Episode 158 – A Chat With Sofie Couwenbergh

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Show Notes

This episode of Hallway Chats is a little different from previous episodes. Recently Cate and Topher had the opportunity to go to WordCamp Europe in Porto, Portugal, where we had some literal hallway chats. This one is with Sofie Couwenbergh.

Sofie’s Site: https://letmewritethatdownforyou.com/

Twitter | @SCouwenbergh

Episode Transcript

Topher: So what is your name?

Sofie: I’m Sofie Couwenbergh.

Topher: Where do you live?

Sofie: I live in Lisbon. I’m from Belgium originally, but I moved to Lisbon two years ago.

Topher: So you didn’t have to come very far?

Sofie: I did not have to come very far. I had to take a three-hour train ride.

Topher: Okay, I was gonna ask you about the train.

Topher: Are the trains nice?

Sofie: There’s different kinds that you can take. One from Lisbon to Porto. You can take one of like the first ones, and that’s quite comfortable.

Topher: Nice.

Sofie: Although it advertises Wi-Fi, but it doesn’t really work. So it’s always a little bit when you think there’s gonna be Wi-Fi and it’s there for two minutes, and then it falls out. That’s worse than when there isn’t anyway, right?

Topher: Yes.

Sofie: You just keep trying.

Topher: You keep trying. That’s terrible. So I have a few questions. What do you do? But also what brings you here?

Sofie: So I do two things. I mainly at the moment do content strategy and writing for businesses in digital marketing. So I work with companies such as Meet Edgar, which is a social media scheduling tool, Paperbell, who has accounting software for coaches, but also with agencies like email marketing agencies, SEO agencies. So for them, I do blog strategy and the actual writing as well as optimization.

Topher: You do this freelance?

Sofie: I do this freelance, yeah. I have my own company and I have a few freelance assistants working for me.

Topher: Oh, nice.

Sofie: So self-employed I would say. That’s my main gig. But I also run a travel authority site on WordPress. I’ve been doing that for 10 years.

Topher: What is travel authority?

Sofie: Well, like a big travel blog, let’s say. Not just an affiliate site, but a proper travel blog. So I used to do a lot of marketing campaigns for tourism boards, for travel brands, etc. And I guess that’s where my journey with WordPress started. Because the first version way back in 2012, I had to figure everything out myself, and I did like to design myself the most basic coding, you know, like changing the color of boxes and things. But now I have a developer who helps with those kinds of things, and I have a custom site.

Topher: Excellent. Do you still travel a lot for that?

Sofie: Well, the pandemic kind of put a stop to that. So the story is that I kind of… “grew sick” is a bit big word, but grew out of travel blogging, I’d say, or I wanted to do something different or mid-2019. But it was also the most successful time for the travel blog, I would say. So it just seemed crazy for me to drop that or to start something else while it was doing so well.

And then COVID came. And whilst it was horrible in so many ways, for me, it was a great opportunity to go and do something else because travel just crashed. I lost 90% of my income with that business. So I very quickly decided, “Okay, this is my opportunity to launch something new,” which I’ve been doing since. And the travel blog is now… Like I use it for passive income. So now it just runs on affiliate marketing advertising.

Topher: Sure.

Sofie: And I have some people help me keep it up to date.

Topher: You are not the first person I met that started with a travel blog and doesn’t really do that anymore.

Sofie: Well, yeah. I still do it. I mean, I’m trying-

Topher: Another friend doesn’t do it at all.

Sofie: I briefly contemplated selling it, so I kept it up to date. And then I thought when travel picks up again, then I might sell it because it was taking up so much brain space.

Topher: Sure.

Sofie: But it is starting to take off again. And I’m like, “actually, this is a good asset to hold on to. Let me see how I can keep it going.”

Topher: And if you start going to WordCamps again.

