Ryan Falcone was a 2017 summer intern at SEMGeeks and worked with the SEO team. He is going into his senior year at Rider University. See his thoughts on his SEMGeeks experience below!
When people think of Belmar, they normally think of the beach, expensive food, and Tuesday’s at Bar A. From now on when I think of Belmar, I’m going to think of SEMGeeks. Being my first internship, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the company. A lot of thoughts went through my mind on that drive on my first day. I thought a lot about the people I’d work with, and what I would be doing with the SEO department, which is where I would be working. When I arrived at my desk, I immediately knew it would be a great experience where so much would be learned.
While interning at SEMGeeks with the SEO team, I learned how to use many different services that will help me in the future. SEO is search engine optimization, which is used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking in the results of a search engine. Learning how to use services like WordPress to post blogs was a big part of what I did during my internship. I also used a service called Outbrain to create Outbrains for different clients. Outbrains are advertisements
that are placed on different websites. One of my favorite aspects of my job at SEMGeeks was creating blog topics for different clients. The creativity I was able to display while creating blog topics made it fun to work, and the client’s positive feedback and approval was very fulfilling. There were many different services learned here at SEMGeeks.
Even though I didn’t personally work with any clients, I witnessed the relationships between the SEO team and our clients, which was very pleasant. Our clients are very appreciative and respectful of the work that we do in the SEO department, and they are a pleasure to work with. It makes for a great work environment when the clients are hands on and work with us, and that is the experience I had at SEMGeeks with clients.
While I am very grateful for the education I received at Rider University, the experience you have as an intern at SEMGeeks is unable to be learned in a classroom. Being hands on with clients and seeing the way our SEO team chooses keywords and finds Google rankings has proven to be invaluable information. School is important as it helps develop you as an adult and builds a strong work ethic, but the experience in the field is what will continue to help you get hired and be successful in whatever you plan to do.
My time at SEMGeeks will continue to help me in my upcoming semester at Rider. Being in an environment where my team works with clients on projects will help me decide where to focus my studies. Also, now that I have experience at an internship, it has taught me more about the field of marketing that I didn’t know before. This will help me in the marketing classes I will be taking in the future.
One of the things that made me nervous about coming to SEMGeeks on my first day was how my fellow employees would be. It was similar to that first day at a new school, being around all new people for the first time that I would be with every day for the next 8 weeks. Now at the end of my internship, I can say that the environment at SEMGeeks is exceptional. It is filled with young, hungry, friendly, hardworking individuals who welcomed me with open arms. When it comes to the SEO team, I couldn’t be luckier to work with a better team. Everyone taught me so much and included me in client calls, meetings, and more that would prepare me for my career.
There is so much I learned about the field of marketing while interning at SEMGeeks. When I first got to college, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. This is not a problem, as most students aren’t sold on their career plans as college freshman. But as time went on, I still wasn’t sure what the future held for me. I knew I wanted to do something in the business department, and I enjoyed a more creative side of business, so I settled on marketing. Even after selecting marketing, I wasn’t sold on if it was for me. My time at SEMGeeks confirmed that marketing is exactly what I want to do. The type of free range and creativity you are able to express while working with the client’s vision makes for a perfect match between marketing and myself.
Now that my time at SEMGeeks is coming to a close, I can say that my time here is like nothing I expected from my first internship. I was not treated as an intern, but rather a member of the team, like every other employee. The experience obtained here is more valuable than anything learned in a classroom, and the relationships built here are ones I hope to have for a long time. Even though my time as an intern has come to an end, I hope it’s not the end for me at SEMGeeks.
