Olga & Ewelina
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone. It's Olga from SEOSLY. Welcome to the SEO Podcast by #SEOSLY. Today, there is Ewelina with me and she is like a very, very special guest. You'll see in just a second
[00:00:17] when she starts to share her story, which is very, very unique, and I think she is a rising star in the s u community. And if you don't know her yet, you should start following her right now. Ewelina, how are you doing? I'm very good. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me onto your podcast. I think it's one of the dreams come true because.
[00:00:40] To me, you are, you're one of the SEO gurus I follow and then be able to be on the podcast with you. It's, yeah, I can think of one dream of what, from my, from my bucket list. Yeah, that's, that sounds cool. But to be honest, I think we are like at the same level when it comes to experience or probably, I think maybe you're even higher because I, I heard some rumors about what you have been doing recently, what you have been learning, and I think that it should be you who is the guru here.
[00:01:14] But we'll unpack that in just a second. Tell me like your Ss e o story, how it all started and. Maybe before that, tell me where you are based and like who you are if someone doesn't know you yet. So my name is Alina. I currently based in the uk I don't believe I'll be moving anytime soon. I, although I wish I lived somewhere where there was a real proper summer, not rainy weather every day.
[00:01:43] Okay. And yeah, I've been doing SEO since 2017, I believe. And probably like most of SEO specialists, I started doing SEO by accident. Uh, so following redundancy number one, I started working as an s e O analyst, where I was mainly focusing on dark markets. So it's, uh, Germany, Austrian, Switzerland.
[00:02:10] Okay. But this, but let, let's go back to 2017. Uh, the first redundancy from an SEO role, uh, that was, uh, that was a marketing role. What was that? Was, was that's a different role. Okay. But that's, that's like related to SEO. Very much. So maybe we can talk about this. So it looks like in addition to s e o, we also know a bit about affiliate marketing.
[00:02:33] Right? Tell me about this, this experience, how long it took, what were you doing? Uh, so I was working, uh, for tri uh, Uhhuh. They used to have a office in Telford. Yeah, that was back in 2016. Uh, I again was mainly responsible for supporting the, uh, German Austrian Switzerland market and the Polish market. And my unique advantage was knowledge of Polish, German, and English, which means that I could support all those markets.
[00:03:06] Uh, yeah. Unfortunately, after a year at Tri Doubler on the 6th of December, we got the, the gift from Nicholas, and we were told that some of the positions are at risk, which later turned out that the whole office was closing. So we had to, we had to seek employment elsewhere. Santa Clause is coming, has come to town.
[00:03:30] Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I made, I made some great friends from, from that workplace. Mm-hmm. I really enjoyed my, my position there, but unfortunately it was all before the remote work. Okay. Culture. Yeah. Yeah, culture and actually employers allowing people working from home, which meant I wasn't able to find the role within affiliate marketing in my area, which led me to seek opportunities related to affiliate marketing.
[00:04:06] And since s e o is part of digital marketing, and then I can, again, I could use my language skills Yeah. To be an advantage. It was easier for, for me to be trained in basics of SEO than for an English person to train master Polish and German in six months. Okay. So, you know, three languages. Is it like, how, how did it happen?
[00:04:30] Is it like, are you, do you have like parents from different countries or did you study, uh, those languages or like what's your like educational background? So my dream has always been being able to speak languages. My favorite language has always been German. Mainly you. It being extremely logical. That's why I absolutely love it, because it just, pure logic.
[00:04:57] Oh, you follow, you follow a pattern for a sentence and you're able to ask questions as long as you know the vocabulary or you can, yeah, pretty much you can communicate knowing the patterns, how sentences are built, if you know how uh, clusters are pronounced. For example, sp is always going to be, it's not.
[00:05:20] Mm-hmm. It's not like English where every single word is a different story and you have to, or polish. Or polish, like just, oh yeah, let's, let's figure it out. It's going to be, it's going to be fine. Uh, so yeah, I studied, uh, German physiology as my first choice, uh, when I was doing my ventures in. German, I also studied, uh, English physiology.
[00:05:44] Nice. And then I combined those two and I got master's degree in applied linguistics, which means that I've studied, uh, German and English. And I'm able to teach and translate and interpret between those three languages. Unfortunately, because I haven't been practicing enough, my skill to probably translate and interpret between German and English might be a little bit rusty.
[00:06:11] Mm-hmm. But yeah, it's still, it's still there. And I still very much enjoy the German language. Oh. Because it's so, but this is like, I think German is the same like group of languages like English. So isn't, it's similar, I have, I have never learned, uh, German, so I have no idea. I only learned Spanish and French.
[00:06:31] But isn't that German? English is part of the Germanic, yeah, the language group. But because they split so far back and English has went completely different direction. Okay. There, there might be some overlap. For example, grass is, does grass, so it's still, you would be able to understand some words, but some, yeah.
[00:06:56] Give example in, in German gift is, means poison in English. Okay. I'm giving you a gift. There you are. There you are, you're for you. Okay. Okay. I see. Because when I was like learning Spanish, because I, I started similarly, I started like I just, I, I have a master's degree in, in English and as part of that I had to like have certificate for, for Spanish to be able to get masters.
[00:07:25] So, I was like finding so many, uh, similarities that it was way, way, way easier for me to learn Spanish than it would be to learn like, uh, English from scratch without knowing. But that, but I heard that once you learn five languages or so, then the next one it's like, yeah, like that. Well, I think, for example, we had Latin at Uni.
[00:07:52] Uhhuh. Yeah. So when I was learning English, I had to do Latin and Lorem Ipsum. Mine's coming back to me. It's all coming back to me. Uh, I think if you, if you have Latin and the, you understand the grammar and you have a little bit of vocabulary than all those languages, Spanish, French, Italian, you are able to pick them up much quicker.
[00:08:15] Unfortunately, I had the opportunity to learn Spanish when I was. Doing two belcher's degree at the same time. So I had like double workload and there was an opportunity to pick up Spanish as well. Oh. But it collided with the swimming lessons, so yeah. Okay. So you swimming lessons Yeah. You're, yeah, because you're into sports as well, so a lot of similarities I can see.
