What's Your SEO Daily Routine?

[jempp]

Hi all,

Just thought it'd be interesting to get an insight in to the 'typical' daily routine for an SEO. I am trying to work out how to plan my day - I spose as a result of my 'get organised' ny resolution

Look forward to seeing your posts,

Jeremy

[jempp]

Well I start my day off with a glance through my RSS feeds on my Firefox Bookmark Toolbar (best place I find to place them for quick access)

SEO Feeds I monitor (links to each feed):
- Matt Cutts Blog
- Google Blog
- SEW Blog
- SEW News
- ThreadWatch
- Oilman

Plus an assortment of tech. related feeds

jimmy1812

[ShandyKing]

While reading my SEO related blogs, I use Google's Personal home page to quickly view all the topics of the blogs in one clean page. It makes for a nice quick glance at what is happening today.

Yahoo has a nice podcast feature that I like, which allows me to keep up with SEO related audio clips.

Balancing research and work is what it is all about. Keeping up with the world is secondary. Finding customers, working with them and paying the bills is primary.

[L]

Great question - I'd love to know what other in-house SEO's whole daily routines are!

Its great to get in early before the phone starts ringing, and the inbox and the IM start blowing up, to get some reading in:

1. Listen to SE watch podcast on my drive down to work
2. Get breakfast & a coke at work
3. Look up stuff I read on SEwatch podcast whilst enjoying breakfast
4. Check forums for responses to any posts I started or am watching
5. Blog reading until other work just starts closing in on me: Matt Cutts blog, seroundtable, Yahoo blog, seomoz
6. Meetings and emails catch up with me and i spend the rest of the day actually working

[vayapues]

Great topic.

I work as the SEO / Programmer for a local but expanding nationwide company.

As a result I have more responsibilities then just SEO. I spend my first three or four hours with my office door shut and locked programming without interuption.

I spend the next hour or two meeting with other departments, finding out what new features everyone wants, what bugs people are experiencing, etc.

Next I fix the bugs, and schedule when I am going to program new features on my calendar.

I usually next spend an hour or two looking up all my important searches to see how I am doing, look for ways to improve conversion, lead generation, etc.

Lastly, I spend about the last hour to hour and a half reading blogs, (mostly the same blogs others have already mentioned) and doing research.

[L]

All in all, I bet most of us would agree that we need a good amount of time each day to do like vayapues and lock the door & fill our brains with as much new overnight SEO info and as many new SEO topics from a kajillion blogs AND check all of our own rankings and stats every day. A good 4 hours each day would be awesome, unfortunately for myself, I get only about an hour each day to do that.

I lied. I actually rock out on the way to work. (listen to the Search Cast on the way home)

[sitecreations]

First ... coffee...

Then....

I have set up a machine to include my page monitors, RSS, and podcast feeds. I quickly review those first thing to see if I need to alter my day in any fashion. I glance at my directory/link submission schedule (I do natural-looking submits to page equity directories this way) and line up my assistant with directory submits that need done.

I use Klipfolio to hunt through Google News (and even wrote an rss article about the process for my clients.)

I use the page monitor klip, the google news klip, and a few RSS feed clips in there. I think it's a neat tool thanks to its user interface. I use feeddemon for everything else. I set up RSS feeds for each of my clients' industries so that I can advise them on any marketing shifts.

I then log in to my YahooSM/Adwords console and make sure there aren't any wildfires in the PPC world. I do this last because there may be items in the RSS overview that warrants a PPC change.

I then check in with my developers on IM to see if there are any fires on their end, and to get a sense of what they're doing today. We are now using wikis for projects, which makes things easier and causes less email.

Last thing is I review my support ticket system for any bugs/problems with sites. These are delegated appropraitely, and I move on from there.

I usually listen to the Daily Search Cast (Go Danny!) at some point when I go out for a run. And yes, guys, I listen to the day before and sometimes I'm totally unsure what day it is. Once I accidentally loaded up an oldie where the SEs were still bickering over who was the largest. I thought "oh no, not again..." but then I realized.

[highpr]

I have a daily routine that is similar to those already posted - with one exception -

I AM COMPLETELY ADDICTED TO WEB CEO!

If I don't run the rankings report - MANUALLY - then watch the ranking results as they come in one by one - I'm a mess until I do.

Is there a support group for this?

[simons1321]

My Daily SEO routine... granted I do SEO full time.

8am - 10am give or take 1-4hrs: Check client rankings with proprietary tool, get my SEO news fix through my 27feeds on Google reader, and check and respond to emails.

10am - Noon give or take 1-4hrs: Optimization tweaks, link building, competition research

1pm - 3pm give or take 1-4hrs: Keyword research, web design, blogging, forums, etc

3pm - 5pm give or take 1-4hrs: New client research, optimization, meetings

5pm: Go home.

5:30pm - 10:30pm give or take 1-4hrs: Webdesign, SEO, and PPC for my own personal websites and clients


Wow, looking at this... i've decided, i spend entirely way too much time on SEO!!!!!!!!!!

