Today I was asked by SEO-master Darlene if I had been inundated with all the new information she had given me.

Now, I consider myself a person with a pretty good grasp on the English language. After all, I do have a journalism diploma and, from what I remember of high school, have always trodden down the arts-student path.

But for some reason, my brain took “inundated” to mean “well introduced” instead of its true definition: overwhelmed. How absolutely accurate she was, even if I didn’t realize it at the time.

After the few days that I’ve started learning about SEO (and a little bit of PPC), I now know things are not what they seem.

Instead of tuning your content to bring anyone and everyone to your web site, it’s far more important to spend time targeting a specific audience with specific wants. After all, the target audience is precisely who’s going to purchase your product– and isn’t that the whole point?

I came into this thing thinking wider and grander is better, when in fact, it’s the very opposite. Finding a niche search term is key, I think.

So that’s it for today’s raving. Other than that, Ottawa was inundated by snow today, forcing me to work in PJs and telecommute. It’s really not so bad.

When I came in this afternoon, I picked up exactly where I left off yesterday — doing on-page SEO work for a neat web site that offers streaming online workout videos, so people on-the-go never miss an exercise class. Okay, so what’s my excuse now?

The task involves picking the best keywords and phrases to inject into the most search-able areas of the site. What’s challenging is learning to strike the balance between stylistic and functional writing. The keywords have to be there, but for for the sake of usability, they’ve got to sound nice.

I’ve been able to speed up my progress bit today, but there’s so much to learn. At this point, I’ll be honest — I have no idea how much research and analysis it takes to do a full SEO job. It seems like a daunting task! But for now, I’m having fun.

Must… finish…

‘Jess the Intern’ here, finishing up my first day with DriveTraffic. I dipped my toe into the SEO puddle today and was then promptly pushed in. Is there a better way to get started? I think not.

A little about me:

I am just on my way out of the Interactive Multimedia Developer program at Algonquin College. I have a background in print-journalism, but decided to take up “web site stuff” so that I could combine my love of writing with something exciting, visual and nerdy. So far, so good.

I’ve learned a lot of coding and design over the last two years, but absolutely nothing about SEO. Thankfully, Darlene has welcomed me to DriveTraffic and is ready to teach me some serious skills over the next two months. I’m bringing snacks.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Jessica as our new intern. Jessica starts on Monday March 3, 2008 and will be learning the ropes of SEO, PPC, web analytics and anything else we can cram into her head in the short 8 weeks she will be here!

Perhaps we can convince Jessica to blog about her experience along the way :-)