Tips to Getting That Digital Marketing SEO Internship or Job

Tips on Getting that Digital Marketing SEO Internship or Job

Digital marketing covers a wide area of online marketing channels. They include SEO, PPC, Social Media and Web Design. An aspiring digital marketer can do a number of things to help get that SEO internship or Junior Account Manager position.

Read up on Search Engine Optimisation

The ever evolving nature of SEO means that there are very few courses on the subject available. The courses that do exist may be out of date and therefore not a good investment. However, there are some free introductory SEO courses. SEOMoz – Beginners Guide to SEO (http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo) is a good guide, it explains the basics of SEO and is frequently kept up to date.

It is also highly beneficial to read articles about SEO on the various SEO Blogs like SEO Moz, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch and lots of others.

Ask Questions

Use Twitter to ask any questions you might have after reading up on SEO. Ask your question using the hashtag #SEO. You will get plenty of responses, the majority probably trying to offer SEO services but hang in there and you will find your answer!

You could also explore some forums. Create an account and ask a few questions. Don’t be shy. Here are a few good ones:-

• Search Engine Watch Forum
• SEO Chat
• Digital Point Forums

Knowledge of SEO will improve how your CV looks and will help in interviews. Potential employers want to see that you at least know something about the SEO role you are applying for.

Start a Blog

You should now have some understanding about SEO and how it works. The best way to fully understand it is to put it into practice by starting your own website.You do not need to buy a domain name, get a web design or rent a server to start your blog. There are thousands of free options that you can try. I suggest wordpress.com and blogger.com.

You can blog about anything. Choose a topic that you can write about, it might be music, movies, academics, cars, travelling or even food – whatever you are interested in! You can use the latest news or trends to help you with ideas. Take your time learning about wordpress and the administration system.

Next, start writing! If you have time, try to aim for an article a day.

Click here to learn more on how to set up a blog on your own server with your own domain name.

Learning how to use a website CMS is a definite plus for your CV. Tell the interviewer that you’ve set up websites and know how to use a CMS.

Explore the Code and Optimise

This simply means looking for the page titleand meta description

Now that you understand some of the codes, you can optimise your page titles and meta descriptions for SEO. This is called on-page optimisation. To get some quick results, optimise for long tail keywords like your blog piece title. Pop that into Google and hopefully it will turn up after a couple of weeks.

Try to Build some Links

Link building is the next step of SEO after the on-page optimisation. This is a good article about the different types of links: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-building-101-the-almost-complete-link-guide-updated-for-post-penguin

Try out the various techniques mentioned in the article. Give directories a try but only spend minimum time on this. Divert one or two of your blog posts into guest posts; guest posting is a great way to get good links. Below are a few websites that could help you with guest posting.

• Guestr
• Blogger Link Up
• BlogDash
• My Blog Guest

These websites will help you get your name out there and get great links back to your website.

Having your name recognized as a content writer can definitely open up some doors. Mention this on your CV and in your interview. There’s no harm in telling your potential employer that you can write content for SEO.

Try out some SEO Tools

All digital marketing agencies use some form of SEO Tools be it a web based or desktop software based tool. Here are a few to help you become familiar with the various tools that are used in the SEO World.

• Search Metrics – Won the Best SEO Software from Search Awards 2012. This is a great piece of software that allows you to look at the SEO performance of a website. There is a free version available with limited functionality.
• Majestic SEO – A great bit of software that allows you to explore the link profile of a website. Widely used by SEOs. Free registration with limited capabilities.
• SEO Moz Open Site Explorer – Free 1 month trial but requires credit card details. Open Site Explorer is similar to Majestic SEO but uses their own rankings systems. Widely used by SEOs as well.
• Advanced Web Ranking – Great bit of software to track your keyword rankings on Google. Get 1 month free trial. Free if you write a blog piece about it.
• Screaming Frog – Free software that helps you see the Page Titles and Meta Descriptions of a website.
• LinkDex – Highly Recommended SEO software by the Search Awards 2012. Free to try and allows you to find out more about the website links and on-page issues.

These are just a handful of the software that are available for SEO.

As an aspiring digital marketer looking for that first job in SEO, experience using these tools is a definite plus on your CV. Explain in your interview how you benefitted from using these tools.

Preparation

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

This famous saying is very fitting for the SEO world. To get that internship you need to have as much SEO knowledge as possible. Get this knowledge by reading beginners guides and blogs that display the latest SEO developments. Then use this information to start your own blog, optimise and link build for it. These things should help you on your way to finding that first job.

Featured images:

•  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://www.blogger.com
•  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://wordpress.org/about/logos/

Ian Oh is a Digital Marketing Manager at LimeTree Technologies. For more information about SEO visit www.limetreeonline.com or for more career tips visit www.graduatecoach.co.uk.

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