If I "take 4hrs" in every section, I could easily spend 24+ hrs a day working on SEO related stuff... amazing!

[jempp]

Oh - one thing I do to help make sure my pages get indexed, is visit Google Sitemaps once a week.

I use a php google sitemap generator which works great, in creating a new xml file, flagging files that have not yet been ticked for inclusion in the sitemap.

I suppose it's one of those extra things I do to make sure my pages get indexed - and quickly (*varied opinions on this by many - as far as i can see it works well for me)

jempp

[eJojo]

At the moment I work alone on my projects and have no clients. So I get normally up between 11am and noon. That I like most about my life. First I check my mails, Bloglines (I follow 67 Blogs ...) and of course my revenues from yesterday. After that it is normally time for lunch. (I don´t have breakfast.) After lunch I begin with working on my projects and hear music while I work ... at 5pm I look an hour TV and after that I have dinner. Afterwards I look TV, go to soccer training or work some more. My day ends around 3am ... ;-)

[jempp]

Marcia, Danny, Jill, DaveN, etc. You know who you are - how do YOU spend your day?

jempp

[randfish]

I typically don't get up until 8am, when my girlfriend gets out of the shower. I'm on the computer at my place from 8am-9 or sometimes later. Then I walk the two miles to work and generally take phone calls and reply to requests for business.

My day is then split between managing projects that Kat, Matt & Gillian (plus outsourced folks) are working on, posting to the SEOmoz blog (which involves visiting del.icio.us, digg, about 50 SEO/M blogs and 4-5 forums) and laying out new ideas for content, promotions, etc.

I leave work between 5:30-6:00pm and come home, where I'll be on the computer again after dinner - typically this is my link building and developing time - I research keywords, watch the SERPs (through some fancy, shmancy tools) and try to boost up some positions. On and off I check email, visit blogs, forums, etc and keep an eye on SEOmoz.

All in all, it's a very, very nice workday. I'm doing what I want to do on a schedule I enjoy. I only wish I could fit a daily workout into my routine. I think I'll be moving soon and buying an eliptical trainer and a few more free weights.

This year is filled with travel, though - NYC in Feb. and Calif. in March (and possibly China, too). Then Toronto, Miami, San Jose, SF in the Fall and Vegas, too, possibly.

No two workdays are the same, and that's something I really enjoy. Building a business can be stressful, but it's also exciting and fun, particularly when you enjoy what you do and who you work with. In all honesty, I couldn't ask for anything else.

[jazar]

My daily routine would look more like this:

[dannysullivan]

Ideally, my day starts around 9am when I row for half an hour, have a bowl of cereal, then read the paper in the bathtub. Hopefully I'm moving around 10:15am.

My ideal start hasn't happened for about two or three months, though, as I've been so busy and up working late. Instead, it's more like up around 9:45, bowl of cereal, bath and paper and at the computer around 10:30.

I download my email, check my feeds (I'm going to write more about this on my personal blog at daggle.com in the near future), bookmark items to follow up on. Then I hit the forum here and run thorugh the threads. After that, it's email time, punching through the 50 or so items waiting for me (my email routine, I just posted that nightmare here and here.

With luck, it's around 12-12:30 when I've gotten through this. I rundown for lunch with my wife for about 15 minutes (the idea of going out to a lengthy lunch just sounds like a luxury to me!), then I review all the items on the SEW Blog since I signed off the day before. Gary's often busy. I do some tidying of where things are categorize there, plus I pick out items for the Daily SearchCast podcast we do.

Prob. around 1:30 or so, I'm fully into blogging up items I've spotted, and that can keep me going up until the podcast. That happens, I go to dinner at 5pm.

In an ideal world, I turn off the computer and have ended my day. Realistically, it just never happens. Typically I'm back up at 6pm to do a call with some search engine on some thing. They're all in California, I'm in the UK, so 6pm is when the day starts there. Then it's more email, writing or whatever. I definitely try to end around 9pm and actually see my wife.

It can really vary. If I'm doing a lot of conference stuff, like getting the NY agenda together this week, I'm blogging less and working more. If it's a light blogging day, I'm trying to bring other items in the site more up to date. Some days, the forum keeps me busy; other days, I'm hunked down totally working on a long article.

Throughout the day, I'm watching my feeds. I also usually pop back into the forums here in the afternoon and before signing off in the evening.

[Blinky]

Hi to all.I am new to this forum.It is really interesting to read about the day begining of a SEO programmer.
I wanna see how most of you start their day with Seo work( but the coffee first). What is first and what comes second....and so on.By the way does anyone take requests for making SEO sites here?Or you do it only for yous sites, if so I got to read the whole forum I suppose( I did only the half of it by now).All the best.
Regards.

[JohnScott]

Up at 6am usually, these days at least.

Read v7n, SEW, Matt's blog (Google's version of "Cops"), ThreadWatch.

Respond to emails, PM's, etc.

