A content marketing internship is a great opportunity for college students and recent graduates interested in researching, planning, and writing content to increase organic website traffic and leads.
Content marketing is a marketing discipline that focuses on developing content to attract, close, and delight customers using inbound marketing principles and search engine optimization (SEO).
Content marketing is one the core disciplines within the digital marketing mix which also includes paid marketing and social media marketing.
A content marketing internship is a marketing internship that helps college students or recent graduates learn how to use content marketing strategies and develop content marketing collateral to help businesses increase their organic website visitors, convert website visitors into leads, and provide value to existing customers.
A content marketing internship is a structured internship program that covers key content marketing skills including inbound marketing methodology, keyword research, competitor research, content audits, content gap analysis, content planning, content writing, content operations, content optimization, semantic SEO, and on-page SEO.
Content marketing interns can expect a guided, hands-on experience that covers the full spectrum of inbound marketing responsibilities from how search engines index and rank website content to learning how to manage a scalable content marketing strategy across a multi-disciplinary team of writers, designers, developers, and marketers.
Content marketing interns should expect to gain experience analyzing website content using enterprise content marketing tools including Ahrefs, SurferSEO, Google Search Console, and meeting with team members across departments to learn how content marketing works with team members across the company.
The learning objectives of a content marketing internship include:
Understanding how inbound marketing works
Understanding how search engines index, rate, and rank content
Researching content topic ideas and creating topical content maps
Learning how to design content strategies that establish brands as an authority
Writing, editing, and optimizing content to increase search rankings
Understanding and following semantic SEO best practices
Creating content outlines for downloadable content marketing assets
Using content marketing tools like Ahrefs, SurferSEO, and Airtable
Publishing content marketing assets in a Content Management Systems (CMS)
These are just some of the learning objectives a content marketing intern can expect to learn throughout the course of a content marketing internship for the summer.
Content marketing internships are typically structured with weekly learning activities (e.g. training videos, certifications, original research articles, etc.), hands-on projects to apply content marketing best practices, working on projects with cross-functional marketing teams, and receiving 1:1 mentorship from content marketing managers.
Here is a hypothetical breakdown of the content marketing internship topics an intern at Webstacks' can expect to cover during a 10-week marketing internship:
Intros and Company Onboarding
Inbound Marketing Fundamentals
Semantic SEO Fundamentals
Keyword and Competitor Research
Content Planning and Topical Authority Mapping
Content Writing and SEO Writing
Content Optimization and On-page SEO
Advanced Semantic SEO
Content Operations and Content Modeling
Content Marketing Application Optimization
Depending on the content marketing intern's technical capabilities, a technical topic such as advanced Semantic SEO could be switched out for another important content marketing skillset such as linkbuilding, copywriting, or earned media (PR).
A content marketing internship is important for aspiring marketers because traditional University marketing and communication degrees only scratch the surface of content marketing during undergraduate programs.
Successful content marketers should learn advanced topics that aren't covered in undergraduate marketing programs like Semantic SEO, E-A-T, and content operations.
Content marketing internships are also important for marketing careers because it gives interns experience learning about and marketing specific industries such as Web3, blockchain, SaaS, AI, and FinTech.
Content marketing interns also get exposure to test, experiment, and learn how to use the industry's latest content marketing tools for real clients.
With educated consumers turning to search engines to find new products and service providers, content marketing is an in-demand marketing role, and is one of the least understood marketing skills from a search engine optimization perspective.
Content marketing interns who graduate from a 10-week internship program can leverage their internship experience to land a full-time marketing job including:
Working at the company who provided your content marketing internship
Working at a full-service marketing agency
Working as an in-house content marketer
Content marketing interns can also use their content marketing experience to transition their career into a related marketing field such as SEO, PPC, copywriting, or PR.
The best college majors for content marketing internships are:
Marketing
Communications
Journalism
English
Business
Management
Psychology
Philosophy
Pre-law
Computer science
Information science
Information systems
College majors that emphasis research, writing, strategic thinking, and consumer psychology make good candidates because content marketing internships require the ability to write, edit, and optimize articles based on research and data analysis.
Philosophy and pre-law majors make good candidates for content marketing internships because they are strong researchers, logical thinkers, and persuasive communicators.
Computer science and information science majors have a strong working knowledge of how websites, servers, and the search engines work which is a good primer for the SEO-focused content marketing responsibilities of a summer intern.
College students majoring in the following disciplines are less suited for a content marketing internship:
Health care professions
Non-computer engineering majors (e.g. electrical engineering, civil engineering, etc.)
Specialized business majors (e.g. finance, accounting, supply chain, etc.)
Natural sciences (e.g. biology, chemistry, physics, etc.)
While your major does not dictate whether or not you will get accepted to a content marketing internship program, the learning curve for understanding inbound marketing, the buyer's journey, and how search engines rank content may be more difficult for candidates with majors in these backgrounds to understand.
