A Future in Directing Online Traffic Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

Nick Yorchak was hired as the director of search engine optimization for LeeReedy Creative, a public relations and advertising agency in Denver.


A COLLEGE internship at an interactive marketing company ended up the ticket to a promising career for Nick Yorchak, 22. During the internship, he learned a skill known as search engine optimization. In August, he was snapped up by LeeReedy Creative, a public relations and advertising agency in Denver, and given the title of search engine optimization director.

“So much for everyone asking me what kind of job a history major could get,” said Mr. Yorchak, who graduated last June from the University of San Diego.

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.

Whether the title is S.E.O. director, manager, architect or specialist, the appearance of such positions on job boards shows that companies are intent on generating more Web traffic. In the past, staff writers were often given the task as an extra responsibility, and in some companies, they still do this work. Advertising and public relations agencies also specialize in this skill.

It’s not just hands-on practitioners who need search engine skills, said Katie Donovan, business development manager at the Sempo Institute in Wakefield, Mass. The organization is the educational division of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, an industry trade group.

“The Web designer needs to understand the technique to target the appropriate audience,” Ms. Donovan said. “Copywriters need to understand how to write Web site content that incorporates S.E.O. Public relations people need to understand S.E.O. so that when they post a press release, for example, the content will attract search engines.”

The field has grown exponentially in the last eight years, said Jeffrey Pruitt, president of Sempo, which has about 850 members in 41 countries; about half are agencies. The field “involves more than optimizing Web sites today,” he said. “For example, search engines are starting to read audio, video and image files on the Internet, so companies are incorporating S.E.O. tactics in news releases and podcasts.”

A 2007 report by Forrester Research predicts that in 2012, companies will spend almost $9 billion on search engine optimization.

One way to learn the skill is to take a course, like the online one offered by Sempo, or to read books like “SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible” by Jerri L. Ledford. Industry conferences are helpful and may offer courses as well, Ms. Donovan said. Some people, like Mr. Yorchak during his internship, learn on the job from others.

Scott Daughtry, 28, joined NetQoS, a software company in Austin, Tex., two years ago as a marketing coordinator and taught himself search engine skills by reading blogs and online forums. After his boss asked him if he wanted to put his mass communications background and knowledge of search engines to use, he became the company’s S.E.O. specialist.

“I see more companies moving this specialty in-house,” he said, calling it “such a complex function that it’s hard to explain to an agency everything their employees would need to know about a client company to do the best job.” Mr. Daughtry was promoted to marketing operations manager in August and now tracks the company’s marketing performance as well.

MR. YORCHAK’S responsibilities have also expanded since he joined LeeReedy. He is now involved in social media marketing (broadcasting clients’ messages on blogs, Facebook or YouTube, for example), and Web analytics, to track user behavior and other site metrics. His new title is director of online marketing.

Recently, Mr. Yorchak was handing out advice to friends who hadn’t been able to find jobs since they graduated in June, and he used his good fortune as an example.

“You should learn search engine optimization,” he told them.


By PATRICIA R. OLSEN

A Sisterhood of Workplace Infighting

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Peggy Klaus, a leadership coach, in her Berkeley, Calif., office. Among the excuses she has heard for bullying among women: Why help someone who could replace you?

I GREW up the youngest of four girls, and nothing was more important to me than my sisters. Sure, we had our fights, but the idea of not getting along for any extended time was out of the question. Helping one another was paramount, especially after my mother died during our childhood.

Later in life, as I started my career, these lessons from my sisterhood served me well, and I naïvely thought that the same would be true for other women, especially on the heels of the women’s movement.

But to this day, a pink elephant is lurking in the room, and we pretend it’s not there. For years, I have heard behind closed doors from women — young and old, up and down the ladder — that we can be our own worst enemies at work.

Let me stress that throughout my career, I’ve benefited in countless ways from the advice and support of my female colleagues, just as so many others have.

But while women have come a long way in removing workplace barriers, one of the last remaining obstacles is how they treat one another. Instead of helping to build one another’s careers, they sometimes derail them — for example, by limiting access to important meetings and committees; withholding information, assignments and promotions; or blocking the way to mentors and higher-ups.

And if you are a woman and happen to have a female co-worker who is a bully, watch out. A recent study by the Workplace Bullying Institute examining office behaviors — like verbal abuse, job sabotage, misuse of authority and destroying of relationships — found that female bullies aim at other women more than 70 percent of the time. Bullies who are men, by contrast, tend to be equal-opportunity tormentors when it comes to the gender of their target.

Despite all the money spent annually on women’s leadership conferences and professional development programs, you’d be hard-pressed to find a workshop on women mistreating one another at work. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a huge proponent of women’s leadership programs. But teaching career skills is not enough if we ignore one of the most important reasons for holding these events in the first place: learning to value one another so we can all get ahead.

I’ve heard plenty of theories on why women undermine one another at work. Probably the most popular one is the scarcity excuse — the idea that there are too few spots at the top, so women at more senior levels are unwilling to assist female colleagues who could potentially replace them.

Another explanation is what I call the “D.I.Y. Bootstrap Theory,” which goes like this: “If I had to pull myself up by the bootstraps to get ahead with no one to help me, why should I help you? Do it yourself!”

Some people argue that women aren’t intentionally undermining one another; rather, they don’t want to be accused of showing favoritism toward other women.

Others contend that women mistreat one another because of hyperemotionality, leading them to become overly invested in insignificant nuances and causing them to hold grudges. I’ve encountered this phenomenon among women who feel personally assaulted when someone criticizes them or their ideas.

Research shows that, in general, women are the more empathetic sex and are by nature more attuned to their own and others’ feelings. This is a great advantage when dealing with the human complexities of the workplace. But there’s a downside: If women take things too personally when challenged or criticized, they are prone to overreaction. When that happens, there’s trouble.

And, of course, some people assert that while women compete quite ably on the sports field and in the classroom, they haven’t learned how to compete in a healthy way at the office. For example, men often handle their feelings of envy and jealousy with humor and a left-handed compliment: “I’m going to whip your butt on our sales goals this month.” Or, “Who’d you have to pay off for that promotion?” They deal with it, and they move on. Although considered perfectly acceptable for men in most business settings, this kind of banter is not as socially acceptable for women.

Now, I’m not advocating that women emulate men. We tried that route in the ’70s and ’80s during the power-suit era. But when women are chained to stereotypes of being nurturers and cheerleaders, unexpressed and unresolved feelings of jealousy will surface — often in a far more destructive manner that’s reminiscent of mean-girl behavior from middle school.

BUT in the end, determining why women undermine one another’s workplace success isn’t what’s most important. Rather, we need to simply stop our own misbehavior and to call our colleagues on theirs.

Many of us, however, find it hard to even acknowledge mistreatment by another woman. We fear that bringing our experience into the light and talking about it will set us back to that ugly gender stereotype we have fought so hard to overcome: the one about the overemotional, backstabbing, aggressive (and you know what’s coming) bitch.

Yet, expecting women to be universally supportive of one another or to give preferential treatment to anyone with two X chromosomes is an equally unworkable view.

If we really want to clear one of the last remaining hurdles to gender parity and career success, let’s start treating one another not worse or better, but simply as well as we already treat the guys — or better yet, the way we want our nieces, daughters, granddaughters and sisters to be treated.

By PEGGY KLAUS