Go to bed at 11PM without getting caught up.

[SearchIA]

Come into office around 9am...
Today I got in at 6am, I couldnt sleep so I got up at 4:45am, haha
Check email, My Yahoo feeds
Assign out work for my group, check work
Hit up some IT guys for report on new tools
Hands on work, tons of proposals, presentations, meetings ... your managerial duties calling
hit up lunch at noon, usually a mahi burrito, salad, thai or protein shake, if not lunch then I do an hour at the gym up the street
back to work...
review more work and proposals, Google Talk, IM a bit
finish day at 6pm and head home
Dinner or beach volleyball
Head home around 8pm - jump on laptop, check gmail, forums, read blogs
Be social some nights until 12 or 1am
Head to bed
Do it again ...

[B-Double-U]

For me.... It breaks down like this...

Competitor review/New product discovery – Finding related products to ones that we currently sell that show volumes or price points from other sellers. Reviewing competitors for any new products/lines/advertising pushes and top sellers

Feed monitoring – Check feeds for proper categories/products and prices

Marketing channel discovery/ New feed discovery – New advertising promotions/incentives/channels/affiliations etc.

URL Submission – Submit URL’s to Search engines and directories

Affiliate relationship management/Affiliate account monitoring – Solve issues related to affiliate signups (linking structure etc.) Make sure websites meet criteria and not advertising under our name/keywords etc.

Advertising relationship management - Keep in contact with sources at Google/Overture/Shopping channels to seek new and alternative practices that may benefit us, as well as upcoming product releases. Includes solving errors and management issues.

Training/Process review – Reviewing workflow and making sure everyone has a firm understanding of the processes and how to implement them with training where necessary. Making any necessary changes to flow to adjust for changing environment

PPC Review and Maintenance/Ad spending reviews – Advertising campaign reviews by type (i.e. Content Match, PPC, SPL, Listing Improvements, Shopping channels, etc.). Bid adjustments and identification of poorly performing products, ads and categories.

New Keyword discovery – Identifying new keywords to be used in Paid Advertising Channels

Keyword density reviews/Page placement/Keyword placement review and monitoring – Review and identification of current endeavors for status changes or need for optimization

Ad sales tracking – Monitor Sales figures and conversion rates

Spider detection – Monitor logs and stats for SESpiders

Webstats review – Review Stats from website and other reporting tools for similarities/anomalies

General reporting – All other reporting… A few internal reports, Global stats, Server stats, Administrative stats, Non paid sites, Alexa rankings, Marketleap data etc…… (the 10,000 foot view stuff)

Product Pricing Analysis – Review price changes for pricing (verbiage) in Ads, competitor proximity, Ad bid amount. Requesting price changes from Prod. MGT for products that are very close to competitors but poor performers.

Tracking Website Timeline Changes - Recording changes made to websites and their snapshot on any given day

Click Fraud Detection – Detect fraudulent click activity

Page/Product/keyword (website) optimization

Product order volume analysis – Identify products that have increased or decreased significantly over time

All of this give or take 1-4hours on each... <--- I stole that from simons1321

You just can't help it though.... if you find an area that needs attention, it sometimes opens up new problem that must be rectified before you can give the necessary attention to the original problem

[Kal]

7.00-7.30am - my son wakes me and I get us both breakfast
8.30am - drop my son to day care
9.00am - arrive at my desk with a very large double shot skinny latte made by my husband (who should be a barista trainer!)
9.00am-10.00am - Read and respond to emails, return phone calls etc
10.00am-11.00am - Read blogs, newsletters and newsfeeds etc and troll for new information in the world of search
11.00-11.30am - Research a reader FAQ and make my daily blog post on Dear Kalena
11.30-12.00pm - Coffee and meeting with my business partner (husband) about Search Engine College and SEO client projects
12.00-12.30pm - Lunch on the deck watching the flying fox colony at the back of our property
12.30-1.30pm - Phone calls to clients / resellers / virtual staff around the world
1.30-4.00pm - SEO work for clients and liaison with SEC students. Some virtual classroom sessions.
4.00pm - pick up my son
4.00-5.00pm - Marketing strategy for Web Rank and SEC
5.00-5.30pm - SEC course material updates or broadcasts to students
5.30-6.00pm - pop my head into and post in my fav forums if I have time
6.00-7.15pm - dinner and play time with my son
7.15 - 8.00pm - bath and put my son to bed, read him a story
8.00 - 9.30pm - back to the desk for an email and forum check
9.30- 11.30pm - spend time with my husband or watching TV
11.30pm - catch some zeds

Reading other people's schedules above, it seems like it is especially hard for people in this industry to make clear distinctions between work time and home time. My husband and I are guilty of this ourselves, but this year we are going to address the issue by renting an office in town so we aren't tempted to sneak onto the computers to check email etc when we should be relaxing and spending time with our son. I think it helps the mind to switch off if you have a physical disconnect between work and home. And it certainly helps family relationships!