Education & Continuous Learning

Staying current in SEO – and in AI-driven search specifically – is not optional. This page covers how I keep developing in a fast-moving field, alongside the academic and professional credentials that built the foundation.

Where My Focus Is Now

Unlike classical search, AI systems decompose a prompt into multiple sub-queries, retrieve results across several indexes, re-rank them, and synthesise a final answer. Appearing consistently across those sub-queries is what determines whether a page gets cited. This is the kind of knowledge that only comes from doing it under real conditions. I work within a circle of SEO specialists where problems get tested against other practitioners’ experience, follow Claneo Academy, OMR, SEO Südwest, Lily Ray, and Google Search Central as standing sources, attend live seminars, and have worked alongside SEO experts across a range of projects.

In my own work this involves custom AIO snippet tracking via GTM and GA4, RegEx patterns in GSC to isolate AI Overview query data, SISTRIX AI Prompt Tracking for brand citation monitoring, and Claude-based content environments tailored to specific websites and brand contexts.I also automate recurring SEO processes – keyword research, bulk SERP scraping, technical monitoring, and reporting – using n8n workflows. Good SEO remains the prerequisite. The same foundations – technical cleanliness, topical authority, structured data, high-quality content – now need to work across classical search and AI retrieval simultaneously. That’s covered in full on the dedicated GEO, AIO & LLMO page.

Professional Development

Google UX Design Professional Certificate¹

Coursera — Google Career Certificates · Nov. 2022 – Aug. 2023 · Approx. 6 months at 10 hours/week

A seven-course, hands-on programme developed by Google, designed to prepare graduates for introductory UX design roles by covering the full design process end to end — empathising with users, defining pain points, ideating solutions, building wireframes and prototypes, and testing for feedback. Courses completed:

1. Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design
2. Start the UX Design Process: Empathize, Define, and Ideate
3. Build Wireframes and Low-Fidelity Prototypes
4. Conduct UX Research and Test Early Concepts
5. Create High-Fidelity Designs and Prototypes in Figma
6. Build Dynamic User Interfaces (UI) for Websites
7. Design a User Experience for Social Good & Prepare for Jobs

View the app prototype →

SEO Fundamentals²

OMR Academy, Berlin, Germany · Jun. 2022 – Sept. 2022 · 10 weeks

A structured introduction to SEO as a marketing discipline, covering how SEO fits within the broader marketing mix, keyword and content strategy, the relationship between technical SEO and content, on-page and off-page measures, user signals and KPIs, and core tools and setup. This was the formal starting point of my SEO-specific education, built on top of the broader digital marketing foundation from COMCAVE.COLLEGE.

Modular Qualification — Multimedia Marketing³

COMCAVE.COLLEGE, Berlin, Germany · Jul. 2021 – Dec. 2021 · Overall grade: sehr gut (1.3)

A five-module qualification covering the full digital marketing stack, and the formal starting point of my shift into online marketing as a profession. Each module ran 210 teaching units:

• Marketing & Purchase Decision Processes — marketing management, market research, the purchase decision process, marketing controlling
• SEM Management — fundamentals of online marketing, SEO/SEM, SEM management in practice
• Project Management & Coordination — project workflows, planning and control, team communication and leadership
• Sales Promotion & Marketing — customer acquisition, CRM strategy across strategic, analytical, and operational layers, data warehousing and data mining, sales negotiation

Qualification for Foreign Academics — BeuthBonus+⁴

Berliner Hochschule für Technik (BHT), Berlin, Germany · Jun. 2020 – Oct. 2020

A supplementary qualification programme for international graduates entering the German job market, covering:

• Career development, competency assessment and application coaching
• Professional German language coaching and business writing
• Media literacy and online reputation
• Time and self-management
• Intercultural communication in the workplace
• Presentation and communication skills
• German employment law fundamentals

Language Education

Moving to Germany meant learning German from scratch as an adult whilst working — which is a different kind of discipline to classroom language learning. I completed many formal German language programmes before passing at C1 level.

Business German — telc Deutsch B2 (Council of Europe level B2, CEFR)⁵

BW Bildungswelt, Berlin, Germany · Sept. 2020 – Mar. 2021

Intensive German Course — C1 Level⁶

ifa-Akademie, Stuttgart, Germany · Mar. 2021 – May 2021

German is now one of my working languages — I write, present, and run stakeholder meetings in German daily. Czech I speak at a conversational level, developed during the two years I lived and worked in Prague.

Formal Education

Business Administration (Bachelor’s Degree)⁷

International Business School (IBS), Bulgaria · Sept. 2010 – Sept. 2015

I completed my Bachelor’s in Business Administration whilst working across sales and management roles — which meant the theory and the practice were always running in parallel. The programme covered business strategy, economics, and organisational management, and it’s the analytical thinking from this period that I still draw on when framing SEO work as a business case rather than a technical exercise.

Tourism Management⁸

College Delta, Sofia, Bulgaria · Sept. 2007 – May 2009

My first qualification was in Tourism Management — a practical, operationally focused programme that gave me a grounding in business processes, client management, and service operations. It was the starting point for a career that took me across several countries and industries before I made the pivot into digital marketing.