Week 6: SHESparks and SEO Application

This week, we learned a little more about how our search results come back to us in a specific way through search engine optimization. From our reading in Update Culture, we learned that picking a specific time to write, revise, share, update, and respond will affect if certain content is “on” or going viral. If content creators are aware of this timing; of when their audience will encounter their writing and interact with it, they can prepare fresh content that their audience will engage with. They can be sure to include keywords that their audience might use, continually update their sites with fresh content each week, and include multimodal elements for entertainment.

Going over SEO and its basics was actually a refresher for me because in my previous internship working at the Atwood Innovation Plaza, incorporating SEO into my technical writing projects was so important. I would write technical materials for the start-ups there, but occasionally, I would also write marketing materials. When I undertook those projects, I would need to include keywords that would help their company appear on search results. One company that I specifically had SEO apply to was SHESparks, which is a networking mastermind for women entrepreneurs. Before international women’s day, I was asked to revamp an old historical women’s blog post and freshen it up with updated text and multimodal elements. I wrote a post for Susan B. Anthony highlighting the work that she had done, and the CEO of the company had me insert specific phrases and words into my text, as well as link within the article other SHESparks content that was relevant. I also was asked to search for images and graphics to make it a more entertaining read, and then was asked to post it at a certain time. So, after reading about textual timing, I know that SEO application is thought of often in the business world. 



Comments

  1. Cora WilliamsonSeptember 30, 2022 at 10:18 AM

    Hi Sydney! That is such a cool experience, thank you for sharing it. I appreciate that you had a personal example that you used to help explain the concept we went over in class. It's interesting that you have already encountered this concept. I also enjoyed reading about how you incorporated it in your writing, like your example about inserting specific phrases into your article about Susan B. Anthony. It helped me to visualize how this concept is actually used. I hadn’t thought before about how the use of this concept might manifest in a professional setting. Great post, thanks for your input on this topic.

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