the fact he cared at all "More papers for the pile?" "Yes and no... like I said, I've been doing the whole land thing" "You don't need to hide it from me" "I know I don't. I'm not ready to deal with them. It's stupid, but every time I see Zeke's name on something I wonder if he ever really knew about it, or if it was Dina. I'm not ready to deal with their family dramas. I don't think I want to deal with those kind of things either. My head gets to busy" "You're spiralling" "Who's fault is that?" Shamefully, Levi had walked in on him balling his eyes out when he'd found a news report over Zeke's death. The elation of the first day home had passed once he and Levi woke from their nap. Then reality had reared its ugly head, and he'd kind of been scattered since. Admitting why he was crying to Levi was hard. He knew his mate understood, but it still felt cruel that Zeke had married him so easily and now Levi had to wait. He often worried that the alpha felt like Eren was comparing the two of them. After his small breakdown, they'd set up a system where everything royal family related was stacked in "the pile" "Mine. I'm sorry. I hate seeing you down here like this" "It's not terrible. I have the fireplace, and I have Viren. Plus it helps to do something" "That's because you can't sit still" "If only the leaders at the sanctuary could see their problem child now!" "Yep. A prince and a dragon, who would have thought" "No one. Has Historia replied yet?" "That's right. I forgot to tell you..." Eren shot up, disturbing Viren's feed and causing his son to cry. Sheepishly settling back down, he helped his son latch "She did?" "No. I forgot to tell you she hadn't" "You're a dick" Historia's two eggs still hadn't hatched. Eren was dying for news from her over them. Ymir was still playing the perfect mate, not that Eren doubted she wouldn't take care of Historia and their clutch, he was just impatient for news on the birth of their babies "She promised she'd let you know the moment they did" "I hope they don't hatch while I'm stuck here" "I thought you were ok with being in the castle?" "I am. I really want to meet her children. She wanted it for so long, and she's going to be an incredible mother" "Spoken from one mother to another" "Don't you mean from one princess to another?" "I don't know. I think you've been outclassed. Armin may rival you on demands now that he's gotten the hang of being a prince" "Armin isn't a prince. He's a Drama Queen" "You know you could have made working from sunroom work" "They sent me the last 5 years of papers. 5 years. I'm still finding claims for damages, but no one bothers to put their actual addresses on these things. Hello, yes, I need 900 gold pieces for my room and my name is Greg. Thanks Greg. How the hell am I supposed to allocate you funding when that's all I have, and what kind of roof do you want? You could a new damn house for that" Laughing softly Levi kissed his cheek "I think you're right about Armin being a drama queen" Eren's heart dropped, his scent shifting enough to alert Levi "What is it?" Moving Viren slightly, Eren forced a sigh as let the lie slip off his tongue "My breasts are a little tender, that's all" "Oh. Can I do anything?" "No. This is nice" This wasn't the first time Levi had become confused since they'd returned home. Eren had noticed it twice before, but simply put it down to the fact they were home and had been through so much "You're nice. You smell so good" "Stop sniffing me. You said Armin was training this afternoon, didn't you?" "Yep" "Do you want to take a break with me after we eat? We can play with the boys in the sun?" If Levi was starting to forget, Eren wanted as many moments with him before he did. His mate was a million times more important than paperwork "What about..." "You made think of how nice the sun would be. We should take Luca's ball down for him" "I'm not going to say no to skipping work" "Good. Viren should be done with his feed soon" Having eaten lunch, and dropped by their quarters to pick Luca's ball up, they were now down on the castle's training oval. It looked to Eren like training had gone out the window as Mikasa and Armin chased Luca around. A sword in their son's mouth that seemed to belong to Armin. Catching sight of his parents, Luca came barrelling towards them, dropping the blade at Levi's feet before darting behind Eren "Oh thank god! Armin dropped his sword and Luca was off with it before we could stop him" Poking his head around Eren's legs, his son blinked innocently up at Mikasa, the female alpha red faced as she slowed to a jog "I didn't drop my sword. You knocked it out of my hands" "The whole purpose of the exercise is to keep your hold on the sword" Shooting Levi a glare, Armin moved to snatch up his training blade "I'm well aware of that. What brings you all down here?" Throwing the ball for Luca, Luca ran happily after it "Levi said it was nice outside, and those papers only seem to be multiplying" "You're blowing off work?" To spend time with his family.... not that he was going to say as much "I'm taking a break to play with my son. How long were you chasing him around for?" "A good 15 minutes" Snorting at how drenched in sweat Armin was, his friend looked as if he'd spent all day chasing Luca "Don't give me that. You try chasing after him" Eren raised an eyebrow. He'd spent the most time with Luca out of all of them. He was well aware how cheeky his son was "I'm his mother. I know how fast he can be" "Does that mean you're going to be watching him so Armin can train?" "Yeah. Though, you could swap out, Mikasa and let Levi practice with Armin. If he's always training with you, he'll grow too use to the way you move" "Oi, brat. I thought I was here to watch the baby?" "Mikasa can watch Viren. She deserves a break after chasing Viren" "What about my break?" Nudging Levi with his elbow, Eren teased him gently "Is this your way of saying you're getting too old" "Fuck off. Mikasa, hold the baby. Armin, we're doing hand to hand" Armin gulped visibly. His face paling "Eren! No..." "You'll be fine. Just go gentle on him" "Who? Me or Levi?" "I'll leave that to you two, to figure out" Shifting into his dragon form, Luca came running over to him with his precious ball. The other one was still stashed away, and they were both amazed the first one had lasted this long. Bopping his son on the head affectionately, Luca bit at his toe, growling and tugging as he tried to wiggle backwards out of his hold. Releasing him suddenly, Luca let out a squeak as he rolled over backwards, blinking in confusion over what the hell had suddenly happened. Nudging at the ball with his nose, Eren sent it rolling, walking after it as Luca jumped up to keep his precious ball from his mother. * Levi knew he'd said it a hundred times, but dragons were idiots. Giant cat like idiots. Eren was barrelling around recklessly as he chased Luca and the ball around, Luca having the advantage with his smaller size. Armin's hand to hand training interrupted when his son dribbled the ball over to him, wanting him to play. This resulted in Armin and Levi, versus Luca, versus Eren in a game that he didn't know quite how to explain. It was like soccer with no goals and no clear rules. The aim was to get the ball, and that was it. On the sidelines Mikasa and her squad watched on, Mikasa waving one of Viren's tiny hands each time Eren claimed the ball. Receiving a pass from Armin, the ground shook as Eren ran towards him, passing back quickly Eren didn't change his course, instead knocking down Levi with his nose, where he gently took Levi's tunic in his mouth, tugging on the fabric "What do you want?" Lowering himself down, Eren titled his head "You want me to climb on your back?" Nodding quickly, Levi picked himself up "Us versus them?" Nodding again, Eren arranged himself for Levi to climb into his saddle, Armin yelling in protest when he realised what was happening. Luca wasn't sure he wanted a team as he sent the ball flying across the grass away from the all. Eren was still reckless, even with Levi settled in his saddle. The pair of them chasing their son down, where Eren started grooming the boy until the trilled angrily as Armin stole the ball again. Kicking it over to Mikasa's squad, horsefaced Jean complained over being roped into it all, yet Sasha and Connie were happy to jump right in. Eventually Jean was won over, with only Mikasa left on the sideline. Spending another half hour or so chasing the ball around, Eren bowed out less than gracefully, suddenly shifting back into his human form with no warning, leaving Levi squashing his mate's back as he dissolved into coughs. Climbing off Eren, Levi dragged him up, his mate smiling despite being crushed by him, and now hacking up a lung "You could have warned me you wanted to shift" Waving him off, Levi ignored it in favour of lifting Eren off his feet and carrying him over to Mikasa and Viren as the others started moving back towards them "What was that?" Tilting his head, Eren gasped out "What was what?" Scowling at him, Mikasa placed her palm on Eren's forehead "Shifting back like that. It was reckless" "It was fun" "You're coughing" "I may have over done it slightly. Worth it" "Over done it slightly? You're the colour of Luca's eyes" Eren was red. But that's what happened when you run around like an idiot "'m fine. Levi's fussing" Pretending to drop his mate, Eren yelped as he clutched at him "Arsehole" "I could have actually dropped you" "Please don't. You can stand me up though" "No. I'm good like this. Was Viren alright?" "I think he might need a nappy change, but he's been pretty happy. Pretty interested in drooling over his own hand" "He does that. He's also become a master at rolling over too" "He's growing up too fast" Levi had no idea how the last four and a half months since Viren's birth had passed so fast and so slowly. Viren wasn't content with simply laying around anymore. When he was laying on Levi's chest he liked to try to meet his gaze. His hands would grab at Levi's chin as he smacked his lips. Levi had the better deal. Eren had been pinched right on the nipple by a wayward hand, his breasts squishy toys beneath the boy's hands "Mmm. I'm not in a rush for another right away, a year or two maybe then we'll try again for another sibling. He's going to be such a handful when he's old enough to walk" Readjusting Eren, he balanced him on his knee as his mate stared up at him waiting for his reply, a hand covering his mouth as he coughed "Mhmm. Once we've got our house" "Yep. We should head on up. This cough isn't settling" "Ok. Mikasa, are you alright to carry Viren?" "I can walk" "You can walk once we're back up at the castle" Because his knees weren't what they used to be. Particularly his right knee, not that he could remember how he'd hurt it. Not that he'd ever admit it "Deal" Viren was screaming by the time they reached their quarters, his nappy less than appealing as Levi took over cleaning up their pup so Eren could take a shower. His mate slightly unsteady on his feet, and pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache, recognising it as dehydration, Levi sent him straight to shower only for his omega to promptly throw up when the warm water hit his skin. Lowering the temperature, he double checked on his love before taking care of Viren. Not wanting Eren to faint and strike his head again. Not after the fun they'd had being stupid on the oval. Once cleaned, Levi settled their pup down on his stomach on their bed, Luca left to watch over him without suggestion or command. The dragon also not minding the small pups cries. Returning to the bathroom, Eren had progressed to washing his hair out. Stripping out of his sweaty clothes, Levi joined his omega, Eren sinking back into his hold as he wrapped his arms around his waist "How are you feeling?" "A little stupid for not realising I'm dehydrated" "We were out in the sun. Viren wasn't burn, but he's still crying" "He's probably hungry again, or annoyed we're back inside. He seems pretty curious about everyone" "I think you're over thinking it. Luca's watching him" Humming, Eren turned in his hold, his fingers moving to Levi's hair to massage his scalp "Luca adores him. Did you have fun?" "Until you shifted and scared the shit out of me" "Sorry. It's easier to cough in my human form" "Your lungs?" "Still a little sore. Throat's itchy too" "I'll prepare the kettle in case we need it" "Thanks. I didn't think everyone was going to join in" "If Sasha and Connie can shirk work, they will" "Jean even joined in" "Reluctantly. Luca seemed happy" "Mmmm. It felt good to play with him like that. We haven't been able to in months" "I'm sure he's sleeping it off" "Is that a hint?" Rolling his eyes, Levi groped Eren's arse "I'm not about to take advantage of you when you're dehydrated" "I feel like you haven't taken advantage of me all that much since we came home" "It's fine. Resting and recovery are more important" Reaching behind him, Eren grabbed the shampoo off the rack "Tell that to my dick" "You're just a horny little shit, so is that dick of yours" "It's been weeks and the most we've done are handjobs. I just want to make sure you're ok" Messy handjobs in the shower were better than no handjobs at all "I don't have any complaints. You should sit" "I'll sit on your dick" Groaning, Levi grabbed the shampoo from his omega "No dick for you. Not until you're recovered and rehydrated" Laughing softly, Eren conceded "You're probably right. My stomach feels like shit" "That's what happens when you throw up" "I still have paperwork to do" "No. You're taking the night off. We're going to rehydrate you, and you're going to think of something other than paperwork" "Our house?" Pouring out a generous amount of shampoo, Levi passed the bottle back to Eren before starting to soap his hair up "We can talk about our house. How many rooms do you want?" "5...? Is five a good number? What do you even have in a house?" "Being in this castle has spoilt you" "Being with you has spoilt me. There's the bathroom, kitchen, dining bit, the boy's bedrooms, our bedroom, and I want a space to grow herbs. What about you?" "A study would be nice... maybe rooms for future pups?" "Mmm. I, uh, you're not mad about what I said are you?" "About waiting? No. I want to have our house built by the time the next one comes" "I'd hope our house was built. I've been thinking about it. I think I want to build it out near the new orphanage" That wasn't in the plans... Eren had wanted a small grove like Hannes had... "The orphanage?" Looking away, Eren untangled himself at Levi's questioning tone "It's silly" "It's only silly if you don't explain it" "I was... thinking that we could help out there. Not all the time, but I can use magic to help with the crops. You can teach the kids to ride horses. I've been thinking about how to design economic hubs in Marley. I want to set up 5 trading hubs in each area, and I want to set up training in each area to promote cross hub trading. I also want to collapse the military ports down to trading ports... and... I was thinking Isabel and Farlan could do trapping and relocations in the area, you know, to make sure everyone there is safe" "You've been making plans" "You're not mad, are you?" "I'm not mad. I wonder what the tribunal will say" "I don't know. They still won't say yes to us being married" Eren was sore over that. Levi thought he'd spend his time planning their wedding, but instead he simply sulked over a lack of answer "I'm still going to marry the fuck out of you, even if it takes a little longer to do so" Mumbling something under his breath, Eren blushed bright red "What was that?" "Nothing..." With soapy fingers, he tickled his mate's sides until Eren took his hands and interlaced their fingers, staying out of range of his fingers "Eren, tell me" "I said "I wanted to get married to you then spend our honeymoon during my heat"" Levi dove in to steal a kiss, Eren blocking him by twisting away "I vomited. It's dirty" "It's not dirty when it's you" Frowning, he was denied a kiss and forced to give up on the idea. He wouldn't look at him until he replied properly "That's one way to spend it. That's a hell of a way to spend it. You're sure you want to spend your heat with me?" The idea of sharing Eren's heat with him was natural, but he didn't know if Eren was mentally up for it "Levi, you're the only one I can spend a heat with. You know my magic goes out of control" "It's not nearly as romantic when you say it like that" "It's what you get for making me repeat myself" Levi had missed something, or Eren wasn't thinking straight. He looked ready to drop as it was "I'm sorry. Why don't you rinse off? I'll be there soon" "Need to brush my teeth first" "Brush your teeth then get your butt to bed" "Yes, mum" God. He was such a brat. * Climbing out of bed, Eren gave up on sleep. Viren hadn't settled well, crying off and on all day, now he'd simply decided that instead of sleep time it was scream time. Eren hadn't had the best nights sleep the previous night thanks to some extremely graphic nightmares. Levi copping a bloodied nose for trying to wake him from his screams. Feeling Levi's hand grabbing the edge of his nightshirt, Eren reassured Levi that he had him and to try to go back to sleep. Things weren't like they'd been in Europe. If he needed sleep, he slept, letting Levi tend to Viren. If Levi was having a bad day, he'd stay up and let his mate sleep. Grabbing Levi's cloak from the wardrobe, he wrapped himself in the thick furs before rushing to collect his baby boy. Dawn was still a few hours away, his intention being to head down to work on the paperwork in the royal library, yet the cause of his son's distress was a soaked nappy. Changing the pup, he offered Viren his breasts, but having been in such a foul mood all day, his son refused to take it, grizzling himself back to sleep Eren was spared the cold walk down to the library though didn't know if he trusted the silence. Two kids and silence usually lead to trouble. No. Two kids and his alpha being silent usually meant trouble. Levi had been working far too hard lately. Armin was lucky enough to have caught up with paper work, where as Eren had only submitted all the claims papers he'd found, as well as his plans for the ports and trade hubs... and had gotten no reply. Levi had basically said "fuck it" to everything. They were a mess for whoever ruled Marley next, and now he was only allowed to focus on fresh mail. Cleaning up the bathroom from changing his pup, the omega ran himself a bath as a treat. His body aching from being back and forth from the cot to the desk all damn day, his head aching from his son's crying, and his breasts tender from Viren not wanting to feed. Soaking for a few hours sounded heavenly. Stripping off his nightshirt, he screamed as he span round to find Levi standing in the doorway. The alpha had his arms crossed as he casually leant against the frame "Don't do that!" "I did nothing. The sound of the water woke me" Throwing his nightshirt at him, Levi caught the thin garment. Eren half wishing he'd left the alpha's cloak on, the impact would have made the man stumble "Why are you running a bath?" "So I can take a bath?" "Did Viren need feeding?" "No. Now my breasts and my head are sore" Huffing, Eren wrapped his arms around his waist as he stared at Levi. They'd established he was taking a bath... so why was he still there "Can I help you?" "I don't know, can you?" "Levi..." "Sit up on the counter for me" He was so close to his bath! Now Levi was making him wait? Mentally sighing, he padded over to the bathroom counter and climbed up, watching Levi as he stripped his own nightshirt off, the alpha casually ignoring his erection as he moved between Eren's legs. Sliding his hands up Eren's sides, goosebumps erupted across his flesh "You said your breasts hurt?" "Mmm. Your son didn't want to feed" "That's a shame" Cupping Eren's breasts, Eren moaned into the touch of his alpha's thumbs against his nipples. Sex had definitely not been on his mind. Now it was all he could think of as Levi's aroused scent flooded from him. Shuffling closer to the edge of the counter, Levi rolled his hips against forward, rubbing his erection against Eren's rising own "Shit. They're heavy" "Full..." Applying his lips to Eren's right nipple, Levi started to suck. Letting his head loll back, Eren wrapped his legs loosely around the alpha's waist whimpering as his milk started to spill, slick starting to run as he rolled his hips into the touch. Drinking deeply, Levi milked his left breast. Milk running down his chest and stomach, pooling between their heated groins. With a light bite, Eren screamed as his back arched, his alpha not appreciating that his nipples already felt tender enough to be filled with glass "D-don't... hurts..." Pulling off, Eren's milk leaked from his released nipple, Levi using is tongue to clean the mess "It hurts?" "They're tender" "How about between your legs, is that tender?" Eren shook his head quickly "Wet... I'm wet..." "Let me see" Laying back on the counter, Eren dropped his knees apart. The smell of slick fighting the scent of Levi's arousal for dominance in the space. Without prepping him, Levi pushed two fingers into Eren's slick opening, Eren gasping as he grasped Levi's wrist "Fuck..." "Feels good?" "Warning would be nice..." "I'm going to finger you while I jerk your off, then I'm going to knot you" Pushing his fingers deeper, Levi knew exactly where his sweet spot was. Rubbing and working his fingers against his prostate, his mate jerked him hard and fast. He felt far to exposed sprawled out like he was, the sounds wet and lewd as he mewed for more. Bucking his hips, he wasn't quite sure what he was doing anymore. He wanted his alpha's knot, but Levi was insisting on teasing him into a spasming mess. Bringing him to the precipice of orgasm, Eren cried out when Levi tore his fingers from inside of him, the momentary feeling of loss had him cursing Levi. He'd been so close and now the fire in his belly was starting to cool. Taking him by the left hip, Levi teased his opening with the blunt head of his dick "You love it when it when I play with the opening, don't you?" Humming was an acceptable reply, Levi breaching him with just the tip. Maddeningly, the man worked at keeping his thrusts short and shallow "Please! Please just fuck me" "I am" "You're not... need it Levi" Taking his dick in his hand, Eren pumped himself. If Levi wasn't going to get him off, he'd have to do it himself. Snarling at the action, Levi pulled out, pulled him off the counter, bent him back over it and slammed into his heat painfully hard within the length of a few pants "I can't last" "Don't... hard and fast" Taken by the hips, Levi thoroughly fucking drilled him. His dick completely wrecking his hole as Levi rode him right up to the moment his knot made it physically impossible to keep moving. Burying himself deep, Levi lifted his leg as he tried to keep moving, hips stuttering in time with the pulses of cum landing on the counter door as Eren saw stars. Riding out the waves of pleasure, the omega dropped his forehead to rest against the spot he'd been previously sitting on, getting slick on his face in the process "Fuck... fuck..." Nuzzling into his lower back, Levi pressed kisses to his cooling skin "Love you. Love you so much" "Bath?" The word came out as a croak. Pulled backwards, it wasn't a terribly sexy shuffle or gainly position as Levi manhandled him into the bath, his knot nearly torn from his body as they figured how to get down into the water. A silent agreement of not to speak of it passed between them once they were finally in. Levi couldn't keep his hands off him. Sharing kisses, the alpha worked his spent penis. Moaning, his body was eager for more, his magic soothing his fatigue. Not that he wasn't tired, he was simply hornier than he was sleepy now. Grinding against Levi knot, he could feel himself rippling around his alpha's girth, trying to draw him deeper. As Levi's knot started to lessen, his alpha pushed him forward, Eren on his knees as the bath water sloshed over the side, soaked with slick and cum, Eren's hands scrambled to grip the taps as Levi took him hard and fast, flooding his body with pleasure, his mate reduced to snarls and growls as he fucked him, pulling Eren down to sit in his lap when he couldn't get as deep as he liked. Riding Levi sloppily, he found his mate's hand, holding it to his belly as came, Levi's knot flaring as he was coming down from his initial high, tearing his third orgasm from him and leaving him boneless as flopped back against his mate. Licking his lips, Eren closed his eyes. Nasally and rumbling purrs vibrating his chest as Levi's hand rubbed at his belly "That happened" "Mmm..." "You ok?" He was more than ok. Why hadn't they been having... no. That's right, real life was messing with their sex life "Mhmm" "Can't talk?" "Nnn..." Kissing his shoulder, Levi shifted them to sink lower into the bathtub "God. You're incredible" Nope. He was boneless and full. Drunk off his alpha's touches and pheromones. Moving his trapped hand, Levi placed it on his stomach with the second one, fingers ghosting across cross and making Eren whine "Doooon't" "Oh, you can talk" "I can when you're tickling me" "I didn't mean to. I can't keep my hands off you" "Fuck handjobs... let's just fuck in the shower in the mornings" "I would have happily fucked you. However, I seem to remember a certain pile of paperwork that's been taking up all your attention" "You know what it's like" "I know I don't get to see you as much as I want" "Mmmm. But think. A few more months and I won't be a prince anymore. We'll be free to do whatever we want. 6 months in January. It's already most of the way through August now. Viren's 5 months..." Levi hummed softly, tapping his finger against Eren's stomach as he counted "August, September, October, November, December, January. That's six" "Do you think July counts? Then we can get out of here before your birthday" "If it was up to me, I'd have it count from the moment you became a prince" "I wish..." Falling back to purrs, Eren let himself soak his mate's warmth and love in. Why couldn't it be January already? And why couldn't Europe give him permission to marry? Levi wasn't in any hurry to be a prince again. He wasn't going to contest the position as prince of the Marley empire. Both of them wanted to move out to the countryside raise their kids, disappear into history and then be reborn again... if you believed those kinds of things. End of story. Letting his heart rate slow, a smile played on Eren's lips. Levi would make sure their dreams came true. From the bath they stumbled over each other in a rush to their bed. Falling into bed together, Eren rolled himself over to straddle Levi's lap. Mouthing at his mate's neck, he teased his bonding mark with his teeth, his hands roaming across Levi lean body. His mate didn't like to have his nipples played with, not deriving the same amount of pleasure from it as he did. Marking his fiancé's neck with half a dozen deep hickeys, Eren smirked as Levi bucked his hips. He wanted to take his time to bring Levi apart. Kissing and mouthing his way down, he traced every inch of Levi's form, the sight one that only he got to see. Raising a leg, he slotted it between Levi's, the alpha taking a few moments to obediently spread his legs for him. Burying himself between Levi's milky thighs, Eren lifted Levi's thighs onto his shoulders, forcing the alpha to bend as lightly blew over his mate's tight opening, the ring of muscle twitching under his warm breath. With broad licks, Eren lapped at the spot, gradually beginning to fuck the taunt ring of muscle with his tongue. Growling and huffing, Levi's whole body was tense. They'd only done this a handful of times, Levi preferring to give rather than receive. Loosing his alpha, Levi loosened and relaxed in his hold. There was no way he'd ever be as loose as Eren was, or slick the way he did. Still, it filled Eren with pride to pleasure his alpha. Indulging himself until he felt like he'd burst without his mate's knot, Eren lowered Levi's legs back down. His mate's neglected penis oozing a thick trail of precum, the fluid arching from his stomach to the tip as he unfolded. Climbing forwards, Eren grasped the neglected organ, lining himself then sinking down slowly, drawing a hiss of pleasure from his mate. Rising slowly, Eren ran his hands over his body and up to his breast, continuing up to thread his fingers through his hair, as his pace increased slightly. Keeping his legs spread, he watched Levi's hands grip their blankets tighter, the alpha trying to stop himself from touching him as he enjoyed the show "Touch me too" A three worded command of his own "Beautiful. You're goddamn beautiful" "Good Alpha. Put your hand on my hips and keep watching me" Working himself up to fucking himself senseless on Levi's dick, Eren came hard enough for his cum to splatter across Levi's neck and chest. Holding him down on his knot, Eren dragged his finger through his cum to write on Levi's chest "Are you writing your prayers again?" "No" His first prayers had never worked. Now he feared the magic bolstered by semen. He feared somehow it would trigger the same kind of catastrophe all over again "Come down here and cuddle with me?" "Mmm, what do you say we blow off work again?" "We're only blowing off work if you promise to sleep. You didn't last night, did you?" The word sleep made him yawn "Exactly. We'll sleep, then you'll do paperwork when you get up. I'll watch the boys while you work, and once the papers are done, we'll continue this all over again" "What makes you think I want a round four?" "Because I want a round 5 and 6" "I think we can manage that" And that's exactly what happened for the rest of the day.

