The Pivot from Paper to Pixels For years, my creative outlet was physical: card-making, scrapbooking, and tactile crafts. But as I began exploring digital design software, I realized I wanted to build something bigger. When I started the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Certificate, I made a deal with myself: I wouldn’t just watch the videos; I would apply every lesson to a live project.

That project became The YF Studio.

The “Invisible” Work of SEO This week, I tackled one of the most vital—yet invisible—parts of digital marketing: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In my previous career in a laboratory, precision was essential. If a sample wasn’t labeled correctly, the entire system failed; you would get the wrong results simply because the system measured the wrong sample.

I quickly realized that SEO is remarkably similar. If my website’s “labels” (Title Tags and Meta Descriptions) aren’t precise, the search engine “system” won’t show my pages to the right people. Without accurate labels, I won’t get the “anticipated results”—the traffic and engagement I’m working toward.

The Learning Curve of Keyword Selection I’ll be honest: picking keywords for each webpage is harder than it looks. In the lab, technical terms are fixed and objective. In marketing, keywords have to align with what people are actually searching for. I spent a lot of time learning how to summarize the value of each page—like my “About” or “Projects” sections—within strict character limits. It was an exercise in being both concise and descriptive at the same time.

The Frequency Illusion Strikes Again It’s funny—now that I’ve spent a week obsessing over character counts and meta descriptions, I see them everywhere. Every time I Google something, I’m no longer just looking for an answer; I’m analyzing the Title Tag and seeing if the description is cut off.

I’m no longer just a consumer of the internet; I’m starting to see how it’s built.

What’s Next? Setting these SEO foundations was the first big step for The YF Studio. It’s not a “finished” product—SEO is a continuous process of learning and adjusting—but the structural groundwork is now in place.

Now that the search engines can “read” my site, I’m moving further into the digital landscape. Up next? I’ll be diving into Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to understand paid reach, followed by Social Listening to better understand the conversations happening in the digital space.

To see the technical breakdown of this project, check out my [SEO Case Study here].