The One Where We Discuss Setting Client Expectations With Billie Hyde

10/12/21 • 26 min

1 Listener

WTSPodcast

In this week's episode, we chat with Billie Hyde, SEO Training Lead at The SEO Works about setting client expectations.

Where to find Billie:

Website: https://billiegeena.co.uk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/billiegeena

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billie-hyde-a0396919a/

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Episode Sponsor:

This season is sponsored by Screaming Frog. Screaming Frog develop crawling and log file analysis software for the SEO industry, and wanted to support the WTSPodcast as listeners to the show. They are keen to support and promote technical SEO women in the industry, and would like to use this sponsor slot to offer an open invitation for contributors in the WTS community to write for the Screaming Frog blog. If you’re keen on being heard by a large technical SEO audience, then do drop them an email with a pitch via [email protected].

Where to find Screaming Frog:

Website - https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/screaming-frog/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/screamingfrog

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ScreamingFrogSEO

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/screamingfrog/

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Episode Transcript:

Areej: Hey, everyone. Welcome to a new episode of the Women in Tech SEO podcast. I am Areej AbuAli, and I am the founder of Women in Tech SEO. Today's episode is all about setting client expectations. Joining me today is the brilliant Billie Hyde, who is SEO Training Lead at The SEO Works. Hey, Billie.

Billie: Hi. How are you doing?

Areej: I'm good. How are you?

Billie: Brilliant, thank you.

Areej: It's so great to have you with us. You're super, super active in the industry, you're so active in the community. I'm really, really happy that we get to talk together today on the WTSPodcast.

Billie: Me too. I'm just fangirling over here.

Areej: Well, can you tell everyone a little bit about you, and what you do, how you got into the world of SEO?

Billie: Absolutely, yes. I'm Billie Hyde, or if you follow me anywhere online, it's Billie Geena. I can't use my real name because of SEO. There's a slightly more famous musician kind of guy with the same name,

I'm the Training Lead at the SEO Works. My job is to basically find ways for us to do SEO more efficiently, teach their student department, as well as training people that are new to the industry, and getting them their start here a well. I have a split role, so I am also a senior account manager as well. I look after a handful of clients and have the usual stress that every agency SEO has basically as well.

Areej: I can imagine. Have you always been agency side?

Billie: No. I did use to work in-house. I did that for about a year. I'd worked on the training side there, after working as a content SEO for a while. In-house, at certain places, there's just very little growth, and you're stuck in a rut, so I tried agency. I don't think I'm ever going to go back, I don't know.

Areej: Wow. I love it. I know it's very, very different for different people. Some people are more team in-house, and others are more team agency. I can imagine especially with your role being very training-driven, it completely makes sense to be on the agency side. I love that your company has a training lead role. That's really exciting.

Billie: It's really fun. Like most places, SEO just took off for our agency over the pandemic, and because of the skills shortage, it just makes sense of having me do this to get people who aren't currently in the SEO world into it. It's been working really well for us.

Areej: That makes a lot of sense because I know how difficult it is as well right now, recruitment, and hiring, and bringing on new people. The fact that you have dedicated time and resources to training people who might be new to SEO. That's such a critical role to have.

Billie: Absolutely. It just makes sense. I just can't believe we didn't think of it before.

Areej: What advice would you give for women who are starting in the industry brand new?

Billie: My best advice is don't try to learn everything at once. That's what I did when I first came into the industry, and I burnt myself out. I got confused with all the different acronyms and terms. I recommend specializing in one area to start with. I started in content, and now, I'm a technical SEO when I am doing agencies, that kind of work. Pick a niche to learn, but don't stick to it. Just take in as much information as you can from anyone that will give it to you, but don't just ...

In this week's episode, we chat with Billie Hyde, SEO Training Lead at The SEO Works about setting client expectations.