[agilenano]

Agilenano - News: Why California Residents Could See Even More Blackouts This Wildfire Season

California utility Pacific Gas & Electric may need to rely even more heavily on forced blackouts this year to prevent its grid from starting more deadly wildfires like the ones that drove it into bankruptcy.  In a statement emailed to GTM, PG&E insists it's not behind schedule on its 2020 wildfire-mitigation work. But according to data released last week as part of its first-quarter earnings report, the utility still has a long way to go in areas like grid hardening, vegetation clearing, physical inspections, and installation of specialized gear on its distribution and transmission system.  Meanwhile, the inspections that PG&E has done in the past year have been sharply criticized by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, who last week ordered the utility to adhere to much more stringent processes for inspecting its power lines. Alsup’s order described PG&E’s reports on its work to date as a “mere courtroom prop,” concealing failures to trim trees that are clearly in danger of striking distribution lines or to replace worn equipment on high-voltage transmission towers. But the judge's orders to expand PG&E’s inspection workforce come at an extraordinary time. The coronavirus pandemic is causing problems for fire-prevention and utility work statewide. For PG&E, COVID-19 restrictions and economic disruptions “will continue to result in workforce disruptions, both in personnel availability (including a reduction in contract labor resources) and deployment,” the utility wrote in a filing.  Making matters worse, Northern California’s meager rain and snowfall this winter and spring could lead to a fire season that’s more dangerous and begins earlier than it did last year. That leaves PG&E little time to catch up on its work.  It also increases the possibility that many of its customers will still be confined to their homes under coronavirus restrictions, depending on the state’s reopening plans and the course of the pandemic over the coming months, said Michael Wara, the head of Stanford University’s Climate and Energy Policy Program and a member of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Wildfires Blue Ribbon Commission. That could complicate plans to help elderly or medically vulnerable people who face hardship or even death without power by bringing them to generator-powered community shelter sites, or to quickly deploy the field crews needed to meet California regulators’ demands for this year’s power shutoffs to last no more than 24 hours, Wara said in an interview this week.  “My question, looking at this data, is whether PG&E is clearly communicating with the state, with local governments, with the [state's] Office of Emergency Services, and with Cal Fire,” the state's firefighting agency, “in terms of how the pandemic is going to affect operations,” Wara said. “I’m hopeful, but I’m concerned.”   Much wildfire mitigation work yet to be done PG&E has incurred about $2.6 billion in costs for its 2019 wildfire-mitigation work and expects to incur another $2.7 billion in related costs this year. But the utility revealed last week that the roughly $700 million it has spent so far this year has yielded minimal progress on its goals as of March 31.  As of March 31, PG&E had completed 32 percent of its planned tree trimming and removal along 1,800 miles of distribution lines, and 19 percent of its work to replace poles and cover or bury bare wires along 241 miles of lines.  PG&E is also moving slowly on technology to better predict and pinpoint parts of the grid under the highest fire threat. At the end of March, it had installed 16 percent of the 592 grid-sectionalizing devices it will use to isolate and minimize power outages, and deployed fewer than one in 10 of the 400 weather stations to measure wind speeds and humidity, and 200 high-definition cameras for spotting broken equipment or fires as they’re happening.  The only portion of its wildfire plan where PG&E has exceeded its plan to date is in acquiring emergency backup generators for communities at highest risk of having their power cut off for days at a time — 450 megawatts of them, compared to the 300 megawatts it planned for.  Credit: PG&E Wara pointed out that it’s harder for PG&E to do work in the first quarter, given that winter conditions can prevent work from happening across much of its mountainous and forested territory at higher wildfire risk. Utilities also tend to do more work on planning their annual course of work during the winter months, leaving more on-the-ground work for the spring and summer.  “On the other hand, we had an extraordinarily mild winter this year,” Wara said, with far lower snowfall than usual in the Sierra Nevada region, which has also increased wildfire risk expectations for this year.  This difference in weather from last year to this year could make it difficult for PG&E to reduce the scope of its fire-prevention blackouts this year, Wara said.  In an email, PG&E spokesman Matt Neuman said the utility is currently on track to meet its 2020 wildfire mitigation plan targets, and is on schedule for all of the categories of work except its distribution grid sectionalization program, which is being reconfigured to reach its full deployment by Sept. 1. In its Q1 presentation, PG&E stated that its backup generators, grid sectionalizing and transmission line repairs and distribution line inspections it’s done should reduce the number of customers affected by blackouts by about one-third — but there's a big caveat. The reduction in blackouts would come only “if the exact same weather patterns are seen in 2020 as experienced during the largest [public-safety power shutoff] events in 2019.”  That's "significant," Wara said. "Last fire season was a pretty light fire season, and it had a very late start. We’re now headed into a fire season that’s likely to be much more severe, and with an earlier start.” California's other two utilities, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, have a better record of grid hardening and wildfire mitigation work, and used fire-prevention blackouts at far smaller scales last year.  PG&E’s preparedness for wildfire mitigation was brought further into doubt in last week’s order from Judge Alsup, who oversees the utility’s criminal probation for convictions related to the deadly 2010 San Bruno natural-gas pipeline explosion. Alsup’s order (PDF) flatly states that “PG&E remains years away from compliance with California law and with its own wildfire mitigation plan.” Alsup ordered PG&E to put its own employees to work alongside subcontractors to get the work done more quickly. Transmission line concerns could widen de-energization impacts  Alsup also excoriated PG&E’s high-voltage transmission tower inspection process. Days before the Nov. 2018 Camp Fire, inspectors failed to discover the worn “C-hook” that broke and allowed a 115-kilovolt transmission line to contact the tower, creating sparks that caused the fire. Later inspections found 32 other C-hooks on the same line that needed immediate replacement.  Inspections in 2019 may also be suspect, Alsup wrote. Last year, a 230 kV transmission line in Sonoma County was cleared in three separate PG&E inspections, “once by drone, once by climbing, and once by ground” crews. But during an October windstorm, a jumper cable that routes power flow around a transmission tower broke loose, a failure that's suspected of causing the Oct. 2019 Kincade fire.  That 230 kV line remained energized amidst a broader de-energization of lower-voltage transmission and distribution systems in the area. Cal Fire hasn't announced the fire’s cause, but PG&E's Q1 report noted it has set aside $600 million in anticipation of covering damages it caused — a figure at “the lower end of the range” of potential losses.  “Like a broken record, PG&E routinely excuses itself by insisting that all towers had been inspected and any noted faults were addressed,” Alsup wrote. “But these transmission tower inspections failed to spot dangerous conditions.” He ordered PG&E to record the age and specific condition of inspected transmission equipment, videotape every inspection, and require all contractors doing the work to carry insurance to cover public losses in event of a wildfire.  PG&E is under pressure to win court approval of its bankruptcy plan by June 30 as a precondition of being allowed to access a $21 billion state wildfire insurance fund considered critical for its future financial stability. But any fires caused by its equipment after its Jan. 2019 bankruptcy filing and before its emergence from bankruptcy, now slated for the end of August, would not be eligible for being covered under that fund.  This opens the possibility that PG&E may be compelled to consider de-energizing higher-voltage transmission lines as it responds to windy, dry conditions that guide its wildfire-prevention outage decisions this summer and fall, Wara said. “Before the Camp fire, PG&E didn’t turn off any transmission. After the Camp fire, they turned off the 60 kV and 115 kV in high-risk areas — and the Kincade fire ignited.”  “I think the biggest upcoming question for this fire season is what happens with transmission,” he said. “I hope the stringency of the inspections [has] increased significantly in the past few years, given the errors” described in Alsup’s order, to give PG&E the confidence that it can keep higher-voltage power lines energized during high-wind events.  Doing otherwise “could have a much more systematic impact on generation available for load [and] on resource adequacy in various parts of the state,” Wara said. “We need to be talking about that and doing an analysis to make sure we’re OK.”  This story has been updated to include comments from PG&E regarding the schedule of its wildfire mitigation plan. #GridEdge,Regulation&Policy,GridOptimization,Utilities,News,

Agilenano - News from Agilenano from shopsnetwork (4 sites) https://agilenano.com/blogs/news/why-california-residents-could-see-even-more-blackouts-this-wildfire-season

[kingswaycountryclub]

Kingsway dreams take flight

March 2019

Kingsway dreams take flight

Allegiant’s vision for resort comes into focus

By Scott Kauffman

In a quarterly financial report last October, Allegiant Travel Co. said it added eight Airbus A320 series aircraft to its fleet, and two additional Airbus jets were expected to be acquired by year-end 2018. To be sure, aircraft acquisitions are routine news announcements for publicly traded airline companies like Allegiant Air.

What wasn’t expected from Allegiant last fall was something that didn’t make the company’s third-quarter report. That was the news of Allegiant closing on a Southwest Florida golf course last August called Kingsway Country Club.

For a nationally known, low-cost airline to purchase a golf course was both surprising and ironic, considering the golf industry is far from flying high these days. At least that’s how many might describe an industry where course owners and investors are increasingly looking to sell and/or close their properties, let alone purchase new assets.

In fact, after the total number of U.S. golf facilities declined 1.5 percent in 2017 to 14,794 – with the permanent closure of 205.5 18-hole equivalent courses and the opening of just 15.5 new ones – the National Golf Foundation is projecting similar course supply attrition for 2018 once the final numbers are in.

However, while Micah Richins, Allegiant executive vice president, acknowledges golf profitability is a concern to some, it hasn’t deterred the Las Vegas-based company one bit. So why on earth would an airline of all things want to stay grounded with a semi-private golf course in Suzy, Florida, a relatively quiet town near the Charlotte Harbor between Fort Myers and Sarasota?

Actually, if you spend time getting to know Allegiant’s evolution over the last two decades, the purchase of Kingsway Country Club makes a lot of sense and represents a natural extension to what the company already does. And is planning on doing on a much grander scale once the company opens its $420 million luxury Sunseeker Resort six miles away on a 22-acre tract along the Charlotte Harbor.

Oh, by the way, nearby Punta Gorda Airport, which saw 1.5 million passengers come and go through the first nine months of last year, triple the amount from 2013, is controlled by one lone carrier: Allegiant.

As Allegiant president and former MGM Grand Resorts president/CEO John Redmond put it during the company’s 2018 Investor Day webcast last September: “We’re not building a hotel, hotels accommodate people for eight hours. … They’re designed to be a bed to sleep in. That’s it. We don’t want that. We want their entire leisure spend.” Indeed, many people familiar with Allegiant might think it’s simply an airline. But Allegiant Travel, which generated $1.26 billion in revenue for the nine months ending Sept. 30, 2018, couldn’t be anything further from that public image.

Case in point is Allegiant started selling third-party hotel rooms in 2002 and got into the rental car business three years later, truly becoming a leisure travel company.

Then, perhaps unbeknownst to many golfers and frequent flyers, is Allegiant’s growing golf tentacles through its wholly owned subsidiary Teesnap. According to Richins, who was named chief operating officer of Sunseeker Resort last June, Teesnap has approximately 500 courses using its proprietary tee-sheet management and marketing technology solutions since Teesnap founder/CEO Bryan Lord joined forces with Allegiant about five years ago.

All of these leisure interests are becoming big business for Allegiant. Since 2005, the company notched $3.4 billion in ancillary product sales (i.e. selling seat assignments and bag fees) and $1.3 billion in third-party leisure product sales, including more than 6.5 million hotel room nights.

Last year, Allegiant grew its “rental car days sold” 27.5 percent to 1.4 million through the first nine months, according to its third-quarter report, and increased “hotel room nights sold” 3 percent to 313,360. Now, the company’s going direct to consumer in golf rounds. For Redmond and Richins, Kingsway Country Club and the new Sunseeker Resort are just the beginning of something even bigger for the growing leisure company.

Like his Allegiant boss, Richins knows the leisure and business traveler as well as anybody having previously spent 25 years as a senior executive for MGM Resorts International. In his last position for MGM Resorts, Richins was chief commercial officer for MGM and managed 40,000 Las Vegas rooms and drove $2 billion-plus in annual room revenue for massive casino resorts like MGM Grand, New York-New York and Luxor.

Of course, one of the unique Las Vegas leisure assets under the MGM umbrella during Richins’ regime was the exclusive Tom Fazio-designed Shadow Creek Golf Club originally built by Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn. Richins sees Allegiant’s new Kingsway golf course playing an equally prominent role with Sunseeker Resort.

That prominence is indicative, Richins points out, by his top two new hires at Kingsway: general manager David Kent and superintendent Brad Caporini, both of whom worked for several upscale private golf and country clubs in the Fort Myers and Naples markets. Caporini came on board first in September and his presence is already being felt from an agronomic perspective.

In January, the club hosted the annual Kingsway Senior Amateur Invitational and players raved about the beautiful striped fairways, smooth fast greens and overall conditions, according to Kent, who previously spent 12 years as the PGA Professional and general manager at the Club at Renaissance. Since the Ron Garl-designed Kingsway opened in 1976, golfers always enjoyed playing the course, Kent notes, because the layout features an “old Florida feel” with very few homes laid out on the course.

“(Kingsway) has always been a great golf experience,” adds Kent, who started his new position in November. “The course is in the best shape in years, if not overall. Everybody’s really excited about the future with Allegiant and its resources.”

According to Richins, progress on the 500-room hotel tower is going well and the Port Charlotte community should start to “hear a lot of noise in the March timeframe” when Allegiant’s general contractor begins driving the pilings that will support the resort’s main 500-room tower and two adjacent towers that will offer a combination of 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom suites that guests can enjoy as their home away from home.

“The way we look at is when people make a selection to come on vacation, they’re selecting not only this spectacular resort but they’re also selecting a destination,” Richins says. “And things that people do in this destination to make sure their vacation is amazing and memorable and want to come back. With Kingsway, we see this tremendous synergy between the two and the course is just an extension of the world-class amenities at the resort.

“It’s another outlet for the customers that are going to be coming into Port Charlotte. Golf isn’t going to be the only thing customers are going to want to do, but it’s certainly the primary driver to be able to control that environment and create an experience that’s akin to what you would receive at the resort. … Golf’s always been important in my opinion to the leisure companies that participate in it. Golf gives us a tool to appeal to and provide resources for a very, very lucrative segment of the travel business.”

And the key to leveraging that golf appeal to the fullest, according to Richins, is owning and controlling the course rather than partnering with one. For instance, if Richins’ resort team wants to close the whole course for a particular day because “we’re going to give it to a group” visiting the resort, they can.

At the end of the day, Richins says it’s all about controlling the leisure spend as much as possible based on Allegiant’s time-tested, direct-to-consumer business model. In the investor day last September, Allegiant forecasts “golf and marina” revenues to grow from $4.5 million in year one to $5.5 million within a five-year period.

Overall resort revenue is projected to be just over $88 million when it opens in 2020 and $113.2 million by 2025.  “Think of the number of people that we’re flying into Punta Gorda and we’re the only ones flying into that airport,” Richins says. “That gives us an opportunity to leverage our database so when you think about being a customer of Allegiant. … Getting our emails etc. We have the ability to touch you and say, ‘now that you’ve selected your flight, do you have your room (at Sunseeker Resort).’

“Oh, now that we see you have your room and your flight do you realize there’s this great opportunity for you to golf. Or by the way, any other type of amenities that we then either develop ourselves or partner with. So, it’s not like you’re this stand-alone organization sitting there in Port Charlotte. You’re part of this broader group of people that have the ability to touch very many customers.”

This strategy to keep growing in the leisure space has Kent and the rest of his Kingsway golf course staff optimistic about the future.

“The change is palpable and it’s wonderful to know that you have this great vision from the company,” Kent says. “And of course, everyone is so excited about the imminent opening of the Sunseeker Resort. It’s just really exciting to see that you have light at the end of the tunnel.”

Or, in this case, it’s a bright light at the end of the runway.

Scott Kauffman is a golf business writer and the managing director of Aloha Media Group.

SOURCE:  GolfBusiness

The post Kingsway dreams take flight appeared first on Kingsway Country Club.

