Looking through some old posts, I noticed that there's quite a bit of negativity when it comes to the discussion of the actual work that goes into optimizing and promoting a website. Sure, link building is generally no fun and keyword research can get more than a bit monotonous, but there are some terrific parts to the job, too. Here's a few of my favorites:
- Training
I really enjoy the process of teaching folks about SEO - usually I have a Flash presentation, but other times it's simply a projector with a company's website. Walking through the mistakes, explaining them to a savvy web/marketing team and uncovering opportunities is exceptionally rewarding. - Site Reviews
The process of sitting down with Rebecca and/or Jane to dive through a site's problems, diagnose them and offer solutions makes for a good few hours. Usually there's several distinct phases of work for a site review, but I would say that it's more enjoyable now that someone else is taking notes and typing it up :) - Viral Content Brainstorming
One of my very favorite tasks - we typically gather as a team in the common room (where Matt, Jeff, Rebecca, Scott & Jane have desks) and start listing ideas we think could help a company/site/blog get some online or offline press. The only frustrating part is when we think we've got a great idea, only to have a client reject it - sometimes going back to the drawing board once we think we've got a surefire winner dampens our creative spirit. - Analytics Reviews
For some odd reason, reviewing the ins and outs of how a site gets traffic, where people spend time, what pages convert and where abandonment rates are high feels very satisfying. - Launching Linkbait
The day of a big launch, watching the Diggs go up and the del.icio.us tags rise and the blog mentions start to roll in is practically an adrenhaline high. Granted, we don't always make it, but it's always thrilling to watch. - Talking to New Clients
When we used to pitch/sell clients on our services, I never enjoyed this part of the job, but now that we get calls and emails from interested parties, I find it fascinating to dig into a new property and walk through the trials and tribulations of a company's online efforts. - Blogging
No surprise there - I love to write on the SEOmoz blog. I think that over the past couple years, it's been one of the most rewarding parts of my life overall.
What are some of the best parts of your job?
Yeah, enjoyable for you. Just kidding; actually, I get a lot of value out of taking notes while you review, because it really helps me to go through the process of what to look for when reviewing a website. Now that I don't suck hard at doing site reviews, I quite enjoy them as well :)
Something else that is really fun is to be talking to someone who has seen your work and used your work, but didn't know that you had done the work. I find that quite rewarding as well.
I guess that's not a task, but it is one of my favorite parts of the job.
1: If you said anything to do with "analytics", you are a huge nerd. Nothing wrong with being a huge nerd, but you are. face it.
2. Linkbait is where all the cool kids are.
3. Training: If you can't do, teach.
4. Site Reviews: Fun to see your clients open their eyes to the monstrosity that is their website, but aside from that the work is generally boring.
I think that old adage falls over in anything that is still as new as SEO. I'd go so far as to say that you cannot do it at all if you can't educate. You need to be able to educate customers - even if a self-publisher.
At the higher levels of the game, there comes a point where you simply must teach/train others, because you simply can't keep up with demand, and in fact are spending more time politely turning people away than in doing the work for those you accept. If you don't create some choices, those begging letters eat up all your time.
Ammon, I actually agree. I just wanted to start a fight. Im a sucker for attention (hence the adoration of linkbait).
Look at me, Content Isn't King, I Love MSN, Go Yankees.
One thing Rand mentions is that he loves doing work with the rest of his staff. That's important when it comes to loving your job or specific tasks, especially when your job is to analyze stuff over a computer screen. There has always been a point asked to many SEO's about why they focus more on obtaining clients instead of building their own sites; the answer lies in the fact that being a consultant involves meeting and communicating with people. I may not make as much money as the consultant who owns a hundred affiliate sites, but I'm also not sitting in a room all day on the damn computer. I'm out there interacting with the world - and that has to be my favorite task of all.
You know, I have thought a lot about enjoying what I do (my job as SEO/Marketer/other), and I have cut down the answer to "whatever that brings value to the customers and returns back my investment of effort, time and energy".
Simply put, it is always fun to do something that will result in something positive, be it simple site optimization (when a PR6 site starts bringing twice as more traffic), creating quality content (when it gets linked to a lot and gets lots of low competition searches) or cooperating with other people inside the industry (resulting in a significant increase of traffic, links and sales).
Of course, talking with the people is alright, but I am more of solitary person, than a chatter, so this isn't the only reason to work with the real people (locally).
I m new In the field of SEO,but i found it very interesting,but i don't have proper traing in my company.Although i have done a lot of things like blogging,link exchanging,link building etc.But i want to learn other techniques also .Your blog had some very good stuff.The point you have mentioned are very interesting and quite helpful.
Thanks for your post.
Rand, I really enjoy your personal style of writing again and again and the incredibly useful input you share with the community. I even share your preference for long, exhaustive listings. Rand - somehow you're my hero :-)
Competitive intelligence.