[00:08:38] So we started in the same way. I was also supposed to be a translator, but it turned out that I, I'd rather work on my translating, uh, website for, to, for my translating business than on like doing translations. So it was like a fast choice. And I also love running. And you are a triathlonist, right? A triathlete, yeah.
[00:09:00] Triathlete. Oh, I, I am, well, uh, since getting the dog, it's, the train is a little bit hit and miss, but yeah, I do, I do enjoy sports. That's good fun. Cool. Cool. Okay. So let's now, uh, go, uh, to ss e o. So your first role was after this affiliate marketing. So what, what exactly were you doing there? Uh, tell me like again in more detail.
[00:09:23] Uh, so the first SS e o role, it was, uh, SEO analyst and I was mainly responsible for an automotive client supporting the Polish market as the main, main market I was working on. And also supporting my friends, my friend who was working on the German, Austrian and Swiss market again, because of the German knowledge.
[00:09:45] Okay. So my main focus was the Polish language and but analyst, like a junior, instead of being a junior, SS e o, you immediately became analyst. Is it like, well, that was, that was a job title, but what I've noticed, the job titles the change depending on the company. Yeah. You're in because there's not a standardized.
[00:10:09] Way of naming SEOs. I think it was Liam on LinkedIn. Your ss e o superstar SEO Ninja, senior Junior Account manager. And there is so many discrepancies, so I think it's difficult to actually correlate the title with the job descriptions. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Totally. Okay. And the next role, uh, lecture was an in-house role in that Oh yes.
[00:10:36] That, uh, unfortunately ended, uh, in a redundancy after six months. Uh, that was an in-house role. Uh, did you like it? Did you like it? I was an in-house for a year also at the, at the beginning of my career. And to be honest, I. Didn't like it that much. I was born bored very much after this year, and when I jumped into agency, it was like, wow.
[00:11:01] I now, I now am really starting to learn ss e o What were your like, um, impressions? Experiences with, with in-house s e o? Mm, I think six months, extremely short time to actually get bored, if anything, because I was the whole SS e o department where I was on, and the only SEO there, so everything had to be done pretty much from scratch, from the ss e o side of things.
[00:11:29] They also had, they also did a migration, I think a year. Oh, before I started that, uh, didn't really go that well. I only found out because there was issues popping up left, right, and center. I'm like, That's not actually quite right. Why is it happening? What's going on? And then trying to get information what actually was happening before I joined.
[00:11:50] Yeah. So it was, it was a good challenge. Okay. So they did, uh, the migration without having an ss e o on board, I dunno exactly what was going on before, before I started, I know that there was then issues that I had to pick up or you, there wasn't really issues, there was just challenges mm-hmm. That I could work on and investigate.
[00:12:12] And I think that's when I started enjoying the technical side of ss e o, more digging into the code, seeing what's working, what's not working. I think that was the, the turning point for me. Okay. So like, uh, this was like the second role. Was there another one? Uh, yes. Following the redundancy. Mm-hmm.
[00:12:33] Redundancy number two, I joined a small agency. Uh, Yeah. Agency life margin, multiple accounts, different, different businesses, different industries, different niches. And how many clients did you have like to, to take care of at one, at one point it was 18 accounts. 18. Okay. 18. Yeah. And there were varying from small, small accounts to international e-commerce, e-commerce brands.
[00:13:03] So it was, um, crazy journey, I can say. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. In my case, yeah. It was, it was also like intense. Usually the number of clients was intense, but then it was, it was, it was changing because like, I finally switched to just be to, to not having clients, just being this analyst, this auditor. But I, I knew people from other agencies who had as many as I think, 60 something clients and I think my husband at some point at the agency, he had 100 something clients to take care of.
[00:13:39] So yeah, that's a lot. He should, he should be doing classes. How to master how to manage 100 plus accounts. Yeah. On a daily basis. I think for me 18 was was enough. Yeah. Yeah. Like now, when I have my own clients, I don't think I would like to go above like 15. 12 because this is, because then I would be working as I, as I would work, as I were working at the agency, meaning that I wouldn't have enough time to devote to every single client and I would be basically focusing only on the ones, uh, who are paying the most or who are having some issues, which is not necessarily the way I think it, it should be done.
[00:14:31] That's, yeah, that's life at the agency life. Yeah. I think it's difficult to, to find the right balance because you want to be one step ahead and not only just fighting fires constantly and just Yeah, yeah. Just fires, fires, fires and nothing else. And no time for like brainstorming new ideas, changing something, creating a new strategy.
[00:14:54] No, no. Just fires. You are, we are basically firefighters as you firefighters. Uh, yes. Oh, okay. So in that role, you, you started to, um, to be interested more in technical s e o. Right. And was it like the last role or when was it, like how long you were at, uh, in that role? Uh, so I was, I was there I think for about two years.
[00:15:21] Uhhuh and following the role didn't really align with what I wanted to do anymore. Uhhuh and I decided to actually search for opportunities elsewhere. I was, I was briefly working for, for a company, which the role didn't end up to be what it was, what I was expecting to be uhhuh, but that led me to working as a technical ss e o manager for a company based in Australia, for agency based in Australia.
[00:15:55] And I enjoyed it. Immensely. Oh, tell me more about this. I think there were three, three reasons for that. Uhhuh, mainly 90% of my time was technical. S e o audits. Oh, that's what I, what I did day in, day out. Other benefit was probably the time zone, and because I wasn't expected to be dealing with clients face-to-face or being, being client calls, yeah, I didn't, I didn't have to, uh, do any calls.
[00:16:28] I wasn't really distracted by messages, emails, potential client calls. I could just crack on with my, with my workday. And I think the, the third, third benefit, a four day working week and the, oh, I think I didn't know. Yeah. Those, those three, those three factors, I think they made the role my ultimate. Role that, that's, I, I think that's where I enjoyed ss e o the most.
[00:17:02] Mm-hmm. Because you, you work four days, but then you've got three days to potentially forget about all the s e o stuff and then that's when you've got all Oh, I like crazy because you've, you, you not stress and then you could order good ideas. It's like, oh, actually I could be doing this. I could be doing this uhhuh because I remember I would do all my boring housework stuff on Wednesday afternoon.
