SEO (search engine optimization) is moving on up. Both the BBC News and Huffington Post have recently announced plans to use SE optimization in their online content. It’s one of the latest attempts by the journalism field to compete with user-generated content and maintain a presence. It’s also an example of SEO’s gradual shift into the mainstream. As content optimization becomes more widely adopted, the number of companies (and writers) specializing in SEO copywriting will also be on the rise.

Writers for SEO companies will, of course, continue to be responsible for creating readable content that is arranged and worded in such a way that it generates traffic, but they may also find themselves expanding their technical skill set. Sear Engine marketing, after all, is much more complicated than simply repeating a phrase throughout an article. Writers who can claim proficiency in XHTML, search engine algorithms, and site design will have an edge in a burgeoning field. Writers with extensive SEM experience may even find themselves becoming consultants and teachers for the new wave of SEM writers this growth is ushering in. In fact, many companies already offer in-house training, presentations, and auditing for companies interested in making the most of search engines.

However, even as the more established places finally come around, the field remains tainted by black hat tactics. Spamdexing, the catchphrase for such tactics, is when illegitimate sites manipulate a search engine’s index and resources to improve their placement in search results. Though most search engines, including Google, have ways to combat and minimize such methods, it’s impossible to cut out completely. As such, any serious web content writer needs to have a code of ethics rivaling that of any journalist.

The poor reputation earned by black hat SEO may be part of the reason why some content-heavy websites have yet to adopt it. FOX News, for example, plans to begin charging users instead for its web content. They claim that people will pay for content if it is original and high quality. Yet part of the problem with such models is the assumption that optimized content isn’t equally capable of generating business and quality traffic. A good SEO article will be succinct and encourage readers to surf around the site the search engine brought them to. In this way, poorly written articles that beat you over the head with keywords might be just as bad for SEO’s reputation as link farms or keyword stuffing, two black hat tactics. It remains vital that writers for SEO companies continue to create engaging content.

Social media, much like SEM, is becoming another fundamental of online marketing. Even better, the two make a great pair since part of SEO is linking and being linked to and social media is an easy way to achieve this. Writers, then, are also likely to increasingly utilize social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to generate additional traffic for their articles, parent sites, and companies. As an added benefit, social media can be a great way to draw regular readership and develop a niche audience.

The start of this new decade already seems to be about writers for search engine marketing companies embracing the latest in internet media and technology and avoiding the well-established damaging practices like spamdexing. Seeing the top web fields grow and work together should make for a decade that’s worth writing in and about.