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 Chantelle Marcelle, Head of Growth at PromoPrep. Based in New York City, Chantelle is an experienced marketer who has worked with a variety of agencies and companies, primarily with a focus on technology. She has a passion for all things marketing, including community building, social media, content marketing, SEO, and analytics. She's also a huge believer in developing a customer-centric mindset to fuel growth and success in all other areas. In her free time, she loves creating digital art and biking.
We asked her everything from how she first got into SEO to what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is 💪🏽
I was leading marketing for a startup with a really limited budget, and I wanted to figure out how to maximize our marketing spend and resources. Inbound marketing caught my attention as a way to increase efficiency, which led to an interest in improving our website and SEO.
I feel a sense of deep satisfaction in that moment where I hit publish on a piece of content that I know is formatted in a way that not only crosses off all the on-page SEO checkboxes but also provides a lot of value. And then watching the analytics over the next few days and seeing the fruit of my labor. Very few things beat that glow from a professional angle.
I love Yoast. I've gotten pretty reliant on it, and it's one of the reasons I'm such a big proponent of WordPress. It's a great way to put up guard rails or get a pulse check on site content. I'm also a huge fan of all the free tools offered by companies like Ahrefs and Wordstream. They've come in handy for me in my side work or helping out small businesses that don't have huge budget.
Writing in a way that both satisfies SEO requirements and will offer the reader actual value. I've worked with a lot of content writers who push back in conversations around SEO because they argue that the focus should be entirely on the art and quality of writing. But if you have the best writing but don't build a strategy that will ensure your content is actually seen by the maximum number of people, you're essentially writing for yourself. You won't have as much benefit as you could for your intended audience or your business.
So for me, I've really explored finding the right balance of quality and technique, creation and distribution, for maximum impact and reach.
Growing my own website with absolutely no spend and no support. It's my sandbox space where I can test out anything I want. There's a lot less pressure because I'm not reporting on anything. I'm just doing what I enjoy or what I want to experiment on, which keeps things fun. And from July 2020 when I first launched my own content and SEO strategy to March 2021, I grew organic traffic by almost 4,000%. That number doesn't even sound real. It's incredible to me. It feels great to prove to myself that I am capable, regardless of anyone else's judgment.
It's all about self-driven learning. Everything I've learned about SEO came because I was actively seeking knowledge, reading information, following experts, and putting myself in a position to get hands-on experience.
You have to motivate yourself to stay in constant learning mode because it's a space that changes a lot.
Bozoma Saint John was the first woman of color I noticed who was widely celebrated as a premier marketing executive. And she's continued to inspire me with the way she is so unapologetically successful and authentic.
Also Alexa Heinrich has created such a well defined, focused personal brand. I love that she's so passionate about bringing awareness to accessibility in marketing. It's a topic we need to talk more about, and she's definitely leading the charge.
I can't express the degree to which joining online marketing communities has benefitted my career. My mindset has changed significantly as a result of daily interactions with incredible professionals accomplishing so much. And I was surprised by the number of them who generously offer advice or support. Really a game changer for me.
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Thanks Chantelle for a truly insightful interview, you can check out Chantelle's website and connect with her on Twitter and 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! 🙌🏽