Becoming a Walking Encyclopedia

The tasks that Nikki gave me today exercised my grammar and writing skills and proved to be more challenging than I had initially expected.

First, I reedited the definitions in the Frozen Fire Package document (which lists the prices for our services and then closer definitions/descriptions of those services). I am happy that I used to be a huge grammar nerd because the writing was very clear and nearly perfect! Except for the minuscule grammar glitches that I found. Anyway doing this took me a surprisingly long time because I checked over it several times to make sure that it was perfect. (I feel like I put too much stress on some things...)

After this, I had a small chunk of time to read over my favorite blogs before Nikki gave me the task to define nine key terms for one of our clients.

Well, this took me about an hour and a half because I didn't realize that the terms were for Frozen Fire's purposes only -- while I had been under the impression that these definitions were to appear on the website. I spent almost ten minutes on each one trying to make it perfect!!

Oh well, at least everyone will get (hopefully) an enjoyable read from my definitions of men's Botox and skin products. I really do think I made them sound quite pretty.

Anyway, even if these were to appear on our client's website, I'm not sure that they should have taken me so long to write. I am hoping that it only took me a while because I was a little nervous and because I am new to professional/business writing. I'm hoping that this comes with practice....

Although I did not have several tasks today, the ones I had were challenging (even though in both cases I think I made them a little more challenging for myself than need be) and have reminded me on what I need to work on.

Also, by thinking I was writing for the actual website most likely helped improve my professional writing. I also went on other websites to observe how they got their messages across on their websites... and I will definitely continue to observe website copy now that I have done it for a few of our clients (which will hopefully influence my own writing).

Also, you have to hand it to being in marketing, especially in a marketing agency... you become a walking encyclopedia. I know so much about men's botox and testosterone replacement therapy after this. 

In all, today was filled with more learning experiences that I will grow with and improve upon throughout my career (Who knows? Maybe one day I'll need to know about men's dermal fills!)

NoDaddy

Today was more tedious than others have been -- however it was performing these tedious jobs that enabled me to learn a lot about purchasing domain names and how Google+ and Hootsuite work.

We finally came to a conclusion as to how to fix our Google + problem... Amongst other problems, the one I worked on today was transferring all of our Google+ page posts onto one page (seeing as the problem was that we had two Google+ pages as a result of Google taking over the world. We had created a Google Local and Google+ page before the two had become connected so thus we had two pages. One with customer reviews and one with over one year's worth of content).

My job was to go through our Google+ page that contained all of our posts and transfer them to our other page which contained our reviews (since it is less tedious to copy and paste them all onto the other Google page than ask all the people to re-review us).

I made a Word document and copied and pasted ALL (well, most) of our posts from the original page and then went through and pasted them individually into HootSuite, reposting them onto the newer page. Also, HootSuite was acting strange, so I had to go to the physical pages of websites we had posted links to, copy the link in the URL, and THEN paste that into the HootSuite post. Don't ask me why... there always seems to be something!

Anyway, now the page looks great and we have a presence on it (everything posted within two hours!) and then it was time to move onto my next task: GoDaddy.

More like NODaddy!

Geez.

For the past few weeks, Nikki and Brad have been trying to purchase  a certain domain, however each time we logged into GoDaddy to purchase it, it hasn't been available.

I spent an hour or two chatting with Gwen K., my new best friend, and employee of GoDaddy, who was able to add the domain to our cart and purchase it. Yay!

But, no.

Because we then got an email saying the domain was unavailable.

As it turns out, the domain has expired, however the original owner still owns it for 43 more days unless they choose to buy it again. Meaning that we have to WAIT and then when/IF it is for sale, we have to BID for it!!! AGH!

This is all a lot simpler sounding than it was... we then had to ask for a refund and then PAY for a backorder (which basically just lets us know when it is available). Grrr...

It doesn't sound like much, but today involved much tedious busy-work... busy-work that allowed me to become an expert in the fields of GoDaddy, Google+ posting, and HootSuite managing!

Google -

Several posts ago, I stated that Yelp was the most frustrating website when dealing with customer service.

I was wrong.

Google is.

In fact, I now understand why Yelp doesn't even have a help line -- because if it is anything like Google's, they are WASTING their money.

Gone are the days when I look upon Google with reverence and awe (I say as I type on Blogger -- yet ANOTHER website Google has taken over!!). Now I see it as an evil entity trying to take over all of the web!!!

