Welcome to DARCI Creative!
Growing up in New Hampshire, I have a lifelong appreciation for small businesses’ impact on their community. So when I learned that one marketing agency was behind a lot of our local Seacoast brands’ outreach, I took interest. Enter DARCI Creative, and my summer as a Search Marketing Intern.
What is search marketing? While it isn’t as in-your-face as social media or print advertising, it’s probably why you’re reading this article in the first place. Search marketing is the use of website design and search algorithms to increase the reach of your business’s page. If you’ve ever refused to go to the second page of Google or clicked on a website because of the text blurb under the title (called metadata), you have been influenced by search marketing.
As I reflect on my time with DARCI Creative, I have learned so much through my internship experience. Read below for some of the amazing work our team does, and how I was able to contribute!
Project #1: FAQs and links
One of the most powerful tools on a webpage is an FAQ section. Besides the user-friendliness of having all of your answers in one easy-to-find spot, it is also a great place to put keywords. Keywords are the phrases and words people most typically use to find your company’s offerings. Using them in moderation is key to “ranking” well, or showing higher in the results of searches.
FAQs are gaining even more importance as AI transforms the searching process. Google’s AI summaries frequently pull from Q&A sections, and so do generative AI systems like ChatGPT. In my role at DARCI Creative, I wrote FAQs for multiple different companies. These clients ranged from local heating and cooling specialists to hand, wrist, and elbow surgeons. I love the thought of saving consumers (and companies) an unnecessary phone call by answering their questions ahead of time!
Another great way to increase your site’s credibility and ranking is by checking links. Over time, the pages, sites, and documents that links lead to can change location and/or be eliminated. This creates a broken link…aka, the annoying error messages that don’t bring your customers anywhere. Search engines keep track of these and rank sites with lots of broken links lower on results. Part of my role at DARCI Creative was going through websites, finding broken links, and finding a new place to link to with the same information. This was especially unique and important with our client Center For Assessment, a state and district’s education partner, as their site often linked to valuable academic papers and data.
Project #2: Website data
A key part of search marketing is tagging systems. Ever wonder where Google pulls website titles from, or jumps to specific sections of a page from a menu? That’s tagging! My job was to edit existing tags for information accuracy and keywords. For example, a webpage titled “Contact Us | Nashua Home Design Center | Design & Remodeling in Southern NH” will draw more views than simply “Contact Us”.
If you have great writing, you’re going to want great photos too. Pictures require alt text, or a brief description of the contents of the picture. Screen readers, a type of accessibility software, use alt text to turn photos into audio descriptions. This is an essential update to your page for those with visual impairments. It also helps search engines categorize and promote websites. I updated the images with alt text for multiple orgs, including a national moving company, building accessibility and credibility.
Project #3: My reporting final
Marketing uses a unique language, and uses unique metrics to show how it’s helping build sales. A key challenge of marketing, then, is turning our words and numbers into something business owners can evaluate themselves. This is marketing reporting.
My capstone project was to evaluate our current monthly client check-in structure and see what could be made better. This included adding new data, changing the order of information, and even reevaluating format as a whole. The result is a report that shares our team’s work to our clients quicker and with better value.
Project #4: Connecting with our amazing team
I’ve been lucky enough to be a member of a couple of different organizations in my early career, and I made an observation: a lot of the most creative and talented people I met had agency experience. After working at DARCI Creative, I can confirm that this was not random.
The DARCI Creative team has taught me so much about collaboration, teamwork, and cultivating a work community. They are incredibly committed to their clients’ success and love the challenge of building a brand from the ground up and then maintaining it.
A highlight of the start of summer was a coffee meet-up with my fellow interns, Julie and Emma. Another fun side-adventure was social media content creation with Sail Portsmouth. A couple other Darci team members and I filmed and took photos on a tall-ship sailing trip in Portsmouth harbor. Beyond just being fun, this was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about a client while also getting essential content for their outreach. Photo proof below!
Ten Weeks, One Agency, Lots of Gratitude
These past weeks have packed in a lot of invaluable learning for me. This includes technical skills like software and writing structures, and soft skills like project management and presenting. It was an honor to build this knowledge while also collaborating with such amazing organizations.
DARCI Creative’s dedication to their clients, community, and team is a mission I will carry with me throughout my career. I am so thankful to have been able to contribute to this organization this summer!
