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 Breanna Golub! Based in Australia, Breanna is the Head of Content at Safari Digital and leads a team of five content writers. Since starting in the SEO Industry, Breanna has played a hand in growing Safari Digital from a two-person operation to a team of ten, while managing content for dozens of clients in Australia and the United Kingdom.
We asked her everything from how she first got into SEO to what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is 💪🏽
I started in SEO in late 2018 – I started with content creation and slowly became more proficient across different areas of SEO while on the job. Since then, I have gone from content writing to off-site, and back to content management.
Article skeletons for clients. With some of our clients (particularly in medical and finance), there are so many regulations around what we can and cannot say. In many cases, we work with their in-house content writers to create article skeletons that provide them with all of the right SEO ingredients to create content that gets organic traction. The biggest difference is that many of these internal teams have been (previously) aimlessly putting out a high volume of articles with no keyword research. The difference to organic traffic is night and day when they have a blueprint.
Call me boring, but Semrush. I have used a myriad of SEO tools over the last two years for keyword research and nothing comes close to the accuracy and granular detail.
The biggest realisation came with a local SEO client that had been working with an overseas SEO provider for nearly two years. They were producing 8-10 articles each month of 300-ish words – way too short. Going through their search console data I quickly realised that if they were to take down the 400+ articles that had been created there would be no difference to their overall site traffic as they were not generating any organic traffic. You are better off creating one good quality, long article than 100 short, poorly researched articles with no direction.
The first client that I started working with. A small roofing company that had previously worked with another agency and had no success. I played a part in creating all of the location page content that subsequently transformed their business and put them on the map in more than 200 suburbs around Greater Sydney. Two years later and they now have 15+ staff and have expanded into Melbourne and the ACT. Seeing small businesses go from a 1 to 2 person operation and growing into a local leader is really rewarding.
Ask questions. If you are lucky enough to have a mentor or someone who is really knowledgeable about the industry, then you need to make the most of it.
The most successful SEOs at Safari Digital are the ones that take an active interest in what they are doing. If you are not passionate about it, then don’t force it. SEO is not for everyone, but it is an industry that you can excel in if you take an interest in and want to learn.
Kristina Azarenko – she puts out some great content and is always experimenting and sharing results.
Personal growth. I came into the industry almost three years ago with no knowledge or experience. I am super proud of what I have achieved in that time and I’m excited to see what the future and the industry has in store for me.
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Thanks Breanna for a truly insightful interview. You can learn more about Breanna through her website and by connecting with her on LinkedIn.
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! 🙌🏽