Okay, I'll come down and tell you about my day, unless Google wants to interfere with that as well.

I came into the office and wrote some personal blog posts and did some step by step how-tos about reviewing Frozen Fire on Yelp and Google as Nikki was speaking with Brad about the very frustrating thing that I am writing about. It was peaceful. The hours went by normally, without pain or frustration. They were happy times. 

And then I sat down with Nikki and Pete to figure out this mess.

So basically, to keep it short, Frozen Fire has several Google accounts that they have set up over the years, ie YouTube. Now, we have three accounts with various Google entities we use all representing Frozen Fire but on all these different accounts, which makes us hard to navigate online. Frozen Fire is not to blame -- Google has basically bought all of these companies such as YouTube and made them require Google accounts -- meaning that our YouTube channel from 2006 has no Google account managing it... leaving us with the problem of merging it along with all of these other accounts that are under three different emails. And we want to merge all of our reviews, posts, etc onto ONE page/account. It is more complicated than this but I'm afraid if I try to explain it further my head might explode.

We spent over an hour on the phone with various Google representatives who did not seem to understand what we were asking... let alone Google itself.

You may be asking yourself what I learned from all of this... and it is that doing business is hard. And at school, if I have a problem, I can go to my professor, etc, but this is the real world and you are on your own to figure things out. You can't be lazy... from dealing with something as "simple" as a Google account to rocket science. This is business.

Hormones & Home Insulation

I started the day off listening to a phone call Nikki had with a graphic designer who is working with us on a new client's website.

Not only is this client new to us -- they are opening their doors in less than a month!

Usually at Frozen Fire, we have developed a marketing campaign before creating a website, however, due to the short amount of time we have, we are already working on the website.

Nikki gave me some very useful information today - that when it comes to designing a website from scratch, design and layout comes before copy and content - I honestly thought that it would have been the other way around... that you would plan out how the website is going to look based on the information you want to get across.

I listened to Nikki as she spoke with the designer. In front of her was a website 'map' that she had previously created in collaboration with the graphic designer that walked through each page of the website. As I listened, I realized how much detail goes into a website, whether it be for a doctor or for a fashion magazine -- a lot of thought goes in. Nikki and the designer had already decided that they wanted a scroll section on the homepage - but of what they were not sure. They did not know what content was to be put on each of the three pages, but they already knew that it would be a good addition to the front page and its content - whatever that may be!
After sitting in on this meeting and then later going on to websites for other projects, I've found myself analyzing each page I've come to and asking myself why they decided to put what where.

Going on to later projects -- I helped Pete with keyword research for two clients. I went onto the websites of competitors for both clients and made lists of keywords that I saw occurring over and over again -- honestly, I know so much about air conditioning and testosterone after today. Go me.
It was a pretty good exercise actually because I wasn't depending on internet tools to tell me what words were best. Pete sent me WooRank reports for both clients, but I was mostly just reading each page of the websites (it took a very long time) and writing down each keyword and then at the end, seeing which words were most used cumulatively.

Nikki then had me look at a draft of Frozen Fire's marketing packages page, which consisted of the definitions and descriptions of each of our services. I only did some tweaking because whoever wrote it did a beautiful job - that might sound silly because I'm talking about a simple document, but Mr. Hagood, my high school English teacher, would be proud. He was all about getting a message across in the least amount of words possible (yet with strong rhetoric).

Anyway, it was a good and eventful day, full of home insulation and hormones.

Copy & Coco

Today I was given one of the most important tasks I've had these past few weeks at Frozen Fire: to edit the copy for one of our clients.

But first, it was a festive morning today at Frozen Fire as we grouped in the conference room, Simon holding an American flag and Nikki pulling the familiar red stripes and white stars up on the big screen as we posed for a Facebook post. If you are not a seasoned sports fan and have no idea what I am talking about - We at Frozen Fire, although reasonably patriotic, are not die-hard America fans... I am talking about the U.S. versus Germany World Cup game.  Check it out on our Facebook page!

Anyway, the client I mentioned, whose name I am not sure if I can repeat, told Frozen Fire that they wanted to change their target audience for their services... which meant that almost every page of their sizable website had to be edited to meet their newest needs. 

While at first the small changes to pronouns, etc, that I had to make sounded easy enough, I didn't realize how difficult, yet extremely educational this task would be. As one of my goals that I outlined on the first day, learning to write with professional etiquette had to be checked off at some point. Not only have I been changing words around, but I have been deleting and creating full sentences, and have put deep thought into each one (hopefully it shows). After using several keywords over and over again to make the text appear to be written by a professional, my "professional" vocabulary - if you will - is already improving only after about four hours (has it been that long?!) of editing (only a few more pages to go!).