[00:17:27] So then Thursday afternoon, that would be already be the weekend. Yeah. Then you put the Thursday afternoon or Thursday evening, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, yeah. To do whatever you want. Yeah. I, I now have this freedom because I don't have a job and I could easily like, um, squeeze my clients into three, four days.
[00:17:50] But I just can't stop and I can't, it's impossible for me to take like three days off or two days off. I am now fighting to take one day off, but with like varying degrees of success. But anyway. Tell me more about those technical s e o audits. Like what tools were you using? Like what were those, like audits that took 40, 40 hours or something?
[00:18:17] Or like quick audits, like what was the, the approach there? I think, uh, for most clients a Audi would take a day or two days. Uhhuh, uh, I would use as my tool of choice. Screen Frog, absolutely love Screen Frog. I do pay for my own license. I'm not being sponsored, but screen frog, if you're watching, please feel free to sponsor me.
[00:18:41] I think they don't even have an affiliate program. I don't think so. Yeah. But this is a tool. Yeah. Everyone has and yeah, has to have. Uh, so yeah, screaming Frog and, uh, sideboard as the crawlers and then the, uh, go Search Console and the Google Analytics, Google Tech Manager as the, on the client side. If they had those set up, some of them didn't.
[00:19:04] But speaking about tools, I have to mention Jet Octopus, which is a sponsor of this podcast, and the difference between Jet Octopus and Screaming Frog is, Jet Octopus is a cloud-based crawler, which means it is way, way faster. And screaming frog, if you're crawling every huge side and you don't have, like, the best computer in the world can kill your computer, or you'll take you days and you can just forget about the Yeah.
[00:19:33] Or you can, or, or the crawling may take a week or, or even, or even longer. Of course there are workarounds, like you can do it on a cloud machine. But, but yeah. But with jet Octopus and like huge enterprise, uh, websites, I think this is the only way to get them crawled in a, in a fast way. Okay. So, okay, so, uh, screaming frog, uh, side bulb, like what else?
[00:20:01] What else were you using? Like. Mm. Geometric uhhuh, uh, dev tool tools, uh, page insights. If we didn't have access to, uh, Google Search Console, there was enough data for the COA vitals. I think that's, that's the main ones I believe I was using. It seems like a lifetime ago, but it was only last year when I was Yeah, I think we were talking like when you were still working there.
[00:20:29] Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Good old days. Yeah. Yeah, I remember. Yeah. And what are some, like, do you remember, do you remember like some crazy technical, um, mistakes you found or some like crazy case you, you had, uh, in those audits? Because I guess you have, um, conducted a lot of them, right? Um, I don't, to be honest, not much surprises me anymore.
[00:20:58] So it's, I've seen something like, oh Jesus, that's absolutely out of it. I think I've seen a lot of things that was like, okay, low impact on the new website. Yeah, it happens. Everyone has probably seen an example of that already. Uh, so it wasn't, I don't think I had examples where it was like, oh geez, what's happening here?
[00:21:17] What are they doing? Have they lost their mind? It was probably more, yeah, they, they're doing ss e o to some kind of success level, but then what are the opportunities to improve what can be done to, to improve? So I don't think I had any of those Gs, Christ, what do I do here with this mess? It wasn't, it wasn't as bad.
[00:21:41] Okay. So you are, so you are at this stage in your, as your career where. Not much can really surprise you. I, I still, I still like, maybe not every day, but like every week, every two weeks there is something I find, something I come across, something that surprises me. I don't know, maybe, maybe I haven't still conducted enough audits or, I don't know.
[00:22:06] It's probably just my approach that like, I've got the same approach in life. That not much, you're not, you're not easily impressed. Oh, not easily shocked. Okay. 'cause I think they said prepare for the worst. Hope for the best. Yeah. And it is just, well, it is what it is. They, they put a no index across the whole website.
[00:22:27] Okay. What can we do to resolve that? So just stay calm. Yeah. When I, when I see something like that, like my blood pressure increases and like, I, oh my God. Well, like what's like, oh, so yeah. Maybe, maybe that's why, um, maybe because my, my brain is very, very, Analytical and logical uhhuh. So for me it would be like, okay, so why'd they put an no index for the whole website?
[00:22:52] What was the reasoning behind it? Or someone has no idea what they're doing or is there actually a reason for it? And then what's the reason? And then does it need to be there or it doesn't? What were they trying to achieve with the no index? Because potentially there is something that supports their decision that their whole website needs to be no index for whatever reason.
[00:23:15] In my, in my experience in most cases, um, there is no rationale behind those, uh, mistakes in most cases. Like it just happened, like the developer forgot to like remove the no index, and of course it wasn't meant to be like, yeah. Okay. Uh, so technical ss e o audits and, uh, what came next? Uh, redundancy number three.
[00:23:43] Oh. And I think, you are talking about those redundancies like the third time. And I think this is like a bit, uh, imposter syndrome speaking because if it was a man sitting there, they would say, I, I changed job because I wanted something new. I changed job. And I am pretty sure they would never use redundancy words and you are using it.
[00:24:11] So I, I'm pretty sure that's, uh, imposter syndrome speaking and yeah, I can totally relate to that. Am I correct? For me, it's, I'm just stating the fact uhhuh. Okay. It was redundancy. Like I know, uh, was the, was it Facebook was laying off one off or a lot of people laying off matter redundancy. Just redundancy.
[00:24:33] Now it's just so common. Like, I thought I was right. I was. Special or unique because I was made redundant three times. But there's other people that have been made redundant four times. Five times, yeah. And it's just, just stating the fact. And again, yeah, I wish I could continue with some of the companies that made me redundant because I enjoyed working there.
[00:24:56] Unfortunately, the business decision. Yeah, sure. Let let the business somewhere else. So let just, yeah, totally. Yeah, let just scroll on and move on. Okay. So the third redundancy and what came next? Uh, following, uh, redundancy number three. Uh, I started working at, uh, Agency. Mm-hmm. And did you like it?