Where to find Billie:

Website: https://billiegeena.co.uk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/billiegeena

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billie-hyde-a0396919a/

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Episode Sponsor:

Where to find Screaming Frog:

Website - https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/screaming-frog/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/screamingfrog

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ScreamingFrogSEO

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/screamingfrog/

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Episode Transcript:

Billie: Hi. How are you doing?

Areej: I'm good. How are you?

Billie: Brilliant, thank you.

Billie: Me too. I'm just fangirling over here.

Areej: Well, can you tell everyone a little bit about you, and what you do, how you got into the world of SEO?

Areej: I can imagine. Have you always been agency side?

Billie: Absolutely. It just makes sense. I just can't believe we didn't think of it before.

Areej: What advice would you give for women who are starting in the industry brand new?

Previous Episode

The One Where We Discuss Creating Content For Both Search Engines & Humans With Abby Reimer

We are back for Season 3 and this week we have Abby Reimer on the podcast to talk about the importance of creating content that both search engines (eg Google) and humans love.

Resources from the episode:

Hemingway App - https://hemingwayapp.com/

Thruuu - https://app.samuelschmitt.com/

Article - https://searchengineland.com/creative-ways-to-source-content-ideas-from-ugc-for-seo-350277

Where to find Abby:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/abbyreimermpls

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abby-reimer/

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Episode Sponsor

This season is sponsored by Screaming Frog. Screaming Frog develop crawling and log file analysis software for the SEO industry, and wanted to support the WTSPodcast as listeners to the show. They’ve just released version 16 of their SEO Spider software, which includes - improved JavaScript crawling to help you identify dependencies, such as JavaScript content and links, automated crawl reports for Data Studio integration, advanced search and filtering, and the app is now available in Spanish, French, German and Italian. You can check out the latest version at Screaming Frog's website (screamingfrog.co.uk).

Where to find Screaming Frog:

Website - https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/screaming-frog/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/screamingfrog

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ScreamingFrogSEO

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/screamingfrog/

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Episode Transcript

Sarah McDowell: Hello, and welcome to the Women in Tech SEO podcast. I am very excited that we are back for season three. I am Sarah McDowell, an SEO content executive and your host for today. Joining me, I have Abby Reimer, SEO manager at Uproer, to talk about creating content that humans and search engines love. Hello, Abby.

Abby Reimer: Hi, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Sarah: Thank you very much for joining. How are you doing?

Abby: I'm fabulous. I'm ready for fall, crazy enough. I have my fall candles and a sweater on. I'm ready to go.

Sarah: Ready for the autumnal? Is that the word? Is that the right word?

Abby: Yes. I am very ready especially being from the Midwest. That's wild. Usually, summers are too short. No one wants them to end. This year, I'm ready for the smell of fall, ready for the seasons to switch.

Sarah: To kick things off, I think a good place to start is if you can give our audience a brief overview of yourself and how you got into this wonderful world of SEO.

Abby: Yes, absolutely. I am an SEO manager at Uproer, which is a search marketing agency in Minneapolis. We focus on e-commerce and tech companies. How I got here is a little interesting. As you probably know, if you're in SEO, it's something you stumble into. There's no degree for it. It's just interesting how many different paths there are. I graduated with a PR and writing degree and got a general marketing role.

It was through that that I was working a lot on a blog. I'd worked a lot with email and social and promoting it on different channels. I noticed one week that one of our blogs was doing really r traffic. I was like, "I didn't promote this. What is happening here?" I was so confused. I looked at analytics. I saw that Google organic was the top channel that week. That question that I typed into Google, it's very meta, but I googled, "How do you show up in Google? How do you get traffic?"

I was so fascinated with what I found. I had no idea that it was how you structure web pages and the actual queries that you target. That's how people get found among many other reasons. I went down that rabbit hole. I started following Moz and Brian Dean's Backlinko, followed a lot of those types of sites. I fell in love with it. Six months into my role or eight months or whatever it was, I was like, "I want to work on SEO and content full time."

