One of the hottest fields of the past several years, search engine optimization and its close cousin, search marketing, have become increasingly important to companies looking to improve their websites’ search rankings and make themselves more visible to potential customers online.

Perhaps because this field is filled with statistical research and analysis professionals — whose efforts tend to focus largely on interpreting users’ traffic and website usage patterns — writers and editors often overlook it when they’re searching for jobs in online media. But writing and editing play an essential role in the success of any search optimization effort, and that makes the “SEO” (short for “search engine optimization”) copywriter a critical member of every search marketing agency’s team.

Still, you might ask, what is unique about SEO copywriting and how does it differ from what any advertising or interactive copywriter does?

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There’s perhaps no better choice for my first book review for this site than Robert Bly’s latest effort to help writers in all fields find more lucrative work, 88 Money-Making Writing Jobs, published by Sourcebooks on the first day of the new year in 2009. Packed with, you guessed it, 88 nuts-and-bolts chapters on how to make money in a wide variety of writing venues, this book should be on the shelf of any writer who wants to make a living with words.

And when I describe the book chapters as “nuts and bolts,” that’s exactly what I mean — Bly’s book isn’t meant to be read from cover to cover so much as to be a reference, in which writers can pick and choose the areas in which their interest lies to learn more. Each chapter provides an overview of the field (such as advertising copywriting), plus info on how to break into the field, how much it pays, where to look for employment, what writers who work in the field actually write, and more.

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For freelance writers of all kinds, there’s perhaps no site that’s as vital to keeping up with the publishing industry — from the perspective of writers and creative professionals — than MediaBistro.com. Packed with years’ worth of feature articles, blog posts and message boards detailing the trials, tribulations, challenges and issues facing the freelance writer over the past half-decade or so, the site is considered a daily must-read for those hustling their way through this business.

And hustle they must do, because today’s economic times are particularly tough for the freelance writer, even though they follow several years of downsizing that have left the magazine business a shadow of its former self, in terms of the opportunities that once were available to writers in the industry as well as the handsome per-word rates freelance writers especially could once command.

The good news is that MediaBistro tackles all these issues and more head-on, with a New York sensibility (it was founded and still operates from its headquarters there, though now it is part of a larger communications company called Jupiter Media) that can often spill over into either snarky or clever, depending on your perspective and likely the part of the country in which you live.

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Thought I’d pass on this tribute to reading in general and a recognition of the growing importance it’s taking on in all our lives these days, even as the news from the publishing and journalism worlds seems filled with only tales of gloom, doom and recession. It’s a heartwarming (for readers and writers) article by novelist Ann Patchett, in today’s Wall Street Journal.

One of the main takeaways from the piece is that despite what’s going on for those of us who work in creative professions, the basic human impulse to learn and to be delighted — whether from entertainment like books, movies and television shows or from ads, magazines and newspapers — isn’t going away. In fact, all of today’s latest technology — though it is no doubt causing massive, convulsive change in these industries at present — is reinforcing that impulse. It’s up to us to harness these technologies and find ways to adapt that will help us “ride the wave” into the future.

More on that in a future post — until then, you can read the full text of Ms. Patchett’s piece here.

My apologies on the light posting as of late, the holidays were a bit busy! But I’ll be back with regular updates very soon. In the meantime, wanted to note that I installed a new theme look and feel for the site, which you can see now. Let me know if it causes any problems.

The job title “content strategist” is one that has evolved over the past decade or so as the interactive agency business has grown and with it the need for people who can think strategically about the kinds of content that websites should publish.

Content strategists combine the skills of writers, editors and publishers to think in a holistic way about what users should see when they visit a site — are they looking for articles? Audio or video clips? Calendars of upcoming events?

They also give a lot of time to thinking about how content should be presented on a website, the order in which users should see it, and the editorial voice and tone it should speak with consistently across a site.

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How will copywriters work in the future, and how will they approach what they do as advertising dollars continue their push away from print and broadcast media into online environments?  This piece in yesterday’s New York Times gives us some clues, as it reports on new companies that are starting in response to the age-old question of what makes users click ads on websites. Money quote:

The creators and designers of ads have long believed that a clever idea or emotional resonance drives an ad’s success. But that argument may be difficult to make when analysis suggests that it is not an ad’s brilliant tagline but its pale-yellow background and sans serif font that attracts customers.

The question is, “how do we combine creative energy, which is a manual and sort of qualitative exercise, with the raw processing power of computing, which is all about quantitative data?” said Tim Hanlon, executive vice president of VivaKi Ventures, the investment unit of Publicis Groupe.

“I think it’s clear that the traditional process of agencies is clearly not going to survive the digital era without significant changes to our approaches,” Mr. Hanlon said.

Read the whole story here.

Anyone who’s ever worked in an advertising agency is familiar with the role of the copywriter. Responsible for everything from coming up with concepts to writing the copy that fills brochures, billboards, direct mail pieces, magazine advertisements and scripts for radio and television spots, copywriters perform one of the most sought-after jobs for new graduates with degrees in advertising, marketing and communications every year.

Within the interactive agency world, what copywriters do on a day-to-day basis is very different, however, from what their counterparts in the traditional ad agency world. While those in traditional ad agencies write for print and broadcast media — and strive to meet the expectations of readers, viewers and listeners paying attention to those kinds of media, who can be expected to follow a story or commercial from beginning to end — those working in interactive agencies write most often for websites and online advertisements, which call for a different approach to writing.

Web pages, promotional text & banner ads

Copywriters who work in the interactive agency world (or the web design agency world) are part of a creative team that builds an interactive site experience on the Web. This means that rather than creating an ad that is a self-contained unit, they have to think of how Web users will browse content online, and how what they write can support the goals or the tasks a user is trying to achieve.

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Though the posts here on JobsForEnglishMajors.com have been light as of late, that is changing as I’m planning a series of articles, features and tips on how recent graduates, mid-career professionals as well as anyone else with an English degree can pursue their dream job. What I plan on providing readers here is a combination of practical, tool- and tip-related items as well as explanations of the different kinds of jobs those with a writing, editing and journalism-related background do — what they’re like every day, the kinds of challenges people in these jobs encounter, and how to successfully seek them out.

In the meantime, here’s a rundown of the kinds of content I’ll be providing on this site, to give you a hint of what’s to come:

Job Categories & Descriptions

Aside from working for a news outlet, an advertising agency or within the corporate communications department of a large company, many people who hold writing-related jobs can’t easily describe what they do. For example, interactive copywriters and Web content strategists — what kinds of writing do they do, what does “content strategy” mean, and how does one find a job like these? We’ll provide articles with in-depth detail on the universe of jobs available to those with English degrees, including:

• Where to look for different categories of jobs
• The skills & experience needed for each
• What employers look for in job candidates for these jobs
• The pitfalls & challenges associated with each day-to-day

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Whether you’re a new college graduate or you’ve got several years of experience in journalism, JournalismJobs.com should be one of the sites you visit regularly for the latest jobs in print, television, radio and online media around the United States.

The site includes listings for full-time and freelance positions as well as internships and fellowships at newsrooms across the country, all easily accessible from its very user-friendly job search engine. Also highlighted are featured jobs (usually jobs that require at least a few years of solid journalism experience) at news outlets, often in major markets.

While JournalismJobs.com also includes links to salary surveys and its own media-related news and feature stories (now hosted by its sister site JournalismGossip.com, to which we’ll devote a future blog post), the job search engine is the core feature of the site.

Read all about it at JournalismJobs.com.