Companies seek a new type of Internet consultant

As more companies seek Internet exposure, they’re increasingly turning to professionals who can do more than create an attractive Web site.

By Patricia V. Rivera
The Dallas Morning News The Seattle Times

They want consultants who can help their sites appear higher on lists generated by Google and other search engines. And for this task, Web-site creators need many other technical skills.

"These professionals are a hybrid between marketers and programmers — it’s kind of becoming more specialized. Search engines are getting smarter, so people working on them must be smarter, too," said John Sanchez, president of Zunch Communications, an interactive marketing communications firm in Dallas.

The demand for search-engine optimization, or SEOs as they’re known in the industry, is expected to grow, said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, a Web site devoted to the search-engine industry.

Interest in higher search-engine placement has created a cottage industry for companies that can sell search-engine advertising. But optimization is a different approach that requires an understanding of algorithms.

Google, for instance, uses more than 100 criteria by which to rank sites, and it constantly refines them to stay ahead of optimizers.

Cheryle Pingel, president of the Fort Worth, Texas-based Range Online Media, started her marketing company in 2001 almost solely to offer search-engine-optimization services. The majority of companies that wanted to maximize their Internet presence were growing restless with banner ads and costly animated gimmicks, she said.

But finding the right employees has been a challenge because the industry is evolving. Range’s most promising hire was a woman with a computer-science degree and extensive marketing knowledge.

"That’s the perfect mix because you can talk on the technical side of the search engines but really drive it from a marketing perspective," Pingel said.

The profession still lacks unified credentials or educational standards. That may explain why salaries nationwide can range from $30,000 to more than $100,000.

"You have everything from a basement guy who is brilliant but who may not have the education to back him up to a handful of degreed professionals who have gone through the ranks and who have the experience and the results to prove their knowledge," she said.

Sanchez of Zunch Communications said SEOs must understand how reciprocal linking fits into a search-engine-optimization strategy, develop effective keywords and phrases that will help, and be able to differentiate between design and HTML code skills.

"A site can have ugly, poorly done HTML and still be aesthetically pleasing," he said. But without proper HTML coding, search engines have problems reading a site. "I repeat — don’t mistake design for HTML knowledge. HTML knowledge is a big part of search-engine optimization," he said.

Sullivan, the Search Engine Watch editor, said it’s difficult to find individuals who can design an appealing site and ensure that it will please search engines.

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