Crystal Laing
During a work experience placement, I was able to learn about search engine optimization (SEO) and put it into action. I conducted keyword research and built quality content for six different websites. Some also involved Google Analytics and Google Tags, where I created appropriate tags to measure the long term effectiveness of the content I created. I also heavily researched for appropriate niche market ideas for a rank and rent website.
Going into the work experience placement, I had very little knowledge of SEO. When given my first task, my mentor gave me a couple of links to some blog articles about what SEO is and the general idea of what he was looking for. I expanded on this by watching tutorials on YouTube, reading informative blog posts about the topic, and I enrolled in some online courses to get the full picture. Once I had researched the keywords and written up some content, I asked my mentor to have a look and he seemed pleased with the work I did. He kept giving me different websites to create SEO content for and I ended up working on six different websites in a six week period.
The entire topic of SEO and its importance in web design was an eye-opening experience. The depth of keyword research, building quality content, and engaging users enough to drive conversions is as much an art as it is a science. SEO is a long term endeavor that involves constant monitoring and adjusting based on the data-driven decisions the developer needs to make.
I learned what SEO is and some appropriate tools to use during research like Ahrefs, Google Trends, Answer The Public, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google Data Studio. I had plenty of practice writing content on subjects I knew nothing about and had to research myself. The websites had between 4 - 15 pages of content each. Some were full pages while others were small paragraph snippets. The full pages offered more room to delve deep into the topics, and the short paragraphs were condensed versions that had to be carefully fine-tuned to be just as effective as a full page. I also wrote SERP details like meta titles and descriptions using keywords in an easy to understand and direct format.
Some subjects I wrote about included mortage services, lawyer services, Shopify migration, native art jewelry, photo booth services, cooking classes, and topics for a podcast about missing persons.
Rank and rent was another new concept in this subfield that I discovered. Plenty of research and competitive analyses were conducted to try to find a niche market that would be profitable for my mentor. To protect his business, I will not reveal what topics I had narrowed it down to, but this was a section that involved understanding statistical data and thinking outside the box to predict the future. I used Ahrefs to conduct batch analyses on competitor websites and really looked at the nitty gritty details of backlinks, top pages, traffic, keyword difficulty, domain rating, website layout and content, and more.
Google Analytics and Google Tags were another new aspect that complimented the SEO work that I did. By understanding the importance of user acquisition and engagement, I was able to create tags and triggers to measure user behaviour on a couple of websites. I made tags to measure things like scroll depth, form submission success and failures, newsletter signsup, and targeted specific forms, buttons, and links to determine which ones were being utilized and which ones were being ignored. I had practice with both Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Universal Analytics (UA).
SEO is a fascinating topic that I have continued to explore even though the work experience placement has ended. It is a huge topic that really needs constant attention in order to be up to date with new trends and search engine updates. There are many pieces to this puzzle and I feel confident that I have a solid basis on the theory of how to do this right, plus some real experience that was approved by someone successful in this field.
I have written about some of my experiences from this placement in my blog. Some related posts include: