The In’s and Out’s of What an SEO Does Daily

It’s the question I’ve been asked so many times in my career that I wish I’d been asking for a nickel each time! It seems so dark and secretive. “What do you do with my money” is a line I hear often.  So I figured maybe I can share what it’s like to be in my shoes and take you through a day in the life of an SEO – at least this SEO.

As an account manager and someone who oversees the search department, there’s a lot on my plate. At a small shop, I wear a lot of hats but it’s a great position to see things from a lot of different angles. That just means I have a lot to keep up on!

A Typical SEO Morning

On most mornings when I get into the office I’ll start going through various articles and blog posts that are related to the SEO industry. I look for news around algorithms, strategies, case studies and general thoughts from others in the industry. While I have certain influencers I like to read, sometimes I come across someone I don’t know and read something great. Other times I have scheduled in-house meetings going over clients, strategies and brainstorming sessions.

Here are a few I check out Daily:

Larry Kim’s blog

The Moz Blog

Search Engine Roundtable

Matt Cutts – sometimes for his SEO insights, sometimes just for his thoughts in general

Mid-Morning – Client Work Begins

By mid-morning I get cracking on client SEO work. Generically I answer emails. More to the point I help educate clients and do work needed to take their account to the next stage. I might be answering questions about things like how call tracking works, or how to analyze conversions. I might get asked questions about content development or ideas for a new blog post.

Other times I’m working on reports and that means reading data from various sources. Data tells me a story about what’s happening on a client’s website. It’s my job to read that data, make something of it and tell that story to the client in a way that makes sense. Are there now actionable recommendations I can make to the client? Do I see a hole? Do I see something great that should be addressed? It’s now time to communicate with the client.

The Client Call

As much as possible I like seeing the client. I like going to their place of business to see things in operation. I’m able to learn about the industry and the company. This is a great thing! It means that I can help to build data in ways that will benefit the business. Are you looking for more traffic to certain pages? Do you want to build a business in certain geographic locations? Did you know that there was a spike in mobile traffic to the site? Is there something new about the clients business that they can share with me? Ultimately I know that my work is intended to increase business for the client. I get that. I need to do what I can to improve their bottom line. SEO is very much a collaborative effort between the company and the client, without dedication and commitment, nine times out of ten, the campaign will fall flat.

Strategy Talks

I’ll sit with both the lead designer and search technician to discuss strategies. Not only does this ensure we’re all on the same page but it allows us to think about the client’s and develop the game plan to fit the needs. Do we need to get more leads? What can we do? Do we need a design change? Maybe it’s new content? Maybe we need to find new sources of traffic. We sit and talk and develop the strategy that’s going to be needed to get the job done.

There’s definitely a lot that goes on in my world, sometimes days are more hectic than others but at the end of the day, my job is to know everything that’s going on in the world of SEO. I’m a practitioner so it’s my job to put what I learn into practice – successful practice at that! My clients want success and by staying on top of things we do just that!

Want to know more about what goes on in the life of an SEO? Please call Patrick at 905-943-2985 x108.