A Day in the Life of a SEO

It periodically comes up in forums where someone asks what the daily life of a SEO is like.

As the director of a small limited liability company in the UK, I thought I’d record my own day today, simply out of interest:

08:30

• Wake up - damn, slept in. Didn’t get to bed until 01:30, and then a bad night with the kids constantly waking up (the eldest has flu, the youngest is teething). Decide not to rush the middle daughter in late for morning nursey.

08:30-10:30

• Get the kids ready, then drive the family to the health center in the next village, so that my youngest daughter can have her 2 year check up. (Working from home, and being the only car driver, means getting roped into family chores like these).

10:30-1035

• Fag Break

10:30-12:30

• Check e-mails: reply to a client who doesn’t seem to understand the existing arrangements. Apologise for not communicating properly.

• Find some older files have overwritten newer on one adserver - edit the files and FTP to the adserver. The issue affected a single client for about 3 weeks, so I refund him this month’s payment, because I had made an error .

• Discover 2 domains recently moved by a host have not been moved with their content. Send support e-mail.

• Discover another 2 domains elsewhere have been set-up with incorrect DNS by a host, and are now showing a “Work from Home” site. Support ticket sent.

• Ring the credit card company to find out the Extended Use number for Paypal, to complete new verification of the account.

• Reply to e-mails with other webhosts (I use a lot) about changing credit card payment details for my reseller accounts, in order to close my old business bank account - send support requests for logins to billing areas to update CC details.

12:30-13:05

• Compose e-mail to my solicitors.

  A company threatened legal action against Platinax Internet Ltd for alleged defamatory complaints in the forums (now removed), but now has their own solicitors demanding any identifying information from the posters involved, so they can take further action against them. The company is keen to charge us their own legal costs if we don’t comply.

  I ask for clarification as to whether a solicitor’s letter is legal justification enough, and whether we can force them to take out a court order without being forced to pay their costs.

13:05-13:15

• Fag break.

13:15-13:25

• Send e-mail to accountants. Not heard anything about my tax return and how much tax I owe - it has to be in for Jan 31st.

• Send VAT invoice to client for payment received

13:25-14:30

• Set up my first AdWords account, and create two small but simple ad campaigns for two different sites.

• Phone call from client asking about making changes to their website - discuss changes - advise that I’ll be able to get these done for him fine, and will update graphics as required.

• Change little Maya’s nappy. Poo!

14:30:14:40

• Fag break

14:40-15:40

• Add new small Adwords campaign

• Contact another webhost about subdomain redirect issues with a number of low-quality sites on an early network - namely, that the subdomains are no longer redirecting properly.

• I’m helping a small client with their sitemap - currently their ecommerce software creates insanely huge files - a few megabytes per product section.

  I begin to create a set of test files for him to upload, to see if creating a larger number of sitemaps based on brand, not products, looks like it will work fine with them.

• My text editor stops editing properly. Will have to reboot Windows.

15:40-15:50

• Fag break, interrupted by phone support for a client who is changing one of the categories on their ecommerce site, which will affect navigation.

  Luckily, I’ve previously gone in and edited all of their files to split key parts of their site into include statements. 3 lines edits and a quick FTP, and their internal links are updated across the site - test and they work fine.

15:40-16:40

• Another SEO company approached me recently about setting up links on my sites for one of their e-commerce clients. It’s a significant order, and they sent a set of keywords and links last night.

  I build their link files ready to set up on the adserver, then set up a custom online order form for them and e-mail them about arrangements being ready to start.

16:40-18:00

• Go downstairs to make tea for the family, and wash-up. :)

18:00-18:15

• Check on Threadwatch and a couple of blogs, to see what’s going on in the world.

18:20-18:40

• Call Aaron Wall and discuss issues of SEO, business, and webmastering.

18:40-19:15

• I have a big US corporate client, but recently my liason there left, and I’ve had to do business directly with their accounting department.

  Yesterday they informed me I’d need to send them a W-8 form. I figured out last night it was probably a W-8 BEN, and rang the US Inland Revenue Service to find out about a couple of options on the form I wasn’t sure of. Was finally advised in a helpful way, and the form is complete.

19:15-19:25

• Fag break

19:25-20:20

• Flagging now - drifting around sites - send advertising enquiries to a couple of places.

• Get kids warm milk for supper, then dress and brush their teeth for bed

20:20-21:00

• Another support request - change category navigation on an ecommerce site. Edit includes and upload new files, checking they work fine.

• Send e-mail to Google AdWords support asking why I’ve not started to get impressions yet. My account budget is low to test it out, but I’m bidding tops on non-competitive keywords.

• Send e-mail to client who needs sitemap updating, asking for limited FTP access to a folder so that I can test the file edits I’ve been making live, and correct any template/presentation issues that may come up

• Send e-mail to a lead generated earlier in the week - I had stated that I could have a report for him by the end of the week, but I’ve been too busy in support. Apologise for delay and state that a report will be ready for him before Monday morning.

21:00 +

Time to wind down…

• Have shower

• It’s Friday, so get dressed up and spend rest of the evening with girlfriend.

• Open cans of Strongbow, and watch another episode of “Babylon 5″ Season 1, and “Father Ted” series 2. :)

End of day. :)