How My Internship at Itential Helped to Define My Career Path

Throughout high school I was involved in many of my school’s activities and clubs and my favorite part about them was always the marketing-related tasks centered around creating interest and engagement for each club. I quickly grew intrigued by the marketing process, which inspired me to major in ‘Marketing/International Business Studies’ in college. That’s why interning at Itential right after my high school graduation was an absolute dream come true. It’s rare that students are offered the opportunity to gain experience in a real-world environment before they even take their first college course.

On my first day, I was immediately welcomed by everyone, including those outside of the marketing team, and even though I was the youngest person in the office, I was treated with the same kindness and respect every employee at Itential receives. Everyone was quick to answer my questions and I was swiftly integrated to the ItentiaLife culture. So, as I near the end of my internship I wanted to share a bit more about my incredible experience as a recent high school graduate working alongside an industry-leading marketing team selling a best-in-class product.

My Summer of SEO Strategies

While there are many facets and avenues one can take in marketing, I spent my summer laser focused on improving Itential’s SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO strategies are always ongoing and require a lot of focus and experimenting, but the goal of my project was to increase Itential’s presence and searchability across the internet by helping to update and implement foundational elements to contribute to the larger strategy. As an intern — someone who knew nothing about SEO just two months ago — I immediately began researching and compiling recommended best practices on how to make Itential’s website and YouTube channel optimized to reach more people along their buying journeys.

In tandem with my research, I also developed a source of truth for all of Itential’s webpage meta titles and descriptions, and image alt text as well as our YouTube video library. This gave our entire team a place to easily refence our current state and determine the needed improvements in one place based on best practices.

First up, I worked with my team to update the meta titles, descriptions, and images for all our main webpages. By doing this, we’re effectively letting Google, and other popular search engines, understand the relevant information on each page so it can easily be matched to a user’s search intent based on their relevant keywords. For example, when a user searches for network automation tools, our goal is to have our relevant webpages show at the top of their search result page making it much easier for users to find helpful and relevant information around their topic of interest or problem to solve (ultimately leading back to Itential as a great solution).

Next up, we tackled adding alt descriptions to each image on our main webpages for two main reasons; to help with accessibility of our site as well as allow search engines to read what each image shows, further contributing to the searchability of our website.

Lastly, I tackled our channel on YouTube, the second most popular search engine. For every video, we updated the title, description, and related videos to ensure that they were also optimized for relevant search terms, questions, and keywords. Just like web content, we want our YouTube videos to be easy to find by users.

At the end of my internship, I helped to update over 200 page metas, 303 alt image descriptions, and 121 YouTube videos. By getting hands on experience, I learned not only the real value an SEO strategy can have for a business but also how to work and collaborate with a team in the workplace.

The Value of Real-World Experience Before College

Not only did I gain valuable marketing experience, I also gained significant real-world working experience. While I was both super excited and nervous to join a network automation company, a technical industry for a fresh grad, I wasn’t sure what to expect since this was my first professional job.

I expected to learn new marketing terms, skills, and strategies but I never expected to grow as much as I did as an employee and as an individual during just one summer. The support and training I received from team at every moment truly set me up for success. After experiencing day-to-day work life with my coworkers, I learned so many things I could never possibly learn in the classroom, from how big projects are managed to the nitty gritty of how to communicate across teams on Slack. The biggest lesson I learned is to love what you do and to do it well.

Getting to experience the behind the scenes of a business was truly life changing as I learned so many new skills that I’ll be able to apply as I enter college and my next job. My favorite thing about Itential is how different teams interact with each other. Watching the way they collaborate and strategize to bring new ideas to fruition was fascinating and truly inspiring. Everyone has something unique to bring to the table that has a lasting impact on the company.

Throughout my internship I had conversations that challenged me to think creatively, strategically, and outside the box. I loved being a part of a place that appreciates everyone’s differences and works hard to find the best solution to a problem. After my first week of working at Itential, I already felt like I had learned more than I ever expected.

I am so incredibly grateful to work alongside such an incredible and aspiring team. Getting to be hands on daily has been incredibly fun, interesting, and further validation of my decision to pursue a career in marketing. My team’s positive leadership helped me grow in ways I never expected. Not only has this internship taught me crucial work skills but it has also taught me critical life skills, and it has left me feeling much more confident than I did at the beginning of this summer.

Working at Itential was truly a rewarding experience and I highly encourage anyone looking to grow their skillsets to join the ItentiaLife. The team here is dedicated to growing top talent and helping young professionals make a path for themselves. Check out all the open position here.