SEO Workshop Contest Submission

This may come as a shock to some, but I’ve never had any kind of formal SEO training. Don’t get me wrong; I certainly know my fair share about the practice (I am a professional in the industry, after all), but it’s all stuff I’ve learned haphazardly along the way.

Because of this, the contest over at WordTracker caught my eye. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could get some real training to fill in the gaps and clarify my false assumptions?” So I wrote a quick 200-word entry essay chronicling my whirlwind adventures in the world of SEO:

It’s April 2005. My bosses declare that, “We need an SEO guy.” After a few moments of confusion, I ask, “What’s SEO?” Much to my chagrin, my inquiry is interpreted as enthusiasm and the “SEO Guy” hat lands on my head. I spend the next six months reading blogs and online guides in a blind attempt to answer my own question.

Flash forward to December 2005. My experience stumbling through the world of search engine optimization earns me a position as an analyst at an interactive marketing company. I’m still not sure what I’m doing. I spend the next year learning from others who seem to have become “SEO Guys” as haphazardly as I have.

Present day. I’ve spent the last year-and-a-half in the SEO school of hard knocks. I’ve performed analyses, advised clients, and even written for the company’s acclaimed SEO blog, Search Engine Lowdown. I should feel like an expert by now. I should know everything there is to know about SEO.

Tragically, I don’t.

I need more formal education. I need someone to fill in the gaps and give me a piece of paper that says I’m the expert I should be. I need an SEO workshop…

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll win either, but it was still fun to reminisce. I may have exaggerated a bit, although it’s true that I don’t feel like a real expert. A professional, definitely, but not necessarily an expert. Heck, maybe they’ll decide to take pity on me and turn me into one. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Well, as it turns out, my entry didn’t win, but I came a lot closer than I had thought. Here’s the email I received late last month in response to my submission.

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for your contest entry. Unfortunately you did not win but your entry did make the top 13 out of hundreds of other entries.

The top two chosen entries can be seen here:
http://www.wordtracker.com/…contest-winners.html

As a runner up you win a free months subscription to Wordtracker. Please let me have the username and password you would like and I will setup the free account for you.

Thanks for taking part and congratulations,

Best,

Andy
Wordtracker

Not a lot to get excited about, but definitely a point of pride for the writer and SEO expert in me.