Depending on the types of clients your prospective content marketing internship provider serves, your background in healthcare, life sciences, and engineering disciplines could position you as a stronger candidate because of your domain expertise.
A content marketing internship might be right for you if you have an interest in:
Writing
Editing
Research
Critical analysis
Communications
Linguistics
Learning design
Instructional design
Problem solving
Psychology
Education
Relationship marketing
A/B testing and experimentation
Data analysis
Machine learning
Working in collaborative team environments
If you are an avid reader, writer, and researcher, a content marketing internship can help you learn how to design content strategies and optimize content to drive more unique visitors to a website, establishing brands as topical authorities, and improve E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) scores.
Prospective interns with a strong technical background in computer science, web development, and information systems are good candidates for a content marketing internship because the internship can be tailored to technical content marketing goals.
However, an SEO internship with a focus on content marketing could be a better fit for interns that are more interested in understanding:
How search engines work and understand content
How AI tools like GPT-3 work
How to build Python scripts to automate content marketing
How to use machine learning to scale content marketing topic generation
If you fall somewhere in between content marketing and a more technical SEO role, a content marketing internship can help you identify the area most aligned with your skills.
To qualify for a content marketing internship, intern candidates should have a preliminary understanding of digital marketing and the role of content marketing in the digital marketing mix; candidates should be strong writers, researchers, and communicators; and interns should be passionate and unafraid to learn about new marketing technology.
It's best to look for content marketing internships in your state because you are more likely to get hired since that’s where the company does business.
Otherwise, the company you're applying to would need a business license to operate in that state, or they would need to hire you as an independent contractor.
Before starting a content marketing internship, it is best to prepare by learning as much as you can about the company you’ll be working for, their customers, and the content marketing and SEO tools they use to manage their content operations.
Some of the most popular content marketing tools include:
HubSpot - Blogging and Inbound Marketing
Contentful - Headless CMS (Content Management System)
Ahrefs - Keyword Research
SurferSEO - NLP and AI Assisted Writing
Grammarly - Grammar and Proofreading
Airtable - Content Operations
Google Docs - Cloud-based document creation
Slack - Internal team communications platform
Asana - Team project management tool
KeywordInsights - Keyword clustering tool
Figma - Content mapping and planning tool
Notion - SOP and internal document management tool
Understanding your company, customers, and tools is important because there are different applications for content marketing such as B2B content marketing, B2C content marketing, eCommerce content marketing, and SaaS content marketing that have different strategies, tools, and processes to achieve results.
Once you understand the SEO niches that your company is focused on, find SEO thought leaders in those niches and familiarize yourself with their perspectives and research. Here are a few SEO publications, SEO influencers to help you get started:
Brian Dean - Content Marketing and SEO Expert
Koray Tugberk - Semantic SEO
Nick Jordan - Content Operations
Steve Toth - Content Marketing
Kevin Indig - Director of Search, Spotify
Tim Soulo - CMO, Ahrefs
Rand Fishkin - CEO, Sparktoro
Marie Haynes - E-A-T Expert
Neil Patel - Serial Marketing Entrepreneur
HubSpot - Inbound Marketing Training and Tools
If you’re interviewing for a content marketing internship, be prepared to answer interview questions that cover the following topics:
In your own words, describe how content marketing works?
Why are you interested in completing a content marketing internship?
What are your professional marketing career goals?
How does being a content marketing intern align with your career goals?
What interests you about inbound marketing?
Why do you want to conduct a content marketing internship at Webstacks?
What is your experience writing blogs, research papers, and advertising copy?
What is your research and writing process like?
What content marketing and writing tools do you use to create great content?
What is your experience and level of understanding about SEO?
What is your experience like working for a cross-functional and remote teams?
How to do deal with writer's block?
The best ways to find content marketing internships is to visit the career pages of content marketing agencies, full-service marketing agencies, agencies that offer SEO services, and popular job listing websites like Indeed, Monster, and LinkedIn job boards.
Another way to find content marketing internships is using advanced search engine operators in Google such as intitle:, using quotation marks to find exact matches, or boolean operators like “OR,” and to find pages that mention content marketing.
If a content marketing internship sounds like an exciting opportunity that aligns with your marketing goals, and you think Webstacks is a good fit, apply to Webstacks’ 10-week content marketing internship program this summer by visiting the Webstacks job board.
You can find more information about the opportunity on our Greenhouse Careers board or the jobs section on Webstacks' company LinkedIn profile.
Content marketing interns will benefit from:
Paid, hands-on experience in the office (San Diego), fully remote, or hybrid
Working with some of the world's fastest-growing SaaS, FinTech, and Web3 startups
1-on-1 coaching from Webstacks marketing and SEO experts
Cross-functional learning opportunities
Direct experience working in a fast-paced and fun agency environment
For more information about working at Webstacks, read interviews from Webstacks employees across SEO and marketing teams:
Brady Werkheiser, Sr. SEO Analyst
Natalie Eisen, SEO Analyst L1
Carly Johnson, Marketing Technologist