It started in college. Like most students, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study. This resulted in me switching my major often.
By the time I finished my Associate’s degree, I had dipped my toes in architecture, engineering, mathematics, and finally accounting. But after all that trial and error, I still wasn’t happy with my decision.
At this point, I had already spent 4 years as an undergrad, so I was ready to move on to the next stage of my life.
The plan was to complete my Associate’s degree and transfer to the University of Central Florida. Once there, I would change my major one final time.
Considering I had a ton of business credits, I knew the best path forward was to stick with a business major. After much deliberation (and binge-watching Mad Men) I decided to pursue a career in Marketing.
Of course, this still doesn’t explain how I got into SEO.
Well, at the start of my “senior” year in college, we had a school event where our Dean of Business said something that really struck me.
“There will be over 1,000 students graduating with Marketing degrees this year. How will you be the ONE that gets hired?”
It’s not that I was a bad student (I did graduate), but I certainly wasn’t the best. Far from it. Plus, I wasn’t involved in any clubs and didn’t have a ton of connections.
How was I going to differentiate myself, not only from the graduating class, but also from everyone in the job market?
Back to drawing board.
I knew the quickest path to graduation was with a Marketing degree and I always wanted to travel so why not try and combine the two?
***Full disclosure: I didn’t become a digital nomad, yet…
I started to look for marketing careers that allowed you to work from anywhere using a laptop and Wi-Fi. I don’t recall if the “digital nomad” lifestyle was promoted as much then but what I found felt new to me.
After reading a few blogs, I ran into one story about a girl working remotely doing SEO (I wish I could find the blog because I’d definitely link to it).
It resonated because it was a marketing skill that I could learn. Prior to that, every blog I read was about starting a business or managing social media (which I despise).
Now with a goal in mind (learn SEO), I could start to create a path forward.
At the time of this decision, I was working for a magazine company primarily managing their social media. My first thought was to start “applying” SEO to their website.
To my dismay, they were outsourcing SEO to a web development company and I didn’t have the experience or the cachet to bring it in-house.
Time for plan B – find an internship at a different company, ideally doing SEO.
I reached out to several SEO agencies in Orlando but didn’t receive much interest. Luckily, my online marketing professor would regularly invite local digital marketing professionals to talk to our class.
Among them was an owner of a boutique SEO agency. After a couple of calls and a few interviews, I finally landed an SEO internship.
And the rest is history.
Of course, that’s only the start of my journey. Like every career path, there have been plenty of bumps along the way that I’ll talk about in later blogs.
At the same time, there’s several ideas I want you to take away from my story.
- No one knows where life is going to take them, and everyone is figuring it out as they go. Act accordingly.
- When choosing a career path, picture the lifestyle you want first. Then look for a career that best matches that lifestyle using your current skills or passions (at least that helped guide me).
- Don’t be scared to focus on a specific niche. I used to think being knowledgeable in several areas would make me more valuable. In reality, companies are willing to pay top dollar for experts in their respective fields.
- Finally, after creating a career path, it’s all about execution. Don’t be afraid to knock on doors and ask questions.