it can be very rewarding to either get your site or a clients site to the top of the search engine rankings

a bad reason would be the time consumption

I don't think there are any disadvantages of choosing SEO as a career. Knowledge never gets waste. New learning always helps to get better. And nowadays SEO is the biggest business on the internet, IMO.

Seo career is dieing because search engine algorithms are becoming smarter to detect manipulation .

Its not dieing but its getting more interesting, they are setting new standards as there are lots of spammers all over the internet. The spammers will automatically drop down with the new and strict rules of search engines. This way the competition between professionals will be tough and the best people will get the success.

If you have the capability and self-confidence in you then search engines rules and standards doesn't matters, The success will be yours.

The time consumption is a very good sample and it can show to you the black side of the SEO works. If you build up your clients' business with SEO according to your best workmanship maybe you will be underpaid and grudge for your clients' business successes. And it's not a good feeling . . . I think this time consumption as a part of your SEO career is excellent if you build up only your own business.

Once SEO was not a separate profession - Web masters performed some basic SEO for the sites they managed and that was all. But as sites began to grow and make money, it became more reasonable to hire a dedicated SEO specialist than to have the Web master do it. The demand for good SEO experts is high and is constantly on the rise.

this is good if u chose seo as a career

I agree with you! One of my friends earned $10k every month from his clients and it WOWs me to be more interested in seo..

Alyssa, if you are coming direct out of college and you are looking to get in on the ground floor then you will be OK because the more you learn the more valuable you become. If you have been doing SEO for a sustained period of time with a specific company and have built up a body of work and a solid skill set/knowledge base and you are contemplating becoming an SEO consultant, good luck and make sure you have something to fall back on during the lean times.

If neither of these scenarios describe you and you are just thinking of a career change and wondering if SEO is a good choice, do your research and talk to some serious SEO consultants before taking the plunge. Just like everyone who decided to become an independent web designer 10 years ago when many IT companies were adding web design services to their offerings, you will be competing against every web design firm, PR firm and marketing firm that has added SEO services as an offering. As it is just another revenue stream for these big firms, you will be underbid by companies that have more resources than you and will probably be able to handle more clients than you.

Good luck and research everything before taking the plunge.