Last month, we kickstarted our ‘A Day in The Life’ series with Search Performance Manager, Ed, taking centre stage. This month, we’re gaining an insight into the day of a Content Marketing Specialist.
Link building is one of the top three ranking factors and yet can be one of the hardest things to master. As more content marketers and webmasters work to improve their backlink profile, more and more barriers are installed, and so the need to adapt and create new strategies is essential in this role. Link building also requires a lot of time, something that not everyone has – which is why many businesses turn to SEO professionals.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at a day in the life of our Content Marketing Specialist, Chloe Price.
What Does Your Morning Routine Look Like?
The first thing I do is check my emails from both my primary accounts and outreach accounts. I reply to all that I can or note down what needs doing in order to move on to the next stage. I run our social media accounts, so I also schedule posts, join in with online discussions and see what’s trending. Following this, I’ll read SEO newsletters to see what’s happening in the industry.
What Are You Responsible For?
I manage our link building team, so I’m responsible for making sure that all clients meet their targets each month. This involves arranging their monthly outreach schedule, arranging brainstorming sessions for content, testing new strategies, and liaising with the rest of the team to make sure that we’re exceeding our clients’ targets.
As well as this, I manage our team of freelance writers, so I pay their invoices, check availabilities, edit content, and keep an eye on client budgets.
I’m also responsible for social media and our search marketing blog.
What Does A Typical Day Look Like for You?
I try to split my day into halves. I’m more awake in the morning, so I focus on link building. I could be pitching titles for guest blogs, useful link building, going through competitors’ backlinks, or pitching news-worthy titles to journalists. A lot of time goes into creating a natural link profile for a website, so it’s essential that I do this whenever I can.
In the afternoon, I work on a variety of tasks such as editing content, working on the Fibre Marketing blog, social media tasks, paying invoices, and responding to any emails that have come in over lunch. It changes every day.
What’s Your Memorable Work Moment?
When I first started, a team member saw on mobile that a SERP featured fourteen Ads on the first page. We posted this on Twitter, and it went viral! We even featured in Search Engine Journal and SERoundtable. As I was the only one working on social media, I had to spend a fair amount of time responding to comments and retweets. It was pretty exciting for my first month!
My other most memorable moment was building my first link from my trial shift – I wasn’t even working for the company at that point!
What Do You Get Up to After Work?
Alongside my work at Fibre, I also have a few ongoing projects. I read people’s novels, collaborating on edits before they send to literary agents, and review books for publishers and indie authors.
Alongside this, I take photos for my Instagram account, which involves me awkwardly posing with piles of books in public places and receiving quite a few stares in the process. I also run my own blog.
When I’m not doing any of the above, I like to take day trips with my family and friends, exploring different places throughout the country that I’ve never visited before.
What Do You Want to Achieve in Your Career?
I want to improve my link building – I’d love to get a client on the BBC one day!
I also want to expand on my knowledge of content marketing and try out new things, and even conduct my research into the world of digital marketing, seeing what businesses can do to build their brand.
What’s One Piece of Advice You’d Give to Someone Wanting to Work In SEO?
Follow as many social media accounts as you can. Most of my inspiration comes from trending topics and discussions, and it’s also where most of my SEO knowledge comes from. You learn what’s important and why, and the different tactics needed to conquer the many aspects of search engine marketing.
One of the reasons why I enjoy working in SEO is because it’s such a supportive community – everyone shares advice and quick tips, content that they’ve enjoyed reading or tools that make their lives easier, which really shows through social media. It’s what makes the SEO landscape an exciting environment to be a part of, as you can progress quickly and build strong relationships across the industry.
If you’re interested in SEO and want to know more about working in the industry, follow us on Linkedin to see what we get up to here at Fibre. You can also find us on Twitter, where we share the latest updates within the search marketing industry.
While it may sound a bit complicated, link building is in essence very simple. A link or hyperlink is simply a connection between two sites. So if you are on a website and you click on something which takes you to another site, then that’s a link. Link building is then the ongoing project of getting lots of these links on external websites to connect to your site, and it’s another important piece of the puzzle for an effective digital marketing strategy.
The emphasis here is on high quality. Low quality and spammy links fall under the umbrella of “black hat” SEO tactics, which is to say that they violate the guidelines of search engines in order to rank higher. As search engines get smarter, they become more and more proficient at weeding out these tactics, and punishing accordingly. A number of high profile companies (including BMW and Forbes) have been penalised severely for employing these tactics, and it can even go so far that the search engine won’t show that website at all, so failing to ensure their quality can mean major losses to your business.