Search Marketing Sage

10 weeks later as the summer internship sun sets today, I guess you could say I’ve not only building links, but breathing them.

The more a site branches out with a link, whether it’s on a blog, Twitter, or a link directory, the more visitors and popularity it will gain. This was just one of many cardinal rules that I picked up in the intricate SEO world I stepped into. So, yes Sir. I definitely learned gained some valuable tools as an SEO intern here at Search Mojo… let the countdown recap begin!

5 minutes into the internship I was figuratively slammed in the face with a slew of acronyms that made me think I stepped into a foreign language institute. Um. Someone please call Rosetta Stone for SEO apparently we are way past Generation Y. From this experience, I say: Learn as much key information about  SEO, PPC, and search engines as possible. Mine the web. For you starters in this field, you’ve stepped into another world and need to assimilate. Catch up. Luckily Search Mojo had the Search Marketing Sage blog and the Tweet Chats to help bring in some important issues and concepts. Your work will be much more valuable to you if you know how exactly you are contributing.

4 your own good, ask for help. Learn from co-workers, learn what they do and how everything functions is an interconnected web of clients, Real-time searches, algorithms, Excel spread sheets and even our favorite Specter, the 404 white screen of death. If you don’t reach out for help, you could potentially bring the company to a screeching halt—yes an extreme case. But hey, Ctrl + Z won’t always be at your side. When people ask you for help, listen. Furiously take notes. You will stay afloat this way and also know how to do the task again. It is not only refreshing to you but to others when you can run a report without asking for a slow replay of instructions.

Currently embedded into my morning stream of thoughts:

1.     Set up computer
2.     Struggle with the hot water machine to make cup of green tea
(while trying to be discrete about it)
3.     Begin multitasking with long term and short term assignments
4.     Rinse and repeat

Yes, I’ve definitely got into the swing of things.  As my 4^th week comes to a close as the Search-Mojo summer intern, I find in my treasure chest of tasks that I’ve been given a good mix of tasks to keep me on my toes. From helping to build a database of links to utilizing Google maps, I’ve been led into the jungle of balancing multiple aspects of the company each day.  I’ve wrestled with the notorious 404 error page and faulty URL 301 redirect links. I’ve begun to climb the sky-scraping mountains of social media and then realized there were miles of Twitter and Real-time Blog information to still conquer. I’ve begun free falling into the culture of Search Mojo’s company culture by aiming to stay on the ball with #seo411 Tweet Chat topics while being open minded to opportunities of meeting C’Villians at local networking events downtown.

I sit at my desk with 50 million places in mind, one fresh white vacant search box, and an intense craving for delicately steaming, herbaceous Green Tea. Faced with the abundance of choice in choosing a place to satisfy this craving, chances are, I decide to turn to Google for guidance. Lucky me.

Not too long ago, Google announced that their Local Business Center became “Google Places”, a tool to introduce businesses to the World Wide Web with valuable information on a uniform page with business bios, photos, hours of operation, and reviews. To business owners who haven’t used Google Places, the process can be a little confusing. Is this even necessary? In such a technologically lush culture, companies should take advantage of this tool that could increase their presence and popularity in a local area. Business owners should use this tool with regard to SEO to adjust their business listing, see trends and information on searchers of the business, and attract new customers with a simple internet search. With a submitted Google Place listing, a company can obtain additional local presence in the universal search results and provide additional links to drive prospective customers- no rocket scientists needed.

Never in a million years would I expect to stumble across the CEO (Ms. Janet Driscoll Miller) of Search Mojo, a distinguished SEO and PPC advertising management company guest lecturing on grounds at UVa in professor Siva Vaidhyanathan’s Digital Media class. With several lectures beforehand loaded with everything ranging from the culture of Google to heated debates on the rise of Yahoo and Bing, we finally landed on a unique field, (SEO) Search Engine Optimization.

One resume, cover letter and interview later, I landed a summer internship. You immediately think of stamping and sealing 900 envelopes while going mentally insane over a malfunctioning Xerox machine, but “intern” in this case, is actually a misnomer. Currently, I find myself (surreally) and comfortably stationed in a modern-tangerine-and-coffee-colored work space. When I look up from my rolling leather office chair, I visually inhale floating, spherical lanterns, illuminating the room as if I were walking into a futuristic Zen meditation solarium- something that I could have extracted from a center spread in an Ikea magazine. These intricate details are important because it is an immediate visual symbol to what I associated with one of the dominating themes of this company: Modern innovation, pulling from so many creative avenues to maintain a strong position in this competitive field. Actually, one of the most highly sought after things in the world aren’t golden treasure chests or tropical islands in your backyard, it’s the number one spot in a search engine’s results. Truth.