[bluecredit]

Why we’re asking the Ministry of Justice for independent regulation of bailiffs

By alison.blackwood, Senior Policy and Campaigns AdvocateStepChange Debt Charity is one of the 11 organisations in the Taking Control campaign for bailiff reform, and I’ve spent the past month or so deeply immersed in the reams of findings and evidence that we and other partners have amassed on bailiffs behaving badly.Today, we’ve submitted that joint evidence document — all 156 pages of it — to the Ministry of Justice in response to its call for evidence as part of its review of 2014 reforms of the bailiff industry.Taken in the round, the main message is absolutely clear. Implementing a formal system of regulation for bailiff firms is the only way that all the different problematic aspects of the sector stand a chance of being addressed effectively.Filling the regulatory gaps that beset the bailiff sectorExperience from the financial service sector shows regulation works in terms of improving conduct, and providing a free and fair redress mechanism when things do go wrong.It’s no coincidence that bailiffs top the list of creditors that StepChange clients believe have treated them unfairly — far higher than any other type of organisation, including local authorities, payday lenders, and (regulated) debt collection agents.It makes no sense to leave arguably the most intrusive part of the whole chain outside a formal regulatory framework, especially given all our evidence that bailiffs continue to act aggressively and break regulations and standards.It’s not just a few “rogue bailiffs”In the absence of regulatory data or existing public monitoring by the Ministry of Justice, advice agencies have compiled evidence providing a compelling reason to regulate the bailiff industry.Our public polling suggests that the advice agency experience is a far closer match with public perception — 1 in 3 of adults who’ve experienced a bailiff in the past two years have experienced action that breaks a rule, and an overwhelming 83% of the public think that the sector should be formally regulated.Financial incentives to visit homesBailiffs earn more if they visit rather than agree a repayment strategy by phone. Interestingly, our analysis suggests bailiff sector firms’ profits have typically increased markedly — and beyond expectations — since the 2014 reforms.Individual bailiffs still often work as contractors, with payment based on sums collected.Meanwhile the firms who employ or contract them aren’t sufficiently accountable for the actions of their agents, as they’re not themselves subject to any form of statutory, formal regulation.This means there are no sanctions or penalties, no regulatory supervision, no regulatory reporting and no teeth against bad behaviour as far as firms are concerned. This is an anomaly and flies in the face of the accountability that firms across the financial sector otherwise face.Problems with complaining about bailiffsWhile there may have been just 56 court complaints against individual bailiffs since 2014, public polling suggests that as many as 850,000 people have experienced some form of rule-breaking by a bailiff in the last two years. Yet three quarters of these didn’t even attempt to complain.This shows a lack of trust in the complaints process, and a lack of understanding and visibility on how to access it. Only independent regulation can ensure a more effective and transparent complaints system.There is overwhelming evidence of harm to the most vulnerable peopleAlthough there are rules that are meant to stop bailiffs in their tracks if they encounter people with vulnerabilities and refer them back to creditors, too often this doesn’t happen.Given that around nine out of 10 StepChange clients contacted by a bailiff in the past two years had an additional vulnerability, over and above the problem debt, there’s simply too much risk of harm to vulnerable people from an unregulated bailiff sector.The contrast with the regulated sector — where Treating Customers Fairly is a fully embedded regulatory expectation that firms are required to evidence with robust policies — is too extreme to go left unchecked.To us, it seems obvious that regulating bailiff firms properly, on a formal basis, is the only logical response to the current lack of trust, accountability, data transparency and good practice that currently characterise the sector.You can read our joint response with the Taking Control campaign for bailiff reform on our website or at bailiffreform.org, as well as our joint press release on the response.Why we’re asking the Ministry of Justice for independent regulation of bailiffs was originally published in StepChange Debt Charity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

https://medium.com/stepchange/why-were-asking-the-ministry-of-justice-for-independent-regulation-of-bailiffs-cdfcd7a3f1b5?source=rss-eb8d4fed3016------2

#regulation #policy #debt #debt-collectors #bailiffs

[sith-shame-shack]

■ ▼ ☼ ★ ൠ The Phantom

From the headcanon ask meme:

■ -  Bedroom/house/living quarters headcanon

When Erik saw the unfinished foundation of the Opera, something animal in his head whispered yes. Yes, this is where you belong. 

It’s the same voice that spoke to him in Persia, the same impulse that guides his hand on the lasso. Later, ensconced safe and secret in his finished house by the lake, he can admit that that voice is only his true self, the creature life has doomed him to be. It is inescapable (unless, unless, unless… but he isn’t a frog, to be kissed back into a prince). But he still likes to pretend, so he builds himself a replica of his mother’s house outside of Rouen. 

When he can’t stand pretending anymore, he adds the chamber of mirrors. 

▼ - childhood headcanon

The travelers he performs with are not intolerable, but the way they delight in his grotesque features doesn’t please him the way he thought it might. He doesn’t make friends, really, but he does learn things: to haggle, to sew, to ride a horse, and, when he’s barely twelve, to kill. 

 ☼ - appearance headcanon

It was probably unavoidable when he was a child— maybe he was born premature, maybe his mother didn’t like to tend to him, maybe it was lack of physical contact at important developmental junctures— but as an adult, the “living skeleton” thing is less the result of some inborn error of metabolism than it is self-neglect. He probably could gain weight if he took care of himself, but the last months of his life are spent haunting an opera singer and living in a basement, so his capacity for that is pretty limited even if he wasn’t seized with intermittent episodes of mania. 

★ - sad headcanon

I don’t know how much this is a headcanon, and how much it’s just a close reading of the subtext— but I think the whole “Phantom” episode of Erik’s life was sort of the result of a precipitous mental decline, maybe connecting to whatever physical illness the Daroga noted when they last spoke. Like, here’s the text: 

“Then, tired of his adventurous, formidable and monstrous life, he longed to be some one “like everybody else.” And he became a contractor, like any ordinary contractor, building ordinary houses with ordinary bricks. He tendered for part of the foundations in the Opera. His estimate was accepted. When he found himself in the cellars of the enormous playhouse, his artistic, fantastic, wizard nature resumed the upper hand. Besides, was he not as ugly as ever? He dreamed of creating for his own use a dwelling unknown to the rest of the earth, where he could hide from men’s eyes for all time.”

So he’s making a stab at living the life of a normal man, not a monster or an animal, but just some guy who builds houses, and then he sees this immense cofferdam being built in the foundation of a building he’s working on, and is overcome by some urge to hide in the ground. Like a dying animal seeking out a hole. And after that, shit, he already lives in a burrow “like a mole,” which we see later he finds profoundly dissatisfying, so why not be a ghost?

Like, clearly Erik was capable of casual cruelty and unspeakable depravity before all this, but it’s significant to me that he tried to give it up and failed. And I really think it’s because he had this idea that the only way he could be a person, a real person and not demon or a ghost or whatever, was if somebody loved him into it— only, that’s not how it works. 

ൠ - random headcanon

I think I got this one from @darthnickels, who suggested the book and discussed it with me as I read it, but: I don’t think Erik initiated contact with Christine in order to stalk her. I think he was probably just messing with her, or idly amusing himself by giving vocal lessons, and then it turns out she’s incredibly kind and doesn’t really have anybody looking out for her, and oh by the way she’s deeply pious and has this elaborate personal mythology about an Angel of Music that she just happened to mention… 

Basically, I don’t think he went into it expecting to threaten and browbeat some woman into affection for him, I think he was just fucking around and then ESCALATED REALLY HARD due to factors that just got him right in his most insane impulses and convictions. That doesn’t make it any less his fault (or at all Christine’s fault), but it does make it sad. 

#phantom of the opera #ask meme #asks

[thenovl]

NOVL Excerpt: Dreamland Burning

— Rowan— 

Nobody walks in Tulsa. At least not to get anywhere. Oil built our houses, paved our streets, and turned us from a cow town stop on the Frisco Railroad into the heart of Route 66. My ninth-grade Oklahoma History teacher joked that around these parts, walking is sacrilege. Real Tulsans drive.

But today my car is totaled and I have an eleven- thirty appointment with the district attorney at the county courthouse. So I walked.

Mom and Dad wanted to come home and pick me up after their morning meetings. I convinced them the walk would help me clear my head, and it did. Especially when I got to the place where he died.

Honestly, I’d been a little worried that being there again would mess me up. So to keep myself calm, I imagined how things must have looked the night Will and Joseph and Ruby tried to survive. There’s this old map of Tulsa online, and the streets I walked along to get here are on it. In 1921, the Arkansas River cut them off to the south, just like it does today. But back then they ran north into trees and fields and farms. There aren’t any farms now, only highways and concrete.

It was probably quieter a hundred years ago, but that doesn’t necessarily mean better. I understand now that history only moves forward in a straight line when we learn from it. Otherwise it loops past the same mistakes over and over again.

That’s why I’m here, wearing one of Mom’s knee- length business skirts, sitting on a bench near the court- house, waiting to tell the DA what happened. I want to stop just one of those loops. Because it’s like Geneva says: The dead always have stories to tell. They just need the living to listen. 

Everything started the first Monday of summer vacation. It was my only chance at a real day off, because the next morning I was supposed to start the internship Mom had arranged. It was the kind of thing that would look good on college applications and get me recommendation letters from people with MD after their names. I didn’t especially want to be locked up in a sterilized research lab all summer, but I never bothered to look for something better. The way things stood, I had one day all my own to sleep late, eat Nutella with a spoon, and send James a thousand texts about nothing.

Only I didn’t get to do any of that.

At 7 am on the dot, a construction crew pulled into the driveway and started slamming truck doors and banging tools around. Hundred-year-old windows do a crap job of keeping things out, so even though the men spoke quietly, I could hear their murmurs and smell the smoke from their cigarettes.

After a while, the side gate squeaked open and the guys carried their tools to the servants’ quarters behind our house. Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, that sounds a lot more impressive than it is. I mean, yes, we have money, but no one in my family has had live-in servants since my great-great-grandparents. After they died, my great-uncle Chotch moved into the back house. Years earlier, when Chotch was two, he’d wandered out of the kitchen and fallen into the pool. By the time the gardener found him and got him breathing again, he was blue and brain-damaged. He’d lived, though, and was good at cut- ting hair. Dad says he gave free trims to all the workers at the oil company my great-great-grandfather founded, right up until the day he died. That was in 1959.

The only things living in the back house since then have been holiday decorations, old furniture, Uncle Chotch’s Victrola, and termites. Then, last Christmas, Mom decided that even though there are three unused bedrooms in the main house, we needed a guest cottage, too.

Dad fought her on it, I think because he’s a nice liberal white guy weirded out by the idea that the back house was built for black servants. If it had been up to him, he would have let it rot.

Mom was not okay with that.

Her great-grandfather had been the son of a maid, raised in the back house of a mansion two blocks over. He’d gone on to graduate first in his class from Morehouse College and become one of Tulsa’s best-known black attorneys. Mom went to law school to carry on the family legal tradition and ended up owning a back house. For her, it mattered.

“I won’t stand by and let a perfectly good building crumble to dust,” she’d argued. There had been some closed-door negotiations between her and Dad after that, then a few days where they didn’t talk to each other at all. In the end, Dad started referring to the back house as his “man cave,” and while he shopped for gaming systems and a pool table, Mom interviewed contractors.

That was six months ago. The renovations started in May.

I lay there listening to the workmen’s saw, figuring I had maybe three minutes before our grumpy neighbor, Mr. Metzidakis, started banging on the front door to complain about the noise.

Only he didn’t have to.

The saw stopped on its own. The gate creaked open.

Equipment clunked against the truck bed. And the men talked so fast and low that I could only catch four words.

Huesos viejos. Policía. Asesinato.

Which, yes, I understood—thank you, Señora Markowitz and tres años de español. And which, yes, was enough to get me out of bed and over to the window in time to see their truck back out onto the street and drive away.

Something strange was going on, and I wanted to know what. So I snagged a pair of flip-flops and headed for the back house.

It was a disaster inside. A week before, the workmen had demolished the ceiling and pulled all the toxic asbestos insulation. After that, they’d hacked out big chunks of termite-tunneled plaster from the walls and ripped the old Formica countertops off the cabinets. A gritty layer of construction dust coated everything, including Uncle Chotch’s old Victrola in the corner. At least they covered it with plastic, I thought, stepping around boxes of tile and grout on my way to the fresh-cut hole in the floor at the back of the room.

Only once I got there, I forgot about the Victrola completely and understood exactly what had sent the workmen running.

Huesos viejos. Policía. Asesinato.

Old bones.

Police.

Murder.

— William—

I wasn’t good when the trouble started. Wasn’t particularly bad, either, but I had potential. See, Tulsa in 1921 was a town where boys like me roamed wild. Prohibition made Choctaw beer and corn whiskey more tempting than ever, and booze wasn’t near the worst vice available.

My friend Cletus Hayes grew up in a house two doors down from mine. His father was a bank executive muckety-muck with a brand-new Cadillac automobile and friends on the city council. For that reason alone, Mama and Pop generally let Clete’s knack for mischief slide. He and I got along fine eighty percent of the time, and kept each other’s company accordingly.

One thing we always did agree on was that misbehaving was best done in pairs. Plenty of the roustabout gangs running Tulsa’s streets would have taken us in, but I always figured the two of us and maybe even smart enough to know the difference between hell-raising and causing real harm. Those gangs were chock-full of unemployed young men back from the Great War who’d come to Oklahoma looking for oilfield work down at the Glenn Pool strike. They’d seen bad things, done a few themselves, and liked showing off for locals. Problem was, the locals would try to one-up ’em, the roustabouts would take things a step further, and in the end, someone always spent the night in jail. That’s why Clete and me kept to ourselves. We weren’t angels, but we weren’t hardened or hollow, either. Of course, even fair-to-middling boys like us veered off the righteous path from time to time. Some worse than others.

I was only seventeen, but had the shoulders and five- o’clock shadow of a full-grown man. More than one girl at Tulsa Central High School had her eye on me, and that’s the truth. None of them stood a chance, though; Adeline Dobbs had stolen my heart way back in second grade, and the fact that she was a year older and the prettiest girl in school didn’t dampen my hopes of winning her in the least.

She was a beauty, Addie was; slim and graceful as prairie grass, with black hair and eyes like a summer sky. I dreamed about that girl, about her clean smell and the peek of her lashes underneath her hat brim. And I loved her for her kindness, too. Boys followed her about like pups, but she always managed to deflect their affections without wounding their pride.

For years I loved her from afar, and spent no small amount of energy convincing myself it was only a matter of time before she started loving me back. Maybe that’s why what happened at the Two-Knock Inn that cool March night tore me up so bad.

I was on my third glass of Choc and feeling fine when Addie arrived. Clete was there, too, dancing with a pretty, brown-skinned girl. For when it came to the fairer sex, a sweet smile and a pair of shapely legs were all it took to turn him colorblind. Not that it mattered at the Two-Knock. Jim Crow laws may have kept Negroes and whites separated in proper Tulsa establishments, but in juke joints and speakeasies out on the edge of town, folks didn’t care about your skin color near so much as they did the contents of your wallet.

The Two-Knock was a rough place, though. A place where girls like Addie didn’t belong. Even so, the sight of her coming through that door took my breath away. She was a vision: crimson dress, lips painted to match, eyes all wild and bright. Clete saw her, too, and made his way to my side after the song ended and poked me in the ribs, saying, “Lookee who just walked in!”

I didn’t have breath enough to respond, so Clete jabbed me again. Said, “What’re you waiting for, Will? Go talk to her!”

I wanted to. Lord, how I wanted to. But Addie was too good for the Two-Knock, and I couldn’t quite reconcile myself with her being there.

When I didn’t move, Clete rolled his eyes and socked me on the shoulder. Said, “This is it, dummy! If you don’t go over and buy her a drink, you’re the biggest jackass I know.”

To which I replied that Addie didn’t drink. And Clete snorted, “We’re in a speakeasy, knucklehead. She didn’t come for tea.”

I shrugged. Signaled the bartender for another glass of Choc and slugged most of it down soon as it arrived. Then I looked back at Addie and asked Clete if he really thought I should go over.

“Hell yes!” he said.

So I puffed up my chest like the big dumb pigeon I was and got to my feet. Which was when the front door opened, and everything changed.

The man who walked in was tall and handsome, muscled all over, and browner than boot leather. Something about him shone. Drew your eyes like he was the one thing in the world worth looking at. He only had eyes for Addie, though, and she gave him a smile like sunrise when he sat down beside her.

I dropped back onto the barstool.

“You better chase him off,” Clete said. But my throat was tight, and I only just managed to mumble, “Nothin’ I can do.”

“You kiddin’ me?” he said. “That boy’s out of line!”

I stayed quiet and stared at Addie’s pale hand perched atop the table. She and the man were talking. Smiling. Laughing. With every word, his fingers moved closer to hers.

Hate balled up inside me like a brass-knuckled fist. And when he slowly, slowly ran his fingertip across her skin, every foul emotion in the world churned deep down in the depths of my belly. Glancing sideways at a white woman was near enough to get Negroes lynched in Tulsa. Shot, even, in the middle of Main Street at noon, and with no more consequence than a wink and a nudge and a slap on the back. And God help me, that’s exactly what I wanted for the man touching my Addie.

I wanted him dead.

Thanks for reading the first two chapters of Jennifer Latham’s thought-provoking and powerful new novel. Like what you read? Be sure to check out Dreamland Burning when it releases on Tuesday, February 21, 2017!  

#dreamland burning #jennifer latham #book excerpt #book preview #read #booklr #NOVL excerpt #dreamlandburning

[michaelandy101-blog]

How Big Is the Gender Gap Between Men and Women in SEO?

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/how-big-is-the-gender-gap-between-men-and-women-in-seo/

How Big Is the Gender Gap Between Men and Women in SEO?

To anyone working in SEO, it’s fairly evident that this is a male-dominated industry. Although there are powerful women SEOs in the field (like Moz CEO Sarah Bird, for example), if you glance at a conference speaker lineup or peruse the bylines on search-related blogs, you’ll see that those who identify as female are few and far between. A recent list of the 140 most influential SEOs featured 104 men and just 36 women. 

So how big is the gender gap? And how does it translate to tangible things like pay and job titles? To find out, we mined the data from our State of SEO 2020 survey, which featured 652 SEOs in 51 countries. Here are some of the things we learned.

But first, a mea culpa. If SEOs who identify as women have an uphill climb in this industry, there’s no doubt that female-identifying SEOs of color have a hill that is steeper still. I deeply regret not asking demographic questions on race and ethnicity which would have allowed us to analyze the disparate impacts that bias plays on BIPOC women SEOs. It was a missed opportunity. That said, we are currently running a survey on BIPOC in SEO that aims to cover those issues and more as we continue to take an introspective view of our industry.

Men outnumber women by more than 2 to 1 in SEO

Of the 652 SEOs who participated in the study, 191 identified as women (29.3%) and 446 identified as men (68.4%). Additionally, one identified as non-binary and 14 preferred not to say. Data was collected on a SurveyMonkey form. We reached out to our own database, purchased lists of SEOs around the world, and promoted the survey on social channels for respondents. We offered no compensation or reward for participating. Non-binary, persons who chose not to identify a gender by choosing “preferred not to say”, and SEOs from the African continent were underrepresented mostly due to the outreach database itself. Finally, respondents selecting non-binary and “preferred not to say” were not calculated in the men/women percentages. 

A voluntary survey is not a scientific sampling, but those percentages mesh with previous studies by Moz that found those who identified as women made up 22.7% of SEOs in 2012, 28.2% in 2013, and 30.1% in 2015. In all four studies, men outnumbered women by more than 2 to 1. 

Importantly, the new results suggest the gap hasn’t narrowed over the past five years.

This was not a surprise to many female-identifying SEOs who participated in the study.

“I started out in the SEO industry about 10 years ago. Compared to that, I do see more women at conferences, on online platforms, and in the day-to-day work with clients,” one said. However, she added that she hasn’t seen much progress in the last 5 years. “It’s like we are kind of stuck. I suspect it’s at least partly a visibility issue: Men have been there forever, building their reputation and expertise. It is hard to keep up with that if you had a late start.”

We interviewed more than a dozen female-identifying SEOs, most of whom asked not to be named. Although a few had supportive bosses, clients, colleagues, and mentors along the way, many shared experiences of being passed over for promotions, having to fight to be heard in meetings and, in some cases, being paid less than men for the same work.

“I think you can sum up the SEO industry by looking at speaker panels of all the major conferences. There is no equality. Are you a white male and 50+? You must be an expert! Are you a woman, 40, who’s been doing this since 2004? Oh, honey, go sit down. We have an expert already,” said one woman. She said she spent 13 years at a website development company being “constantly overlooked” before moving to a digital marketing agency where she is respected and valued.

The gender gap is widest in Latin America

Global internet usage has boomed over the past two decades, with more than 59% of the world’s population now online. Although internet penetration is highest in Europe and North America, more than three-quarters of global users live elsewhere. These growing markets are served by robust communities of SEO professionals on every continent.

Our study reached SEOs in 51 countries, which we grouped into 11 large regions. Participation was highest in the U.S. with 269 SEOs responding, but we also surveyed 113 SEOs in Western Europe, 85 in the U.K., 43 in the Eastern Europe/Balkans region, 39 in Australia and New Zealand, 30 in Asia, 21 in Canada, 18 in Scandinavia, 16 in the Middle East, 12 in Central and South America, and 6 in Africa.

We found that the gender gap is most pronounced in Latin America (83.3% who identified as men to 16.7% who identified as women) and Australia/New Zealand (82.1% who identified as men to 17.9% who identified as women). 

The gender gap is least significant in Africa (although with an admittedly very small sample size due to the small number of African SEOs in our database) and Canada (52.6% who identified as men to 47.4% who identified as women). Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-professed feminist who appointed a gender-balanced cabinet, Canada has made gender equality a priority, but progress has been uneven at times. 

When it comes to gender diversity in SEO, the U.S., Asia, and the U.K. all trail behind Europe, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.

Female-identifying SEOs are more likely to freelance and specialize in content

Generally, the three most common career environments for SEOs are serving as an in-house expert at a single company, working in an agency setting, or operating independently as a consultant or freelancer. Each path has its own pros and cons. We found some interesting gender differences in where SEOs are working. 

Male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are equally likely to work in-house, with about 40% of both genders working inside a single business. And as we discuss below, both genders reported being satisfied with the working conditions and level of support they received in their roles.

Among those who practice their craft externally, men are slightly more likely to work in agencies than women (49.7% vs. 42.5%). 

The biggest gap was among freelancers. Female-identifying SEOs are almost twice as likely to be contractors or freelancers as those who identify as men (17.7% vs. 10.6%). However, it’s unclear if female-identifying SEOs are heading out on their own because they don’t feel they can get a fair shake working for others, or if they’re drawn to the freedom and flexibility of freelance work.

Full-time freelancing has grown steadily across the economic landscape in recent years. It also tends to draw more women than men. Part of the appeal may be flexibility around childcare, but control over income was also a factor for some of the SEOs we interviewed. 

“I think a lot of women choose to do freelance because they want to be paid what they deserve, frankly,” said one 25-year-old female SEO in East Anglia, U.K.

