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Just a quick FYI, I will be out of the office Friday July 3 until Monday July 13. Thankfully this is the last trip scheduled until the fall (following trips to Atlanta, Richmond, Sea Island, Hawaii, Rochester, NY and Boulder, CO).

As if you weren’t jealous enough, the upcoming trip starts with two nights of camping in Traverse City, MI where we will visit the National Cherry Festival, among other things. From there, my wife and I are headed to the Upper Peninsula (the “UP”) for a week. She is going to be working at the Baycliff Camp as part of her residency program and I am going backpacking on Isle Royale for 4 days.

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My email access will be very limited all week and nonexistent when I’m on the island. See you when I get back…if the wolves don’t get me first!

Editor’s Note: This is week 2 of Stephanie Chueh’s internship blog. She posts weekly about her experiences learning search engine marketing.

How does search engine optimization work? The past few days, I’ve been learning a few of the fundamental principles of SEO, and I am really excited to start putting what I’ve learned into practice.

In the next few weeks, Andrew and I are planning to get me a domain name, so I can get some hands-on experience with SEO. I’m looking forward to doing some basic programming with HTML, finding good ways to get links, making sites very accessible to visitors, discovering the best ways to generate traffic to a site, and making a site rank first when it is searched.  I want to learn all I can about this increasingly important field, and I am especially interested in finding out how SEO fits into a company’s overall marketing strategy.

Once I have completed training, I anticipate helping Andrew make your company even more visible.

Editor’s Note: This post is the first of a series written by Stephanie Chueh, summer intern extraordinaire. Don’t let her modesty fool you, she is extremely smart and I am looking forward to having her on the team! She will be writing a weekly post about her experiences learning SEM and internet marketing. Welcome Stephanie!

Stephanie Chueh

Hi! My name is Stephanie Chueh, and I’m a high school student at Community High School. In college, I’m going to double major in marketing and engineering. I love writing, watching movies, math, finding out about new things, perusing Fortune magazine, and reading in general. This summer, I am going to start interning at Your Search Advisor, and I can’t wait to get started.

I am very interested in having a career in marketing, and these days, internet marketing has become a much more important component of every company’s marketing strategy. At this internship, I anticipate getting to know more about search engine optimization, networking, marketing strategies, advertising potential with social media such as Facebook, and other exciting things happening in the internet and media worlds.

I will be learning a lot in the coming weeks, and I’m really looking forward to sharing what I learn with you!

This nugget was excerpted from an email exchange with a friend. I’ve often thought this but never put the words on paper (or pixels) until now. I thought it was worth sharing:

When I look 5-10 years ahead in SEO, choosing quantity over quality is a move in the wrong direction, if you ask me. There are going to be more competitors and more search-friendly platforms for websites. Basic crawler accessibility will be web dev 101. The truly successful SEO will approach search from marketing perspective, not the other way around.

That’s why it’s called Search Engine Marketing.

Penny for your thoughts? Literally. Stop by the Brickyard. I’ve got a mug full of ‘em.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about the inner workings of Your Search Advisor. Of course, by “inner workings” I mean the various thoughts rattling around in my head. Here are some updates I’ve been meaning to pass along to you, dear reader.

Finally Back in Ann Arbor!

As of today, my wife Elizabeth and I are Ann Arbor residents once again. After the first two years flew by (1 in Ann Arbor, 1 in Flint), her residency program is entering its final 6 months back at the U of M hospital. We’re both excited to be back in town and closer to good restaurants, friends, cool parks, and my office.

We’re so close to the action that I can start commuting by bike again. Call me “green” if you will, but I do it primarily for the fresh air and convenience. I can ride the 1.6 miles to work in under 9 minutes versus 17 minutes of driving, looking for a parking spot and walking the 3-4 blocks from the “free” parking. Oh, and it’s not very fun on rainy days (like today). I was soaked!

Website Redesign

Continuing the “green” theme (albeit for different reasons), I’m about two weeks away from launching a revamped version of YourSearchAdvisor.com. Ross Johnson is putting together an awesome design concept and we hope to have it up by the end of June.

Here’s a sneak peak of the new logo which will give you an idea of the direction we’re heading:

New Monthly Client Newsletter

Any day now I’ll be sending out the first issue of a new monthly (to start) client newsletter. There’s so much happening in the Search Engine Marketing industry that I’m finding it harder and harder to keep all of my clients up to date on the developments that matter to them. More importantly, I want to make sure they know how each development impacts them and what they can/should do about it.

It’s not just for clients though. Anybody can sign up here:

You will also have the option to sign up for a “Breaking News” email that I will only send if something happens that requires your immediate attention.

Last Call for Internship Applications

I am looking for an intern this summer to help with some research and client prep work. It’s a great way to learn the basics of Search Engine Marketing and help out on some actual client work.

If you or anybody you know wants to learn more about it, here’s the blog post with more details.