Lately it has amazed me how quickly the days are flying by. My daughter just turned 9 and celebrated her First Holy Communion. It seems like just yesterday I was counting down the days until my due date.

The same can be said for the days that I have worked at DDA, a graphic design company. This year marks 12 years that I have been working with this company. I still remember getting a phone call from my older sister who was then a Graphic Designer with DDA. I was home from school and was asked if I could come in and help put together a product catalog that was designed by DDA. Before working here, I never really used computers. Then I became proficient on a Mac. Over the years, I was in charge of mailing lists, software, data entry, proofreading, and many other tasks that could look like a laundry list if every aspect was included.

Today, my title is simply a Search Engine Optimization Specialist. This is not something that happened overnight and it wasn’t quite simple either.

Back when I started to learn about the techniques used for website optimization, things were much simpler. But back then, the switch from using a Mac to switching to a PC was my hardest challenge! As each year passed, I became more and more independent in my website optimization. And now, I handle all of these websites each month without a second thought.

So here I am today, three children later, still managing to keep up with the latest search engine marketing and optimization tips and trends. Time flies when you’re having fun! Enjoy your weekend everyone!

People always look at me funny when I say that I come to work to relax. My weekends are hardly relaxing.

This crazy weekend consisted of completely redecorating my sister’s bedroom for her 13th birthday, celebrating a communion, doing the normal chores, and then on top of it all having to create a 3D model of a piranha for my daughter’s rainforest project… I was actually looking forward to coming into work to have a few hours without having to run around like a chicken with my head cut off. And it is always nice to be able to eat lunch without having to cut up and serve three other lunches first!

This morning at DDA, as soon as I came in I was given the task of researching URLS and listing all contact information, etc. This was not listed in my calendar of events for a Monday, but I held off on all other projects to do so. This isn’t a rare occurrence, being a Search Engine Optimization Specialist at a graphic design company. Aside from my normal tasks of optimizing websites, I will be asked to take on several other tasks on a daily basis.

I may not have been able to relax just yet, but it is a Monday so that’s normal. I honestly don’t think that I am capable of being 100% relaxed. Pretty much the only time I sit at home is to fold laundry or eat dinner. And even then I am usually up and doing something on the in-between.

But it is nice coming to DDA, taking a deep breath and being Jess for a while instead of Mom.

Time rules my life. I seem to do everything at the same time everyday. I am always on time if not early… and on time to me means at least 5 minutes early for any event. So when someone tells me that they will be at my house at 8:15 a.m. to pick up my daughter for “take your daughter to work day,” they get a phone call at 8:14 a.m. seeing if it will take more than one minute to show up.

Ten minutes later, I am mentally stressing and seeing how much time left I have to take my sons to school and race to work. Somehow, time was on my side and I didn’t get a single red light on my way to work.

After arriving at DDA, a graphic design company, I sit at my desk, check the clock (of course) and begin my role as Search Engine Optimization Specialist. I check my calendar to see which websites I will be optimizing on each hour of my glorious Thursday.

With our SureThing optimization program, we take several steps each month, and over time this increases website rankings. It is very interesting to see how the work that I do on a monthly basis helps a website climb higher in the major search engines.

I would continue… but I only have 2 minutes until I need to begin optimizing my first website of the day.

On my way into work this morning, I was next to a truck with a logo displayed on the side and thought, DDA could design a better logo than that one! As a search engine optimization specialist at a graphic design company, I look at things with a critical eye. Whether its ending up proofing a menu when trying to decide what to order for dinner or looking at all of the billboards on my way to the shore, I find myself critiquing other company’s design work. It makes me realize just how talented our designers are at DDA.

Now I am by no means a designer myself, but I can definitely see a big difference in skill, experience, and ability when comparing DDA designs to other company’s logo designs, website designs, billboard designs and catalog designs.

Like most kids, I grew up loving cartoons. Back then it was The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Rainbow Brite, The Transformers, Ninja Turtles (I could go one and on) that were on the television in my house. Growing up with an older sister that was very artistic and could draw anything you put in front of her, I wanted to be just like her and started to draw myself. And cartoons were my all time favorite!

The talented illustrators at DDA, a graphic design company, have created some of the most amazing hand drawn illustrations, technical illustrations and digital illustrations around. Illustrations were created of the DDA programmers, designers, search engine optimization specialists for our website.

At the Meet DDA section on our website that also displays our website design capabilities, photography services, 3d modeling and animation projects and much more, you can see a cartoon version of each of us. You can also read our daily blogs.

As I watch some of the cartoons that my kids watch today I find myself thinking, The Smurfs were still better than this!