However, another woman who works as an in-house SEO said, “When I got my start in marketing, most of the jobs offered to me were contractor roles, and it wasn’t clear how to become full time. It wasn’t by choice; it was what was available to me.”

Many female-identifying SEOs said it was hard for them to get hired or promoted, even with stellar track records. 

“I’ve seen loudmouth, no-record, no-proof men be hired. It’s absolutely aggravating. At my old company, I was skipped by two men who had half the knowledge for supervisor positions. Each man left within months to different companies to the next title,” said a 41-year-old female SEO in Minnesota. She subsequently changed companies and found a much more welcoming environment.

In addition to career paths, there are noteworthy differences in the areas of the industry that male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are most likely to specialize in. Most SEOs consider themselves generalists, but among those who profess a specialty, women are twice as likely to be content experts (17.6% to 7.7%).

On the other hand, male-identifying SEOs are nearly twice as likely to be technical experts (21.5% to 12.6%). It’s unclear if this is a result of choice, fallout from the gender gap in STEM occupations generally, or if those who identify as women feel unwelcome among tech SEOs.

Among the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed, several said they think early gender stereotyping played a role, from the toys little boys and girls are given to what each gender is encouraged to pursue as a career.

“It’s similar to why women are not often involved in engineering jobs. Technical roles are historically associated with developer training, and women are more likely to transition from the marketing side than the programming side,” one said.

Several women also said technical SEO, in particular, is a “boys club.” 

“I participate in online forums for general Tech SEO and Women in Tech SEO, and the vibes are much different,” one woman said. “The male-dominated general forums are competitive. The female groups are more supportive, but again, we are trying to bring along and encourage women in the field.”

Another tech SEO who worked at an agency and in-house before going out on her own as a contractor said the culture can be intimidating: “I find that men are quicker to hop on and attack people about technical knowledge than women.”

Female-identifying SEOs generally charge less than men for their services

To find out more about the dollars and cents of SEO, we asked the agency and contract SEOs who participated in our study about their pricing models. In all, 261 SEOs were willing to share how they price their services and how much they charge. 

The three most common pricing models are monthly retainers, per-project pricing, and hourly rates. Although there was a wide range of rates among male-identifyng and female-identifying SEOs, the medians were consistently lower for those who identified as women.  

Among agency and contract SEOs, men are more likely to price their services with monthly retainers (59.1% of men vs. 39.4% of women). Women are more likely to charge per project (31.8% of women vs. 18.2% of men). About a quarter of both groups use hourly pricing.

But before we talk about prices…

Before we get into the details of how much male- and female-identifying SEOs earn, it’s important to note that we didn’t ask who actually set the prices. Depending on the size of an agency, SEOs who work there may have very little control over the pricing structure. 

The agency’s rates might be standard, or they might vary depending on who does the work. One can assume that freelancers choose their own rates, although they might be responding to signals about what the market will bear and what clients are willing to pay. 

Some studies have suggested that a variety of psychosocial factors lead female-identifying freelancers to charge less than their male counterparts. For instance, a Hewlett-Packard study identified a confidence gap in which women tended not to apply for a promotion unless they met all the qualifications, but men would go for it if they met 60 percent of the job requirements. 

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more cooperative and men are more competitive. Whether or not that’s true, men initiate negotiations more readily than women and tend to ask for higher compensation.

In a future study, we will certainly ask who determined the service pricing. For now, we can only report what male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs told us they charge.

Retainers for those who identify as male are 28.6% higher than for those identifying as female

Our respondents included 138 agency and contract SEOs who use monthly retainers as their primary pricing model. These retainers ranged from less than $250 a month to more than $25,000 a month, but overall they were higher for men. At the midpoint of the ranges on our survey, those identifying as male charge a median retainer of $2,250 a month while those identifying as female charge a median of $1,750.

When we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately, the median for freelancers was much lower, but it was the same for both genders: $750 a month. However, the sample size was quite small. There were only 19 freelancers in the study who primarily use retainers. Among the 119 agency SEOs who use retainer pricing, the median retainer was $2,250 for those identifying as male and $1,750 for those identifying as female. 

Project prices for men are 66.7% higher than for women

Our respondents included 54 agency and contract SEOs who typically charge on a per-project basis. The scope and cost of projects varied greatly, from less than $250 to more than $100,000. But the data showed that overall, men charge more per project — a median of $5,000 vs. $3,000 for female-identifying SEOs. 

We decided to dig deeper and found an interesting exception when we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately. 

The price gap was more than three times as wide among those who work in agencies. Our sample included 36 agency SEOs who use per-project pricing. Male-identifying SEOs reported that their agencies charge a median of $8,750 per project while those who identify as women said their agencies charge a median project fee of $2,250. 

The reverse was true among independent SEOs. The sample size was small, so we’re not sure what to make of it, but among the 18 freelance or contract SEOs we polled who charge by the project, women had the edge. Female-identifying freelancers charge a median fee of $3,750 per project to $1,750 for male freelancers. 

One contractor in her 50s hypothesized: “I think women may be more detail-oriented and spend more time with their project. Maybe men may charge less because they have more clients?”

Median hourly rates for male-identifying SEOs are 16.8% higher than for female-identifying SEOs

Our respondents included 57 agency and contract SEOs who typically bill by the hour. Among this group, the median rate is $125 for male-identifying SEOs vs. $107 for female-identifying SEOs. In this case, the difference is largely attributable to more women working as freelancers. The median rate for men and women SEOs at agencies was $125 an hour, and the median rate for both who work as contract or freelance SEOs was $88 an hour. 

Many of the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed said women tend to undervalue themselves and need to be more assertive in negotiating prices.

“I think confidence and not being scared to charge what you’re worth comes into play for the higher rates,” said digital marketing and content specialist Kristine Strange.

Both men and women feel equally supported as in-house SEOs

Some good news for in-house SEOs: When asked about working conditions, frustrations, and pain points, both men and women had very similar responses. Both reported strong levels of interdepartmental cooperation and support for SEO priorities.

Female-identifying SEOs are slightly more satisfied than male-identifying SEOs with in-house SEO resources

The resources available to in-house SEOs are largely dependent on the size and fiscal health of the company that employs them. 

Among in-house SEOs, women are as likely as men to work for enterprise-level companies. We found that 27.1% of male-identifying in-house SEOs and 24.8% of female-identifying in-house SEOs work for companies with more than 250 employees. And 72.9% of male-identifying and 75.2% of female-identifying SEOs work for companies with 250 or fewer employees. 

In-house SEOs across the board rated engineering support as their biggest challenge. Female-identifying SEOs were generally more satisfied than their male peers with the expertise of their teams and their staffing levels. They were equally satisfied with other elements of their SEO programs.

Conclusion

Although there are some very prominent and talented female-identifying SEOs, they are still underrepresented. And when they do enter the field, they are often compensated at lower rates than men. There is no single solution to broadening the talent pool, but we have a few thoughts.

Welcoming industry: The overwhelming number of  women who spoke to us about these findings wished to remain anonymous. We can only assume that means female-identifying SEOs do not feel safe openly discussing issues of gender within an SEO workplace. Silence only serves to bolster the status quo. We must foster an industry culture that does not punish the whistleblower but instead seeks to listen, understand, grow, and improve opportunities for all its members.

Training and mentoring: More than in many other industries, there isn’t one clear path to becoming an SEO. The STEM fields are one training ground, but many other SEOs learn the craft from mentors. To achieve more diversity, which is good for the industry and outcomes, it’s important for girls and those who identify as girls to be supported and welcomed into STEM classes during their student years. 

As an industry, we need to take the job of mentorship seriously. Experienced SEOs can do more to mentor young talent, particularly those who identify as women. Agencies can do more to recruit and hire people with different backgrounds.

Several women whom we interviewed mentioned the importance of mentors and allies:

“I sit in countless calls where I say something and until my CTO repeats what I say, some clients don’t hear me. My CTO is so supportive and wonderful, and he will literally say, ‘She’s right when she says, ‘Blah.’ She’s got 20 years under her belt… .’ Then their light turns on.”

“I’m good at learning complex software and doing complex technical tasks but wasn’t encouraged in this until my recent job — and even then, it wasn’t until I got a female manager that I was recognized for this ability and assigned those kinds of tasks on a regular basis.”

“I spent the first two years double- and triple-checking all my work, backing everything with links from male experts in the industry. One day the CTO told me I didn’t need to do that. He trusted me. I found myself in the bathroom in tears. It took me a long time to stop sending links. (Sometimes I still send links, but only if I think he needs to read them to keep up with me!)”

Transparency about pay and pricing: The taboo about discussing fees and compensation keeps inequities hidden. It’s time to shatter that norm. Independent SEOs should run their pricing plans by mentors of all genders for perspective. Agencies should be sure that skill and experience, not gender, is the driving factor in pay and pricing. 

Don’t undersell yourself: If negotiation doesn’t come naturally to you, spend extra time preparing proposals. Research your competitors and talk with mentors. Focus on the value you’re adding. Be sure to factor in your skill level and experience as it grows. Don’t fall into the confidence gap trap. Even if you don’t tick all of the boxes, if you have most of the qualifications, forge ahead to apply or submit a proposal.

I want to acknowledge the important role that several female-identifying SEOs played in the making of this article. First, I have the privilege of working with some amazing women every day in my SEO agency. Thanks to Cindy Glover, without whom I could not have produced this study. I also want to thank Areej AbuAli whose work in creating the Women in Tech SEO community has been an invaluable resource to the SEO industry and in particular, SEOs who identify as women. Women in Tech SEO not only helps to amplify the voices of those identifying as women within the community, but also helps connect them to each other.

If you wish to explore your own possible implicit bias around issues of gender and career, check out Harvard’s Gender-Career implicit bias test.

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How Big Is the Gender Gap Between Men and Women in SEO?

Posted by NicoleDeLeon

To anyone working in SEO, it’s fairly evident that this is a male-dominated industry. Although there are powerful women SEOs in the field (like Moz CEO Sarah Bird, for example), if you glance at a conference speaker lineup or peruse the bylines on search-related blogs, you’ll see that those who identify as female are few and far between. A recent list of the 140 most influential SEOs featured 104 men and just 36 women. 

So how big is the gender gap? And how does it translate to tangible things like pay and job titles? To find out, we mined the data from our State of SEO 2020 survey, which featured 652 SEOs in 51 countries. Here are some of the things we learned.

But first, a mea culpa. If SEOs who identify as women have an uphill climb in this industry, there’s no doubt that female-identifying SEOs of color have a hill that is steeper still. I deeply regret not asking demographic questions on race and ethnicity which would have allowed us to analyze the disparate impacts that bias plays on BIPOC women SEOs. It was a missed opportunity. That said, we are currently running a survey on BIPOC in SEO that aims to cover those issues and more as we continue to take an introspective view of our industry.

Men outnumber women by more than 2 to 1 in SEO

Of the 652 SEOs who participated in the study, 191 identified as women (29.3%) and 446 identified as men (68.4%). Additionally, one identified as non-binary and 14 preferred not to say. Data was collected on a SurveyMonkey form. We reached out to our own database, purchased lists of SEOs around the world, and promoted the survey on social channels for respondents. We offered no compensation or reward for participating. Non-binary, persons who chose not to identify a gender by choosing “preferred not to say”, and SEOs from the African continent were underrepresented mostly due to the outreach database itself. Finally, respondents selecting non-binary and “preferred not to say” were not calculated in the men/women percentages. 

A voluntary survey is not a scientific sampling, but those percentages mesh with previous studies by Moz that found those who identified as women made up 22.7% of SEOs in 2012, 28.2% in 2013, and 30.1% in 2015. In all four studies, men outnumbered women by more than 2 to 1. 

Importantly, the new results suggest the gap hasn’t narrowed over the past five years.

This was not a surprise to many female-identifying SEOs who participated in the study.

“I started out in the SEO industry about 10 years ago. Compared to that, I do see more women at conferences, on online platforms, and in the day-to-day work with clients,” one said. However, she added that she hasn’t seen much progress in the last 5 years. “It’s like we are kind of stuck. I suspect it’s at least partly a visibility issue: Men have been there forever, building their reputation and expertise. It is hard to keep up with that if you had a late start.”

We interviewed more than a dozen female-identifying SEOs, most of whom asked not to be named. Although a few had supportive bosses, clients, colleagues, and mentors along the way, many shared experiences of being passed over for promotions, having to fight to be heard in meetings and, in some cases, being paid less than men for the same work.

“I think you can sum up the SEO industry by looking at speaker panels of all the major conferences. There is no equality. Are you a white male and 50+? You must be an expert! Are you a woman, 40, who’s been doing this since 2004? Oh, honey, go sit down. We have an expert already,” said one woman. She said she spent 13 years at a website development company being “constantly overlooked” before moving to a digital marketing agency where she is respected and valued.

The gender gap is widest in Latin America

Global internet usage has boomed over the past two decades, with more than 59% of the world’s population now online. Although internet penetration is highest in Europe and North America, more than three-quarters of global users live elsewhere. These growing markets are served by robust communities of SEO professionals on every continent.

Our study reached SEOs in 51 countries, which we grouped into 11 large regions. Participation was highest in the U.S. with 269 SEOs responding, but we also surveyed 113 SEOs in Western Europe, 85 in the U.K., 43 in the Eastern Europe/Balkans region, 39 in Australia and New Zealand, 30 in Asia, 21 in Canada, 18 in Scandinavia, 16 in the Middle East, 12 in Central and South America, and 6 in Africa.

We found that the gender gap is most pronounced in Latin America (83.3% who identified as men to 16.7% who identified as women) and Australia/New Zealand (82.1% who identified as men to 17.9% who identified as women). 

The gender gap is least significant in Africa (although with an admittedly very small sample size due to the small number of African SEOs in our database) and Canada (52.6% who identified as men to 47.4% who identified as women). Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-professed feminist who appointed a gender-balanced cabinet, Canada has made gender equality a priority, but progress has been uneven at times. 

When it comes to gender diversity in SEO, the U.S., Asia, and the U.K. all trail behind Europe, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.

Female-identifying SEOs are more likely to freelance and specialize in content

Generally, the three most common career environments for SEOs are serving as an in-house expert at a single company, working in an agency setting, or operating independently as a consultant or freelancer. Each path has its own pros and cons. We found some interesting gender differences in where SEOs are working. 

Male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are equally likely to work in-house, with about 40% of both genders working inside a single business. And as we discuss below, both genders reported being satisfied with the working conditions and level of support they received in their roles.

Among those who practice their craft externally, men are slightly more likely to work in agencies than women (49.7% vs. 42.5%). 

The biggest gap was among freelancers. Female-identifying SEOs are almost twice as likely to be contractors or freelancers as those who identify as men (17.7% vs. 10.6%). However, it’s unclear if female-identifying SEOs are heading out on their own because they don’t feel they can get a fair shake working for others, or if they're drawn to the freedom and flexibility of freelance work.

Full-time freelancing has grown steadily across the economic landscape in recent years. It also tends to draw more women than men. Part of the appeal may be flexibility around childcare, but control over income was also a factor for some of the SEOs we interviewed. 

“I think a lot of women choose to do freelance because they want to be paid what they deserve, frankly,” said one 25-year-old female SEO in East Anglia, U.K.

However, another woman who works as an in-house SEO said, “When I got my start in marketing, most of the jobs offered to me were contractor roles, and it wasn’t clear how to become full time. It wasn’t by choice; it was what was available to me.”

Many female-identifying SEOs said it was hard for them to get hired or promoted, even with stellar track records. 

“I’ve seen loudmouth, no-record, no-proof men be hired. It’s absolutely aggravating. At my old company, I was skipped by two men who had half the knowledge for supervisor positions. Each man left within months to different companies to the next title,” said a 41-year-old female SEO in Minnesota. She subsequently changed companies and found a much more welcoming environment.

In addition to career paths, there are noteworthy differences in the areas of the industry that male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are most likely to specialize in. Most SEOs consider themselves generalists, but among those who profess a specialty, women are twice as likely to be content experts (17.6% to 7.7%). On the other hand, male-identifying SEOs are nearly twice as likely to be technical experts (21.5% to 12.6%). It’s unclear if this is a result of choice, fallout from the gender gap in STEM occupations generally, or if those who identify as women feel unwelcome among tech SEOs.

Among the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed, several said they think early gender stereotyping played a role, from the toys little boys and girls are given to what each gender is encouraged to pursue as a career.

“It’s similar to why women are not often involved in engineering jobs. Technical roles are historically associated with developer training, and women are more likely to transition from the marketing side than the programming side,” one said.

Several women also said technical SEO, in particular, is a “boys club.” 

“I participate in online forums for general Tech SEO and Women in Tech SEO, and the vibes are much different,” one woman said. “The male-dominated general forums are competitive. The female groups are more supportive, but again, we are trying to bring along and encourage women in the field.”

Another tech SEO who worked at an agency and in-house before going out on her own as a contractor said the culture can be intimidating: “I find that men are quicker to hop on and attack people about technical knowledge than women.”

Female-identifying SEOs generally charge less than men for their services

To find out more about the dollars and cents of SEO, we asked the agency and contract SEOs who participated in our study about their pricing models. In all, 261 SEOs were willing to share how they price their services and how much they charge. 

The three most common pricing models are monthly retainers, per-project pricing, and hourly rates. Although there was a wide range of rates among male-identifyng and female-identifying SEOs, the medians were consistently lower for those who identified as women.  

Among agency and contract SEOs, men are more likely to price their services with monthly retainers (59.1% of men vs. 39.4% of women). Women are more likely to charge per project (31.8% of women vs. 18.2% of men). About a quarter of both groups use hourly pricing.

But before we talk about prices...

Before we get into the details of how much male- and female-identifying SEOs earn, it’s important to note that we didn’t ask who actually set the prices. Depending on the size of an agency, SEOs who work there may have very little control over the pricing structure. 

The agency’s rates might be standard, or they might vary depending on who does the work. One can assume that freelancers choose their own rates, although they might be responding to signals about what the market will bear and what clients are willing to pay. 

Some studies have suggested that a variety of psychosocial factors lead female-identifying freelancers to charge less than their male counterparts. For instance, a Hewlett-Packard study identified a confidence gap in which women tended not to apply for a promotion unless they met all the qualifications, but men would go for it if they met 60 percent of the job requirements. 

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more cooperative and men are more competitive. Whether or not that’s true, men initiate negotiations more readily than women and tend to ask for higher compensation.

In a future study, we will certainly ask who determined the service pricing. For now, we can only report what male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs told us they charge.

Retainers for those who identify as male are 28.6% higher than for those identifying as female

Our respondents included 138 agency and contract SEOs who use monthly retainers as their primary pricing model. These retainers ranged from less than $250 a month to more than $25,000 a month, but overall they were higher for men. At the midpoint of the ranges on our survey, those identifying as male charge a median retainer of $2,250 a month while those identifying as female charge a median of $1,750.

When we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately, the median for freelancers was much lower, but it was the same for both genders: $750 a month. However, the sample size was quite small. There were only 19 freelancers in the study who primarily use retainers. Among the 119 agency SEOs who use retainer pricing, the median retainer was $2,250 for those identifying as male and $1,750 for those identifying as female. 

Project prices for men are 66.7% higher than for women

Our respondents included 54 agency and contract SEOs who typically charge on a per-project basis. The scope and cost of projects varied greatly, from less than $250 to more than $100,000. But the data showed that overall, men charge more per project — a median of $5,000 vs. $3,000 for female-identifying SEOs. 

We decided to dig deeper and found an interesting exception when we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately. 

The price gap was more than three times as wide among those who work in agencies. Our sample included 36 agency SEOs who use per-project pricing. Male-identifying SEOs reported that their agencies charge a median of $8,750 per project while those who identify as women said their agencies charge a median project fee of $2,250. 

The reverse was true among independent SEOs. The sample size was small, so we’re not sure what to make of it, but among the 18 freelance or contract SEOs we polled who charge by the project, women had the edge. Female-identifying freelancers charge a median fee of $3,750 per project to $1,750 for male freelancers. 

One contractor in her 50s hypothesized: “I think women may be more detail-oriented and spend more time with their project. Maybe men may charge less because they have more clients?”

Median hourly rates for male-identifying SEOs are 16.8% higher than for female-identifying SEOs

Our respondents included 57 agency and contract SEOs who typically bill by the hour. Among this group, the median rate is $125 for male-identifying SEOs vs. $107 for female-identifying SEOs. In this case, the difference is largely attributable to more women working as freelancers. The median rate for men and women SEOs at agencies was $125 an hour, and the median rate for both who work as contract or freelance SEOs was $88 an hour. 

Many of the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed said women tend to undervalue themselves and need to be more assertive in negotiating prices.

“I think confidence and not being scared to charge what you’re worth comes into play for the higher rates,” said digital marketing and content specialist Kristine Strange.

Both men and women feel equally supported as in-house SEOs

Some good news for in-house SEOs: When asked about working conditions, frustrations, and pain points, both men and women had very similar responses. Both reported strong levels of interdepartmental cooperation and support for SEO priorities.

Female-identifying SEOs are slightly more satisfied than male-idneitfying SEOs with in-house SEO resources

The resources available to in-house SEOs are largely dependent on the size and fiscal health of the company that employs them. 

Among in-house SEOs, women are as likely as men to work for enterprise-level companies. We found that 27.1% of male-identifying in-house SEOs and 24.8% of female-identifying in-house SEOs work for companies with more than 250 employees. And 72.9% of male-identifying and 75.2% of female-identifying SEOs work for companies with 250 or fewer employees. 

In-house SEOs across the board rated engineering support as their biggest challenge. Female-identifying SEOs were generally more satisfied than their male peers with the expertise of their teams and their staffing levels. They were equally satisfied with other elements of their SEO programs.