Sofie: Could be interesting. So to come back to your question if I still travel a lot, at the moment, I’m mostly enjoying exploring Portugal. Because I moved here two years ago, but because of the pandemic, even travel within Portugal was a bit harder. So I’m really enjoying exploring different regions here. And I think travel will start picking up again now.

This was nice to be able to do my first in-person conference again within Portugal. And what brings me here is that… Well, actually, I’ve known about WordCamp for several years already because I’m a WordPress user. But I always thought like, “I’m not techie enough to go speak there. I don’t know… You know, like that’s not my scene.”

But then one of my clients actually kind of motivated me and pushed me and was like, “You know, just apply for a workshop and see what happens.” And I got in. And then the fact that it was in Porto was an additional benefit because I kind of want to expand my network. I’m used to going to digital marketing conferences, SEO conferences, not as much these types of conferences. And it’s so nice to meet people who do things that I don’t know anything about. But perhaps in the future, we could work together on something.

Topher: Absolutely. So this is your first one?

Sofie: It’s my very first one.

Topher: They’re all like this.

Sofie: That’s good. That’s good. Then I’ll be back.

Topher: They’re all not like this. The small ones are also very much fun, but obviously not the grand scale.

Sofie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Topher: But I’m really glad you’re here. There’s a stereotype that WordPress is all developers and designers. And one thing I’m happy about this interview is that it’s representation. I’m gonna put out a website that here’s a person who’s not a developer or designer still making a great career with WordPress.

Sofie: And I’m thinking now that all of my clients use WordPress. So even when I’m doing client work, I’m working kind of with WordPress every day.

Topher: Sure.

Sofie: And I see the different types of plugins that they’re using, what their setup is like, if they have a custom design, or if they use something like Elementor. So that’s interesting.

Topher: That is cool. My wife has spoken at WordCamp and her topic was how to be in WordPress and not be a developer or a designer?

Sofie: That’s funny.

Topher: Because she is neither, and they appreciates.

Sofie: I was surprised yesterday as well. At the start of my workshop, I asked how many people were actually in content. Because I was a bit worried beforehand I had no idea who would be in the audience.

Topher: Sure.

Sofie: And more than 50% of the people in the audience were in content in some kind of way. So I was like, “Okay, that’s interesting.” I had not expected that.

Topher: It’s a very easy way for people who aren’t developers or designers to make a career with WordPress. I mean, if you’re a writer, there you are. You are in.

Sofie: True. True. I think there’s so many people who just use it, right? And “just” it’s not the right word. But like you don’t have to actually be creating it to work with WordPress every day. As a user, it’s such an important tool in your kit to have.

Topher: I’m a developer and I often lose track of the fact that the purpose of WordPress is not development. That’s all I use it for is to build things. And it’s fun. My wife had the same attitude for a long time, because that’s all I did with it. She’s a writer. And she was like, “Well, I wish I could read stuff on the internet.” And I’m like, “I have a tool. Maybe you could do it.”

It could change your whole mindset to think that, oh, WordPress is a writing tool. It’s not a toy that developers build on for fun. So we as developers we often have to stop and remember we’re building a tool for content creators.

Sofie: For end users.

Topher: For end users, yeah. That’s important. So how much do you actually use it every day? Like how much part of your life is it?

Sofie: Good question. I work on my own website even if it’s just like maybe one or two hours a week. So that’s on WordPress. And then for clients, I would say it depends. Most of the writing I do just happens in Google Docs or tools like Ahrefs for SEO research. But when I do an audit, when I start working with clients and checking their setup and checking, especially their blog setup is always part of the process. So it’s really hard to say like, oh, every week, I spent so many hours within WordPress because it’s different from week to week.

Topher: Is there a particular part of WordPress that makes it better than other tools? Or is it just as a whole this is the best? Like, is there one thing you need get in there like, “Oh, I get to use this thing today?”

