84 Things I’ve Learned in My First Year in Online Marketing

November 6, 2007

A year ago today, I began my career in online marketing. I started as a copywriter for an SEO agency, and of course now I’m Senior Editor here at Bold.

My background was a B.A. in Communications, followed by a start in traditional media and communications in politics and nonprofits. So, I had a good foundation. But this past year, I’ve been schooled!

Recently, I heard about a local analytics company hiring a paid search consultant. They required a 3.2 GPA. That’s outrageous. You don’t need that to do well in this industry. “Getting it” and getting good grades are two different things.

I had a 2.9 GPA in college. But it’s not because I’m not smart. It’s because I was bored. I didn’t study. I learn better by doing, and my career is flourishing (mostly due to Adam’s modern approach to the workplace).

Here are 84 things I’ve learned in one year’s time, despite my “lousy” GPA.

(note: this was supposed to be hierarchical, but this version of WP isn’t allowing it. i know, i know, upgrade, blah, blah, blah)

SEO/SEM
Keyword research
SEO copywriting
-Long tail
-Keyword density
-Keyword proximity
-Headers should have the keywords
-Title tags
-Meta tags
-Thematically relevant words
Link building
- Link bait
- Paid Links
–Google hates them
-Directories
-Nofollow/Dofollow
-Just plain asking for links
-Link exchanges
301 redirects
Landing Pages

Blogging
Finding your blogging voice
Posting frequency
Comments and trackbacks
Wordpress
-Widgets
-Plugins
-Themes
-CSS basics
RSS
-Newsreaders
-Feedburner
-Full Feeds
-Partial Feeds (don’t convert as well as full!)
-Headline only feeds (please don’t do this!)
Blogrolls
Technorati
Google Blog Search
Networking within niches
There’s nothing wrong with being a B-list blogger

Social Media
StumbleUpon
Digg
Facebook
Sk*rt
Sphinn
Gooruze
Reddit
Propeller
Del.icio.us
Squidoo
Revver
MyBlogLog
BlogCatalog
Social Media Releases (SMRs)
Pitching bloggers
User-generated content
Copyright issues
Some people mind being asked for votes. I don’t.

Analytics
Unique Visitors
Visits
Pageviews
Referrals
New visitors/old visitors
Bounce rate

Conversation Marketing
The conversation is occurring whether you’re participating or not
You can’t control the conversation
Provide brand evangelists with the tools they need to promote your brand
The conversation must be genuine

Clients
The bigger the client, the more hassle it is to get a site update (legal, IT, etc.)
Fortune 500 clients and B2B clients are more likely to rewrite my copy
Some will blame you for not seeing results when they haven’t implemented any of the
deliverables

Writing
Is freaking hard!
There are more neurosurgeons than copywriters
Is not just typing. It’s research, story creation, grammar, spelling, SEO, call to action, engaging.
Copywriters should not be at the “bottom” of the SEO totem pole

Miscellaneous
How to make a Screen Shot
Basic Domaining
Parked Domains
Domain auctions
What a mashup is

What I knew before:
Basic Usability
Basic Information Architecture
Basic HTML
Seniors are the fastest growing demographic for internet usage
MySpace
Blogger
YouTube
FTP

Oh yeah, and I got married, became an insta-mom and am studying improv. Take that, GPA snobs!

Posted in Uncategorized by Nathania Johnson