Conclusion

Although there are some very prominent and talented female-identifying SEOs, they are still underrepresented. And when they do enter the field, they are often compensated at lower rates than men. There is no single solution to broadening the talent pool, but we have a few thoughts.

Welcoming industry: The overwhelming number of  women who spoke to us about these findings wished to remain anonymous. We can only assume that means female-identifying SEOs do not feel safe openly discussing issues of gender within an SEO workplace. Silence only serves to bolster the status quo. We must foster an industry culture that does not punish the whistleblower but instead seeks to listen, understand, grow, and improve opportunities for all its members. Training and mentoring: More than in many other industries, there isn’t one clear path to becoming an SEO. The STEM fields are one training ground, but many other SEOs learn the craft from mentors. To achieve more diversity, which is good for the industry and outcomes, it’s important for girls and those who identify as girls to be supported and welcomed into STEM classes during their student years. 

As an industry, we need to take the job of mentorship seriously. Experienced SEOs can do more to mentor young talent, particularly those who identify as women. Agencies can do more to recruit and hire people with different backgrounds.

Several women whom we interviewed mentioned the importance of mentors and allies:

"I sit in countless calls where I say something and until my CTO repeats what I say, some clients don’t hear me. My CTO is so supportive and wonderful, and he will literally say, 'She’s right when she says, ‘Blah.’ She’s got 20 years under her belt… .' Then their light turns on."

"I’m good at learning complex software and doing complex technical tasks but wasn’t encouraged in this until my recent job — and even then, it wasn’t until I got a female manager that I was recognized for this ability and assigned those kinds of tasks on a regular basis."

"I spent the first two years double- and triple-checking all my work, backing everything with links from male experts in the industry. One day the CTO told me I didn’t need to do that. He trusted me. I found myself in the bathroom in tears. It took me a long time to stop sending links. (Sometimes I still send links, but only if I think he needs to read them to keep up with me!)"

Transparency about pay and pricing: The taboo about discussing fees and compensation keeps inequities hidden. It’s time to shatter that norm. Independent SEOs should run their pricing plans by mentors of all genders for perspective. Agencies should be sure that skill and experience, not gender, is the driving factor in pay and pricing. 

Don’t undersell yourself: If negotiation doesn’t come naturally to you, spend extra time preparing proposals. Research your competitors and talk with mentors. Focus on the value you’re adding. Be sure to factor in your skill level and experience as it grows. Don’t fall into the confidence gap trap. Even if you don’t tick all of the boxes, if you have most of the qualifications, forge ahead to apply or submit a proposal.

I want to acknowledge the important role that several female-identifying SEOs played in the making of this article. First, I have the privilege of working with some amazing women every day in my SEO agency. Thanks to Cindy Glover, without whom I could not have produced this study. I also want to thank Areej AbuAli whose work in creating the Women in Tech SEO community has been an invaluable resource to the SEO industry and in particular, SEOs who identify as women. Women in Tech SEO not only helps to amplify the voices of those identifying as women within the community, but also helps connect them to each other.

If you wish to explore your own possible implicit bias around issues of gender and career, check out Harvard’s Gender-Career implicit bias test.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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[lakelandseo]

How Big Is the Gender Gap Between Men and Women in SEO?

Posted by NicoleDeLeon

To anyone working in SEO, it’s fairly evident that this is a male-dominated industry. Although there are powerful women SEOs in the field (like Moz CEO Sarah Bird, for example), if you glance at a conference speaker lineup or peruse the bylines on search-related blogs, you’ll see that those who identify as female are few and far between. A recent list of the 140 most influential SEOs featured 104 men and just 36 women. 

So how big is the gender gap? And how does it translate to tangible things like pay and job titles? To find out, we mined the data from our State of SEO 2020 survey, which featured 652 SEOs in 51 countries. Here are some of the things we learned.

But first, a mea culpa. If SEOs who identify as women have an uphill climb in this industry, there’s no doubt that female-identifying SEOs of color have a hill that is steeper still. I deeply regret not asking demographic questions on race and ethnicity which would have allowed us to analyze the disparate impacts that bias plays on BIPOC women SEOs. It was a missed opportunity. That said, we are currently running a survey on BIPOC in SEO that aims to cover those issues and more as we continue to take an introspective view of our industry.

Men outnumber women by more than 2 to 1 in SEO

Of the 652 SEOs who participated in the study, 191 identified as women (29.3%) and 446 identified as men (68.4%). Additionally, one identified as non-binary and 14 preferred not to say. Data was collected on a SurveyMonkey form. We reached out to our own database, purchased lists of SEOs around the world, and promoted the survey on social channels for respondents. We offered no compensation or reward for participating. Non-binary, persons who chose not to identify a gender by choosing “preferred not to say”, and SEOs from the African continent were underrepresented mostly due to the outreach database itself. Finally, respondents selecting non-binary and “preferred not to say” were not calculated in the men/women percentages. 

A voluntary survey is not a scientific sampling, but those percentages mesh with previous studies by Moz that found those who identified as women made up 22.7% of SEOs in 2012, 28.2% in 2013, and 30.1% in 2015. In all four studies, men outnumbered women by more than 2 to 1. 

Importantly, the new results suggest the gap hasn’t narrowed over the past five years.

This was not a surprise to many female-identifying SEOs who participated in the study.

“I started out in the SEO industry about 10 years ago. Compared to that, I do see more women at conferences, on online platforms, and in the day-to-day work with clients,” one said. However, she added that she hasn’t seen much progress in the last 5 years. “It’s like we are kind of stuck. I suspect it’s at least partly a visibility issue: Men have been there forever, building their reputation and expertise. It is hard to keep up with that if you had a late start.”

We interviewed more than a dozen female-identifying SEOs, most of whom asked not to be named. Although a few had supportive bosses, clients, colleagues, and mentors along the way, many shared experiences of being passed over for promotions, having to fight to be heard in meetings and, in some cases, being paid less than men for the same work.

“I think you can sum up the SEO industry by looking at speaker panels of all the major conferences. There is no equality. Are you a white male and 50+? You must be an expert! Are you a woman, 40, who’s been doing this since 2004? Oh, honey, go sit down. We have an expert already,” said one woman. She said she spent 13 years at a website development company being “constantly overlooked” before moving to a digital marketing agency where she is respected and valued.

The gender gap is widest in Latin America

Global internet usage has boomed over the past two decades, with more than 59% of the world’s population now online. Although internet penetration is highest in Europe and North America, more than three-quarters of global users live elsewhere. These growing markets are served by robust communities of SEO professionals on every continent.

Our study reached SEOs in 51 countries, which we grouped into 11 large regions. Participation was highest in the U.S. with 269 SEOs responding, but we also surveyed 113 SEOs in Western Europe, 85 in the U.K., 43 in the Eastern Europe/Balkans region, 39 in Australia and New Zealand, 30 in Asia, 21 in Canada, 18 in Scandinavia, 16 in the Middle East, 12 in Central and South America, and 6 in Africa.

We found that the gender gap is most pronounced in Latin America (83.3% who identified as men to 16.7% who identified as women) and Australia/New Zealand (82.1% who identified as men to 17.9% who identified as women). 

The gender gap is least significant in Africa (although with an admittedly very small sample size due to the small number of African SEOs in our database) and Canada (52.6% who identified as men to 47.4% who identified as women). Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-professed feminist who appointed a gender-balanced cabinet, Canada has made gender equality a priority, but progress has been uneven at times. 

When it comes to gender diversity in SEO, the U.S., Asia, and the U.K. all trail behind Europe, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.

Female-identifying SEOs are more likely to freelance and specialize in content

Generally, the three most common career environments for SEOs are serving as an in-house expert at a single company, working in an agency setting, or operating independently as a consultant or freelancer. Each path has its own pros and cons. We found some interesting gender differences in where SEOs are working. 

Male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are equally likely to work in-house, with about 40% of both genders working inside a single business. And as we discuss below, both genders reported being satisfied with the working conditions and level of support they received in their roles.

Among those who practice their craft externally, men are slightly more likely to work in agencies than women (49.7% vs. 42.5%). 

The biggest gap was among freelancers. Female-identifying SEOs are almost twice as likely to be contractors or freelancers as those who identify as men (17.7% vs. 10.6%). However, it’s unclear if female-identifying SEOs are heading out on their own because they don’t feel they can get a fair shake working for others, or if they're drawn to the freedom and flexibility of freelance work.

Full-time freelancing has grown steadily across the economic landscape in recent years. It also tends to draw more women than men. Part of the appeal may be flexibility around childcare, but control over income was also a factor for some of the SEOs we interviewed. 

“I think a lot of women choose to do freelance because they want to be paid what they deserve, frankly,” said one 25-year-old female SEO in East Anglia, U.K.

However, another woman who works as an in-house SEO said, “When I got my start in marketing, most of the jobs offered to me were contractor roles, and it wasn’t clear how to become full time. It wasn’t by choice; it was what was available to me.”

Many female-identifying SEOs said it was hard for them to get hired or promoted, even with stellar track records. 

“I’ve seen loudmouth, no-record, no-proof men be hired. It’s absolutely aggravating. At my old company, I was skipped by two men who had half the knowledge for supervisor positions. Each man left within months to different companies to the next title,” said a 41-year-old female SEO in Minnesota. She subsequently changed companies and found a much more welcoming environment.

In addition to career paths, there are noteworthy differences in the areas of the industry that male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are most likely to specialize in. Most SEOs consider themselves generalists, but among those who profess a specialty, women are twice as likely to be content experts (17.6% to 7.7%). On the other hand, male-identifying SEOs are nearly twice as likely to be technical experts (21.5% to 12.6%). It’s unclear if this is a result of choice, fallout from the gender gap in STEM occupations generally, or if those who identify as women feel unwelcome among tech SEOs.

Among the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed, several said they think early gender stereotyping played a role, from the toys little boys and girls are given to what each gender is encouraged to pursue as a career.

“It’s similar to why women are not often involved in engineering jobs. Technical roles are historically associated with developer training, and women are more likely to transition from the marketing side than the programming side,” one said.

Several women also said technical SEO, in particular, is a “boys club.” 

“I participate in online forums for general Tech SEO and Women in Tech SEO, and the vibes are much different,” one woman said. “The male-dominated general forums are competitive. The female groups are more supportive, but again, we are trying to bring along and encourage women in the field.”

Another tech SEO who worked at an agency and in-house before going out on her own as a contractor said the culture can be intimidating: “I find that men are quicker to hop on and attack people about technical knowledge than women.”

Female-identifying SEOs generally charge less than men for their services

To find out more about the dollars and cents of SEO, we asked the agency and contract SEOs who participated in our study about their pricing models. In all, 261 SEOs were willing to share how they price their services and how much they charge. 

The three most common pricing models are monthly retainers, per-project pricing, and hourly rates. Although there was a wide range of rates among male-identifyng and female-identifying SEOs, the medians were consistently lower for those who identified as women.  

Among agency and contract SEOs, men are more likely to price their services with monthly retainers (59.1% of men vs. 39.4% of women). Women are more likely to charge per project (31.8% of women vs. 18.2% of men). About a quarter of both groups use hourly pricing.

But before we talk about prices...

Before we get into the details of how much male- and female-identifying SEOs earn, it’s important to note that we didn’t ask who actually set the prices. Depending on the size of an agency, SEOs who work there may have very little control over the pricing structure. 

The agency’s rates might be standard, or they might vary depending on who does the work. One can assume that freelancers choose their own rates, although they might be responding to signals about what the market will bear and what clients are willing to pay. 

Some studies have suggested that a variety of psychosocial factors lead female-identifying freelancers to charge less than their male counterparts. For instance, a Hewlett-Packard study identified a confidence gap in which women tended not to apply for a promotion unless they met all the qualifications, but men would go for it if they met 60 percent of the job requirements. 

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more cooperative and men are more competitive. Whether or not that’s true, men initiate negotiations more readily than women and tend to ask for higher compensation.

In a future study, we will certainly ask who determined the service pricing. For now, we can only report what male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs told us they charge.

Retainers for those who identify as male are 28.6% higher than for those identifying as female

Our respondents included 138 agency and contract SEOs who use monthly retainers as their primary pricing model. These retainers ranged from less than $250 a month to more than $25,000 a month, but overall they were higher for men. At the midpoint of the ranges on our survey, those identifying as male charge a median retainer of $2,250 a month while those identifying as female charge a median of $1,750.

When we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately, the median for freelancers was much lower, but it was the same for both genders: $750 a month. However, the sample size was quite small. There were only 19 freelancers in the study who primarily use retainers. Among the 119 agency SEOs who use retainer pricing, the median retainer was $2,250 for those identifying as male and $1,750 for those identifying as female. 

Project prices for men are 66.7% higher than for women

Our respondents included 54 agency and contract SEOs who typically charge on a per-project basis. The scope and cost of projects varied greatly, from less than $250 to more than $100,000. But the data showed that overall, men charge more per project — a median of $5,000 vs. $3,000 for female-identifying SEOs. 

We decided to dig deeper and found an interesting exception when we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately. 

The price gap was more than three times as wide among those who work in agencies. Our sample included 36 agency SEOs who use per-project pricing. Male-identifying SEOs reported that their agencies charge a median of $8,750 per project while those who identify as women said their agencies charge a median project fee of $2,250. 

The reverse was true among independent SEOs. The sample size was small, so we’re not sure what to make of it, but among the 18 freelance or contract SEOs we polled who charge by the project, women had the edge. Female-identifying freelancers charge a median fee of $3,750 per project to $1,750 for male freelancers. 

One contractor in her 50s hypothesized: “I think women may be more detail-oriented and spend more time with their project. Maybe men may charge less because they have more clients?”

Median hourly rates for male-identifying SEOs are 16.8% higher than for female-identifying SEOs

Our respondents included 57 agency and contract SEOs who typically bill by the hour. Among this group, the median rate is $125 for male-identifying SEOs vs. $107 for female-identifying SEOs. In this case, the difference is largely attributable to more women working as freelancers. The median rate for men and women SEOs at agencies was $125 an hour, and the median rate for both who work as contract or freelance SEOs was $88 an hour. 

Many of the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed said women tend to undervalue themselves and need to be more assertive in negotiating prices.

“I think confidence and not being scared to charge what you’re worth comes into play for the higher rates,” said digital marketing and content specialist Kristine Strange.

Both men and women feel equally supported as in-house SEOs

Some good news for in-house SEOs: When asked about working conditions, frustrations, and pain points, both men and women had very similar responses. Both reported strong levels of interdepartmental cooperation and support for SEO priorities.

Female-identifying SEOs are slightly more satisfied than male-idneitfying SEOs with in-house SEO resources

The resources available to in-house SEOs are largely dependent on the size and fiscal health of the company that employs them. 

Among in-house SEOs, women are as likely as men to work for enterprise-level companies. We found that 27.1% of male-identifying in-house SEOs and 24.8% of female-identifying in-house SEOs work for companies with more than 250 employees. And 72.9% of male-identifying and 75.2% of female-identifying SEOs work for companies with 250 or fewer employees. 

In-house SEOs across the board rated engineering support as their biggest challenge. Female-identifying SEOs were generally more satisfied than their male peers with the expertise of their teams and their staffing levels. They were equally satisfied with other elements of their SEO programs.

Conclusion

Although there are some very prominent and talented female-identifying SEOs, they are still underrepresented. And when they do enter the field, they are often compensated at lower rates than men. There is no single solution to broadening the talent pool, but we have a few thoughts.

Welcoming industry: The overwhelming number of  women who spoke to us about these findings wished to remain anonymous. We can only assume that means female-identifying SEOs do not feel safe openly discussing issues of gender within an SEO workplace. Silence only serves to bolster the status quo. We must foster an industry culture that does not punish the whistleblower but instead seeks to listen, understand, grow, and improve opportunities for all its members. Training and mentoring: More than in many other industries, there isn’t one clear path to becoming an SEO. The STEM fields are one training ground, but many other SEOs learn the craft from mentors. To achieve more diversity, which is good for the industry and outcomes, it’s important for girls and those who identify as girls to be supported and welcomed into STEM classes during their student years. 

As an industry, we need to take the job of mentorship seriously. Experienced SEOs can do more to mentor young talent, particularly those who identify as women. Agencies can do more to recruit and hire people with different backgrounds.

Several women whom we interviewed mentioned the importance of mentors and allies:

"I sit in countless calls where I say something and until my CTO repeats what I say, some clients don’t hear me. My CTO is so supportive and wonderful, and he will literally say, 'She’s right when she says, ‘Blah.’ She’s got 20 years under her belt… .' Then their light turns on."

"I’m good at learning complex software and doing complex technical tasks but wasn’t encouraged in this until my recent job — and even then, it wasn’t until I got a female manager that I was recognized for this ability and assigned those kinds of tasks on a regular basis."

"I spent the first two years double- and triple-checking all my work, backing everything with links from male experts in the industry. One day the CTO told me I didn’t need to do that. He trusted me. I found myself in the bathroom in tears. It took me a long time to stop sending links. (Sometimes I still send links, but only if I think he needs to read them to keep up with me!)"

Transparency about pay and pricing: The taboo about discussing fees and compensation keeps inequities hidden. It’s time to shatter that norm. Independent SEOs should run their pricing plans by mentors of all genders for perspective. Agencies should be sure that skill and experience, not gender, is the driving factor in pay and pricing. 

Don’t undersell yourself: If negotiation doesn’t come naturally to you, spend extra time preparing proposals. Research your competitors and talk with mentors. Focus on the value you’re adding. Be sure to factor in your skill level and experience as it grows. Don’t fall into the confidence gap trap. Even if you don’t tick all of the boxes, if you have most of the qualifications, forge ahead to apply or submit a proposal.

I want to acknowledge the important role that several female-identifying SEOs played in the making of this article. First, I have the privilege of working with some amazing women every day in my SEO agency. Thanks to Cindy Glover, without whom I could not have produced this study. I also want to thank Areej AbuAli whose work in creating the Women in Tech SEO community has been an invaluable resource to the SEO industry and in particular, SEOs who identify as women. Women in Tech SEO not only helps to amplify the voices of those identifying as women within the community, but also helps connect them to each other.

If you wish to explore your own possible implicit bias around issues of gender and career, check out Harvard’s Gender-Career implicit bias test.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[epackingvietnam]

How Big Is the Gender Gap Between Men and Women in SEO?

Posted by NicoleDeLeon

To anyone working in SEO, it’s fairly evident that this is a male-dominated industry. Although there are powerful women SEOs in the field (like Moz CEO Sarah Bird, for example), if you glance at a conference speaker lineup or peruse the bylines on search-related blogs, you’ll see that those who identify as female are few and far between. A recent list of the 140 most influential SEOs featured 104 men and just 36 women. 

So how big is the gender gap? And how does it translate to tangible things like pay and job titles? To find out, we mined the data from our State of SEO 2020 survey, which featured 652 SEOs in 51 countries. Here are some of the things we learned.

But first, a mea culpa. If SEOs who identify as women have an uphill climb in this industry, there’s no doubt that female-identifying SEOs of color have a hill that is steeper still. I deeply regret not asking demographic questions on race and ethnicity which would have allowed us to analyze the disparate impacts that bias plays on BIPOC women SEOs. It was a missed opportunity. That said, we are currently running a survey on BIPOC in SEO that aims to cover those issues and more as we continue to take an introspective view of our industry.

Men outnumber women by more than 2 to 1 in SEO

Of the 652 SEOs who participated in the study, 191 identified as women (29.3%) and 446 identified as men (68.4%). Additionally, one identified as non-binary and 14 preferred not to say. Data was collected on a SurveyMonkey form. We reached out to our own database, purchased lists of SEOs around the world, and promoted the survey on social channels for respondents. We offered no compensation or reward for participating. Non-binary, persons who chose not to identify a gender by choosing “preferred not to say”, and SEOs from the African continent were underrepresented mostly due to the outreach database itself. Finally, respondents selecting non-binary and “preferred not to say” were not calculated in the men/women percentages. 

A voluntary survey is not a scientific sampling, but those percentages mesh with previous studies by Moz that found those who identified as women made up 22.7% of SEOs in 2012, 28.2% in 2013, and 30.1% in 2015. In all four studies, men outnumbered women by more than 2 to 1. 

Importantly, the new results suggest the gap hasn’t narrowed over the past five years.

This was not a surprise to many female-identifying SEOs who participated in the study.

“I started out in the SEO industry about 10 years ago. Compared to that, I do see more women at conferences, on online platforms, and in the day-to-day work with clients,” one said. However, she added that she hasn’t seen much progress in the last 5 years. “It’s like we are kind of stuck. I suspect it’s at least partly a visibility issue: Men have been there forever, building their reputation and expertise. It is hard to keep up with that if you had a late start.”

We interviewed more than a dozen female-identifying SEOs, most of whom asked not to be named. Although a few had supportive bosses, clients, colleagues, and mentors along the way, many shared experiences of being passed over for promotions, having to fight to be heard in meetings and, in some cases, being paid less than men for the same work.

“I think you can sum up the SEO industry by looking at speaker panels of all the major conferences. There is no equality. Are you a white male and 50+? You must be an expert! Are you a woman, 40, who’s been doing this since 2004? Oh, honey, go sit down. We have an expert already,” said one woman. She said she spent 13 years at a website development company being “constantly overlooked” before moving to a digital marketing agency where she is respected and valued.

The gender gap is widest in Latin America

Global internet usage has boomed over the past two decades, with more than 59% of the world’s population now online. Although internet penetration is highest in Europe and North America, more than three-quarters of global users live elsewhere. These growing markets are served by robust communities of SEO professionals on every continent.

