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 Sonja Marinkovic! Based in Serbia, Sonja is a freelance SEO consultant and owner of Digital Search Hero. Her favourite things to work on include content strategy, on-page SEO, tech SEO and webmaster tasks. When she's not working, she reads, watches documentaries, paints, and organises random things.
We asked her everything from how she first got into SEO to what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is 💪🏽
My first connection to SEO was my mental health and self-improvement blog I started 5 years ago. I wanted to learn WordPress, SEO, copywriting and share my opinions. A blog was a good way to complete all those goals. I had lots of hits and misses with the keyword and content strategy, but I managed to rank for some blog posts. The blog has helped me to get a full-time SEO job in a company where I worked for 3 years before I started my freelance journey.
My favourite part of SEO is getting to know how SEO works in different industries and collecting useful insights on competitors, search intent, and organic growth possibilities. Each industry is a different challenge and an amazing way to broaden your SEO understanding and skills. If we can translate it to an SEO task, it would be an initial SEO audit and content strategy.
SemRush, Google Search Console, Google Data Studio, Screaming Frog, Google Docs and Google Sheets.
The impression that lots of testing and experimenting on websites can really give you some in-depth insights about how to structure your SEO strategy and define priorities. Nothing is set in stone and that's really exciting.
It's always good to see increased CTRs and the number of inquiries for my clients. Also, I like when they see their website has been recognised by Google as an authority for a relevant commercial query.
Keep experimenting and testing things as the SEO industry is a dynamic one. Surround yourself with supportive and knowledgeable mentors. In case you're not sure how to start your SEO career, I would always recommend practising SEO on your website, as the learning curve there is steep and fast, but you will certainly learn a lot of useful SEO things.
I'd like to give a shout out to Alizée Baudez, my wonderful mentor from WTSMentorship program with who I've discussed things such as energy management, motivation, finding clients, and so much more. Also, I would also mention a few women who really made a significant mark in the SEO industry, such as Aleyda Solis, Marie Haynes, and Lily Ray.
A desire to challenge myself with new and exciting projects, and the courage of taking risks and starting my freelance business in the midst of the Covid pandemic where I wasn't even sure how it was going to work out and how to find clients.
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Thanks to Sonja for a truly insightful interview. You can check out her website and connect with her on 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! 🙌🏽