Hullo Dad, and anyone else who happens to read this. My humblest apologies for the delay in posts, but my life as been rather hectic lately.
For the inspiration on these verses.
On Monday I started a new job as a content writer at Rosetta, an advertising agency in Cleveland. This morning I got my first indepth introduction to exactly what I will be doing. Search Engine Optimization is structuring your webpage, and writing content for said webpage in such away as to increase the visibility within organic search engine results. (aka the ones not sponsored/paid for) I have a much better understanding of what this is, now I just need to figure out how to apply my flowery writing skills in order to dominate this task. It's my job to create a page that will drive search engines and therefore, users to it based on what I write, and how I write it.
This is still a relatively new method in the agency world and very new to me. We write for users first, but then optimize that content for search engines. My skills so far have honed in on writing for professors first and others second with little or no focus on what search engines want to see. If Gertrude Stein wanted Hemingway to quit his job as a journalist to focus on his writing, I shudder to think of her opinion of my chosen career. If Hemingway had spent time and energy writing in form and content appropriate for his paper, we would not have several great ex-patriot American novels. However, If Hemingway had not been a journalist, he would not have developed the sentence style which characterizes said novels.
While Stein felt he could not be a writer while being a journalist, Hemingway, truly, could not have been one without having first been the other. Part of being a writer is learning how to mimic the voices of others, the styles of others, and through this you discover your own voice.
SEO content writers are crafty, intentional, concise, and even, as those who disapprove of the ad industry in general might say, sneaky. Search Engines are not witty, they don't understand puns or double entendre, and they don't care if your English professor would have found your writing profound and insightful. That being said, you, or rather, I, do not need to eliminate these elements from our writing. We must write for the reader first, understanding that they will appreciate our slight witicisms, but prominantly focus our strategic keywords at the top-lefthand side of the page where both reader and search engine begin their scan. Stategically placed keywords will draw the search engine to the site without overloading the reader.
As consumers, you, and my colleagues in the English department, might find this underhanded. However, all we are doing is helping you find what you need, and our clients happen to have it. Without SEO content writers you would scour the internet looking for the right site, with the product you were looking for. We'd much rather do the work for you, it helps us, helps our clients, and we get all warm and fuzzy helping you too! So when you're looking to build your own watch, and you want to know who will let you do that, you go to Google. If you search "buils your own watch" Fossil is the second website that will showup in the search results. This is not just because we manipulated the website design, it's because that's what they do, and that's what you want them to do. It brings a whole new meaning to online matchmaking services.
All that to say, I'm pretty excited about this new job and the ability to do what I love share my gift with others. Who knows, maybe someday it will help me to write the next great American novel.