Our study reached SEOs in 51 countries, which we grouped into 11 large regions. Participation was highest in the U.S. with 269 SEOs responding, but we also surveyed 113 SEOs in Western Europe, 85 in the U.K., 43 in the Eastern Europe/Balkans region, 39 in Australia and New Zealand, 30 in Asia, 21 in Canada, 18 in Scandinavia, 16 in the Middle East, 12 in Central and South America, and 6 in Africa.

We found that the gender gap is most pronounced in Latin America (83.3% who identified as men to 16.7% who identified as women) and Australia/New Zealand (82.1% who identified as men to 17.9% who identified as women). 

The gender gap is least significant in Africa (although with an admittedly very small sample size due to the small number of African SEOs in our database) and Canada (52.6% who identified as men to 47.4% who identified as women). Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-professed feminist who appointed a gender-balanced cabinet, Canada has made gender equality a priority, but progress has been uneven at times. 

When it comes to gender diversity in SEO, the U.S., Asia, and the U.K. all trail behind Europe, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.

Female-identifying SEOs are more likely to freelance and specialize in content

Generally, the three most common career environments for SEOs are serving as an in-house expert at a single company, working in an agency setting, or operating independently as a consultant or freelancer. Each path has its own pros and cons. We found some interesting gender differences in where SEOs are working. 

Male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are equally likely to work in-house, with about 40% of both genders working inside a single business. And as we discuss below, both genders reported being satisfied with the working conditions and level of support they received in their roles.

Among those who practice their craft externally, men are slightly more likely to work in agencies than women (49.7% vs. 42.5%). 

The biggest gap was among freelancers. Female-identifying SEOs are almost twice as likely to be contractors or freelancers as those who identify as men (17.7% vs. 10.6%). However, it’s unclear if female-identifying SEOs are heading out on their own because they don’t feel they can get a fair shake working for others, or if they're drawn to the freedom and flexibility of freelance work.

Full-time freelancing has grown steadily across the economic landscape in recent years. It also tends to draw more women than men. Part of the appeal may be flexibility around childcare, but control over income was also a factor for some of the SEOs we interviewed. 

“I think a lot of women choose to do freelance because they want to be paid what they deserve, frankly,” said one 25-year-old female SEO in East Anglia, U.K.

However, another woman who works as an in-house SEO said, “When I got my start in marketing, most of the jobs offered to me were contractor roles, and it wasn’t clear how to become full time. It wasn’t by choice; it was what was available to me.”

Many female-identifying SEOs said it was hard for them to get hired or promoted, even with stellar track records. 

“I’ve seen loudmouth, no-record, no-proof men be hired. It’s absolutely aggravating. At my old company, I was skipped by two men who had half the knowledge for supervisor positions. Each man left within months to different companies to the next title,” said a 41-year-old female SEO in Minnesota. She subsequently changed companies and found a much more welcoming environment.

In addition to career paths, there are noteworthy differences in the areas of the industry that male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are most likely to specialize in. Most SEOs consider themselves generalists, but among those who profess a specialty, women are twice as likely to be content experts (17.6% to 7.7%). On the other hand, male-identifying SEOs are nearly twice as likely to be technical experts (21.5% to 12.6%). It’s unclear if this is a result of choice, fallout from the gender gap in STEM occupations generally, or if those who identify as women feel unwelcome among tech SEOs.

Among the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed, several said they think early gender stereotyping played a role, from the toys little boys and girls are given to what each gender is encouraged to pursue as a career.

“It’s similar to why women are not often involved in engineering jobs. Technical roles are historically associated with developer training, and women are more likely to transition from the marketing side than the programming side,” one said.

Several women also said technical SEO, in particular, is a “boys club.” 

“I participate in online forums for general Tech SEO and Women in Tech SEO, and the vibes are much different,” one woman said. “The male-dominated general forums are competitive. The female groups are more supportive, but again, we are trying to bring along and encourage women in the field.”

Another tech SEO who worked at an agency and in-house before going out on her own as a contractor said the culture can be intimidating: “I find that men are quicker to hop on and attack people about technical knowledge than women.”

Female-identifying SEOs generally charge less than men for their services

To find out more about the dollars and cents of SEO, we asked the agency and contract SEOs who participated in our study about their pricing models. In all, 261 SEOs were willing to share how they price their services and how much they charge. 

The three most common pricing models are monthly retainers, per-project pricing, and hourly rates. Although there was a wide range of rates among male-identifyng and female-identifying SEOs, the medians were consistently lower for those who identified as women.  

Among agency and contract SEOs, men are more likely to price their services with monthly retainers (59.1% of men vs. 39.4% of women). Women are more likely to charge per project (31.8% of women vs. 18.2% of men). About a quarter of both groups use hourly pricing.

But before we talk about prices...

Before we get into the details of how much male- and female-identifying SEOs earn, it’s important to note that we didn’t ask who actually set the prices. Depending on the size of an agency, SEOs who work there may have very little control over the pricing structure. 

The agency’s rates might be standard, or they might vary depending on who does the work. One can assume that freelancers choose their own rates, although they might be responding to signals about what the market will bear and what clients are willing to pay. 

Some studies have suggested that a variety of psychosocial factors lead female-identifying freelancers to charge less than their male counterparts. For instance, a Hewlett-Packard study identified a confidence gap in which women tended not to apply for a promotion unless they met all the qualifications, but men would go for it if they met 60 percent of the job requirements. 

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more cooperative and men are more competitive. Whether or not that’s true, men initiate negotiations more readily than women and tend to ask for higher compensation.

In a future study, we will certainly ask who determined the service pricing. For now, we can only report what male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs told us they charge.

Retainers for those who identify as male are 28.6% higher than for those identifying as female

Our respondents included 138 agency and contract SEOs who use monthly retainers as their primary pricing model. These retainers ranged from less than $250 a month to more than $25,000 a month, but overall they were higher for men. At the midpoint of the ranges on our survey, those identifying as male charge a median retainer of $2,250 a month while those identifying as female charge a median of $1,750.

When we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately, the median for freelancers was much lower, but it was the same for both genders: $750 a month. However, the sample size was quite small. There were only 19 freelancers in the study who primarily use retainers. Among the 119 agency SEOs who use retainer pricing, the median retainer was $2,250 for those identifying as male and $1,750 for those identifying as female. 

Project prices for men are 66.7% higher than for women

Our respondents included 54 agency and contract SEOs who typically charge on a per-project basis. The scope and cost of projects varied greatly, from less than $250 to more than $100,000. But the data showed that overall, men charge more per project — a median of $5,000 vs. $3,000 for female-identifying SEOs. 

We decided to dig deeper and found an interesting exception when we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately. 

The price gap was more than three times as wide among those who work in agencies. Our sample included 36 agency SEOs who use per-project pricing. Male-identifying SEOs reported that their agencies charge a median of $8,750 per project while those who identify as women said their agencies charge a median project fee of $2,250. 

The reverse was true among independent SEOs. The sample size was small, so we’re not sure what to make of it, but among the 18 freelance or contract SEOs we polled who charge by the project, women had the edge. Female-identifying freelancers charge a median fee of $3,750 per project to $1,750 for male freelancers. 

One contractor in her 50s hypothesized: “I think women may be more detail-oriented and spend more time with their project. Maybe men may charge less because they have more clients?”

Median hourly rates for male-identifying SEOs are 16.8% higher than for female-identifying SEOs

Our respondents included 57 agency and contract SEOs who typically bill by the hour. Among this group, the median rate is $125 for male-identifying SEOs vs. $107 for female-identifying SEOs. In this case, the difference is largely attributable to more women working as freelancers. The median rate for men and women SEOs at agencies was $125 an hour, and the median rate for both who work as contract or freelance SEOs was $88 an hour. 

Many of the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed said women tend to undervalue themselves and need to be more assertive in negotiating prices.

“I think confidence and not being scared to charge what you’re worth comes into play for the higher rates,” said digital marketing and content specialist Kristine Strange.

Both men and women feel equally supported as in-house SEOs

Some good news for in-house SEOs: When asked about working conditions, frustrations, and pain points, both men and women had very similar responses. Both reported strong levels of interdepartmental cooperation and support for SEO priorities.

Female-identifying SEOs are slightly more satisfied than male-idneitfying SEOs with in-house SEO resources

The resources available to in-house SEOs are largely dependent on the size and fiscal health of the company that employs them. 

Among in-house SEOs, women are as likely as men to work for enterprise-level companies. We found that 27.1% of male-identifying in-house SEOs and 24.8% of female-identifying in-house SEOs work for companies with more than 250 employees. And 72.9% of male-identifying and 75.2% of female-identifying SEOs work for companies with 250 or fewer employees. 

In-house SEOs across the board rated engineering support as their biggest challenge. Female-identifying SEOs were generally more satisfied than their male peers with the expertise of their teams and their staffing levels. They were equally satisfied with other elements of their SEO programs.

Conclusion

Although there are some very prominent and talented female-identifying SEOs, they are still underrepresented. And when they do enter the field, they are often compensated at lower rates than men. There is no single solution to broadening the talent pool, but we have a few thoughts.

Welcoming industry: The overwhelming number of  women who spoke to us about these findings wished to remain anonymous. We can only assume that means female-identifying SEOs do not feel safe openly discussing issues of gender within an SEO workplace. Silence only serves to bolster the status quo. We must foster an industry culture that does not punish the whistleblower but instead seeks to listen, understand, grow, and improve opportunities for all its members. Training and mentoring: More than in many other industries, there isn’t one clear path to becoming an SEO. The STEM fields are one training ground, but many other SEOs learn the craft from mentors. To achieve more diversity, which is good for the industry and outcomes, it’s important for girls and those who identify as girls to be supported and welcomed into STEM classes during their student years. 

As an industry, we need to take the job of mentorship seriously. Experienced SEOs can do more to mentor young talent, particularly those who identify as women. Agencies can do more to recruit and hire people with different backgrounds.

Several women whom we interviewed mentioned the importance of mentors and allies:

"I sit in countless calls where I say something and until my CTO repeats what I say, some clients don’t hear me. My CTO is so supportive and wonderful, and he will literally say, 'She’s right when she says, ‘Blah.’ She’s got 20 years under her belt… .' Then their light turns on."

"I’m good at learning complex software and doing complex technical tasks but wasn’t encouraged in this until my recent job — and even then, it wasn’t until I got a female manager that I was recognized for this ability and assigned those kinds of tasks on a regular basis."

"I spent the first two years double- and triple-checking all my work, backing everything with links from male experts in the industry. One day the CTO told me I didn’t need to do that. He trusted me. I found myself in the bathroom in tears. It took me a long time to stop sending links. (Sometimes I still send links, but only if I think he needs to read them to keep up with me!)"

Transparency about pay and pricing: The taboo about discussing fees and compensation keeps inequities hidden. It’s time to shatter that norm. Independent SEOs should run their pricing plans by mentors of all genders for perspective. Agencies should be sure that skill and experience, not gender, is the driving factor in pay and pricing. 

Don’t undersell yourself: If negotiation doesn’t come naturally to you, spend extra time preparing proposals. Research your competitors and talk with mentors. Focus on the value you’re adding. Be sure to factor in your skill level and experience as it grows. Don’t fall into the confidence gap trap. Even if you don’t tick all of the boxes, if you have most of the qualifications, forge ahead to apply or submit a proposal.

I want to acknowledge the important role that several female-identifying SEOs played in the making of this article. First, I have the privilege of working with some amazing women every day in my SEO agency. Thanks to Cindy Glover, without whom I could not have produced this study. I also want to thank Areej AbuAli whose work in creating the Women in Tech SEO community has been an invaluable resource to the SEO industry and in particular, SEOs who identify as women. Women in Tech SEO not only helps to amplify the voices of those identifying as women within the community, but also helps connect them to each other.

If you wish to explore your own possible implicit bias around issues of gender and career, check out Harvard’s Gender-Career implicit bias test.

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[agilenano]

Agilenano - News: Why PG&E’s Customers May See Even More Blackouts This Year

California utility Pacific Gas & Electric may need to rely even more heavily on forced blackouts this year, to prevent its grid from starting more deadly wildfires like the ones that drove it into bankruptcy. 

PG&E’s wildfire mitigation work is well behind schedule, according to data released last week as part of its first-quarter earnings report. That work includes grid hardening, vegetation clearing, physical inspections, and installation specialized gear on its distribution and transmission system.

Meanwhile, the inspections that PG&E has done in the past year have come under fire from U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, who last week ordered the utility to adhere to much more stringent processes for inspecting its power lines. Alsup’s order described PG&E’s reports on its work to date as a “mere courtroom prop,” concealing failures to trim trees clearly in danger of striking distribution lines, or to replace worn equipment on high-voltage transmission towers.

But the judge's orders to expand PG&E’s inspection workforce come at an extraordinary time. The coronavirus pandemic  is causing problems for fire-prevention and utility work statewide.

For PG&E, COVID-19 restrictions and economic disruptions “will continue to result in workforce disruptions, both in personnel availability (including a reduction in contract labor resources) and deployment,” the utility wrote in a filing. 

Making matters worse, northern California’s meager rain and snowfall this winter and spring could lead to a fire season that’s more dangerous and begins earlier than last year. That leaves PG&E little time to catch up on its work. 

It also increases the possibility that many of its customers will still be confined to their homes under coronavirus restrictions, depending on the state’s reopening plans and the course of the pandemic over the coming months, said Michael Wara, the head of Stanford University’s Climate and Energy Policy Program and a member of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Wildfires Blue Ribbon Commission.

That could complicate plans to help elderly or medically vulnerable people who face hardship or even death without power by bringing them to generator-powered community shelter sites, or to quickly deploy the field crews needed to meet California regulators’ demands for this year’s power shutoffs to last no more than 24 hours, Wara said in an interview this week. 

“My question, looking at this data, is whether PG&E is clearly communicating with the state, with local governments, with the [state] Office of Emergency Services, and with CALFIRE,” the state firefighting agency, “in terms of how the pandemic is going to affect operations,” Wara said. “I’m hopeful, but I’m concerned.”  

PG&E did not provide an immediate response to a request for comment this week.

Slow-moving wildfire mitigation, accusations of shoddy work

PG&E has incurred about $2.6 billion in costs for its 2019 wildfire mitigation work, and expects to incur another $2.7 billion this year. But the utility revealed last week that the roughly $700 million it has spent so far this year has made only a slight dent in its backlog.   

As of March 31, PG&E had only completed 32 percent of its planned tree trimming and removal along 1,800 miles of distribution lines, and only 19 percent of its work to replace poles and cover or bury bare wires along 241 miles of lines. 

PG&E is also behind on technology to better predict and pinpoint parts of the grid under highest fire threat. At the end of March, it had only installed 16 percent of the 592 grid sectionalizing devices it will use to isolate and minimize power outages, and deployed fewer than one in 10 of the 400 weather stations to measure wind speeds and humidity, and 200 high-definition cameras for spotting broken equipment or fires as they’re happening. 

The only portion of its wildfire plan where PG&E is ahead of schedule is in acquiring emergency backup generators for communities at highest risk of having their power cut off for days at a time — 450 megawatts of them, compared to the 300 megawatts it planned for. 

Wara pointed out that it’s harder for PG&E to do work in the first quarter, given that winter conditions can prevent work from happening across much of its mountainous and forested territory at higher wildfire risk. “On the other hand, we had an extraordinarily mild winter this year,” with far lower snowfall than usual in the Sierra Nevada, which has also increased wildfire risk expectations for this year. 

This difference in weather from last year to this year could make it difficult for PG&E to reduce the scope of its fire-prevention blackouts this year, Wara said. 

In its Q1 presentation, PG&E stated that its backup generators, grid sectionalizing and transmission line repairs and distribution line inspections it’s done should reduce the number of customers affected by blackouts by about one-third — but there's a big caveat. The reduction in blackouts would come only “if the exact same weather patterns are seen in 2020 as experienced during the largest PSPS events in 2019.” 

That's "significant," Wara said. "Last fire season was a pretty light fire season, and it had a very late start. We’re now headed into a fire season that’s likely to be much more severe, and with an earlier start.”

California's other two utilities, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, have a better record of grid hardening and wildfire mitigation work, and used fire-prevention blackouts at far smaller scales last year. 

PG&E’s preparedness for wildfire mitigation was brought further into doubt in last week’s order from Judge Alsup, who oversees the utility’s criminal probation for convictions related to the deadly 2010 San Bruno natural gas pipeline explosion. Alsup’s order (PDF) flatly states that “PG&E remains years away from compliance with California law and with its own wildfire mitigation plan.”

Alsup ordered PG&E to put its own employees to work alongside subcontractors to get the work done more quickly.

Transmission line concerns could widen de-energization impacts 

Alsup also excoriated PG&E’s high-voltage transmission tower inspection process. Days before the Nov. 2018 Camp Fire, inspectors failed to discover the worn “C-hook” that broke and allowed a 115kV transmission line to contact the tower, creating sparks that caused the fire. Later inspections found 32 other C-hooks on the same line that needed immediate replacement. 

Inspections in 2019 may also be suspect, Alsup wrote. Last year, a 230kV transmission line in Sonoma County was cleared in three separate PG&E inspections, “once by drone, once by climbing, and once by ground” crews. But during an October windstorm, a jumper cable that routes power flow around a transmission tower broke loose, a failure that's suspected of causing the Oct. 2019 Kincade fire. 

That 230kV line remained energized amidst a broader de-energization of lower-voltage transmission and distribution systems in the area. CAL FIRE hasn't announced the fire’s cause, but PG&E's Q1 noted it has set aside $600 million in anticipation of covering damages it caused — a figure at “the lower end of the range” of potential losses. 

“Like a broken record, PG&E routinely excuses itself by insisting that all towers had been inspected and any noted faults were addressed,” Alsup wrote. “But these transmission tower inspections failed to spot dangerous conditions.” He ordered PG&E to record the age and specific condition of inspected transmisison equipment, videotape every inspection, and require all contractors doing the work to carry insurance to cover public losses in event of a wildfire. 

PG&E is under fire to win court approval of its bankruptcy plan by June 30 as a precondition of being allowed to access a $21 billion state wildfire insurance fund considered critical for its future financial stability. But any fires caused by its equipment after its Jan. 2019 bankruptcy filing and before its emergence from bankruptcy, now aimed for the end of August, would not be eligible for being covered under that fund. 

This opens the possibility that PG&E may be under pressure to consider de-energizing higher-voltage transmission lines as it responds to windy dry conditions that guide its PSPS decisions this summer and fall, Wara said. “Before the Camp Fire, PG&E didn’t turn off any transmission. After the Camp Fire they turned off the 60 and 115kV in high risk areas — and the Kincade fire ignited.” 

“I think the biggest upcoming question for this fire season is what happens with transmission,” he said. “I hope the stringency of the inspections have increased significantly in the past few years, given the errors” described in Alsup’s order, to give PG&E the confidence that it can keep higher-voltage power lines energized during high-wind events. 

Doing otherwise “could have a much more systematic impact on generation available for load, on resource adequacy in various parts of the state,” Wara said. “We need to be talking about that, and doing an analysis to make sure we’re OK.” 

Agilenano - News from Agilenano from shopsnetwork (4 sites) https://agilenano.com/blogs/news/why-pg-e-s-customers-may-see-even-more-blackouts-this-year

[bfxenon]

How Big Is the Gender Gap Between Men and Women in SEO?

Posted by NicoleDeLeon

To anyone working in SEO, it’s fairly evident that this is a male-dominated industry. Although there are powerful women SEOs in the field (like Moz CEO Sarah Bird, for example), if you glance at a conference speaker lineup or peruse the bylines on search-related blogs, you’ll see that those who identify as female are few and far between. A recent list of the 140 most influential SEOs featured 104 men and just 36 women. 

So how big is the gender gap? And how does it translate to tangible things like pay and job titles? To find out, we mined the data from our State of SEO 2020 survey, which featured 652 SEOs in 51 countries. Here are some of the things we learned.

But first, a mea culpa. If SEOs who identify as women have an uphill climb in this industry, there’s no doubt that female-identifying SEOs of color have a hill that is steeper still. I deeply regret not asking demographic questions on race and ethnicity which would have allowed us to analyze the disparate impacts that bias plays on BIPOC women SEOs. It was a missed opportunity. That said, we are currently running a survey on BIPOC in SEO that aims to cover those issues and more as we continue to take an introspective view of our industry.

Men outnumber women by more than 2 to 1 in SEO

Of the 652 SEOs who participated in the study, 191 identified as women (29.3%) and 446 identified as men (68.4%). Additionally, one identified as non-binary and 14 preferred not to say. Data was collected on a SurveyMonkey form. We reached out to our own database, purchased lists of SEOs around the world, and promoted the survey on social channels for respondents. We offered no compensation or reward for participating. Non-binary, persons who chose not to identify a gender by choosing “preferred not to say”, and SEOs from the African continent were underrepresented mostly due to the outreach database itself. Finally, respondents selecting non-binary and “preferred not to say” were not calculated in the men/women percentages. 

A voluntary survey is not a scientific sampling, but those percentages mesh with previous studies by Moz that found those who identified as women made up 22.7% of SEOs in 2012, 28.2% in 2013, and 30.1% in 2015. In all four studies, men outnumbered women by more than 2 to 1. 

Importantly, the new results suggest the gap hasn’t narrowed over the past five years.

This was not a surprise to many female-identifying SEOs who participated in the study.

“I started out in the SEO industry about 10 years ago. Compared to that, I do see more women at conferences, on online platforms, and in the day-to-day work with clients,” one said. However, she added that she hasn’t seen much progress in the last 5 years. “It’s like we are kind of stuck. I suspect it’s at least partly a visibility issue: Men have been there forever, building their reputation and expertise. It is hard to keep up with that if you had a late start.”

