As a result of all of the twists and turns the search industry has endured over the past year, the value that Web companies put on SEOs has never been higher. That’s according to the data that Crandall Associates released in the 2011 edition of the annual Online Marketing Salary Guide, which reports an increase of 17.5 percent for average starting salaries in the search field.

Starting salaries in the U.S. have gone up to $59,100 from $50,300, while the average salary has reached $75,000 and high-end salaries climbed 2.6 percent to $87,300. E-commerce directors will earn the highest Web salaries overall in 2011, but the rise from last year was fractional.