If someone asked you what your dream job would be, could you answer the question? How specific could you be or how specific do you think you’d need to be? I’ve thought about this question a lot in the past 18 months since I left Microsoft. I’ve written about it and talked about it and identified a number of characteristics of a dream job for me. The fact is, I had no thought of working for anyone else so you’ll note that these characteristics are those of a freelancer. Autonomy Freedom from being an employee Compensation appropriate to my skills and experience Time that is my own to schedule Coworkers whom I adore Work that keeps me interested and engaged Responsibility coupled with the authority to do the job I think I may have found the job. I’ve put together an agreement with one of the best web design studios in the country to direct their SEO program. Gravitate already ranks number one on Google for a number of keyword phrases that are important to their business. They know how to do high search engine positioning. My job is to direct the search engine optimization efforts for Gravitate’s clients and to grow that part of Gravitate’s business. Why does this fit my definition of a dream job? I’ve known the owners of the company for years and they’re among my dearest friends. We originally worked together when I hired Gravitate to build a website for Ancient Egypt Research Associates, Dr. Mark Lehner’s team. Working on that project was one of the most satisfying professional experiences I’ve ever had. We enjoyed working together so much that over the years, we’ve looked for other opportunities to repeat that experience. Gravitate has a very capable team working on SEO but when we started talking about collaborating this year, the discussions led to the fact that the SEO team needs to grow to serve all of the requests the company is getting for search engine optimization services. Another dream-job aspect is that I’ll be able to run with the same level of autonomy that made my job at Microsoft fun. The position at Gravitate will actually afford more autonomy because of the level of trust I have with the principles and our shared goals. I also like that my compensation will be based almost entirely on performance. I love that kind of challenge, which brings out the entrepreneur in me. I’m already hip deep into it this week. I imagine this blog will become even more SEO focused than it has been, with continued evangelizing for the importance of SEO copywriting. I’m a...
Read MoreSolar flares are big things. Studying them depends on a great many little things, like microelectronic components. Sometimes those little things are subject to a lot of abuse. That’s where Parylene Engineering comes in. Once in a while I get a project that makes SEO seem easy. The reason this one is fun and easy is that it’s in a niche market. The company applies parylene conformal coatings to components for the semiconductor, medical, aerospace, automotive, and defense fields. Parylene, the product, is a very interesting process that has some unique properties. It’s applied at room temperature in a vacuum and will conform to any shaped surface on almost any material. The coating is chemically and biologically inert and stable, so it creates an extremely strong barrier to chemical solvents, water, and thermal damage. It easily passes a 100-hour salt-spray test. The thickness of the coating can be controlled to the micron and when finished is pin hole free. Fancy stuff. Since I started the optimization, we’ve gotten his page up to the first search engine results page (SERP) for some of the important keyword phrases, including “parylene.” We’ve got a number of things left to do but here’s what I’ve done so far. I did all the keyword research in the Google tool. I used terms on his existing pages and searched for two things: Number of monthly global searches How much competition for the keyword phrase Most of the terms that I used are long tail keyword phrases; they don’t have huge monthly search terms but there’s also little competition for those keywords. This doesn’t matter for this industry because the total monthly searches for the product only run around 22,000. There are only 13,000 web pages with that term in the title. So my client can compete quite well, even on the main terms. The long tail keywords should give him a leg up for getting the smaller number of customers searching on very specific terms. They’re the ones who know what they’re looking for and are more likely to contact the business. So this one makes me look like a hero but it wasn’t rocket surgery. It was just choosing the right keywords. I still have to help him get backlinks and I need to rewrite some of his copy. He’s not redesigning the site right now but for his industry, I’m not sure that’s crucial to bringing him more web business. We’ll work on the landing pages and make the copy speak to his customers. Then we’ll sit back and watch the...
Read MoreDoes social media have you by the throat? Do you feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to hit the galaxy of social sites, post enough information, and maintain your social media mojo? You’re hardly alone. As you sit there quivering in shock, millions on the other side of the screen are experiencing the same distress. It’s so unnecessary. It’s different now I’ve been a professional writer for more than a dozen years. I was at Microsoft for many of those years and I’m used to the demands of unyielding deadlines to deliver massive amounts of content. But most of that content was focused into a product. It didn’t require daily delivery and it felt like there was something different riding on the outcome. I only needed to please my customer. When you’re using social media to drive business to your blog or web site, there is a perception of an insistent demand to capture and keep an audience. As if your corporeal existence depended on eyeballs on the other side of this screen. In my head “I have to post today. I have to comment on other blogs. I have to keep up with Twitter so I don’t miss that all-important Tweet with a link that will change my life. I have to answer a question on LinkedIn. I can either bore my Facebook friends or neglect my HubPages fans!” And I have to do some work that actually produces an income. Oh yeah. There are days when it seems I’m busy from the time I wake up until midnight doing things that bring no cah-ching. I really enjoy some of them. I’d even say I’m enjoying most of what I do these days. I’m mostly enjoying the things that are related to social media and SEO. But I do have days when it nags at me. The way out Here’s why it doesn’t matter. That distress as you brush your teeth at the end of a non-blogging day is internal. It’s not real pressure from other people who read your blog. It’s pressure from you. All of my favorite bloggers post no more than once a week. A couple of them could get away with every other week, maybe longer, because I look forward to their writing and wouldn’t unsubscribe just because they haven’t posted. Ok, if they didn’t post in a year, maybe. I wish some of the people I follow would Tweet less. I’ve dropped at least one person because she posted so often during the day but always with links to static information on her own web site. I can’t remember once...
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