People in the SEO industry tend to look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them that not only do I solely focus on link building, but I asked for the job. Let me give you a little background.
I started at Brulant in February of 2006 and was given the task of evaluating our link acquisition process. Within weeks, I was immersed in the world of link building, reading articles from industry experts like Eric Ward among others. The world of link acquisition was bigger and broader than I initially thought and I began to experiment with all types of link building, distinguishing the white hat tactics from the black hat tactics, not that this was an easy task. Long story short, I became hooked.
I’m fascinated by the nature of humans, especially how they act online. I began to explore the concept of why people link to other sites in the first place. Eventually, I started heading up processes and building out customized strategies for clients in a variety of industries. And that brings me to where I am today.
Recently, I had someone ask me “what do you do all day?” The easy answer is “build links.” But that’s easier said than done and there is more to it than just that. So here is a look at a typical day for me:
4:00 am – the alarm starts to go off. I wake up with my head full of tasks that need to be accomplished, topics I need to research, and sites I need to evaluate. Often times, a concept/ idea that started blooming the night before is still on my mind first thing in the morning.
4:30 am – I sit down with a cup of coffee and a good book. I read a variety of things and I am always looking for new ways to connect two seemingly dissimilar things together.
5:30 am – I’m off to work, listening to books like Freakonomics, Cluetrain Manifesto, and Linked – the New Science of Networks.
6:30 am – I arrive at work (I have a slight detour to take my kids to the sitter, hence the long commute), fire up the laptop and begin working.
6:30 – 3:00 pm – This part of my day varies the most. It’s generally full of client meetings, brainstorm sessions, regroups, and reporting analysis. I also spend a good portion of this time executing a lot of our strategies. The big point about this whole chunk of time is that I often have very little time to research new things. This I reserve for evenings. In an average 8 hour work day, I have rougly 2 – 3 hours when I am not in meetings or being pulled into conversations about the status of a project.
3:00 pm – Shut down and head home. Again, I’m usually listening to a book on CD, but sometimes, I drive in silence, brainstorming ideas. I carry a digital voice recorder with me so I don’t forget anything by the time I get home.
4:30 pm – I arrive home and start doing the typical “just got home” stuff: make dinner, do laundry, give the kids a bath, etc.
6:00 pm – Fire up the laptop again, check emails and get in touch with people as necessary.
8:00 pm – Kids go to bed, so I start researching. Generally, when I research I start with one particular topic in mind and I let myself wander online, gauging how I find the sites that I do and what is typically catching my attention. I work on client projects, do research relevant to their vertical, create and edit deliverables, etc.
11:00 pm – I call it a day and go to bed. But not until I lay in bed for a bit, brainstorming just a bit more before falling asleep.
