Introducing the new Spotlight on Our Rhinos blog segment! We want to give readers a chance to see what goes on behind the scenes, to peek through the grassland, and to see what’s under the safari vehicle hood. Rhino Africa is an ecosystem all its own with different habitats and different functions in each. This time, we’re taking a closer look at our Digital Marketing department, and more specifically, SEO. We caught up with our German SEO Intern, Julia, to see what she had to say.
Julia grew up in the south of Austria and spent much of her childhood climbing up mountains and skiing down them. Her desire to discover distant places and cultures has seen her work and study in six different countries in the past three years alone (although, we’re smug to say South Africa is the only country she has returned to so far). Julia is currently doing her Masters at Montpellier Business School in France and is shamelessly passionate about tech and the online world. She worked for the likes of Apple, Amazon, and Google before joining Rhino Africa to learn more about the world of SEO.
Q: How did you find out about Rhino Africa?
A: I found out about the company through YouTube when I saw an internship video you guys did. I thought, yeah, this must be a cool place to work, so I just applied.
Q: What made you interested in Digital Marketing and SEO?
A: Well, I’ve had some touch points with Digital Marketing already thanks to my studies in the past and my previous work experience. I think it’s an exciting field to work in because the world is moving online and people basically don’t only go online anymore – they live online. It’s a great opportunity for brands, especially with the shift to mobile, and I thought it was a pretty cool challenge that I wanted to face. There are a lot of opportunities to catch intent-driven moments and it’s such an uncertain field in that it is so dynamic and constantly evolving, and that’s what made me want to focus on it in my career.
Q: What do you enjoy the most about SEO?
A: I suppose firstly it’s the collaboration that happens across different teams. You have touch points with different teams all the time, whether it’s with the content writers, the tech team, PR, or social media. Everything you do in SEO has an impact on other aspects of the company whether it’s for site improvements with the techies or backlink strategies with another department. I’m always seeing different faces and doing different things. I also like it because I’m quite an analytical person and SEO comes down to a lot of analysis. You have to study your customers and learn about them. All your actions are basically driven by what the customer wants, what they’re thinking, what they want to see, and what they’re looking for online. I remember in my first week here I did an audit on the German website and those are the sorts of things I really enjoy. Your customers are always changing, too, and because of that SEO involves a never-ending process of optimisation: making sure your website is doing well and making sure your keywords are relevant and you’re not losing ground on competitors.
Q: How important do you think SEO is for a company?
A: I guess it’s an important tool for companies to improve their traffic and to generate more qualified customer leads, more so than what other marketing tools might give them. But, of course, it is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to achieving marketing objectives for your brand. I see SEO as a fundamental bedrock to a company’s online presence. If your domain is strong, it helps your other marketing initiatives as well.
Q: Do you think you will want to work in SEO after your internship?
A: Well, as I said before, I’d had lots of touch points with Digital Marketing before I started at Rhino Africa and SEO was an area that I hadn’t worked in before. I knew that before I came I wanted to work in and focus on Search Engine Marketing (PPC) and Online Video and I thought it would be a good career choice and beneficial to my own personal growth. But, you never know, if there’s a good opportunity, of course, I’d also do SEO.
Q: What do you enjoy most about Rhino Africa’s Digital Marketing team?
A: The people. Yeah, it’s just a fun place to work at and I like waking up and being excited about going to work every day to see everybody.
Q: Can you tell us something new/fun that you learnt while working at Rhino Africa?
A: I guess something new for me was working in a company with such cultural diversity. I mean, I’ve travelled a lot and I’ve studied abroad, but at Rhino you don’t feel the cultural differences. Everyone comes from a different corner of the world but we all have a central goal. It’s really easy to work with everyone.
Q: What has been your most memorable experience at Rhino Africa so far?
A: My best day was when I accompanied the multimedia team to Simon’s Town. We went to Boulder’s Beach to get footage of the penguin colony.
Q: And lastly, our standard interview question, what is your favourite African animal?
A: Elephants. They seem so calm but they’re actually really strong and powerful. And they’re very intelligent.
You can find out more about our Internship programmes here.
Exceptional! I must say that the way this post was started and the way it was concluded was terrific. I liked the way the questions were arranged and the answers were too logical. Looking forward to have lot more posts in future too.