Before diving into the details of our journey, it's important to set the context and explain what made it possible for us to embark on this distant adventure.

Charlène and I are currently students in a Professional License in SEO and Web Writing at the IUT of Mulhouse, where we actually met seven months ago. Without going into too much detail, this program equips us with various skills in emerging web domains, namely: - The natural search engine ranking of websites, commonly called SEO (for Search Engine Optimisation). In other words, it's about making a website as visible as possible on search engines.

To achieve this, multiple actions and procedures must be implemented, whether technical or editorial in nature, and it's often necessary to get our hands dirty to adapt the code to search engines so it's as readable and understandable as possible. Our training therefore covers various components briefly presented below:

• Website audits, which help define the actions to take and blocking factors

• "In-page" optimization, which represents the measures to implement for text formatting, whether for readers or search engine spiders

• "Off-page" optimization, referring to backlink creation, essential for SEO (directories, press releases, RSS feeds, social media sharing sites, blog comments, forums... the possibilities are numerous and limited only by the imagination of SEO professionals)

• More technical modifications to the site to optimize its performance (htaccess, URL Rewriting, redirects, Sitemap, Flash or AJAX management...)

• Finally, good SEO requires solid long-term monitoring, and numerous tools exist to track rankings, the number and quality of backlinks, and other factors to optimize SEO. The most well-known free solutions include: Google Analytics, Google Webmasters Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer, Xenu, Positeo, Open Site Explorer... Among paid solutions: Myposeo, Advanced Web Ranking, Ranks, Yooda SeeUrank, Majestic SEO, or any other tool from the SEOMoz site...

- Paid search engine marketing, commonly called SEA (for Search Engine Advertising), which is notably manifested in the form of Google Ads campaigns designed to provide instant visibility in Google search engine ads as long as the client is willing to pay for it.

Unlike SEO, this solution is not sustainable and should therefore be recommended to anyone wishing to conduct visibility campaigns limited in time and obtain rapid results.

- Website creation and management, through the fundamentals of web programming languages (HTML/CSS, PHP...) and discovery or deepening of CMS systems such as WordPress. - Web writing, which somewhat overlaps with "in-page" optimization, and which involves proposing organized, clear and precise content. Indeed, writing for the web is different from writing for print, so it's about adapting to the medium and capturing the reader's attention as effectively as possible.

- Community management, literally: community management. This component of the program aims to teach us how to manage companies' online reputation through social media, forums and any other web tools. - Plus various more general courses such as web marketing and e-commerce, among others, which results in quite a packed but very enriching curriculum, as well as concrete skills to leverage in the job market.

In Search of an Internship

To complete this training, we needed to complete an internship lasting a minimum of 90 days, to be done between February and June. Charlène being from Brittany, and myself from the Pas-de-Calais, we fully appreciated our brief stay in Alsace (although Mulhouse doesn't really match the idea one has of a dynamic or attractive city), but not enough to want to spend 4 additional months there for our final internship. Starting from this idea, we began searching fairly early for an internship abroad, in a country sufficiently exotic to escape the monotony of France and constitute a unique experience. Still having some contacts in Montréal, I first searched there, ultimately receiving an internship offer, unfortunately unpaid and therefore not interesting enough. Then came a favorable response from an agency in Australia, which was also unpaid and moreover could only take one intern... By December, we were somewhat discouraged and considering trying our luck in Paris, where many of our applications had resulted in interview opportunities, thinking we could always go abroad once we graduated...

The Revelation

Then an internship offer caught our attention: Jinlong Worldwide Limited, a Franco-Hong Kong trading and e-business company based in Guangzhou in southern Chine, was looking for an intern specializing in web marketing, with the goal of improving the visibility of its e-commerce sites. But... but... but that's perfect for me! A few days after sending my application without too much conviction, I received a call from the agency director, interested in my profile and eager to detail the missions as well as the city of Guangzhou. Being a skilled salesman, he managed to extol the virtues of the city and the human experience it could represent, and gave me a few days to think about it and make a choice. A difficult choice indeed, considering the budget to be established (although Chine is known for its low prices), and especially the separation it would imply. Despite these factors, we decided to go all-in and introduce Charlène, who took charge of sending her CV and successfully passed a Skype interview a few days later.

"Darling, pack your bags, we're heading to Chine!"

So it was at the end of January that we received confirmation of our departure for Chine, while courses were set to end a week later... All that remained was to complete the internship agreements, get a passport (for Charlène), visas, buy plane tickets, submit scholarship applications... Yep, it's the beginning of a race against the clock, which we obviously hope to win! Stay tuned...