A Volunteers’ Perspective of the Online Marketing World

One of our favorite aspects of what we do here at Media Cause is seeing an incredibly talented pool of volunteers generously donate their time and skills. Woj Kwasi is one of those fabulous volunteers.

Woj is based in Adelaide, Australia and owns Kwasi Studios, a web consulting company specializing in SEO, content marketing and web strategy. Since signing up to volunteer with Media Cause, Woj has mentored 3 SEO interns teaching them valuable skills to carry with them in their work in the tech industry.

We have asked Woj to share a few of his experiences volunteering with Media Cause to help others gain insight into what our community is all about and inspire others to join in!

How’d you find Media Cause and why were you interested in volunteering?

Woj: I can’t recall exactly where I found out about Media Cause… somewhere on the interwebs no doubt! …but what I am sure of is that I’m extremely happy I did!

One of my key objectives when starting my own company was to be involved in charity work in some form or another. Whether that be immediately or down the line wasn’t important, but actually doing it was important to me. I’ve supported many non-profits in the past and in my opinion, Media Cause was the perfect find as it enabled me to fulfil this need in my professional space by contributing via consultation rather than the traditional financial exchange.

I was curious to see what I could learn from other people’s audits. How can I improve my own? How were they formatted? How can I help? What lessons can I learn to take into my own business?

It was a perfect symbiotic relationship for me and allowed me to continue to utilise my skillset and grow in the industry whilst looking for clients to build my business. I specifically worked on a few website audits and acted as a mentor checking other people’s audits from a technical point-of-view.

Can you tell us about some of the challenges you’ve worked on?

Woj: My first task was to review an audit for Opportunity Junction and provide feedback. The audit was very thorough but needed some more technical detail. Since technical is my forte, I didn’t hold back. I said to myself that I would try to be as constructively critical as possible without being too abrupt in order to truly provide some decent feedback. I would also ensure that I was readily available to answer all questions (sometimes client work would be prioritised in front of these responses but I generally aimed to respond is a reasonable timeframe).

I’ve also become involved with the World Medical Fund on an ongoing basis. They provide medical help to children suffering from various illnesses in Africa via mobile clinics. This is a remarkable service given that medical facilities are scarce in remote Africa and it’s very difficult to travel long distances. I’ve optimised their site, fixed some technical issues such as creating permanent URLs, resolved canonical issues, optimised titles & META descriptions, and added some social media sharing call-to-actions.

The site is now in great need of a redesign so my next step will be to enlist a graphic designer/volunteer to re-arrange the content and make the site work better. Please get in touch if you’re interested or pass this on to your friends & colleagues!

What’s your most memorable Media Cause moment?

Woj: One of the highlights was when I mentored a young opportunist by the name of William who produced a fantastic report for Hephzibah Home, an organisation providing foster care & family services to society’s most vulnerable children.

The report was very top level and lacked some granular details. So I got into the nitty gritty and point out all the technical SEO elements that needed to be included. William was not afraid to ask questions and his quick ability to learn things was a fantastic attribute. We emailed a few times with tons of questions until we’d nutted out a comprehensive audit fit for the client.

Now for the rewarding part – this occurred when I heard that William scored a job weeks later with a media company – this was a proud moment for me considering he had no SEO experience prior to starting with Media Cause and he did a complete 180 career-wise after his volunteering efforts. You can read more about William’s story here.

Another great thing about Media Cause is that you have the opportunity to meet great like-minded individuals like William who want to help other non-profit organisations too. I met Eric (CEO), Luis (Community Manager), Curt (from Free World U where I supplied a full-scale site audit), and volunteer Michael.

What advice would you give to folks wanting to volunteer with Media Cause?

Woj: What’s stopping you? Media Cause provides opportunities to help non-profit organisations and other volunteers to make the world a better place. This is perfect for those confined to the comforts or restraints of their offices with technology at their fingertips. It is a really valuable experience that everyone should undertake. You simply cannot relay the feeling you get from helping out others. You truly need to experience it for yourself.

I strongly urge you to join in today… it will make you feel all warm & fuzzy – I promise!

Thanks for reading – If you enjoyed it, you might like to follow Woj on Twitter – @WojKwasi!

This article was written by at [email protected]