So, I get a lot of questions every day about SEO and I love to answer them. I am so passionate about what I do, SEO is all I think about these days.
One question I get asked really frequently is “why should I trust what you say?” The first time I was asked this it near destroyed me, I was a little less secure in my abilities and knowledge back then. Now when I get asked this, I just trust myself and if you or one of my clients don’t trust me – that’s up to them.
So, let’s talk about me and how I got started in SEO.
We have to back in time a little.
I used to write bereavement notices for a large newspaper publishing group. When I started this job I planned to be there 6 months maximum. In reality, I was there for 2 ½ years. This publishing group wasn’t doing particularly too well at the time. I don’t think they are at the moment either, to be honest.
Day in and day out, I would receive calls about how bereaved family members were struggling to find the online notices. As well as complaints that the sites are just difficult to navigate or just to use generally. I flagged this to management a couple of times but no one really cares or just accepted that’s the way it is.
I decided to start looking at it as a project. I thought “I’m gonna research this and see if there’s anything we could do” to make these websites better or show up on Google.
This is where I found SEO, I’d heard of it before. I had been a blogger for years by this post and definitely knew the basics. Keywords, meta titles and descriptions and that was actually about it.
So I went on a full deep dive and spent hours and hours researching. I tried to learn as much as I could about site speed, interstitials, user experience and content. I took in so much information it was unbelievable.
I was completely sure that I had sussed the perfect strategy for this company. I put together this massive email with suggestions, backed up with evidence and examples. It was atleast 1000 words long. I sent this to the big boss and cc’d in department heads.
Days flew by, and then weeks. I heard absolutely nothing back.
hey after a couple of weeks I got an email from the big boss and it read along the lines of
‘Good Afternoon Billie,
It’s nice to see you taking initiative but SEO is not something we’re interested in.’
And that was that.
I didn’t feel thanked, I didn’t feel heard. I don’t know what I expected but it was more than that. I felt sad and unappreciated. I was so confident that I had found all the answers for this company. I truly believed, and now know, that I could have turned things around for them. They lost out.
I also realised I didn’t want to work somewhere that didn’t encourage me. I am so capable and spongelike. If you give me something to learn, I will memorise it all and become a master of it in no time.
So, I quit. I handed in my notice and began looking for something else.
Loads of companies saw my passion and offered me roles in SEO. I was offered a job for a Children’s educational publishers as an SEO copywriter, where I was quickly promoted. Within 6 months I was offered the role of training my colleagues in SEO best practices. I trained over 150 members of staff whilst continuing with my writing role.
I had the best time there but, I had no interest in content writing and there was little room to grow. All of the things I had studied up one were still circling my brain. I knew how to make content rank but I wanted to know the rest.
So after a year, I quit and was offered a job at an agency as an SEO account manager. I’m still there now. I’ve run countless campaign now for companies of all sizes and have seen great results time after time.
This company have trained me up to become a great technical SEO, they have moulded my role into exactly what I need it to be. I’m now in charge of training and developing my team members, and I get to continue to work on amazing campaigns for big household names.
So, with 2.5 years of copywriting experience and 2 years of SEO experience, I know exactly what I’m on about.
That is why you can and should trust me when I’m giving you SEO advice. I will never offer unsolicited advice, so going forward, if you message me for help and then question my credentials. You will be sent this link and then we can either carry on talking or that is the end of the help I will offer you.
I work in SEO, and I blog about SEO and blogging. Because I love it and genuinely want to see people succeed. I am a kick-ass senior SEO and that’s all you need to know.