Welcome to A Day in the Life of a SEO Practitioner

Mark started working at Allstate Northern Ireland in 2010 as an analyst in the search engine optimisation team. He studied at the University of Ulster and at Harvard University, studying Computer Science and Advanced Leadership and Management.

Mark has over 15 years experience in IT and as well as the UK he has worked and lived in the USA and SE Asia. He worked as a Software Engineer for Nisoft in Singapore and has also worked as a contract web developer, project director, technology researcher and an internet marketing analyst before coming to work for Allstate Northern Ireland. Mark's interest in search engine and internet marketing first began in 2005, when he was working in the technology research team at worldwinner.com and tasked with identifying ways of growing player acquisition levels.

"Having both worked and lived in the USA, I was aware of Allstate as they have a strong brand and large presence in the United States. In a large company like Allstate, you get exposure to a large range of technologies that is not always the case when working for smaller organisations. I love working at Allstate, the company has a great work life balance policy and you get to meet lots of interesting people from different cultures and backgrounds. Not only have I had the opportunity to make some great new friends at Allstate but I have also had the opportunity to learn from and grow personality from the people I interact with. Allstate has many large websites and being in the SEO team I get exposed to new technologies and best practices. I get paid to research and work in a fascinating area that is constantly evolving. When asked which project I have enjoyed the most, it was difficult to answer because I enjoy every project we work on and you always learn something new. I did enjoy the page load speed analysis project that the team undertook, which involved researching the way web pages could be built to make them render faster. Not only did this project identify ways that we could provide a better online brand experience, but it also promoted better utilisation of bandwidth and helped our search ranking, as page speed is just one of the many factors that search engines consider in their ranking algorithm." em>
- Mark

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