Hi! I’m Tristen the Online PR Apprentice (OPRA), a moniker that I will be going by throughout this journey. This is my first week working for OnlinePRbook.com (OnlinePRbook for the sake of this blog). I’m incredibly excited to be working for an organization that helps to advance the profession of Online PR.
I met with Ponn, my on-site advisor/Janet’s partner, last week to get an introductory course to the Online PR lifestyle/web workings and became extremely eager to begin my assignments on Monday. There was a minor setback, however, as my computer started to systematically fail on me. This issue was resolved after a 70 minute conversation with a customer representative from my computer manufacturer and my new motherboard will be coming at some point on Friday afternoon.
The intent of this blog is to showcase everything I learn through this internship and how it will help me improve as a future public relations practitioner. This week I’m going to briefly examine the introductory world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
I had always been intimidated by the acronym SEO because it sounded almost scary in a way, and took on a power of its own for every day that I found myself unaware of its actual meaning. Social media education is not taught in the classroom (not yet at least) so this is all on the job training.
It turns out, though, that Search Engine Optimization is quite possibly the easiest aspect of Online PR and that I had been doing it ever since I started using the internet. Things tend to get confusing when unknown acronyms come in to play.
What’s great about SEO is that it does not have to be used purely for the sake of public relations. It also helps drive traffic to any website that offers a tagging/keywords or keyword phrases options.
When I try to break it down and describe to my friends in the non-public relations realm what SEO is I tell them that it’s kind of the like the option on social networking sites that allows a user to tag friends in notes or pictures; doing this makes people more likely to read that note, or to look at their online photo album. The tagging/keyword/phrase option, though, is only one tiny method to SEO.
Something that’s great about working at OnlinePRBook.com is that my mentor is giving me a bit of a crash course by reviewing and hopefully implementing a great ebook entitled, 50 SEO Secrets for Mom Entrepreneurs by Holly Klaassen.
And before publishing this blog post, Ponn emailed me this new SEO ebook available for free, entitled, DIY SEO for Your WordPress Site,by Suzanne Bird-Harris. (DIY = Do It Yourself). Since I’m working on a WordPress blog, she recommended that I get started here.
With over hundreds, if not thousands, of techniques to help “optimize” keyword phrases on the “search engines” so others can find your articles (like mine here) or products easier, I have quite the learning curve ahead of me!
Anyways, that’s a particularly simplistic look at a technique which helps any sort of online publishing professional, or novice blogger like myself. Nonetheless, I am most certainly looking forward to learning new and exciting things in the dynamic world of Online PR.
So, do you want to join me in this journey!?…I sure hope so!
Tristen Sechi is a senior at Quinnipiac University pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations. As OnlinePRbook.com’s OPRA (Online PR Apprentice), Tristen is eager to learn all the tricks to the trade and share her discoveries with you! To make this journey interesting, we welcome your tips, comments and question in the comment section below, or by emailing her directly at tristen@onlineprbook.com
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One Response to “My First Week as an Online PR Apprentice – OPRA”
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February 12th, 2010 at 9:14 am
Tristen, if you continue to break down Online PR principles, ie. SEO, in layman’s terms, you’ll truly help many people learn the simplicity and necessity of these techniques which are not specific to PR practitioners. Keep up the great work.
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