[00:25:17] Like what's, what were you doing there? You were, um, uh, what was your role there? Uh, the agency priced itself in, uh, technical s e o. Mm-hmm. But within my tasks I was doing, Everything and anything ss e o. Okay. Keyword research, keyword mapping, writing blog posts. Yeah. I, I remember I read, I think there were two, uh, two or one, two, I think, uh, blog posts.
[00:25:48] I think I've read, I've, I've written three. Oh, maybe three. Maybe I missed. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so the, the range of my, of my responsibilities and, and tasks varied. Yeah. And, and you made a decision to, uh, to go on your own, right? Or is it just me guessing? I believe the decision was mutual because Okay. The company couldn't offer what I was looking for, uhhuh, and currently I'm exploring other options.
[00:26:28] Mm-hmm. While. Making sure I'm making the right decision because I can, um, potentially my previous decisions following the redundancies were rushed. Mm-hmm. And now I'm trying to take a step back, assess the whole situation, and decide or make the, make the right decision what's coming next. Yeah. That's cool.
[00:26:53] I, at the, maybe at the beginning, like before the middle of my s u journey, I also had like, I think three months break or four when I was like, just learning and just thinking what's do I want to do? And so like, I, I, I remember I was like doing this, that thinking, analyzing. And after those, uh, I think, uh, four months or something, I, I started working at the s e O agency, so I can totally relate to that.
[00:27:25] So what are you doing now? I. I, I said the rumor has it, you are learning, uh, new skills, very valuable skills for SEOs. Can you tell me more? What's have you been learning recently? Uh, so the, I just finished my data analyst course when I've been learning how to do proper data analysis from data, uh, collecting data, data cleansing, uh, modeling data, connecting different source of data, all the data related gibberish, because if you tell me, tell me more about this.
[00:28:01] Yeah. Like what an SEO can, can do with those skills. Let's say I am a, I'm an SEO, I have g ss C I have GA four, I have a clients and I have those skills. And what do I do? Like, tell me something in more detail, how I can use those skills. I think as far as data is concerned, making sure that we are using the data to support business decisions, Uhhuh and because especially in SS e o, a lot of questions are met with the answer.
[00:28:39] Well, it depends, and with my logical brain, my brain is struggling to to comprehend, like how can we say, oh, we recommend doing this because that's my gut feeling. That's the right decision. I like to have pretty much a business case supporting that decision. We are going to be doing X, Y, Z because I've done the research, the data is stating we should be doing this instead of doing this because of that.
[00:29:05] So I think having multi multiple sources of data, trying to combine the data and identifying the issue or the problem you're trying to resolve, and then using that data to either support the DEC decision. Or reject the decision you're trying to make and potentially look for save for the company solutions.
[00:29:27] The solutions somewhere else. Because, um, one example, for example, one example for example, yeah. Example, example from, uh, from real life. Someone mentioned that the menu, menu options weren't ordered in an alphabetical order. Mm-hmm. And from my point of view, it doesn't matter if they're in alphabetical order because does it, does the end user care, if it's the alphabetical order, they care where the product they're looking for is placed?
[00:30:00] 'cause it should be as high as the menu as possible so they can navigate to it sooner rather than looking for zebra costumes for five year old Halloween party at the very bottom of the list. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a very good example. And, uh, how do you. So you probably do, you would do a lot of those analysis in Google Looker Studio, data Looker Studio, right?
[00:30:27] Like am I Google Looker Studio? Uh, it They've changed. Yeah, they've changed the name. I still call it Google Data Studio. Google Looker, yeah. Whatever. Yeah. And yeah. Uh, I think a lot of, a lot of data related tasks can be done in Excel. Mm-hmm. Because there's no need to over complicate. And especially with Google Sheets as well, there is limit how many row you can have in the, in the Google Sheets document.
[00:30:56] So probably use Excel, especially if I'm manipulating lots, lots of data. And what's, what's the limit? Do you remember? Like more or less, I can't remember to be honest, but I know when I was copying my data or trying to copy my data the other day from Excel into. Uh, it said, sorry, it's not possible because there's limit.
[00:31:18] It's Oh, okay. Because sometimes when I do that, it takes like a lot of, a lot of time, but it finally happens. I never had like the situation when it said, sorry, we can't do it, but sometimes it took like 20 minutes. But all but yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. I had, I had that, but that probably was example more from my data course when we had multiple source of data, we had to combine all those data sets and I was just cleaning the data in Excel because that's the, the best way.
[00:31:50] And for example, what data were you combining? Uh, during my course we're working on non ss e o related mm-hmm. Related data sets. So it's just completely made up scenarios, for example, where we were working on a business proposal to potentially launch a new app that would be, Solving x, y, z problems of the, of the target user.
[00:32:19] And we had to use the data we were provided to prepare a business case and make sure that we get the investment from the, from the stakeholders. Uh, that was the scenario we were, we were given, if I was working on SS e o related examples, I'll probably be looking at Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
[00:32:43] Mm-hmm. To try and combine those, those two. Yeah, because like, especially it, there, there was, there were always like differences in like how much traffic, organic traffic Google Analytics was showing you versus ga uh, GS G S C. But now I'm seeing those discrepancies are even bigger because obviously GA four works totally different, so.
[00:33:10] It would be useful, for example, to do those comparisons to try to find the gap. What was the gap between GA reporting on the traffic and G SS C? Like what, what else would you, can I do? Well, if you look at your everyday s e o tasks and which ones involve anything to do with data, for example, keyword research, everyone's favorite task.
[00:33:35] Yeah, of course. So for example, you can try and clean as much data as possible. So even how do I, how, how do I clean data? Uh, so you would remove anything that's not relevant. Mm-hmm. So I would straight, straight away, I would remove anything that's, uh, misspelling foreign language that doesn't really, uh, relate to the call product or service offering.
[00:34:04] Uh, mentions of, uh, tors. Because then we can, we can worry about those comparison ones later down the line. Uh, but trying to identify the core, core keywords, I would just get rid of anything that's, yeah, misspelled not relevant, uh, for a language. And how do you do that Cleaning, like with formulas, right?
