Some business owners begin Internet marketing on their own. They read the small business guides and learn all they can about search engine optimization. It's a great way to begin Internet marketing because, in my opinion, it gives the business owner first hand knowledge of what is REALLY involved in the SEO process. But for those of you who simply hired someone to manage Internet marketing, search engine optimization for your website, let me give you a basic rundown of a sample day in the life of a search engine optimizer.
1) Mornings begin with organizing any phone calls and emails that have come through during the evening. This can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the volume of emails and phone calls. This does not include answering the emails or the phone calls, just organizing, sorting and prioritizing them onto the schedule.
2) Building incoming links. This includes writing about websites, their products and/or services in newsletters, social media marketing campaigns, back link campaigns, pay per click campaigns, updates on website pages, press releases and phone conferences with clients. At Eckweb Designs, this process is performed for 65 clients each day so this can take anywhere from 4 to 5 hours, depending on the specific project for each specific website.
3) Website Status - this is simply a review of yesterday's website statistics for each website. Was there a huge dip or rise in the number of visitors? Any unusual referrals to the website? Any website pages failing to produce conversions? The list of what needs to be done to the website is generated from this review. The list of to do's is then added to the project scheduler. This process takes a little over 2 hours, for 65 clients.
4) The To Do's - this ongoing list of "to do's" is the meat of the SEO day. Here is where we begin to implement the changes that we need to further increase the website's ranking on the search engines. The difference between Step 4 and Step 2 is that Step 4 is specific to each website, whereas Step 2 is general. All websites require incoming links. But the information gathered from each website statistics report gives us the details of what specifically needs to be done to each individual website page (if anything at all). This process is on going and we normally spend 3 - 4 hours per day on this step.
5) In between the steps above is where we answer emails and phone calls. Sometimes we just have a few moments, sometimes none at all.
But we try very hard to get to everyone as soon as possible.
The average work day for a search engine optimizer is 15 hours and it's spent mostly thinking of one question. "How can I make this website better?" - The goal of any good search engine optimizer is to make the website visibile and to improve it's conversion. We can work on the website but it's a team effort. No website can succeed without the input from it's owner. After all, the search engine optimizer knows the Internet but it's YOU who knows your business!