We interviewed more than a dozen female-identifying SEOs, most of whom asked not to be named. Although a few had supportive bosses, clients, colleagues, and mentors along the way, many shared experiences of being passed over for promotions, having to fight to be heard in meetings and, in some cases, being paid less than men for the same work.

“I think you can sum up the SEO industry by looking at speaker panels of all the major conferences. There is no equality. Are you a white male and 50+? You must be an expert! Are you a woman, 40, who’s been doing this since 2004? Oh, honey, go sit down. We have an expert already,” said one woman. She said she spent 13 years at a website development company being “constantly overlooked” before moving to a digital marketing agency where she is respected and valued.

The gender gap is widest in Latin America

Global internet usage has boomed over the past two decades, with more than 59% of the world’s population now online. Although internet penetration is highest in Europe and North America, more than three-quarters of global users live elsewhere. These growing markets are served by robust communities of SEO professionals on every continent.

Our study reached SEOs in 51 countries, which we grouped into 11 large regions. Participation was highest in the U.S. with 269 SEOs responding, but we also surveyed 113 SEOs in Western Europe, 85 in the U.K., 43 in the Eastern Europe/Balkans region, 39 in Australia and New Zealand, 30 in Asia, 21 in Canada, 18 in Scandinavia, 16 in the Middle East, 12 in Central and South America, and 6 in Africa.

We found that the gender gap is most pronounced in Latin America (83.3% who identified as men to 16.7% who identified as women) and Australia/New Zealand (82.1% who identified as men to 17.9% who identified as women). 

The gender gap is least significant in Africa (although with an admittedly very small sample size due to the small number of African SEOs in our database) and Canada (52.6% who identified as men to 47.4% who identified as women). Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-professed feminist who appointed a gender-balanced cabinet, Canada has made gender equality a priority, but progress has been uneven at times. 

When it comes to gender diversity in SEO, the U.S., Asia, and the U.K. all trail behind Europe, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.

Female-identifying SEOs are more likely to freelance and specialize in content

Generally, the three most common career environments for SEOs are serving as an in-house expert at a single company, working in an agency setting, or operating independently as a consultant or freelancer. Each path has its own pros and cons. We found some interesting gender differences in where SEOs are working. 

Male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are equally likely to work in-house, with about 40% of both genders working inside a single business. And as we discuss below, both genders reported being satisfied with the working conditions and level of support they received in their roles.

Among those who practice their craft externally, men are slightly more likely to work in agencies than women (49.7% vs. 42.5%). 

The biggest gap was among freelancers. Female-identifying SEOs are almost twice as likely to be contractors or freelancers as those who identify as men (17.7% vs. 10.6%). However, it’s unclear if female-identifying SEOs are heading out on their own because they don’t feel they can get a fair shake working for others, or if they're drawn to the freedom and flexibility of freelance work.

Full-time freelancing has grown steadily across the economic landscape in recent years. It also tends to draw more women than men. Part of the appeal may be flexibility around childcare, but control over income was also a factor for some of the SEOs we interviewed. 

“I think a lot of women choose to do freelance because they want to be paid what they deserve, frankly,” said one 25-year-old female SEO in East Anglia, U.K.

However, another woman who works as an in-house SEO said, “When I got my start in marketing, most of the jobs offered to me were contractor roles, and it wasn’t clear how to become full time. It wasn’t by choice; it was what was available to me.”

Many female-identifying SEOs said it was hard for them to get hired or promoted, even with stellar track records. 

“I’ve seen loudmouth, no-record, no-proof men be hired. It’s absolutely aggravating. At my old company, I was skipped by two men who had half the knowledge for supervisor positions. Each man left within months to different companies to the next title,” said a 41-year-old female SEO in Minnesota. She subsequently changed companies and found a much more welcoming environment.

In addition to career paths, there are noteworthy differences in the areas of the industry that male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are most likely to specialize in. Most SEOs consider themselves generalists, but among those who profess a specialty, women are twice as likely to be content experts (17.6% to 7.7%). On the other hand, male-identifying SEOs are nearly twice as likely to be technical experts (21.5% to 12.6%). It’s unclear if this is a result of choice, fallout from the gender gap in STEM occupations generally, or if those who identify as women feel unwelcome among tech SEOs.

Among the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed, several said they think early gender stereotyping played a role, from the toys little boys and girls are given to what each gender is encouraged to pursue as a career.

“It’s similar to why women are not often involved in engineering jobs. Technical roles are historically associated with developer training, and women are more likely to transition from the marketing side than the programming side,” one said.

Several women also said technical SEO, in particular, is a “boys club.” 

“I participate in online forums for general Tech SEO and Women in Tech SEO, and the vibes are much different,” one woman said. “The male-dominated general forums are competitive. The female groups are more supportive, but again, we are trying to bring along and encourage women in the field.”

Another tech SEO who worked at an agency and in-house before going out on her own as a contractor said the culture can be intimidating: “I find that men are quicker to hop on and attack people about technical knowledge than women.”

Female-identifying SEOs generally charge less than men for their services

To find out more about the dollars and cents of SEO, we asked the agency and contract SEOs who participated in our study about their pricing models. In all, 261 SEOs were willing to share how they price their services and how much they charge. 

The three most common pricing models are monthly retainers, per-project pricing, and hourly rates. Although there was a wide range of rates among male-identifyng and female-identifying SEOs, the medians were consistently lower for those who identified as women.  

Among agency and contract SEOs, men are more likely to price their services with monthly retainers (59.1% of men vs. 39.4% of women). Women are more likely to charge per project (31.8% of women vs. 18.2% of men). About a quarter of both groups use hourly pricing.

But before we talk about prices...

Before we get into the details of how much male- and female-identifying SEOs earn, it’s important to note that we didn’t ask who actually set the prices. Depending on the size of an agency, SEOs who work there may have very little control over the pricing structure. 

The agency’s rates might be standard, or they might vary depending on who does the work. One can assume that freelancers choose their own rates, although they might be responding to signals about what the market will bear and what clients are willing to pay. 

Some studies have suggested that a variety of psychosocial factors lead female-identifying freelancers to charge less than their male counterparts. For instance, a Hewlett-Packard study identified a confidence gap in which women tended not to apply for a promotion unless they met all the qualifications, but men would go for it if they met 60 percent of the job requirements. 

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more cooperative and men are more competitive. Whether or not that’s true, men initiate negotiations more readily than women and tend to ask for higher compensation.

In a future study, we will certainly ask who determined the service pricing. For now, we can only report what male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs told us they charge.

Retainers for those who identify as male are 28.6% higher than for those identifying as female

Our respondents included 138 agency and contract SEOs who use monthly retainers as their primary pricing model. These retainers ranged from less than $250 a month to more than $25,000 a month, but overall they were higher for men. At the midpoint of the ranges on our survey, those identifying as male charge a median retainer of $2,250 a month while those identifying as female charge a median of $1,750.

When we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately, the median for freelancers was much lower, but it was the same for both genders: $750 a month. However, the sample size was quite small. There were only 19 freelancers in the study who primarily use retainers. Among the 119 agency SEOs who use retainer pricing, the median retainer was $2,250 for those identifying as male and $1,750 for those identifying as female. 

Project prices for men are 66.7% higher than for women

Our respondents included 54 agency and contract SEOs who typically charge on a per-project basis. The scope and cost of projects varied greatly, from less than $250 to more than $100,000. But the data showed that overall, men charge more per project — a median of $5,000 vs. $3,000 for female-identifying SEOs. 

We decided to dig deeper and found an interesting exception when we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately. 

The price gap was more than three times as wide among those who work in agencies. Our sample included 36 agency SEOs who use per-project pricing. Male-identifying SEOs reported that their agencies charge a median of $8,750 per project while those who identify as women said their agencies charge a median project fee of $2,250. 

The reverse was true among independent SEOs. The sample size was small, so we’re not sure what to make of it, but among the 18 freelance or contract SEOs we polled who charge by the project, women had the edge. Female-identifying freelancers charge a median fee of $3,750 per project to $1,750 for male freelancers. 

One contractor in her 50s hypothesized: “I think women may be more detail-oriented and spend more time with their project. Maybe men may charge less because they have more clients?”

Median hourly rates for male-identifying SEOs are 16.8% higher than for female-identifying SEOs

Our respondents included 57 agency and contract SEOs who typically bill by the hour. Among this group, the median rate is $125 for male-identifying SEOs vs. $107 for female-identifying SEOs. In this case, the difference is largely attributable to more women working as freelancers. The median rate for men and women SEOs at agencies was $125 an hour, and the median rate for both who work as contract or freelance SEOs was $88 an hour. 

Many of the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed said women tend to undervalue themselves and need to be more assertive in negotiating prices.

“I think confidence and not being scared to charge what you’re worth comes into play for the higher rates,” said digital marketing and content specialist Kristine Strange.

Both men and women feel equally supported as in-house SEOs

Some good news for in-house SEOs: When asked about working conditions, frustrations, and pain points, both men and women had very similar responses. Both reported strong levels of interdepartmental cooperation and support for SEO priorities.

Female-identifying SEOs are slightly more satisfied than male-idneitfying SEOs with in-house SEO resources

The resources available to in-house SEOs are largely dependent on the size and fiscal health of the company that employs them. 

Among in-house SEOs, women are as likely as men to work for enterprise-level companies. We found that 27.1% of male-identifying in-house SEOs and 24.8% of female-identifying in-house SEOs work for companies with more than 250 employees. And 72.9% of male-identifying and 75.2% of female-identifying SEOs work for companies with 250 or fewer employees. 

In-house SEOs across the board rated engineering support as their biggest challenge. Female-identifying SEOs were generally more satisfied than their male peers with the expertise of their teams and their staffing levels. They were equally satisfied with other elements of their SEO programs.

Conclusion

Although there are some very prominent and talented female-identifying SEOs, they are still underrepresented. And when they do enter the field, they are often compensated at lower rates than men. There is no single solution to broadening the talent pool, but we have a few thoughts.

Welcoming industry: The overwhelming number of  women who spoke to us about these findings wished to remain anonymous. We can only assume that means female-identifying SEOs do not feel safe openly discussing issues of gender within an SEO workplace. Silence only serves to bolster the status quo. We must foster an industry culture that does not punish the whistleblower but instead seeks to listen, understand, grow, and improve opportunities for all its members. Training and mentoring: More than in many other industries, there isn’t one clear path to becoming an SEO. The STEM fields are one training ground, but many other SEOs learn the craft from mentors. To achieve more diversity, which is good for the industry and outcomes, it’s important for girls and those who identify as girls to be supported and welcomed into STEM classes during their student years. 

As an industry, we need to take the job of mentorship seriously. Experienced SEOs can do more to mentor young talent, particularly those who identify as women. Agencies can do more to recruit and hire people with different backgrounds.

Several women whom we interviewed mentioned the importance of mentors and allies:

"I sit in countless calls where I say something and until my CTO repeats what I say, some clients don’t hear me. My CTO is so supportive and wonderful, and he will literally say, 'She’s right when she says, ‘Blah.’ She’s got 20 years under her belt… .' Then their light turns on."

"I’m good at learning complex software and doing complex technical tasks but wasn’t encouraged in this until my recent job — and even then, it wasn’t until I got a female manager that I was recognized for this ability and assigned those kinds of tasks on a regular basis."

"I spent the first two years double- and triple-checking all my work, backing everything with links from male experts in the industry. One day the CTO told me I didn’t need to do that. He trusted me. I found myself in the bathroom in tears. It took me a long time to stop sending links. (Sometimes I still send links, but only if I think he needs to read them to keep up with me!)"

Transparency about pay and pricing: The taboo about discussing fees and compensation keeps inequities hidden. It’s time to shatter that norm. Independent SEOs should run their pricing plans by mentors of all genders for perspective. Agencies should be sure that skill and experience, not gender, is the driving factor in pay and pricing. 

Don’t undersell yourself: If negotiation doesn’t come naturally to you, spend extra time preparing proposals. Research your competitors and talk with mentors. Focus on the value you’re adding. Be sure to factor in your skill level and experience as it grows. Don’t fall into the confidence gap trap. Even if you don’t tick all of the boxes, if you have most of the qualifications, forge ahead to apply or submit a proposal.

I want to acknowledge the important role that several female-identifying SEOs played in the making of this article. First, I have the privilege of working with some amazing women every day in my SEO agency. Thanks to Cindy Glover, without whom I could not have produced this study. I also want to thank Areej AbuAli whose work in creating the Women in Tech SEO community has been an invaluable resource to the SEO industry and in particular, SEOs who identify as women. Women in Tech SEO not only helps to amplify the voices of those identifying as women within the community, but also helps connect them to each other.

If you wish to explore your own possible implicit bias around issues of gender and career, check out Harvard’s Gender-Career implicit bias test.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[fmsmartchoicear]

How Big Is the Gender Gap Between Men and Women in SEO?

Posted by NicoleDeLeon

To anyone working in SEO, it’s fairly evident that this is a male-dominated industry. Although there are powerful women SEOs in the field (like Moz CEO Sarah Bird, for example), if you glance at a conference speaker lineup or peruse the bylines on search-related blogs, you’ll see that those who identify as female are few and far between. A recent list of the 140 most influential SEOs featured 104 men and just 36 women. 

So how big is the gender gap? And how does it translate to tangible things like pay and job titles? To find out, we mined the data from our State of SEO 2020 survey, which featured 652 SEOs in 51 countries. Here are some of the things we learned.

But first, a mea culpa. If SEOs who identify as women have an uphill climb in this industry, there’s no doubt that female-identifying SEOs of color have a hill that is steeper still. I deeply regret not asking demographic questions on race and ethnicity which would have allowed us to analyze the disparate impacts that bias plays on BIPOC women SEOs. It was a missed opportunity. That said, we are currently running a survey on BIPOC in SEO that aims to cover those issues and more as we continue to take an introspective view of our industry.

Men outnumber women by more than 2 to 1 in SEO

Of the 652 SEOs who participated in the study, 191 identified as women (29.3%) and 446 identified as men (68.4%). Additionally, one identified as non-binary and 14 preferred not to say. Data was collected on a SurveyMonkey form. We reached out to our own database, purchased lists of SEOs around the world, and promoted the survey on social channels for respondents. We offered no compensation or reward for participating. Non-binary, persons who chose not to identify a gender by choosing “preferred not to say”, and SEOs from the African continent were underrepresented mostly due to the outreach database itself. Finally, respondents selecting non-binary and “preferred not to say” were not calculated in the men/women percentages. 

A voluntary survey is not a scientific sampling, but those percentages mesh with previous studies by Moz that found those who identified as women made up 22.7% of SEOs in 2012, 28.2% in 2013, and 30.1% in 2015. In all four studies, men outnumbered women by more than 2 to 1. 

Importantly, the new results suggest the gap hasn’t narrowed over the past five years.

This was not a surprise to many female-identifying SEOs who participated in the study.

“I started out in the SEO industry about 10 years ago. Compared to that, I do see more women at conferences, on online platforms, and in the day-to-day work with clients,” one said. However, she added that she hasn’t seen much progress in the last 5 years. “It’s like we are kind of stuck. I suspect it’s at least partly a visibility issue: Men have been there forever, building their reputation and expertise. It is hard to keep up with that if you had a late start.”

We interviewed more than a dozen female-identifying SEOs, most of whom asked not to be named. Although a few had supportive bosses, clients, colleagues, and mentors along the way, many shared experiences of being passed over for promotions, having to fight to be heard in meetings and, in some cases, being paid less than men for the same work.

“I think you can sum up the SEO industry by looking at speaker panels of all the major conferences. There is no equality. Are you a white male and 50+? You must be an expert! Are you a woman, 40, who’s been doing this since 2004? Oh, honey, go sit down. We have an expert already,” said one woman. She said she spent 13 years at a website development company being “constantly overlooked” before moving to a digital marketing agency where she is respected and valued.

The gender gap is widest in Latin America

Global internet usage has boomed over the past two decades, with more than 59% of the world’s population now online. Although internet penetration is highest in Europe and North America, more than three-quarters of global users live elsewhere. These growing markets are served by robust communities of SEO professionals on every continent.

Our study reached SEOs in 51 countries, which we grouped into 11 large regions. Participation was highest in the U.S. with 269 SEOs responding, but we also surveyed 113 SEOs in Western Europe, 85 in the U.K., 43 in the Eastern Europe/Balkans region, 39 in Australia and New Zealand, 30 in Asia, 21 in Canada, 18 in Scandinavia, 16 in the Middle East, 12 in Central and South America, and 6 in Africa.

We found that the gender gap is most pronounced in Latin America (83.3% who identified as men to 16.7% who identified as women) and Australia/New Zealand (82.1% who identified as men to 17.9% who identified as women). 

The gender gap is least significant in Africa (although with an admittedly very small sample size due to the small number of African SEOs in our database) and Canada (52.6% who identified as men to 47.4% who identified as women). Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-professed feminist who appointed a gender-balanced cabinet, Canada has made gender equality a priority, but progress has been uneven at times. 

When it comes to gender diversity in SEO, the U.S., Asia, and the U.K. all trail behind Europe, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.

Female-identifying SEOs are more likely to freelance and specialize in content

Generally, the three most common career environments for SEOs are serving as an in-house expert at a single company, working in an agency setting, or operating independently as a consultant or freelancer. Each path has its own pros and cons. We found some interesting gender differences in where SEOs are working. 

Male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are equally likely to work in-house, with about 40% of both genders working inside a single business. And as we discuss below, both genders reported being satisfied with the working conditions and level of support they received in their roles.

Among those who practice their craft externally, men are slightly more likely to work in agencies than women (49.7% vs. 42.5%). 

The biggest gap was among freelancers. Female-identifying SEOs are almost twice as likely to be contractors or freelancers as those who identify as men (17.7% vs. 10.6%). However, it’s unclear if female-identifying SEOs are heading out on their own because they don’t feel they can get a fair shake working for others, or if they're drawn to the freedom and flexibility of freelance work.

Full-time freelancing has grown steadily across the economic landscape in recent years. It also tends to draw more women than men. Part of the appeal may be flexibility around childcare, but control over income was also a factor for some of the SEOs we interviewed. 

“I think a lot of women choose to do freelance because they want to be paid what they deserve, frankly,” said one 25-year-old female SEO in East Anglia, U.K.

However, another woman who works as an in-house SEO said, “When I got my start in marketing, most of the jobs offered to me were contractor roles, and it wasn’t clear how to become full time. It wasn’t by choice; it was what was available to me.”

Many female-identifying SEOs said it was hard for them to get hired or promoted, even with stellar track records. 

“I’ve seen loudmouth, no-record, no-proof men be hired. It’s absolutely aggravating. At my old company, I was skipped by two men who had half the knowledge for supervisor positions. Each man left within months to different companies to the next title,” said a 41-year-old female SEO in Minnesota. She subsequently changed companies and found a much more welcoming environment.

In addition to career paths, there are noteworthy differences in the areas of the industry that male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are most likely to specialize in. Most SEOs consider themselves generalists, but among those who profess a specialty, women are twice as likely to be content experts (17.6% to 7.7%). On the other hand, male-identifying SEOs are nearly twice as likely to be technical experts (21.5% to 12.6%). It’s unclear if this is a result of choice, fallout from the gender gap in STEM occupations generally, or if those who identify as women feel unwelcome among tech SEOs.

Among the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed, several said they think early gender stereotyping played a role, from the toys little boys and girls are given to what each gender is encouraged to pursue as a career.

“It’s similar to why women are not often involved in engineering jobs. Technical roles are historically associated with developer training, and women are more likely to transition from the marketing side than the programming side,” one said.

Several women also said technical SEO, in particular, is a “boys club.” 

“I participate in online forums for general Tech SEO and Women in Tech SEO, and the vibes are much different,” one woman said. “The male-dominated general forums are competitive. The female groups are more supportive, but again, we are trying to bring along and encourage women in the field.”

Another tech SEO who worked at an agency and in-house before going out on her own as a contractor said the culture can be intimidating: “I find that men are quicker to hop on and attack people about technical knowledge than women.”

Female-identifying SEOs generally charge less than men for their services

To find out more about the dollars and cents of SEO, we asked the agency and contract SEOs who participated in our study about their pricing models. In all, 261 SEOs were willing to share how they price their services and how much they charge. 

The three most common pricing models are monthly retainers, per-project pricing, and hourly rates. Although there was a wide range of rates among male-identifyng and female-identifying SEOs, the medians were consistently lower for those who identified as women.  

Among agency and contract SEOs, men are more likely to price their services with monthly retainers (59.1% of men vs. 39.4% of women). Women are more likely to charge per project (31.8% of women vs. 18.2% of men). About a quarter of both groups use hourly pricing.

But before we talk about prices...

Before we get into the details of how much male- and female-identifying SEOs earn, it’s important to note that we didn’t ask who actually set the prices. Depending on the size of an agency, SEOs who work there may have very little control over the pricing structure. 

The agency’s rates might be standard, or they might vary depending on who does the work. One can assume that freelancers choose their own rates, although they might be responding to signals about what the market will bear and what clients are willing to pay. 

Some studies have suggested that a variety of psychosocial factors lead female-identifying freelancers to charge less than their male counterparts. For instance, a Hewlett-Packard study identified a confidence gap in which women tended not to apply for a promotion unless they met all the qualifications, but men would go for it if they met 60 percent of the job requirements. 

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more cooperative and men are more competitive. Whether or not that’s true, men initiate negotiations more readily than women and tend to ask for higher compensation.

In a future study, we will certainly ask who determined the service pricing. For now, we can only report what male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs told us they charge.

Retainers for those who identify as male are 28.6% higher than for those identifying as female

Our respondents included 138 agency and contract SEOs who use monthly retainers as their primary pricing model. These retainers ranged from less than $250 a month to more than $25,000 a month, but overall they were higher for men. At the midpoint of the ranges on our survey, those identifying as male charge a median retainer of $2,250 a month while those identifying as female charge a median of $1,750.

When we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately, the median for freelancers was much lower, but it was the same for both genders: $750 a month. However, the sample size was quite small. There were only 19 freelancers in the study who primarily use retainers. Among the 119 agency SEOs who use retainer pricing, the median retainer was $2,250 for those identifying as male and $1,750 for those identifying as female. 

Project prices for men are 66.7% higher than for women

Our respondents included 54 agency and contract SEOs who typically charge on a per-project basis. The scope and cost of projects varied greatly, from less than $250 to more than $100,000. But the data showed that overall, men charge more per project — a median of $5,000 vs. $3,000 for female-identifying SEOs. 

We decided to dig deeper and found an interesting exception when we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately. 

The price gap was more than three times as wide among those who work in agencies. Our sample included 36 agency SEOs who use per-project pricing. Male-identifying SEOs reported that their agencies charge a median of $8,750 per project while those who identify as women said their agencies charge a median project fee of $2,250. 

The reverse was true among independent SEOs. The sample size was small, so we’re not sure what to make of it, but among the 18 freelance or contract SEOs we polled who charge by the project, women had the edge. Female-identifying freelancers charge a median fee of $3,750 per project to $1,750 for male freelancers. 

One contractor in her 50s hypothesized: “I think women may be more detail-oriented and spend more time with their project. Maybe men may charge less because they have more clients?”

Median hourly rates for male-identifying SEOs are 16.8% higher than for female-identifying SEOs

Our respondents included 57 agency and contract SEOs who typically bill by the hour. Among this group, the median rate is $125 for male-identifying SEOs vs. $107 for female-identifying SEOs. In this case, the difference is largely attributable to more women working as freelancers. The median rate for men and women SEOs at agencies was $125 an hour, and the median rate for both who work as contract or freelance SEOs was $88 an hour. 

Many of the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed said women tend to undervalue themselves and need to be more assertive in negotiating prices.

“I think confidence and not being scared to charge what you’re worth comes into play for the higher rates,” said digital marketing and content specialist Kristine Strange.

Both men and women feel equally supported as in-house SEOs

Some good news for in-house SEOs: When asked about working conditions, frustrations, and pain points, both men and women had very similar responses. Both reported strong levels of interdepartmental cooperation and support for SEO priorities.

Female-identifying SEOs are slightly more satisfied than male-idneitfying SEOs with in-house SEO resources

The resources available to in-house SEOs are largely dependent on the size and fiscal health of the company that employs them. 

Among in-house SEOs, women are as likely as men to work for enterprise-level companies. We found that 27.1% of male-identifying in-house SEOs and 24.8% of female-identifying in-house SEOs work for companies with more than 250 employees. And 72.9% of male-identifying and 75.2% of female-identifying SEOs work for companies with 250 or fewer employees. 

In-house SEOs across the board rated engineering support as their biggest challenge. Female-identifying SEOs were generally more satisfied than their male peers with the expertise of their teams and their staffing levels. They were equally satisfied with other elements of their SEO programs.

Conclusion

Although there are some very prominent and talented female-identifying SEOs, they are still underrepresented. And when they do enter the field, they are often compensated at lower rates than men. There is no single solution to broadening the talent pool, but we have a few thoughts.

Welcoming industry: The overwhelming number of  women who spoke to us about these findings wished to remain anonymous. We can only assume that means female-identifying SEOs do not feel safe openly discussing issues of gender within an SEO workplace. Silence only serves to bolster the status quo. We must foster an industry culture that does not punish the whistleblower but instead seeks to listen, understand, grow, and improve opportunities for all its members. Training and mentoring: More than in many other industries, there isn’t one clear path to becoming an SEO. The STEM fields are one training ground, but many other SEOs learn the craft from mentors. To achieve more diversity, which is good for the industry and outcomes, it’s important for girls and those who identify as girls to be supported and welcomed into STEM classes during their student years. 

As an industry, we need to take the job of mentorship seriously. Experienced SEOs can do more to mentor young talent, particularly those who identify as women. Agencies can do more to recruit and hire people with different backgrounds.

Several women whom we interviewed mentioned the importance of mentors and allies:

"I sit in countless calls where I say something and until my CTO repeats what I say, some clients don’t hear me. My CTO is so supportive and wonderful, and he will literally say, 'She’s right when she says, ‘Blah.’ She’s got 20 years under her belt… .' Then their light turns on."

"I’m good at learning complex software and doing complex technical tasks but wasn’t encouraged in this until my recent job — and even then, it wasn’t until I got a female manager that I was recognized for this ability and assigned those kinds of tasks on a regular basis."

"I spent the first two years double- and triple-checking all my work, backing everything with links from male experts in the industry. One day the CTO told me I didn’t need to do that. He trusted me. I found myself in the bathroom in tears. It took me a long time to stop sending links. (Sometimes I still send links, but only if I think he needs to read them to keep up with me!)"

Transparency about pay and pricing: The taboo about discussing fees and compensation keeps inequities hidden. It’s time to shatter that norm. Independent SEOs should run their pricing plans by mentors of all genders for perspective. Agencies should be sure that skill and experience, not gender, is the driving factor in pay and pricing. 

Don’t undersell yourself: If negotiation doesn’t come naturally to you, spend extra time preparing proposals. Research your competitors and talk with mentors. Focus on the value you’re adding. Be sure to factor in your skill level and experience as it grows. Don’t fall into the confidence gap trap. Even if you don’t tick all of the boxes, if you have most of the qualifications, forge ahead to apply or submit a proposal.

I want to acknowledge the important role that several female-identifying SEOs played in the making of this article. First, I have the privilege of working with some amazing women every day in my SEO agency. Thanks to Cindy Glover, without whom I could not have produced this study. I also want to thank Areej AbuAli whose work in creating the Women in Tech SEO community has been an invaluable resource to the SEO industry and in particular, SEOs who identify as women. Women in Tech SEO not only helps to amplify the voices of those identifying as women within the community, but also helps connect them to each other.

If you wish to explore your own possible implicit bias around issues of gender and career, check out Harvard’s Gender-Career implicit bias test.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[timeblues]

How Big Is the Gender Gap Between Men and Women in SEO?

Posted by NicoleDeLeon

To anyone working in SEO, it’s fairly evident that this is a male-dominated industry. Although there are powerful women SEOs in the field (like Moz CEO Sarah Bird, for example), if you glance at a conference speaker lineup or peruse the bylines on search-related blogs, you’ll see that those who identify as female are few and far between. A recent list of the 140 most influential SEOs featured 104 men and just 36 women. 

So how big is the gender gap? And how does it translate to tangible things like pay and job titles? To find out, we mined the data from our State of SEO 2020 survey, which featured 652 SEOs in 51 countries. Here are some of the things we learned.

But first, a mea culpa. If SEOs who identify as women have an uphill climb in this industry, there’s no doubt that female-identifying SEOs of color have a hill that is steeper still. I deeply regret not asking demographic questions on race and ethnicity which would have allowed us to analyze the disparate impacts that bias plays on BIPOC women SEOs. It was a missed opportunity. That said, we are currently running a survey on BIPOC in SEO that aims to cover those issues and more as we continue to take an introspective view of our industry.

Men outnumber women by more than 2 to 1 in SEO

Of the 652 SEOs who participated in the study, 191 identified as women (29.3%) and 446 identified as men (68.4%). Additionally, one identified as non-binary and 14 preferred not to say. Data was collected on a SurveyMonkey form. We reached out to our own database, purchased lists of SEOs around the world, and promoted the survey on social channels for respondents. We offered no compensation or reward for participating. Non-binary, persons who chose not to identify a gender by choosing “preferred not to say”, and SEOs from the African continent were underrepresented mostly due to the outreach database itself. Finally, respondents selecting non-binary and “preferred not to say” were not calculated in the men/women percentages. 

A voluntary survey is not a scientific sampling, but those percentages mesh with previous studies by Moz that found those who identified as women made up 22.7% of SEOs in 2012, 28.2% in 2013, and 30.1% in 2015. In all four studies, men outnumbered women by more than 2 to 1. 

Importantly, the new results suggest the gap hasn’t narrowed over the past five years.

This was not a surprise to many female-identifying SEOs who participated in the study.

“I started out in the SEO industry about 10 years ago. Compared to that, I do see more women at conferences, on online platforms, and in the day-to-day work with clients,” one said. However, she added that she hasn’t seen much progress in the last 5 years. “It’s like we are kind of stuck. I suspect it’s at least partly a visibility issue: Men have been there forever, building their reputation and expertise. It is hard to keep up with that if you had a late start.”

We interviewed more than a dozen female-identifying SEOs, most of whom asked not to be named. Although a few had supportive bosses, clients, colleagues, and mentors along the way, many shared experiences of being passed over for promotions, having to fight to be heard in meetings and, in some cases, being paid less than men for the same work.

“I think you can sum up the SEO industry by looking at speaker panels of all the major conferences. There is no equality. Are you a white male and 50+? You must be an expert! Are you a woman, 40, who’s been doing this since 2004? Oh, honey, go sit down. We have an expert already,” said one woman. She said she spent 13 years at a website development company being “constantly overlooked” before moving to a digital marketing agency where she is respected and valued.

The gender gap is widest in Latin America

Global internet usage has boomed over the past two decades, with more than 59% of the world’s population now online. Although internet penetration is highest in Europe and North America, more than three-quarters of global users live elsewhere. These growing markets are served by robust communities of SEO professionals on every continent.

Our study reached SEOs in 51 countries, which we grouped into 11 large regions. Participation was highest in the U.S. with 269 SEOs responding, but we also surveyed 113 SEOs in Western Europe, 85 in the U.K., 43 in the Eastern Europe/Balkans region, 39 in Australia and New Zealand, 30 in Asia, 21 in Canada, 18 in Scandinavia, 16 in the Middle East, 12 in Central and South America, and 6 in Africa.

We found that the gender gap is most pronounced in Latin America (83.3% who identified as men to 16.7% who identified as women) and Australia/New Zealand (82.1% who identified as men to 17.9% who identified as women). 

The gender gap is least significant in Africa (although with an admittedly very small sample size due to the small number of African SEOs in our database) and Canada (52.6% who identified as men to 47.4% who identified as women). Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-professed feminist who appointed a gender-balanced cabinet, Canada has made gender equality a priority, but progress has been uneven at times. 

When it comes to gender diversity in SEO, the U.S., Asia, and the U.K. all trail behind Europe, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.

Female-identifying SEOs are more likely to freelance and specialize in content

Generally, the three most common career environments for SEOs are serving as an in-house expert at a single company, working in an agency setting, or operating independently as a consultant or freelancer. Each path has its own pros and cons. We found some interesting gender differences in where SEOs are working. 

Male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are equally likely to work in-house, with about 40% of both genders working inside a single business. And as we discuss below, both genders reported being satisfied with the working conditions and level of support they received in their roles.

Among those who practice their craft externally, men are slightly more likely to work in agencies than women (49.7% vs. 42.5%). 

The biggest gap was among freelancers. Female-identifying SEOs are almost twice as likely to be contractors or freelancers as those who identify as men (17.7% vs. 10.6%). However, it’s unclear if female-identifying SEOs are heading out on their own because they don’t feel they can get a fair shake working for others, or if they're drawn to the freedom and flexibility of freelance work.

Full-time freelancing has grown steadily across the economic landscape in recent years. It also tends to draw more women than men. Part of the appeal may be flexibility around childcare, but control over income was also a factor for some of the SEOs we interviewed. 

“I think a lot of women choose to do freelance because they want to be paid what they deserve, frankly,” said one 25-year-old female SEO in East Anglia, U.K.

However, another woman who works as an in-house SEO said, “When I got my start in marketing, most of the jobs offered to me were contractor roles, and it wasn’t clear how to become full time. It wasn’t by choice; it was what was available to me.”

Many female-identifying SEOs said it was hard for them to get hired or promoted, even with stellar track records. 

“I’ve seen loudmouth, no-record, no-proof men be hired. It’s absolutely aggravating. At my old company, I was skipped by two men who had half the knowledge for supervisor positions. Each man left within months to different companies to the next title,” said a 41-year-old female SEO in Minnesota. She subsequently changed companies and found a much more welcoming environment.

In addition to career paths, there are noteworthy differences in the areas of the industry that male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs are most likely to specialize in. Most SEOs consider themselves generalists, but among those who profess a specialty, women are twice as likely to be content experts (17.6% to 7.7%). On the other hand, male-identifying SEOs are nearly twice as likely to be technical experts (21.5% to 12.6%). It’s unclear if this is a result of choice, fallout from the gender gap in STEM occupations generally, or if those who identify as women feel unwelcome among tech SEOs.

Among the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed, several said they think early gender stereotyping played a role, from the toys little boys and girls are given to what each gender is encouraged to pursue as a career.

“It’s similar to why women are not often involved in engineering jobs. Technical roles are historically associated with developer training, and women are more likely to transition from the marketing side than the programming side,” one said.

Several women also said technical SEO, in particular, is a “boys club.” 

“I participate in online forums for general Tech SEO and Women in Tech SEO, and the vibes are much different,” one woman said. “The male-dominated general forums are competitive. The female groups are more supportive, but again, we are trying to bring along and encourage women in the field.”

Another tech SEO who worked at an agency and in-house before going out on her own as a contractor said the culture can be intimidating: “I find that men are quicker to hop on and attack people about technical knowledge than women.”

Female-identifying SEOs generally charge less than men for their services

To find out more about the dollars and cents of SEO, we asked the agency and contract SEOs who participated in our study about their pricing models. In all, 261 SEOs were willing to share how they price their services and how much they charge. 

The three most common pricing models are monthly retainers, per-project pricing, and hourly rates. Although there was a wide range of rates among male-identifyng and female-identifying SEOs, the medians were consistently lower for those who identified as women.  

Among agency and contract SEOs, men are more likely to price their services with monthly retainers (59.1% of men vs. 39.4% of women). Women are more likely to charge per project (31.8% of women vs. 18.2% of men). About a quarter of both groups use hourly pricing.

But before we talk about prices...

Before we get into the details of how much male- and female-identifying SEOs earn, it’s important to note that we didn’t ask who actually set the prices. Depending on the size of an agency, SEOs who work there may have very little control over the pricing structure. 

The agency’s rates might be standard, or they might vary depending on who does the work. One can assume that freelancers choose their own rates, although they might be responding to signals about what the market will bear and what clients are willing to pay. 

Some studies have suggested that a variety of psychosocial factors lead female-identifying freelancers to charge less than their male counterparts. For instance, a Hewlett-Packard study identified a confidence gap in which women tended not to apply for a promotion unless they met all the qualifications, but men would go for it if they met 60 percent of the job requirements. 

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more cooperative and men are more competitive. Whether or not that’s true, men initiate negotiations more readily than women and tend to ask for higher compensation.

In a future study, we will certainly ask who determined the service pricing. For now, we can only report what male-identifying and female-identifying SEOs told us they charge.

Retainers for those who identify as male are 28.6% higher than for those identifying as female

Our respondents included 138 agency and contract SEOs who use monthly retainers as their primary pricing model. These retainers ranged from less than $250 a month to more than $25,000 a month, but overall they were higher for men. At the midpoint of the ranges on our survey, those identifying as male charge a median retainer of $2,250 a month while those identifying as female charge a median of $1,750.

When we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately, the median for freelancers was much lower, but it was the same for both genders: $750 a month. However, the sample size was quite small. There were only 19 freelancers in the study who primarily use retainers. Among the 119 agency SEOs who use retainer pricing, the median retainer was $2,250 for those identifying as male and $1,750 for those identifying as female. 

Project prices for men are 66.7% higher than for women

Our respondents included 54 agency and contract SEOs who typically charge on a per-project basis. The scope and cost of projects varied greatly, from less than $250 to more than $100,000. But the data showed that overall, men charge more per project — a median of $5,000 vs. $3,000 for female-identifying SEOs. 

We decided to dig deeper and found an interesting exception when we looked at agency SEOs and freelancers separately. 

The price gap was more than three times as wide among those who work in agencies. Our sample included 36 agency SEOs who use per-project pricing. Male-identifying SEOs reported that their agencies charge a median of $8,750 per project while those who identify as women said their agencies charge a median project fee of $2,250. 

The reverse was true among independent SEOs. The sample size was small, so we’re not sure what to make of it, but among the 18 freelance or contract SEOs we polled who charge by the project, women had the edge. Female-identifying freelancers charge a median fee of $3,750 per project to $1,750 for male freelancers. 

One contractor in her 50s hypothesized: “I think women may be more detail-oriented and spend more time with their project. Maybe men may charge less because they have more clients?”

Median hourly rates for male-identifying SEOs are 16.8% higher than for female-identifying SEOs

Our respondents included 57 agency and contract SEOs who typically bill by the hour. Among this group, the median rate is $125 for male-identifying SEOs vs. $107 for female-identifying SEOs. In this case, the difference is largely attributable to more women working as freelancers. The median rate for men and women SEOs at agencies was $125 an hour, and the median rate for both who work as contract or freelance SEOs was $88 an hour. 

Many of the female-identifying SEOs we interviewed said women tend to undervalue themselves and need to be more assertive in negotiating prices.

“I think confidence and not being scared to charge what you’re worth comes into play for the higher rates,” said digital marketing and content specialist Kristine Strange.

Both men and women feel equally supported as in-house SEOs

Some good news for in-house SEOs: When asked about working conditions, frustrations, and pain points, both men and women had very similar responses. Both reported strong levels of interdepartmental cooperation and support for SEO priorities.

Female-identifying SEOs are slightly more satisfied than male-idneitfying SEOs with in-house SEO resources

The resources available to in-house SEOs are largely dependent on the size and fiscal health of the company that employs them. 

Among in-house SEOs, women are as likely as men to work for enterprise-level companies. We found that 27.1% of male-identifying in-house SEOs and 24.8% of female-identifying in-house SEOs work for companies with more than 250 employees. And 72.9% of male-identifying and 75.2% of female-identifying SEOs work for companies with 250 or fewer employees. 

In-house SEOs across the board rated engineering support as their biggest challenge. Female-identifying SEOs were generally more satisfied than their male peers with the expertise of their teams and their staffing levels. They were equally satisfied with other elements of their SEO programs.

Conclusion

Although there are some very prominent and talented female-identifying SEOs, they are still underrepresented. And when they do enter the field, they are often compensated at lower rates than men. There is no single solution to broadening the talent pool, but we have a few thoughts.

Welcoming industry: The overwhelming number of  women who spoke to us about these findings wished to remain anonymous. We can only assume that means female-identifying SEOs do not feel safe openly discussing issues of gender within an SEO workplace. Silence only serves to bolster the status quo. We must foster an industry culture that does not punish the whistleblower but instead seeks to listen, understand, grow, and improve opportunities for all its members. Training and mentoring: More than in many other industries, there isn’t one clear path to becoming an SEO. The STEM fields are one training ground, but many other SEOs learn the craft from mentors. To achieve more diversity, which is good for the industry and outcomes, it’s important for girls and those who identify as girls to be supported and welcomed into STEM classes during their student years. 

As an industry, we need to take the job of mentorship seriously. Experienced SEOs can do more to mentor young talent, particularly those who identify as women. Agencies can do more to recruit and hire people with different backgrounds.

Several women whom we interviewed mentioned the importance of mentors and allies:

"I sit in countless calls where I say something and until my CTO repeats what I say, some clients don’t hear me. My CTO is so supportive and wonderful, and he will literally say, 'She’s right when she says, ‘Blah.’ She’s got 20 years under her belt… .' Then their light turns on."

"I’m good at learning complex software and doing complex technical tasks but wasn’t encouraged in this until my recent job — and even then, it wasn’t until I got a female manager that I was recognized for this ability and assigned those kinds of tasks on a regular basis."

"I spent the first two years double- and triple-checking all my work, backing everything with links from male experts in the industry. One day the CTO told me I didn’t need to do that. He trusted me. I found myself in the bathroom in tears. It took me a long time to stop sending links. (Sometimes I still send links, but only if I think he needs to read them to keep up with me!)"

Transparency about pay and pricing: The taboo about discussing fees and compensation keeps inequities hidden. It’s time to shatter that norm. Independent SEOs should run their pricing plans by mentors of all genders for perspective. Agencies should be sure that skill and experience, not gender, is the driving factor in pay and pricing. 

Don’t undersell yourself: If negotiation doesn’t come naturally to you, spend extra time preparing proposals. Research your competitors and talk with mentors. Focus on the value you’re adding. Be sure to factor in your skill level and experience as it grows. Don’t fall into the confidence gap trap. Even if you don’t tick all of the boxes, if you have most of the qualifications, forge ahead to apply or submit a proposal.

I want to acknowledge the important role that several female-identifying SEOs played in the making of this article. First, I have the privilege of working with some amazing women every day in my SEO agency. Thanks to Cindy Glover, without whom I could not have produced this study. I also want to thank Areej AbuAli whose work in creating the Women in Tech SEO community has been an invaluable resource to the SEO industry and in particular, SEOs who identify as women. Women in Tech SEO not only helps to amplify the voices of those identifying as women within the community, but also helps connect them to each other.

If you wish to explore your own possible implicit bias around issues of gender and career, check out Harvard’s Gender-Career implicit bias test.

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