| A Day in the Life of a Vertical Measures Intern Posted: 30 Jul 2010 04:30 AM PDT Guest Post By: Michael Schmitz The job description of too many internships these days consists of nothing more than coffee-making and paper-filing. But after spending the last month and a half immersed in the Vertical Measures internship program it became clear that Vertical Measures is not one of those companies that summons its interns to busy work. This Internet marketing company offers hands on experience while learning from SEO and Internet marketing specialists about link building. Here are some of the activities and tasks I regularly performed during my time in the Vertical Measures internship program and some tips I learned along the way: - Commenting: The majority of my curriculum in the program has revolved around link building through commenting. Throughout my month and a half I learned the ins and outs of dropping a link in a comment and quickly found out what to look for when searching for a page to comment on. First, it is important to make sure the page is relevant, which all starts with the Google search. I learned that you can't always simply search the keyword you are targeting; it's important to get creative with your searches. You want to include "login or register to comments" in quotes to find sites where you can comment, and follow that up with the keyword. If the keyword is dry and unpopular, find an alternative search in which that keyword would be relevant and go from there. Search for items that may be similar to your keyword, or if it is a product or part, search a place that it is normally used. Once you have your search results, avoid pages with spammy comments, such as comments with links to Viagra and things of that nature will bring down the value of the comment. With more experience commenting I began to realize which comments will be allowed through and which ones will be moderated. Once you get a good feel for this you can become more efficient with your commenting by skipping over the sites where you think you'll get moderated. Lastly, but most importantly, make sure that your comment offers some value to the site. Don't just say "great job" or "awesome post." Engage in the conversation and give the site moderator a reason to approve your comment.
- Directories: Locating directories to get listed on has been another focus of the internship program. This process is somewhat like commenting, as the goal is to get your client listed using the requested keyword as the anchor text. The idea is to basically find a directory that contains a category pertaining to the client's product. This can be done by searching the keyword followed by "submit site," "submit URL," or things of that nature. But I quickly found that the key is to find reliable directories that you can exploit for different clients by listing each client in a category that is relevant to their product. After finding a list of reliable directories you can boost your efficiency by severely decreasing the time spent sifting through search engine results for a good directory.
- Editing Articles/Blog Posts: A large chunk of my time with the internship program is spent editing articles and blog posts for both grammar and keyword usage. Through this I've learned a lot about article marketing services, like how many times you should use a keyword throughout an article and where you should use it.
Commenting, directories and editing takes up the majority of the internship curriculum, but there are also a few other things that I've done during my time as a Vertical Measures intern. - Webinars: A huge part of what I've learned during the program comes from the Vertical Measures webinars. As an intern I've watched and listened to six webinars, each with a different theme and focus. The Vertical Measures employees put together a Power Point, walked through different lessons and techniques and answered questions at the end. The content has covered almost everything from commenting techniques to different Google search queries. One of the most important takeaways from the webinars has been learning competitive analysis. I’ve learned how to analyze a competitor and their links, seeing where they come from, the keywords they’ve hit, the anchor text they’ve used, etc.
- Vertical Measures Project: I worked on this project during which our team created a link building infographic comparing different types of links to different types of beer.
- SEO Content Writing: After I learned how to write content for SEO purposes, I was able to re-write a client's website content. I added meta descriptions for the pages, title tags and improved keyword placement throughout the content.
- Keyword Reviews: Another task I completed briefly during my internship was reviewing websites for their keyword usage. I answered questions like: Did they use the keyword too many times, or not enough? Are their heading tags visible and in the right places, among other questions.
While so many internships offer nothing more than another thing to throw on the resume, the Vertical Measures internship offers legitimate knowledge obtained through hands on work and webinars. Related posts: - Vertical Measures January Webinar
- Vertical Measures Webinar “Creating a Corporate Blog That Attracts Visitors”
- Guest Blog for Vertical Measures
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