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 Lauren Galvez! Based in Felton, USA, Lauren is an SEO consultant and cofounder of a local SEO consultancy in Northern California. She's been in SEO for over 4 years alongside her partner who is also an SEO. When they aren't deep-diving into SEO together, she enjoys exploring new local spots, bird-watching and creature-spotting on nature walks, and playing video games.
We asked her everything from how she first got into SEO to what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is 💪🏽
After college, I knew I wanted to pursue a career that would allow me to work remotely from anywhere in the world. I discovered digital marketing through the digital nomads, Youtubers, and travel bloggers who inspired me to dip into website design, affiliate marketing, social media, blogging, and eventually SEO. I quickly learned how important SEO is in order to be successful online and it was the marketing strategy that I enjoyed learning about the most. I began taking online courses, reading SEO blogs, and volunteering SEO within my community before I landed my first job.
I really enjoy a holistic perspective to SEO, but if I had to pick, it'd be a tie between technical SEO and competitor/SERP analysis. I love how detail-oriented and actionable both tasks are and I enjoy diving deep into both processes and ensuring everything has been fully accounted for.
Screaming Frog. Not only is it my close friend for technical SEO but with the all of the APIs it offers, it can cover so many bases on its own and provide truly valuable data. I love that they offer a free and paid version of the tool, and their documentation and blog have been very helpful for me.
When getting into technical SEO, I began to see similar technical issues on websites sharing the same CMS. Looking deeper into this, I learned the limitations that each CMS can have for SEO because some have a default setup that goes against Google's guidelines. So, before crawling a website, it saved me a lot of time to first be aware of the CMS to anticipate their known technical SEO issues and already be familiar with the appropriate recommendations.
I'm proud to have been part of co-building a technical SEO service for a digital marketing agency startup. I created the technical SEO audit that we used for 200+ clients and developed many deliverables and SOPs for our technical SEO services that helped ensure our on-page SEO efforts weren't being prevented by pages that weren't crawlable or indexable.
Everything you want to learn about SEO can be found online and there are so many SEOs that are sharing everything from the basics to the latest trends and strategies they're testing.
At first, it can absolutely feel like information overload. I suggest checking out many different resources like courses, blogs, the Twitter and LinkedIn SEO communities, conferences, podcasts, Youtube videos, and find the resources you trust and whose content you enjoy the most.
Beware of outdated information and getting lost in the details. When you're feeling lost, Google Search Central's SEO documentation and Youtube Office Hours are your most trustworthy guide coming directly from the source - Google!
Claire Carlile of BrightLocal has stood out to me within the SEO industry. I thoroughly enjoyed her local SEO courses and her positive and welcoming attitude toward learning SEO. I consider her to be a friendly face within the SEO community and hope to emulate her same attitude towards SEO within my own content.
I'm also grateful to Areej AbuAli for creating an awesome space for women in SEO and to Aleyda Solis for her helpful resources like the SEOFOMO newsletter and learningSEO.io.
I notice more and more women in the SEO community, am inspired by them, and love learning from their contributions!
I'm empowered by my strong desire to create a fulfilling life. Following my heart, being endlessly curious, and doing whatever it takes to make my dreams a reality is what guides my every day and to continuously strive for something better.
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Thanks Lauren for a truly insightful interview! You can connect with Lauren 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! 🙌🏽