Hands on Experience at EpikLabs

I recently started my experience at EpikLabs as the Web Marketing intern for my Advanced Marketing Internship course at Champlain College. EpikLabs is EpikOne's internship program that is designed to immerse students with the skills and experience they need to excel in the web space, specifically the web analytics industry. With a less than excellent experience at my previous internship, working for EpikOne has been a breath of fresh air. I was immediately immersed into performing professional web marketing tasks that have already expanded my skills and understanding of the industry in just a few weeks!

Despite my job title of "intern", I have been given opportunities to work on exciting projects. One of which involved working with a local (Burlington, VT) company. The client needed a variety of tasks to be completed, and it was a great learning experience. My first task was a Search Engine Optimization project (SEO) which involved writing keyword rich content. Our goal was to make sure that key terms related to the site were listed on the first page on the search results. One tactic to ensure that this happens is to write keyword rich content - this was my task.

After I accomplished that part of the project, my next assignment was to take the copy and apply some basic HTML coding. Although I didn't have the slightest idea how to write code, my manager (Paul Skarvinko) briefly explained the basics of good SEO HTML coding and provided me with some examples of how to construct the HTML. Within a few minutes I was hyper-linking text as well as images. This is something I never thought I would be able to do. If I ran into a problem, EpikOne staffers were extremely helpful with getting me back on the right track. Once I coded all of the optimized pages, my next task was to link them to already established "category" pages on the client's website.

Working on this project was a great learning experience, as I have never performed many of the tasks mentioned prior. Skills like writing copy to optimize a page for organic listings, writing basic HTML text and image linking code, and understanding how to connect landing pages to a website are all important aspects in this profession. I never thought I would learn these tactics in the first few weeks! EpikLabs is a great place to be an intern because the EpikOne staff is extremely knowledgeable and willing to share their knowledge. The environment at EpikLabs fosters learning and I can't wait to see what new skills I will acquire next!

-Michael J. Taverna