Life & Work with Rachel Kennedy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Kennedy.

Hi Rachel, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
I started writing about my adventures as an ex-pat while living in Europe between 2011 and 2015. I found that there were certain ways of dressing, and specific places to go in cities like Munich, Paris, and Berlin that only the locals knew about, and if you abided by a certain set of unspoken ‘rules’ people wouldn’t even realize you were a tourist!

I blogged about my finds and wrote guides on how to style your outfits, where to eat, how to order, where to stay, and helpful info about train schedules or transportation that would help brave Americans navigate European travel in a way that was more enjoyable than simply being a tourist. I tried to embody a sense of respect and appreciation for the travel and show people ways to feel integrated into the city they were visiting to truly experience it the way it was meant to be experienced.

After writing for a few years, I started to have some of my articles go viral on Google. With a little digging, I discovered I’d *accidentally* been “search engine optimizing” my articles perfectly, which meant that the Google algorithm was picking them up and serving them to thousands of people. I had several articles go (what was considered back then!) to be “viral,” garnering over a million views within 90 days of publishing.

With this information, I started reaching out to some of my favorite brands, businesses, companies, and restaurants and saying, “hey, I have a really engaged group of people who are acting on my suggestions and spending money at your establishments, would you consider hosting me in exchange for more coverage?” Almost every single one of the pitches I sent out via email got a positive response and that’s how I became a blogging influencer before I even knew it was a thing!

When I moved back to the States in 2015, I got onto social media and the first question I was getting from a lot of my creative peers was, “how did you land a collaboration with American Express, Sephora, Amazon, Bvlgari, Target, etc. when you don’t have a lot of social media followers?!”

I explained to them via DM messages how search engine optimization (SEO) works and when their response was one of complete and utter lack of understanding I realized It was going to be my mission to somehow educate people on how they could publish content in such a way that it connected with their ideal audience online through the Google Algorithm.

Social media is amazing, but you don’t really ‘own’ that piece of digital real estate the way you do your own website and content that you’ve written and published.

I spent the next 3 years developing “The Curated SEO Method,” which is a proprietary SEO strategy and software that helps people not only identify how to craft content that converts but also saves countless hours “ideating” on what to write about, as well as streamlines the actual copywriting process itself.

I launched my SEO Agency under The Kennedy Curate brand in 2015, and since then my team and I have helped over 3,000 clients optimize their content and generate just over $1B in revenue from content marketing.

My proudest accomplishment has been identifying something that is freely and readily available to anyone with an internet connection and establishing a way for someone with a product or service to get what they have to offer into the hands of someone’s life it’s going to change.

Communication and connection are priceless and I love that an SEO strategy can create that for so many people. I call SEO “Google’s love language,” because it’s how you can make a meaningful connection between technology and humans.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Being a female entrepreneur in the tech industry has definitely not been easy, but I will have to say that I appreciate that the barrier of entry has never been lower. If you have an internet connection you truly have no excuse not to at least TRY to learn something new. The only times it truly felt “tough” was when I lost sight of why I was doing what I was doing and focused too much on making my business about me and not enough about my clients.

I was able to quickly realize my error early on and recalibrate to stay on track, which is how I’ve scaled quickly. I had a lot of success right away, and if you’re not grounded in your PURPOSE then you can easily lose sight of your mission. Awards, accolades, and recognition only mean something if your reason for receiving them was because you got there by helping others.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Viewing the tech (specifically the software and algorithm industry) as a creative (feminine) space and less a corporate (masculine) space has been the defining factor in standing out in my industry.

Looking at an algorithm as a structure through which creative words (copywriting) flow through has caused my work to take on this perfect balance of Yin and Yang. If I focus on keeping the masculine and feminine aspects of what I do in check, and recognize that one without the other cannot function it truly makes me appreciate what my male counterparts are doing in this industry as well.

My superpower has been fully embracing my femininity in a “male-dominated” industry instead of trying or attempting to ‘be part of the boys club.’ Femininity isn’t a political statement in my mind… it’s a superpower that women are not fully employing in the workforce.

One of the ways I’m trying to help women in male-dominated industries (such as tech and sciences) regain their sense of creativity is by mentoring and guest lecturing at Universities and showing students how they can turn their research papers into blog-style content pieces so that they can garner attention and community around their projects.

Pricing:

• Bespoke SEO Strategies start at $24k for 12 months
• Monthly content creation packages range from $2500 – $8k
• 1:1 Consultation calls are $997 per hour
• Done for you 90-day strategies are $10k
• DIY SEO Course is $397

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thekennedycurate.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekennedycurate/

Image Credits
Tiffany Taylor, ABC WKRN News 2