[00:34:24] Some you create some formulas to do that. Uh, for small data, I'll probably just use filter and then mm-hmm. See if there's any trend. Also, if you work in Google Sheets, you can use the, yeah. There is data cleaning, something like that, right? Oh yeah. So you can remove duplicates, you can, uh, remove other things.
[00:34:45] Again, I don't really use Google Sheets for, I do, I switched to Google Sheets like a couple of years ago, and now when I have to do something in, in Excel, I try and then I upload it to Google Sheets and do it there. So I would prefer to work in Excel because again, it's probably less laggy. And then I, I know where, for example, with the, um, graphs and visualizations, there's more options in Excel.
[00:35:15] Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. But again, if you're just doing data, data cleansing, so, uh, using filters to try and find, remove rubbish. Mm-hmm. And then potentially if you try to target, uh, high, uh, search volume, low competition keywords, again, filter the data or if you want to write formulas, if search volume is below 10 and uh, search intent is, um, a competition is low or high, do this.
[00:35:46] Mm-hmm. And then do that. So just, uh, combine multiple if statements and Yeah. Then you, you will get the output or outcome column and you can see or delete, keep or review manually, because potentially there's, there's opportunity there. And you would then be able to do them much quicker. So as long as you set the criteria, you know what, potentially you can get rid of in bulk.
[00:36:12] You can just do it much, much quicker. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, makes sense. Okay, so data cleaning, uh, what else did you say? Data visualization was? Yes, we were using Power bi, which I found extremely user-friendly following my adventures with, uh, Google Looker. It just very, very similar. And I did Uhhuh, I did enjoy using Power bi.
[00:36:40] So it's, it's very, very user-friendly and it's, I think once you, you have the data uploaded into Power BI and you've used Google Data Studio before, you'll be able to find your way around Power BI without much mm-hmm. Effort. Mm-hmm. And so how long did that course take? How many hours? I think it was quite comprehensive.
[00:37:05] Right. Well, the course was across six, seven weeks. Mm-hmm. Um, it was supposed to be 10 hours per week, Uhhuh, unfortunately it was, it was much more than that. So balancing a full-time job and, uh, Very intense course was. Yeah. Good fun. Yeah. I think around the same time I was also taking an s e o course, right.
[00:37:31] More or less. Mine took like, I think nine weeks. So yeah. And it was also like a very intensive, and it was supposed to be a couple of hours, but we had homeworks and like the homework usually took me the entire weekend. So, yeah. So what was your course about? It was, uh, tested ss e o training, uh, by Lee Witcher from SS e o Fight Club.
[00:37:58] And it was basically about getting your hands very, very dirty with ss e o and like doing the real ss e o trying to. And learn how Google a algorithm really works. We had like a topic every week, a presentation discussion, then, uh, another discussion, and we had tasks to complete. And the entire purpose, of the course was that during those, nine weeks, you improve rankings of your site of, or of your, uh, client sites.
[00:38:31] And you do it in terms of, uh, OnPage, s e o, off-page, s e o, local ss e o and other things. And if you do that successfully, then you are allowed to join a mastermind group. And yeah, I I was happy to, to join it, so yeah. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. That must amazing. Yeah. Yeah, so that's, that was very, very fun.
[00:38:53] And like I was doing the things I have never done. My life. So even though I thought, yeah, I, I, nothing is going to surprise me. I took so many courses, but on, on the first class, during the first class, I was like, oh really? I think that that's the beauty of s e o because I think there's so much to learn.
[00:39:16] Yeah. That just be where do you stop or is, can you actually stop? Because I think it's a never ending story. Yeah, totally. Totally. And it's like, it is nice to let your ideas be challenged because I was like coming from this very wide hat, clean, polite, side of ss e o and now I saw a little bit what the other side looks like.
[00:39:45] And it doesn't mean that I'm now like turning into a black hat and I will be spamming everyone. I now, I think I understand way more of how things really work and I can, and I can apply that knowledge both in the white hat and black hat's way. So you can apply the knowledge in the white hat as your way, but then get the benefits of potentially the black hat ass, your, because you know, potentially, you know, where the, where the final line is.
[00:40:13] Yeah. You know, how, how to, that kind of, yeah. Yeah. So I strongly recommend you, you take that, that course too. I am retaking it again in, it is, I think starting in September and I will probably be retaking it infinitely because it's, it's I think twice a year. So because like, the course is one thing, but the discussion that's happening after the course, during the course, because there's a discussion group.
[00:40:38] There are like q and As, this is where the real ss e o happens. Mm-hmm. So, and uh, have you been using your own website to test Yeah, my own websites and, uh, my client's websites. Uh, but of course for my clients, I'm not doing anything like naughty. I'm for my own website, I was trying different things, but I think I was still like trying them.
[00:41:05] F the things I was doing were, I, were like, why, why, why, less black hat than I think most black hats do. So, yeah, I I haven't been like, penalized or anything like that yet. Yeah. I'm sure you won't. That's not my purpose, because I am, I am a whitehead in my heart. So, um, and what's the results you've seen after implementing all those?
[00:41:34] Um, uh, so like the rankings, like, for some, some, some phrases, some, high competition phrases. I just couldn't like move. And with those on-page things I, I started to do, I just moved and I, I learned how to, I, I have never really done any link building. I was always, if I had to, I was like using someone else to do it.
[00:41:58] But now I learned ways to do link building myself. With little efforts and to be able to reap those benefits a little bit. So, so I, I'm, I'm using, like, I'm having like position and traffic, uh, results and the biggest benefit is probably in local SS e o, which I learned a lot because I, I just knew the basics.
[00:42:21] Now I probably don't have like the entire knowledge about local SS e o, but I have enough knowledge to be able to like, get to the client and make him rank in, in those cities, uh, and make sure that his proximity is like getting bigger instead of getting smaller. And for one of my clients I was able to have him like all green, all position one across like a very, very wide area.
[00:42:49] So, So we'll, we'll see how it goes moving forward, but now I am like quite happy that I added those things to my ss e o Arsenal. But yeah, position one across cures, that's, uh, across like the, almost the entire state, um, in, in, in, in Google Maps, of course. But yeah, it is, it is also like important that, that uh, local SS e o is not only maps, it is, it is your website, it is maps and it is proximity.