I ended up going to a content marketing conference where I met my boss, Griffin. He was speaking about SEO and mentioned casually after the presentation, he was like, "I have an agency. I'm one person. If anyone is interested in freelancing or joining, let me know." I think I joked that I blacked out but all I remember is walking up to him. My hand must have been shaking, but I had my business card. I was like, "I want to quit my job and come work for you. Could I buy you a coffee?" Two months later, I was working with Griffin at Uproer and we've g...

Next Episode

The One Where We Discuss Imposter Syndrome With Kristie Plantinga

In this week's episode, we chat with Kristie Plantinga, Founder of TherapieSEO about how to manage feelings of imposter syndrome.

Where to find Kristie:

Website: https://www.therapieseo.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kristie_plant

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therapieseo

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therapieseo/

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Episode Sponsor:

This season is sponsored by Screaming Frog. Screaming Frog develop crawling and log file analysis software for the SEO industry, and wanted to support the WTSPodcast as listeners to the show. They have recently added automated crawl overview reports for Data Studio in version 16 of their SEO Spider software. You can use their Data Studio dashboard, but if you have created your own Data Studio dashboard for their crawl reports that you'd like to share with the community, then get in touch with them via [email protected] or @screamingfrog on Twitter to be featured.

Where to find Screaming Frog:

Website - https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/screaming-frog/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/screamingfrog

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ScreamingFrogSEO

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/screamingfrog/

---

Episode Transcript:

Sarah McDowell: Hello, and welcome to the Women in Tech SEO Podcast. I am Sarah McDowell, an SEO content executive and I will be your host for today. Joining me I have Kristie Plantinga, founder of therapy, SEO and we have them talking about imposter syndrome. Hello, Kristie.

Kristie Plantinga: Hi, thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting.

Sarah: Thank you so much for agreeing to come on and spending your Monday morning for you, isn't it?

Kristie: Yes.

Sarah: Monday morning with me. Let's dive straight in and my first question to you, Kristie is, can you tell us how you got into SEO in this world? Then how because, obviously, you're the founder of therapy, SEO, congratulations.

Kristie: Thank you.

Sarah: How did you end up having your own business?

Kristie: Yes. I think everyone in SEO, got started in their unique way. I started more from a writing background, I was pursuing a master's in written communication, which was largely a technical SEO writing Pro-- or sorry, Technical Writing Program and that wasn't for me, I just have more of a creative side. I knew that wasn't going to be a good fit for me. I started learning more about user experience and marketing and I was looking at the job market with a communications degree, which could be tougher to find an entry into the job market but I stumbled upon SEO. I started teaching myself a lot of things as I think many of us do. I always thought it would be so cool if I could work in this but my only qualification is this. I knew how to build websites, and I had this degree.

I was lucky enough to get hired by an SEO agency, they took a chance on me, and I've just been in SEO ever since and with my own business. I always wanted to have my own thing. I loved the idea of building a brand and working for myself and having this flexibility and control over my path. I started my own SEO business. I went full-time about a year ago and I started working on everything about a year and a half, almost two years ago. It's like a simple journey but I do think I started earlier with my own business than probably most other consultants do. I'm sure we'll be talking about that more today.

Sarah: So when you put forward yourself to come on the podcast, you said about how your business is a niche, isn't it? How did that come about and what do you offer as a niche business?

Kristie: Definitely. I work in a niche industry before or a niche agency before. I enjoyed niching because first of all, I'm a pretty practical person, I knew that it would be easier to start a business with a niche. I find that connections and speaking opportunities, and networking, all that stuff comes easier when you're situated in more of a niche community, but also, I knew that I only wanted to work with certain kinds of clients. I think for people who work in agencies or have experienced the agency work or world working with clients could just be tough sometimes, especially think if you have people-pleasing tendencies. I knew that I wanted to work with clients that I felt were more in alignment with me and that I knew I'd get along with more personally.

I chose therapists, actually was studying to become a therapist at one point in my life, but I was like, I'm not ready to do that. I pursued obviously writing and all that other stuff, but I always have had a passion for th...