Search engine optimisation

Search engine optimisation is getting a page found without paying for the click. It compounds slowly and then holds, which is precisely why employers who need a number by the end of the quarter undervalue it and reach for paid channels instead.

What the work consists of

Understanding what a person typing a query actually wants, building the page that answers it better than what currently ranks, and removing the technical obstacles stopping a search engine from reading it. Most of the job is content and structure; a minority is technical, and almost none of it is tricks.

What employers screen for

Whether you can explain a ranking change. Anyone can recite tactics. The useful skill is diagnosing why traffic moved — an algorithm update, a technical regression, a competitor’s new page, or simple seasonality — and knowing what evidence would tell those apart. Candidates who say "I do not know yet, here is how I would find out" interview better than candidates who are certain.

• Search intent, which is frequently not what the keyword literally says
• Technical basics: crawlability, canonicals, status codes, and structured data that matches the visible page
• Internal linking as architecture rather than as a quota of links per post
• Honest measurement, including conceding when a change cannot be attributed

The honest limit

Results take months, and the work is routinely judged on a shorter timescale than the work takes. Before accepting a role, agree what will be measured and when — otherwise you will be assessed on a number that had no opportunity to move. It is also the skill most contaminated by bad advice, much of it describing an internet that stopped existing a decade ago.