Sofie: To be honest, because it was when I started blogging, again, 10 years ago, but this was the standard, I think I briefly looked at… I don’t know if it was Wix at some point, but there was kind of like no question about what to use. And within those 10 years, I’ve never felt like I needed something else. So I’ve never used anything else aside from WordPress because I don’t feel the need and maybe that’s a good answer to your question that whatever I need is there. And if it’s not there, and you know, there’s someone who’s gonna create something that I can add on and it’ll be fine.

Topher: WordPress is very different now than it was in 2012. It’s with Gutenberg, yes.

Sofie: Which I do not like.

Topher: You do not like. I was gonna ask you if it’s made it better or worse.

Sofie: I am a very strong fan of the classic editor in blogging. So this is maybe going to sound weird but I write my articles in HTML. Very limited. But I will not write a title and then select h2 heading. I will write the h2 tag and write the title and close the h2 tag. So for me, it was super easy to just write my article in a Google doc, do copy-paste in text editor and I was done, my article was done.

And now I have to click on all of these blogs, and I need to add all of these things, and I need to check that it’s… And I open the code and there’s just so much extra that I don’t need there to be. And I’m sure if I work with it, I’ll get used to it, because I’m actually using it now for the blog that I’ve launched for my business or my content business. I’m using it because my developer was like, “You know, at some point you will need to switch. You will need to switch.”

But I can really see the benefit of it for a lot of people. For me, it’s just… I don’t know, it adds a bit more clutter, I think, to my process. So that’s why I’ve held off the boat. But I realized I will have to switch at some point.

Topher: I felt very much like you for a very long time and kind of still do. But I’ve been forcing myself to use it because at some point I’m going to have to switch. And I’m more comfortable with it now than I used to be. And it is getting better as time goes on. It’s better now than it was a year ago.

Sofie: Yeah. I just wish we had a choice.

Topher: Yeah. You can install the classic editor plugin.

Sofie: Sorry.

Topher: You can install the Classic Editor plugin.

Sofie: I have it. Yeah, mostly. Yeah. I have over 600 blog posts in two languages on my travel site. So I’m not very keen on switching those over.

Topher: What do you use for multilingual?

Sofie: WPML.

Topher: Okay. Are you happy with it?

Sofie: Yeah. In general, I’m happy with it.

Topher: How does translation happen?

Sofie: I do my own translation.

Topher: You do your own?

Sofie: Yeah. So the travel side is in English and Dutch. I’m native Dutch-speaking, so I do both.

Topher: Okay.

Sofie: For like content strategy, I work solely in English. But being a travel blogger who was based in Belgium previously, it just made sense that on that language, it really broadened my market, and it also made it much easier for me to get client work.

And during the pandemic, for example, because my English audience is mainly American, the audience kind of fell away because they were not traveling to Europe anymore. But I still got to maintain that Dutch and Belgian audience.

Topher: Did you see the WPML folk who are upstairs?

Sofie: I did not.

Topher: They have a booth.

Sofie: No way!

Topher: Yeah.

Sofie: I walked the expo area yesterday so I must have missed them.

Topher: They are right next to Polyglots, which is another plugin.

Sofie: Oh, I did see Polyglots. I must have missed that WPML. I was quite busy. Okay, I’m going to go there. I’ve been using them since, I want to say, 2013, 2014.

Topher: Oh, wow.

Sofie: Yeah, a long time. And I know that they have a lot of options for working with translators. What I really like is that they now implemented the option to work with DeepL. I don’t know if you know DeepL.

Topher: Mm-hmm.

Sofie: So I much prefer DeepL over Google Translate.

Topher: Oh, yeah.

Sofie: And that is something that I have considered maybe doing in the future, translating everything also into French or into German just to widen the audience without recreating content.

Topher: That’s really great. I think we’re gonna wrap it up so that the next group can come in.

Sofie: Okay, cool.

Topher: Thank you very much for your time.

Sofie: Thank you for the questions. I enjoyed it.

Topher: Very nice getting to know you.

Sofie: Awesome, thank you.