Search Engine Optimization - A Job Guiding Web Surfers to Your Company’s Site - NYTimes.com

The birth of the Internet gave rise to jobs in areas like Web development and design. And as companies and consumers flocked to the Web, jobs in Internet marketing soon followed. Search engine optimization, part of Internet marketing, is what companies use to drive traffic to Web sites in the hope that consumers will buy a product or service, for example, or subscribe to a publication.

“The name of the game in S.E.O. is search-engine ranking,” Mr. Yorchak said. The job involves “actions that will land a site at or close to the top in Internet search results,” he said. Those tasks include identifying appropriate keywords for search engines like Yahoo or Google to home in on, and adding them to a Web site’s programming code. So if a used-car company, for example, has used search engine tactics, and an Internet user searches a phrase like “pre-owned automobiles,” its URL may appear prominently in the search results.

Such actions apply to what are called natural or organic search engine results, versus a paid sponsorship, in which a company buys a listing in prominent sections of the search results page, identified by terms like Sponsored Sites or Sponsored Links.

Google offers a search optimization starter guide at google.com/support/webmasters, which offers best practices for increasing a company’s ranking in queries. An explanation of the search results page is also provided.

Fresh Starts - A Job Guiding Web Surfers to Your Company’s Site - NYTimes.com