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 Kim Dewe! Based in Reading, UK, Kim is the Head of SEO at the UK’s largest specialist SEO agency, Blue Array. While passionate about all things SEO, Kim is also passionate about empowering teams and individuals to reach their potential.
We asked her everything from how she first got into SEO to what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is 💪🏽
Like a lot of other SEOs, I’d been doing ‘SEO’ for many years before I even knew it! It started with building websites. I once had a website where I published interviews I did with young musicians I found on Myspace - this was probably my first dive into basic SEO.
In my first full-time role after university, I also remember having to consider keywords when building web pages. This was mostly for users and we never really had to consider rankings as we were a large city council so no one was trying to compete against us for things like wheelie bin collection and recreation centers.
My first real introduction to SEO was when I started working at Blue Array back in 2017. I remember feeling like I’d found a role that encompassed everything I enjoyed doing and I genuinely was excited to show up to work every day! I learned a lot particularly from our early employees, including Tom Pool who I'm lucky to still work with today, and Blue Array's founder, Simon.
I enjoy diagnostics and analytics. There’s nothing more satisfying than identifying issues and opportunities in amongst the data.
I’d struggle to do anything without Semrush but another tool that I find incredibly useful is BuiltWith.com. Broadly understanding the technology driving a site can help you provide more informed recommendations and connect better with development teams.
For me, it would be the importance of stakeholder management. It’s something you can never get perfect at so I’m constantly trying to find ways to improve with the Blue Array team.
I’m proud that the vision Blue Array had when I started (when we were only 7 people) has come to fruition. Five years ago it was difficult to imagine working with a much larger team but here we are… 55 team members later!
If I had to think of something else, it would be speaking at BrightonSEO twice. There’s so much work that goes into preparing for such a talk so I always take my hat off to those who put themselves forward to speak at conferences!
Connect with other SEOs through networking events! Your job will become both easier and more enjoyable when you have other people to bounce ideas off.
There are so many people doing wonderful things for the SEO industry but over my past five years as an SEO, there are a couple of people who have really shaped things namely, Aleyda Solis and Areej AbuAli. I also really admire Lily Ray and Jamie Indigo for their technical prowess.
I hope to be a role model to others as others have been to me!
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Thanks to Kim for a truly insightful interview. You can connect with her via LinkedIn and 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! 🙌🏽