Welcome to a new Weekly Interviews edition where we interview brilliant women in our industry and share their stories with the world! Anyone is welcome to share their story by simply filling this form, we encourage women from all walks of life in our industry to do so.
Introducing Anett Pohl! Born and raised in Berlin, Anett didn't know what she signed up for when getting into SEO. Seven years later, she feels at home as an in-house manager especially in hybrid projects where her experience in editorial SEO and her desired to learn more on the tech side of things go hand in hand.
We asked her everything from how she first got into SEO to what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is 💪🏽
After uni, I worked in NGOs and realised it's either online marketing or administrative work from now on. The online part interested me more so I looked up traineeships - SEO was the only one where I didn't need an economics degree. So here I am!
Rethinking navigational structures and information architecture, finding and solving duplicate or rivalling content issues.
Google Sheets formulas or scripts I find online, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console and the SEO Pro Extension for Chrome from the amazing Kristina Azarenko. I'm also currently finding more and more value in Sistrix's tools apart from the visibility index but you'd have to ask me again in a few months if I would consider it a go-to tool.
The first time I understood the DOM and how Google handles JavaScript (thanks to Martin Splitt and his talk at SEOKomm a few years back) was definitely an 'AHA!!' moment.
I usually feel proudest when I manage to teach people and help them. So empowering my team in an old job from "simple" editors to proper SEO writers who didn't need too much support was a big achievement. Also reflecting on what I wanna do in the coming years and getting back into the more technical side of SEO felt really good.
Don't be afraid to ask questions. Seriously, you can read a lot of articles and books, listen to podcasts but talking to people and asking questions will get you further quicker.
Try not to be overwhelmed by the big area that is SEO. Try different things and if you like it, dive deeper. It's okay to specialise and not know everything.
I admire Areej AbuAli for building this community, constantly evolving it, coming up with new initiatives and doing all the admin stuff and quality checks.
Out of the many many women I came in contact with thanks to the community, I want to thank Isaline Muelhauser and Tory Gray for keeping me in check when I need it and Anne Hennegar who always brings another level to discussions.
If you've learnt something - even if it's just the knowledge that something isn't for you - the time was well spent.
I also learned this from my training with Krav Maga: "Small steps make us more agile and it's easier to react to unforeseen circumstances."
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Thanks Anett for a truly insightful interview, you can learn more about her and connect with her through her Twitter.
To view more interviews with brilliant women, check out our Interviews page. If you've enjoyed reading this interview, then we'd love for YOU to share your story with the world! Simply fill this form here, we welcome brilliant SEOs from all walks of life! 🙌🏽