Interviewing Sevilay Selecki

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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

!Based in Poland, Sevilay fell in love with SEO after working as a teacher for 12 years. She is constantly expanding her knowledge to fix technical issues and improve site structure. She strongly believes in the saying “SEO is a marathon, not a sprint”. Sevilay has two big passions in life – cooking and birds, well, not in the same concept though :) She loves to go out to nature and watch these amazing animals and capture some nice shots. She also keeps trying different recipes to satiate her foodie side. Practising yoga every day keeps her sane in this complex world of SEO.

We asked her everything from how she first got into SEO to what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is 💪🏽

How did you get into SEO?

My journey started with a dream and zero SEO experience. I'm a graduate of English Language Teaching and had been working as an English Teacher for over 10 years until I decided to change my career path. As I started to search for different options, I saw that job-seeking websites were full of offers called "SEO". Back then, I had almost no idea what an SEO was and what they were actually doing. So I got really intrigued and started to learn by taking a few initial courses. Luckily enough, I got accepted as a Technical SEO intern at Onely and I had the chance to learn the bits and pieces of technical SEO at one of the most technical agencies in the world! :) Recently I moved to an in-house role at a fin-tech company. I'm really excited to see SEO from a different perspective now.

What is your favourite SEO task?

I love to be involved in a full in-depth technical audit, the messier the site the better for me :) Recently, I'm really into web-performance audits as well, as I get to learn the logic behind it, it's getting more interesting for me day by day.

What is your go-to tool or resource that you can't live without?

Dev Tools all the way. I love how powerful it is and how much we can actually do without even needing third-party tools. Every time I use it, I discover a new feature that leaves me in awe. Additionally, without Chrome extensions, I think I'd have to spend twice as much time on some tasks.

What is something you learned in SEO that made you have an 'AHA' moment?

I can't say it was one specific moment, for me every day I learn something new and have these AHA moments. I think SEO itself is the "land" of AHA moments as the search is evolving day by day.

However, I do remember that at the beginning of my journey I had a pretty painful aha moment when I realized that, after working on the excel sheet for a few hours, I could have actually automated it with a few clicks :)

What is your proudest industry achievement?

1. My success story of how I transitioned into SEO was chosen for the top three success stories by Blue Array Academy.

2. I started a video series on YouTube called "SeoSavvy" when I was working at Onely, but due to Covid situation, I was able to record only one.

3. I published my first ever article this year about Mobile Friendliness, it was an amazing achievement for me as writing is not my strong suit and I'm trying to polish my skills.

What advice would you give women who are starting out in SEO?

1. Become a member of WITSEO community, it's THE safest place you can be no matter your experience.

2. Do not ever self-doubt, we all have those moments when we feel insecure, insufficient and let the imposter syndrome take over. Create a 'bag of compliments' folder for yourself and collect all the appreciation/thank yous/great feedback/achievements etc... During those self-doubt moments, just go through your folder and you'll see how much you actually have achieved. Believe me, you'll feel better!

3. Be open to never-ending learning, invest in yourself, and do not be intimidated to ask if you don't know something. We are all here to improve :)

Give a shout out to a woman in the industry who inspires you and tell us why

Thanks to Mélanie Almeida, 'the bag of compliments' was her idea and Katie Bradley for our learning group, it's been amazing and I really appreciate all your insights and expertise.

Of course, thanks to Areej AbuAli for creating a safe space "WITSEO" to share our knowledge and expand our horizons with zero judgement.

Thanks to Roxana Stingu, Tory Gray, Aleyda Solis, Brenda Malone, Isaline Muelhauser, and SEO Jo Blogs for being super active members of our community, even just by reading your threads I learn a lot.

Last but not least thanks to our Imposter Syndrome Police Lily Ray for keeping our self-esteem in place :)

Finally, what empowers you to be the brilliant woman you are?

I like to get out of my comfort zone and challenge myself, that's where life starts... I also keep learning every day. There are no secrets to success. It's the result of dedication, hard work and learning from failure.

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Thanks Sevilay for a truly insightful interview, you can learn more about her 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

to share your story with the world! Simply fill this form here, we welcome brilliant SEOs from all walks of life! 🙌🏽