Welcome to a new Weekly Interviews edition where we'll 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 Jamie Alberico, Technical SEO at Not a Robot. Based in Denver, USA - if you think Dungeons & Dragons has little in common with SEO, Jamie will change your mind. We asked her everything from how she first got into SEO to what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is 💪🏽
I picked up my Bachelor’s degree and walked off stage into a hard economic recession. Instead of writing plays, I was waiting tables and picking up odd jobs writing for a couple of Toyota truck enthusiast websites. I’d show up at an auto shop with my gear to shoot a part install, answer the obligatory “You’re Jamie?”, and produce the tutorial or review.
Getting the basic content was easy. Crafting it was the hard part. I’d bill for a quarter of the hours I actually spent (don’t recommend). I knew I was supposed to spin content and throw it into the CMS, but my curiosity had me researching what all these fields meant. Analytics would tell me how a weak article brought in five times the traffic of my tediously curated guide to a truck snorkel.
I kept building on my skills. I asked myself what drove users to engage with one piece over another. I found resources like the Webmaster Forum and Moz. I made mistakes, owned them, and learned from them.
TL;DR - Curiosity got me into SEO. I learned with my boots on the ground and a prayer in my pocket.
Site crawls. They expose the gap between what we expect and what actually exists.
Tame the Bot’s Performance tool! When I need a fast and easy to digest trace, this tool renders a web page and extracts timings, paint, layout, and JavaScript metrics.
Oh snap. If the developers can’t reproduce what I saw, they can’t fix it.
Becoming part of the Webmaster canon in the SEO Mythbusting series was magical.The thing that’s brought me the most joy though is the messages from women saying they’re excited to see representation on stage or pitching their own talk. I’ve gotten to attend a few of their talks and it’s pure joy every time.
If there’s one thing that sets women apart from the male dominated status quo, it’s our ability to cast cooperative magic.
Your tools are all around you. The women around you want you to succeed. If you’re stuck or don’t know something A: You’re doing it right. B: Ask questions and find resources.
Hey Ashley Berman Hale, have I told you lately that you complete me? When I first interviewed to work with her, I was in aw. I’d never met a female Google Product Expert before. She showed me communities, resources, and events.She showed me how to handle salty clients with compassion. Ashley flew to the UK for my very first international event. She’s taken hilarious selfies when I zonked out from jetlag. Ups and downs, good and bad, she’s an inspiration for the type of steadfast support and skill sharing that we can bring to SEO.
Feral curiosity. Everyone's doing the best they can with what they have. I love the idea of finding better ways. Remember, darlings -- It's not failure if it's an experiment. Let's charge into the infinite possibilities with the war cry 'for science!'
----
Thanks Jamie for a truly insightful interview! You can check out Jamie's website, follower her on Twitter or connect 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! 🙌🏽