[00:43:21] There is way, way more to that than I thought initially. So, Yeah, I would love for you to take this training, uh, with me as well, and to go through that entire process with me in September or, or next year. Well, it sounds, sounds exciting. I've always got so many things on my, I need to learn this and this and this list.
[00:43:42] I would just add that to the, to the list because it sounds it sounds exciting. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like able to update my, my kind of checklist or strategy I am creating for every client. Even today, I was like writing everything down, all the things I now want to do for every client. And I, and I have like the brand new checklist and I want to like, go through that entire process again.
[00:44:06] For other clients, for my size, we do it , infinitely. At infinitum, whatever. Unless I, I, I see that. Yeah. The, the results are like, so, so awesome that, because before that, the, the main difference is before that I was, I had like knowledge of what works, knowledge of rankings, and I was basically doing everything I knew for every client.
[00:44:30] And hoping that some of those things will, uh, will work. And now I just do select few things and like the minimum viable ss, e o, only the things that's, that I need to do without doing like 100 things. I can do five and have nice results. So that's kind of the, the takeaway, that's the ultimate goal. So you, you know exactly what actions need to be taken and what Yes.
[00:44:55] And, and I have a wide range of those actions, uh, I can choose from because I may not feel like doing this. So I can do that. I can do like two things and wait a week and see what happens. If nothing happens, then I can take two more actions and, and, uh, just fix and observe, monitor, observe. So this is. Way more efficient in terms of, uh, time and like energy and, and results as well.
[00:45:24] So, and I'm heavily using, Cora SS e o software for that. I'm not sure if you heard about this software. Mm. I think I've, uh, I have read about on your website. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, this is the tool, um, my GoTo s e o tool now together with like, uh, screaming Frog eyeball hfs emr. So this is, this is one of the top ones now.
[00:45:48] Okay. But this is your interview. I'm just taking notes of all the recommendations you make so I can, I can go off and learn a little bit more ending stories here. Is it so, yeah, yeah. Totally. Totally. And, and it's like, it makes me. With every new thing I learned, like especially the new thing that I haven't known or wasn't aware of, it makes me like go crazy even more.
[00:46:12] And, and I'm like going on those binges ss e o binges where I cannot stop like for like 26 days or something. And I, I am so exhausted and I can stop. And this is one of the things I'm now working on to, to, to be able to take those. Pauses because like for the sake of my mental health Yeah, I can, I can imagine.
[00:46:36] Because I get excited over things as well, and then I don't know when to stop. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it's cool. But I know that my, my, my system is telling me sometimes, let's take a break. Take the fucking break. You, you need to go for a run. You need to go and spend some time. I do. Yeah. I, I run every day. Yeah.
[00:46:55] So every day. That's almost every day. Uh, like six times. If my coach, if my coach had other running every day, like, no, you don't need to be running every day. You need to let your body recover. Yeah. But like, maybe I, I recently, for example, switched to, instead of running, uh, I do. Uphill uphill walks on a treadmill.
[00:47:18] But yeah, we are, we are diverting from ss e o anyway. I can talk about running as well because if you wanna do a few springs, and there's plenty of opportunities around here because we go, you go around, it's like a 15 degree. There are a lot of, there are a lot of SEOs who are runners. So maybe one day we can do a show all about SEOs who run, I know a lot of s running SEOs, so that might be, might be, or, or maybe make a race where all of us like just race, organize a race.
[00:47:50] Oh, I don't know if there is any, anyone quicker than you. As far as, no, I'm not that quick anymore. So that's like history, the time I, I once shared somewhere that's from like three years ago, so it. It's irrelevant now, but there's a new, there's going to be new criteria post covid. And that's a, that's a new pb.
[00:48:09] Everything that happened pre, pre covid Yeah. Is not worried anymore because that was different lives, different people. Yeah. Yeah, totally. That was post covid. You got a different, be a different person. Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah. Okay. Uh, I know you, in addition to data analysis, you've been also learning Python.
[00:48:30] Python for SS e o and tell me about it because I, I don't know, Python I, at once I started learning Java, i, I PhD, h, p, stuff like that, but it turned out I am not going to be a programmer, a good one. So I switched to s e o. Tell me about your Python experience. Uh, so I think I was introduced to Python when I attended the, uh, Python for s e o training.
[00:49:01] Led by Robin Lord as part of the Brighton ss e o Uhhuh training sessions. That was, I believe, last, last year when I was lucky enough to have Fridays off and I could use Fridays to do whatever I fancy. Oh. So I decided to learn more instead of going off and going to the beach. Uh, so I attended that course and it's sparked my interest in automation because I'm all about efficiency.
[00:49:31] Mm-hmm. I mean, that's why the, the love for the German language comes from as well, because I like efficiency. I don't like wasting. Time. Yeah. I recently just, just, just on a side note, I recently saw a meme, and this is very true for me, when I was trying to, to introduce automation in ss e o, which said that I just spent like six hours trying to automate something that I would like do manually in 20 minutes.
[00:49:59] And this is at least now very true for me. Tell me what, but, but if you are doing that 20 minute task every hour for six days a week Yeah. In a month, in a year, how much time you're going to save. If you're actually going to sit down, figure out what needs to be done, how to do it, and then write a script to do it.
[00:50:22] So the, the Python journey, I also been extremely inspired by Lazar nato, uh, and her contribution to s e o and the resources she's sharing. I wish I could be like her. You can. I've, I've got baby steps and I've got, uh, I've done some courses. Um, I'm trying to currently adapt other scripts that has been written to uhhuh use to my purposes.
[00:50:49] But my goal is, okay, so tell me, tell me what exactly like we are independent SEOs. What are some of the tax tasks we can automate? Uh, as someone said, imagine that you can automate anything that you're able to explain in step by step process to a very, very junior person, Uhhuh. So as long as you explain to Python, okay, that's, that's the information you've got.
