Five IU Students Win Slingshot SEO Keyword Marketing Competition

Bloomington, Ind.— Slingshot SEO, Inc. co-founder, Aaron Aders, recently spoke at his alma mater, Indiana University. He lectured the IU School of Journalism students in Associate Instructor Lanier Holt’s Principles of Public Relations class about the history and future of search engine marketing.

At the conclusion of his lecture, Aders presented the students with an in-class competition. Each team of students was assigned a specific Slingshot SEO client and asked to write a blog post using new SEO skills learned during the lecture. At the end of the 30 minutes, the Finish Line team — Amy Bishop, Danielle Rindler, Kamilla Benko, Kristen Ditsch, and Sean Logan — won the crown by utilizing search keywords and relevant information in a blog promoting running shoes.

"It was great to get a glimpse of the real world, particularly in an industry I wasn't previously familiar with," Danielle Rindler said.

The winning students created a specific story geared towards a niche audience of marathon runners shopping for a new pair of running shoes. The team strategically used co-occurrence words to garner maximum search results and was the only team to set anchor text as the keywords rather than just using a URL.

Further, Aders explained that the Finish Line team won the competition by using several key tactics for social media marketing within their blog. “The Finish Line team wrote something interesting that really applies to social media,” he said.

"Before Mr. Aders' lecture, I only had a basic understanding of Google's search techniques," Kamilla Benko said. "Because of the competition, I now understand how to search the internet for more accurate results and appreciate the importance of good keywords."

After Aders’ lecture and competition, students gained a new appreciation for the difficulty of writing for search engine optimization in social media. “The competition opened my eyes to the field of search engine marketing,” Amy Bishop said. “I am very interested in learning more about SEO and the social media industry.”