Guest Post By: Michael Schmitz

The job description of too many internships these days consists of nothing more than coffee-making and paper-filing. But after spending the last month and a half immersed in the Vertical Measures internship program it became clear that Vertical Measures is not one of those companies that summons its interns to busy work.

This Internet marketing company offers hands on experience while learning from SEO and Internet marketing specialists about link building. Here are some of the activities and tasks I regularly performed during my time in the Vertical Measures internship program and some tips I learned along the way:

1. Commenting: The majority of my curriculum in the program has revolved around link building through commenting. Throughout my month and a half I learned the ins and outs of including a link in a comment and quickly found out what to look for when searching for a page to comment on. Relevancy of the post and engaging in conversation make for a good comment.  Using a variety of search quarries can lead you to some worthwhile sites to comment on.
2. Directories:  Locating directories to get listed on has been another focus of the internship program.  The goal is to get your client listed in a relevant directory using the requested keyword as the anchor text.
3. Editing Articles/Blog Posts: A large chunk of my time with the internship program is spent editing articles and blog posts for both grammar and keyword usage. Through this I’ve learned a lot about article marketing services, like how many times you should use a keyword throughout an article and where you should use it.

Commenting, directories and editing takes up the majority of the internship curriculum, but there are also a few other things that I’ve done during my time as a Vertical Measures intern.

1. Webinars: A huge part of what I’ve learned during the program comes from the Vertical Measures webinars. As an intern I’ve watched and listened to six webinars, each with a different theme and focus. The Vertical Measures employees put together a Power Point, walked through different lessons and techniques and answered questions at the end. The content has covered almost everything from commenting techniques to different Google search queries. One of the most important takeaways from the webinars has been learning competitive analysis. I’ve learned how to analyze a competitor and their links, seeing where they come from, the keywords they’ve hit, the anchor text they’ve used, etc.
2. Vertical Measures Project: I worked on this project during which our team created a link building infographic comparing different types of links to different types of beer.
3. SEO Content Writing: After I learned how to write content for SEO purposes, I was able to re-write a client’s website content. I added meta descriptions for the pages, title tags and improved keyword placement throughout the content.
4. Keyword Reviews:  Another task I completed briefly during my internship was reviewing websites for their keyword usage. I answered questions like: Did they use the keyword too many times, or not enough? Are their heading tags visible and in the right places, among other questions.

While so many internships offer nothing more than another thing to throw on the resume, the Vertical Measures internship offers legitimate knowledge obtained through hands on work and webinars.

Elise Redlin-Cook

Elise is the Content & Marketing Manager at Vertical Measures, an internet marketing company in sunny Arizona providing services ranging from content marketing, to social media marketing, link building, and advanced SEO. She’s fully immersed herself into the world of content marketing and content strategy and is the managing editor of this blog.

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We all know that link building is one of the keys to the success of websites on the Internet. We can debate what kinds of links are best and where they need to be placed endlessly, but the truth is that there’s always more to learn and you can’t learn it all from “experience.” In fact, trial and error could be the death knell of your business – too many mistakes while trying to develop link building strategies could tank your website. Sure, you could tell yourself that you’ve learned some valuable lessons along the way, but that’s not going to take the sting out of a failed business venture.

That’s why link building training programs can be such a valuable resource whether you do SEO in-house or whether you’ve decided to become an expert in the art of SEO and link building programs as a consultant to other business owners. There are a variety of programs available tailored to the needs of corporations, copywriters, advertising and SEO specialists that can provide you with the skills you need to build links that will work.

Know What You’re Looking For in a Training Program

There are as many kinds of programs as there are businesses on the Internet, so be sure you shop around rather than signing up for the first seminar you find. Do you want something that will enable you to learn the basics quickly so that you can implement some tried and true link building strategies yourself, or do you want a more in-depth program that you can build on as you create a business model as a recognized Internet marketing expert? Some programs are aimed at the small business owner who wants to “do it himself,” while others are lengthy, specialized courses for marketing professionals. Know what you’re signing on for so that you don’t waste time or money. We’ve selected a few of the more popular programs to get you started:

We Build Pages offers one or two day programs to give companies solid overviews of the link building process, SEO, competition strategies and search ranking factors. This is ideal for companies who want to begin “in house” programs.

Eric Ward offers personal evaluation of your company’s website and, in the two hour session, a link development strategy session, including evaluation of competitor’s sites and full reports. This is individual instruction by phone unless you opt for the six hour on-site training session, which includes six months of IM access for follow-ups.

Justilien Gaspard focuses heavily on link building and offers one-on-one training that features lots of in-depth discussion specific to your own business and site. Link bait and email campaigns are among the topics.

Search Engine College is less personalized and less expensive. This is a “nuts and bolts” of SEO and SEM with a wide range of courses you can take online that are self-paced and self-directed. There are also lots of valuable resources in PDF form that you can download.  Covers more than just link building.

Sempo Institute is geared toward those who are looking at starting a career in SEO or SEM more than business owners who want to tweak their own websites. You can learn a lot here, but it will be of a general nature rather than specific to your company or industry. They also offer corporate training options for corporations who feel that their in-house marketing teams need refresher or advanced courses.

There are also conferences such as SES , SMX, and Pubcon, but you won’t get too much out of a 1 or 2 hour public discussion on link building.  As you can see, there are good several options for link building training.  Deciding which will benefit your business the most is up to you. Doing some homework before you decide – and knowing what it is you want to get out of a training course – will lead you to the right link building training program for your situation.

[tags] link building, link building training, SES, SMX, Pubcon, SEMPO [/tags]

Vertical Measures