Kerstin Reichert
SEO Digital Marketing Manager at Tide
On the joys and constraints on being the first in-house SEO person in a fast-growing FinTech scaleup - Kerstin recaps her first months at Tide and what she learned along the way.
About Kerstin
Kerstin has been in digital marketing — and primarily SEO — for over a decade, in a career that has spanned four different countries. From SEO Director in Switzerland, Trainer in Austria and now SEO Marketing Manager in the UK, Kerstin has worked at both corporates and start-ups. She’s a speaker at industry events and a member of IAB UK’s Search Council, a body dedicated to educating professionals on better search marketing.
The Fast And Furious: Life As A Start-up SEO
“…SEO best practices are obviously important, but I would first take the time to understand our product teams and their roadmaps inside out before jumping into analysing the state of SEO or making any plans. This might seem obvious, but you would be surprised how often SEO professionals get over-excited at working on a new domain and launch straight into tech audits, when it would be more helpful to take a step back first.”
Q&A with Kerstin Reichert
What was your first ever job?
Not sure you could call it a job, but I did have a list of compensation required for each household chore I helped my mum with when I was a kid. Later I did a number of different jobs going through school and uni, such as working on a car part assembly line, stocking shelves, bartending and annoying people (and myself) as a call centre agent.
My first actual job right after uni was in Digital Marketing at a software company in Germany. And everything from there has been in Digital Marketing and predominantly SEO.
How did you get into SEO?
Working on websites in general and trying out things to get them in front of people. Later while working in Digital Marketing, SEO also soon became my favourite channel mainly as it combines creativity with tech.
What is your favourite SEO task to do?
Connecting SEO activity with different channels and teams to accelerate the impact of campaigns towards the greater business objectives at hand. Generally, I love being creative and apply strategic thinking in order to utilise all aspects of SEO to drive performance.
What inspired you to choose the topic of your chapter? Why is it important to you?
I was inspired by my current role at Tide (which the chapter is about) and previous roles I had been in in-house and agency-side. I absolutely love working in a fast-paced environment being able to get things done.
Working at an agency was fast-paced as well, but I had limited control over actual implementation of recommendations and campaigns on the client-side. Working in-house at a larger company I now had full ownership, but the implementation of my strategy turned out to be even more of a struggle now.
Finally, working at Tide is the perfect mix of fast-paced tech company combined with full ownership. Hence my SEO take away, you can only get SEO right if you can get things done. Simple but incredibly true.
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
I can’t remember where I’ve heard it first, but I keep reminding myself “done is better than perfect”. Which actually helps me a lot to get tasks out the door.
What one tip would you give someone who would like to get into SEO as a career?
Build and break your own things. Create a website, test things, implement your own analytics and so on. In my opinion, this is by far the best way to learn. If you can’t get an SEO role straight away but are in need of building up some references for your resume apart from your own projects you could offer a few hours of your help pro bono to charities and get some credentials that way.
What is your favourite SEO / marketing related resource or book? (other than Mastering In-House SEO of course!)
There are quite a few. I like following SEO/Digital Marketing topics and people on Twitter.
SEO specific, probably John Muller to see what Google is up to and what is new on the Webmaster Central Blog or Webmaster Hangouts. I am subscribed to the Search Engine Land daily SearchCap amongst others as well as to Steve Toth’s SEO Notebook weekly newsletter, which is more about actionable tips rather than SEO news. Also quite interesting.
I do enjoy the SEO community overall and speaking with actual people. :)
Conferences are great for this as well as a number of industry groups, for example, Women in Tech SEO which is incredibly insightful, helpful and supportive (as well as open to non-predominantly tech SEO females).
How do you relax when you aren’t working?
Running. It really helps me clear my mind. And I love being outdoors (when possible).