So much good stuff to learn from rooting out the sneaky tricks your competitors are using.
I do less and less SEO these days. I think that if you are working on a small number of sites you can focus more on the content. My favorite jobs are....
1) Planning development projects... identifying where the content will come from, how it will be organized, how it will fit into the site structure.
2) Running the analytics on new pages and projects to learn how visitors interact with them and how I can change them to optimize traffic flow and income.
3) Adsense optimization. Always doing this. Changing colors, placements, formats. Trying to find the balance that gets a better yield and does not stink up my site. Amazing differences in income can be found from experimenting and keeping close records.
The Ulimate professional would be an expert:
Web site / Graphic Designer Programmer/ Developer Server Admin SEO / SEM
Imagine the high of taking a concept from beginning to completion without needing to outsource anything.
And making Millions - yes MILLIONS in ROI for clients, around the nation!
Having them safe enough on the GYM organics to the point where they will have security FOR YEARS!!!
And looking back at it all years later - to the design conception that began in your mind.
If you could do all of that, what would the title on your business card be?
I used to do all those bar Server Admin, when I worked as a consultant...
My business card tagline?
"Pete Wailes: Professional Webmonkey Swinging through the bows of the digital superjungle"
I doing the same, except bloging (i finished with it half years ago).
But I enjoyed a meeting with client very much, sometimes it can be very funny...
Being a HTML/CSS geek next to an SEO, i get some extreme fun out of making a site look the same as it always did, with half the code, and this time semantically correct :)
Fantastic list that brought a smile to my face and reminded me why I love my job :)
#1 - Training and Education is always fun. SEO at its roots is a very simple premise and the early wins from educating the guys in the trenches will usually blow the stakeholders away. Their reactions = gold.
#2 - Site Reviews whether they be for a client's site or a competitive analysis are great. Wading through a new website is akin to exploring uncharted territory. It's twice as good when you discover the 'naughty' things a site is doing :)
#3 - Brainstorming is always a highlight of my job. A well-facilitated brainstorm session is pure positivity since criticism is placed on hold until after the session. An hour or two of positive creative thinking is refreshing after a monotonous block of menial tasks.
#4 - Site Analytics. This is probably just the geek in me talking but successfully extracting (and acting upon) an insightful nugget of data can have an unbelievably satisfying snowball effect, but much too often I see marketers take analytics for granted - as Mark Twain said, "People commonly use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination"
#5 - Linkbait counters. Watching a digg count go up is good for the ego. We concluded for our network that each digg represents roughly ~20 page impressions. Similarly, watching a blog hit a comment 'breakpoint' can be very exciting.
"The article is about to hit 500 comments/diggs!"
#8 - Catching up with the search community - Browsing through RSS feeds, surfing favorite forums and responding to emails/IMs is a highlight of the day.
Surfing through the list of fav feeds at the start and end of each working day is almost cathartic. Be it humor, knowledge or the latest news it is impossible not to learn something new. The day when reading feeds & forums becomes a chore will be a sad day indeed (prune your feeds/forums into a tight must read list!)
For me, it's got to be the following:
1 - Doing the research. Finding out why no-one is coming to the site in the first place, where the problems lie.
2 - Sorting it out. Getting everything clean and shiney, making sure it all works properly, and that the seo is sound.
3 - Watching the SERPs. Nothing beats the payoff when you see a site you've sorted out suddenly jump 10/20/30+ places and start to rank.
4 - Writing/Blogging. Granted, I had to the blogging on hold for around eight months, whilst I focused on book stuff (which is now almost finished, at last). But writing in whatever form pushes my buttons. You gotta love it.
5 - Anything viral. Making something people will talk about, be it because it's funny, or because it's outrageous in some way... And then hearing about it from someone else, who's just found it. That kicks ass!
6 - Reading Blogs. Seeing what everyone else is doing, and touching base with the rest of the SEO world.
Well, that's what floats my boat. :)
I find understanding and listening to the clients dream a really enjoyable part of being in this industry.
Hearing the stories of what brought them to where they are now, and their vision of where they want to be.
This can inspire alot of positive emotions - especially when you know you can help them achieve it.
Launching Linkbait and watching the counters climb is like crack 2.0 ;-)
Like Joost I'm a bit of a coder too and love to clean up messy source-code.
But for me by far the best part is when clients really get what chances are in the internet for them and that seo isn't just a one time thing.
The initial clean up of a poorly optimised site is always fun - setting up good titles, headers, and good meta descriptions, cleaning up crufty markup, possibly pulling hand-coded html pages into a database for better control. And then seeing the rankings jump from the simple changes made and then having a much better idea of the actual strength and possibilities of the site :)
And getting that first link and watching the logs for the start of the crawls (certainly a good way to waste time, if nothing else!) And then the first SERPs hit...