[00:51:16] You need to do step one, step two, step three. If the step three answer is yes, then you need to do this and this. If the answer is no, you have to do this. So as long as you provide enough information, Python is going to be able to. Work with the, with the dataset. And I think some of the examples would be populating keyword, keyword lists, uh, uh, populating information about the search volume, search intent, because that, that, just combining the information that comes already in SEMrush mm-hmm.
[00:51:49] Or keywords everywhere, especially with those tools, you can connect the APIs and have that information pulled in. Mm-hmm. And then on top of that, you'll have a massive keyword list. You can put the criteria, if the, if the search volume is be below 10, delete those and don't, don't give me any of those keywords.
[00:52:11] And potentially you can add another condition saying I only want transactional keywords. And then the list you're going to, to have delivered by Python, it's going to consist only of, uh, high search volume, low competition. Transac transactional intent keywords. Mm-hmm. And yeah, you, you might need to review it manually to check for potential issues.
[00:52:34] Yeah. But the leg work and the manual process where you have to go off and combine different lists, write down, for example, you trying to optimize, um, s e O services for London, and then trying to combine them with every single borrow in London. Instead of doing that manually, why not ask Python to create the list by, uh, concatenating the service and the location.
[00:53:02] Mm-hmm. Create the one keyword, then pull the search volume for you, then review all those criteria that you set. For example, search volume has to be high. Uh, competition needs to be low, needs to be X, y, Z. And then give me that list. And at the end of the day, I'll have my list of keywords. Hmm. Yeah, that sounds, I think that would be a good, uh, solution for if you have like a big client and that, that, that the list is like massive, but at least now I don't have like, those massive, massive clients.
[00:53:38] Like when I was working at the agency, it was like Proctor at Gamble. So sometimes like keyword research file was like, uh, like Excel ha was having problems like opening it. Right. But now the approach I'm taking, maybe this is something I should, I should change and learn from you, is that I always like export, uh, that tools like manually from, from, from a, and I always like manually clean them.
[00:54:06] Check them. And I always, in most cases, I do a search for that keyword and actually like, check what's there, what's ranking. Does it even make sense for me to, to, to, to attack? To attack, try to rank for this tool? This is very consuming. Sometimes a couple of days, but now I'm thinking maybe I should automate it to some degree, but I'm always afraid that I will lose some precious cures this way.
[00:54:31] So there, there's, there has to be like a way to kind of, um, meet, , in, in the, yeah, yeah. Usually because you said that you're doing some cleaning manually then. So if you have your. Manually. Meaning? Meaning like, , I just look at, yeah, I look at the key. Maybe not, maybe not that manually. Uh, I do some like sorting, uh, and cutting, and maybe not that entirely manually, but, but I look at every keyword and I try to try to see the SERP for every keyword, but of course with thousands of keywords, it, it becomes complex.
[00:55:11] But would be, because if you're doing some sorting and, and filtering, potentially you could already do that with Python to try and sort, because if you, you, you would be using some kind of criteria or benchmarks, which, but they di but those criteria, those benchmarks differ, differ from clients to clients always.
[00:55:31] So I just like put everything in one spreadsheet, then sort it, uh, add different columns because sometimes I need different ones. And once I have this customized for this client, then I do like the cleaning half, manually, half with those like features in Google, Google, uh, sheets. But yeah, I, I think, yeah, I, I, we should, we should, uh, do an episode on, on, on that when you can show maybe how to do, how, how I can be more efficient with that.
[00:56:03] That would be, that would be a fun, fun way to do it. Yeah. I think other one I, I like using, but I'm, uh, I'm using, I think I found the script from SEO Greetings website for internal link opportunities, Uhhuh and the, the way they explain the whole process, all you have to do is pretty much copy paste using Google color.
[00:56:28] You just adding your files where your keyword map is, and you using your file with the content pages. And that's is able to provide you with information where is an opportunity for internal link and that that takes, yeah. Nanoseconds if that then obviously to review the, if the opportunities actually valid.
[00:56:52] But then I've got on my to do wish list, I've got next steps I want to add to that script to make sure that I'm not reviewing internal linking opportunities if the link already exists on that page, because Google is only going to follow the, the first link to the target page and doesn't really care about the multiple mentions or links to the, to the same page.
[00:57:15] So potentially that could be added onto the script. So that's on my, on my door. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but for internal links, I use InLinks. Do you know that tool? Uh, I think I've heard about it, but never, yeah, I've never used it. Yeah. This is a tool by Dixon Jones, and basically you, you just add your site there and you add some JavaScript, uh, and you map your, uh, your pages to entities.
[00:57:44] Yeah. And then the tool creates, uh, internal links through entities and also adds Wiki data to your, uh, Wikipedia mentions about, to your specific pages. So of course, you have to review that because the, the, those links sometimes do not make sense. If you spend some time ma matching those entities to, to specific pages, you can really create a ton of very relevant internal links with basically by just playing with the tool without like going to your website and doing that manually.
[00:58:19] So that's my, my automation for internal links. I've worked for a number of agencies and I've never, I've never had the experience with InLinks Uhhuh, and I don't now, I, I think this is, this tool is not like very old. I think this is, I, I'm not sure it, it has maybe a couple of years, but, but it's been a time saver for me because before that I know there are other tools.
[00:58:47] Uh, I, I try to play with other tools, but I always like, I'd better do it manually. I just want to be sure that this is like really the right anchor. But I have those tendencies to do too many things manually probably. So I have to take Python for SS e o course, but I would, I would highly recommend it.
[00:59:11] There's also some books, I think it's, one of them is called Automate the Boring stuff. Mm-hmm. It just helps you for the whole process, how to understand Python and how it works. And I think they say that Python is one of the easiest languages to, to learn uhhuh, and someone said, realistically, you should be able to be able to master it within a year, but I don't know if they mean if you have eight hours every day to dedicate to, to learning, or if you eat eight hours per month if, if you have eight hours per month because you, you've got other commitments.
[00:59:46] But yeah, apparently it's very easy to, mm-hmm. To read. And it's the least complicated. Language. Yeah. But yeah, I have it on my list. Like I have, I'm subscribed to, I don't know how many courses on Coursera. And one of the things I am, like, one of the, I don't know, resolutions I have is to always be at any point in time to always be taking some course.