While it has been an excellent learning experience, I could only sit for so long writing copy, so when Nikki and Pete invited me to go to lunch with them, I was excited (Goal #2:  Learn professional behavior etiquette). Sitting with Pete and Nikki was relaxing and fun, and it was a great experience to sit with two professionals and having intelligent - yet laid back -conversation with adults. I also got to meet the renowned Coco. 

~ If I have not discussed Coco by now, I feel like I have failed Nikki as an intern. Coco is Nikki's baby (well, not actual baby. Coco is a small wiener dog) ~

Eventually, we returned to Frozen Fire after taking the Dart to Nikki's (too meet Coco of course) and I have been sitting in my same spot going back to writing copy.

Writing copy.

I feel so professional just saying it! I was watching Mad Men last night and Don Draper said something about Peggy "writing copy" and I got all excited thinking about how I might get to do that at some point during my internship. 

Anyway, 'twas a lovely day of Copy & Coco. I can't wait to see what next week will bring!

~ Meg

Moz & SEO optimization

June 24, 2014

Zip! Another day has gone by.

Today, Jordan showed me how to use HootSuite, which is SUPER cool. It is definitely a necessary tool when managing multiple accounts.
When I was at Balcom, I only watched Leslie use HootSuite for about ten minutes, which was cool, but not enough to fully comprehend anything. Well, today that changed.
Jordan sent me some Excel spreadsheets, each one for a separate client, and each had the next week's Facebook and Twitter posts planned out - content, links, hashtags, and all! It was so cool.
I never thought about how agencies know when and how to post - much less how they organize it, yet there it was - all I had to do was copy and paste the content/links to HootSuite!
And the coolest part?
HootSuite lets you schedule when something is to be posted - meaning I scheduled a tweet to be sent out a week from today! I didn't remember that from Balcom!

I don't think that I wrote last time about my plans for Valerie's (my friend's mom) interior design company, Harding Designs. I'm planning on taking the things I learn here at Frozen Fire and working for her in order to hone my skills and implement the strategies I am learning here at Frozen Fire. Anyway, I have already drafted several "plans of action", and getting a HootSuite for Harding Designs and making a spreadsheet of social media posts are another thing I am adding to the list!

Last Thursday, I wrote about the SEO meeting I attended with Nikki and Pete, which, as I indicated, was extremely helpful and educational (and which I am also using to help Harding Designs!). Today I wrote up a summary about what changes we made to that client's webpage - describing the point of changing the keyword and key phrase , how we figured these were the best options, and how they affected the rest of the page in improving the page in terms of improving the SEO. Concerning search engines - keywords seriously are the key to all questions... well, they are pretty darn important. 

Finally, I researched Moz, a software as a service (SaaS), which is a location data management tool AS WELL as a marketing analytics software. It is SO cool, and if you buy the more expensive Moz Pro package (of course), there are endless analysis tools, such as Moz Analytics, Open Site Explorer, Followerwonk, etc to track and improve SEO, social, branding, link building, and content marketing efforts. Moz is definitely something worth using if you have problems like the ones I was researching on Yelp (yikes!) and it most certainly is valuable when you are dealing with SEO and follower feedback.

06/19/2014

June 19, 2014

Today was busy as usual, but perhaps the most interesting and important thing I did was sit in on a meeting with Nikki and Pete about expanding one of our client's SEO. I never realized how much work went into SEO - I simply thought that you just inserted a few extra words into your website and BAM! you improve your SEO. Although that is a major component, we used all sorts of tools - such as Google AdWords (my best friend), and typed in countless keyword and phrase combinations to see which were most effective. Google would tell us the level of searches and competition for each keyword/phrase we tried - basically, the better for us if the search for that word/phrase was high and the competition (aka other websites using those keywords) was low. We went through our client's Wordpress (the tool FF uses for their website) and made sure that the article heading, page title, page url, content, and meta description all came out effective. We only focused on the website for today (we will go through YouTube, etc later), on the blog adding “bunion” as a keyword and “What is a Bunion?” as a key phrase and on the home page “bunion surgery” as a key phrase in order to improve their SEO. We also edited their meta description and inserted “bunion” into it (another SEO tactic).