[01:00:11] So I've just graduated from this tested s e o training, now I'm like taking some course on AI just to kind of understand it better, how it works. Generative ai, but maybe Python for ss e o at least basics will be the next. Tell me now, uh, I know you're creating an ss e o consultant website, right? For yourself, like what will be your services, what's the process, uh, what's the stage of your website?
[01:00:38] When will we be able to see that? Five. Well, it's, it's still very, very early days. Uhhuh for a while, but it's on my, on my to-do list. Uh, it's just being busy. Mm-hmm. With work and extra work, it's leaves a little bit time left for creating the website, as they say. Mm-hmm. The same porch that they, uh, was, the shoemaker, uh, walks around with without, without shoes that the person, yeah.
[01:01:09] I think that sh uh, shoe shoemaker's, uh, children are ill shoe shed ill, something like that. I, I would have, I'll have to Google it now. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. This is something like, ill, ill, ill, there is, ill for sure. Ah, yes. Uh, the shoemaker's children are ill sha I showed. Yeah, apparently. Uh, so yeah, there's always something else I'm, I'm working on, uh, that client need, clients need more than, than I can.
[01:01:43] Well, there's only so many hours in a day. Yeah, yeah. There's always priorities and they change. Yeah. It's still early hours. I want to focus primarily on technical ss e o and also, uh, reporting uhhuh, that'll be my main tool, and them, and automating ss e o things, automating ss e o. But that's, that's a bonus automating s e o, because that if I can, if I can utilize automation, Be able to.
[01:02:13] Yeah. But, but, but with code interpreter chat, g pt, I, I guess you can do it way, uh, faster. I, I was able to like, create some scripts this way without like, knowing, uh, having no knowledge. I was playing with that for just a, just a second. So with your knowledge, you probably can like create the next s e o tool.
[01:02:34] Right? Well, last time I tried using charge G P T to help me resolve an issue with my Python script. Uh, charge. G P T refused to collaborate and said I don't have any other options. Oh, okay. And the code wasn't working. So I don't know how you had to like be more persuasive maybe. I don't know. And I, I always say please, I don't dunno why I always Me too.
[01:02:59] Me too. Can you do X, Y, Z please. Yeah, me too. Uh, I dunno if, because if the, the data that Charge G PT has good access to is around what? Two years old. Yeah. Or my code was potentially too messy for charge to make the heads. Yeah. But this code interpreter, I think this is groundbreaking, like this new feature within Charge g, pt, like plugin, I would say.
[01:03:30] Okay. I had like, I had the last question and I just forgot what, what it was we were talking about the, uh, as e o consultancy, my, my website when expected to be going live. Yeah. So I guess I hope next month and now it's August. Well, August, so it's summer holidays, isn't it? Yeah. So yeah, so it's time, it's time to relax, time, time to enjoy the lovely and, well, I would say sunny, but Sunny and uk, they don't really go together.
[01:04:03] Uh, so yeah, I'm taking some time to, to take a break and I'm hoping. I am hoping before the end of this year at the latest. Oh, okay. Okay. So we'll do a follow, follow up on that and definitely, we'll, uh, we'll have to have shows on those specific topics because there's so much to unpack and I'm pretty sure people would love to hear your, uh, ran about, um, data analysis in ss e o and maybe sharing you some of your scripts, like the, the most basic one that every ss e o can just start implementing and start, start doing.
[01:04:43] So that would be awesome. And, uh, tell me where can people find you? Do you have like Twitter, mastodon, blue sky threads, LinkedIn? Where are you? As a proper SS e O I'm very social media. Others? Uh, I currently got LinkedIn, but it's, uh, it's been heavily neglected. But if ever anyone wants to, uh, connect, yes, I do have, I do have LinkedIn account.
[01:05:12] I do not really use Twitter for work purposes. Mm-hmm. Okay. Or Instagram or Facebook. That's all only for personal use. So I don't have personal accounts for any of the new and old social media, Fred X, Twitter, whatever it's called. But I think Twitter, like x is, is something that ss e o is still happening there.
[01:05:38] We'll see what happens next, but I think in terms of like. Visibility and ranking of your articles within Twitter. I think it's still the best platform, but, but it's changing now after all those, like, things that are happening. So kind of, it remains busy. So people should add you on LinkedIn. And do you know the, uh, the address of your new sites?
[01:06:02] Will it be like elina westcott.com or, uh, no, I'm, I'm using the versatility of my name and it's going to be called Ss, e o with u, you? Uh, e w e, yeah. Yeah. You are like this small, uh, , well, it's in the uk it's known. Not everyone is going to shorten your name. It doesn't matter if your name is extremely short, they'll find a way to make it even shorter.
[01:06:28] Uhhuh, but also, um, you, because it's pronounced yo. It just, I think hopefully it implies that my s e o services are going to be bespoke and tailored to the client, and then not template of a template taken outta the box. And I'm applying the same approach to every single account because I don't believe that's the way forward.
[01:06:49] Yeah, totally, totally. I'm never, I'm never going to scale into and become an ss e o agency. Yeah, because like Yeah, I've been there. You've been there. I've seen it. I've been there. No, thank you. Yeah. SEO with, with u with u. That's, that's going to be my, with u spelled e. W e. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And this is the animal of, uh, That's a, uh, it's a female Sheep is also Yeah, yeah.
[01:07:17] Female. She, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, yes. That's the, that's the vitality of my, of my name. Yeah. Nice. Okay. Okay. So you, thank you, thank you for, for being my guest. I think this was a very, very fun episode, and I really hope to catch you for a round of next episodes, uh, soon. I hope you'll have some time, maybe in September to, to record something.
[01:07:45] Will you, uh, let me, let me check my diary. Well, it's been okay. It's been a pleasure working with you. I'm, I'm just, I know I'm busy, so I need to, I need to be mindful before I make any, any commitments, but I Sure. I would love to be invited again because I, for, for truly enjoyed chatting to you. Yeah, that's cool.
[01:08:07] Okay. Okay, so thanks and thanks everyone. Thank you. Let's wave a goodbye. Bye bye.