Host: Isaline Muelhauser
Guest: Areej AbuAli
In this final episode of 2023, discover Women in Tech SEO's wins and setbacks during the past year and celebrate with her the new initiatives. A couple of months away from our 5 year anniversary, we already have much to rejoice about. Areej and Isaline share what’s next for 2024.
Episode Transcript
Isaline: Hello, everyone. This is the WTSPodcast. Today, I have a very, very special guest indeed. Welcome, Areej.
Areej: Hey. Thanks so much for having me.
Isaline: We are doing a special podcast where we will discuss and celebrate what's happened this year. It's that time of the year when we reflect and look back on what happened, and we discuss our story a little bit of what we can look forward to for the next year.
First, maybe for anyone who's not familiar with our community, would you like to introduce yourself and remind us what this is everything about?
Areej: Yeah. I'd be more than happy to. Women in Tech SEO has been around for a little bit over four years now. Next year is actually our big five-year anniversary, which is very exciting. I started it off the back of selfish reasons. In a way, I was really looking for a place where I felt like I could belong. A place where I could ask all the questions I wanted to and not feel judged. Just a place to kind of connect with other people within our industry in a safe environment. I couldn't find one out there. And so, I decided to kind of create my own group. Ever since I can't believe this is what I get to do every day. Now, it's very, very exciting. There's a little bit over 7,000 of us in the group. It's a free community, which is amazing. We get to have lots of brilliant global folks joining us every day. We've got tons of initiatives. I mean, the podcast is one. Of course, we've got our festivals and our mentorship program, our workshops, our newsletter, and just tons of stuff.
Isaline: There is a lot to celebrate. If I remember well, I think I joined first the Facebook group. I remember us getting in touch to meet at the next conference and not feeling alone and all lost at this big conference. As you mentioned, there are so many different things now, different initiatives happening. Let's celebrate, what was new this year?
Areej: I think one of the biggest things we did this year was doing our first international festival for sure. So, we have been doing Women in Tech SEO Festival every year since 2020. We've always hosted around March, which is around International Women's Day. This year, earlier this March, it was our fourth edition. And then, I've been wanting to just consider what it might look like to have an international version. Right after the UK, a lot of our community members and folks come from the U.S. and Canada.
And so, I really wanted to take it over there for them. And so, we hosted our very first WTS Fest USA. in Philadelphia this September, and it was amazing. I think I launched the tickets very early on this year. They sold out in, I think it was like two weeks. I just couldn't believe it. Just the energy and everything there was absolutely incredible. Like, being able to bring the festival to them and meet a lot of our U.S. North America-based members in person was just such an incredible experience. And so, I couldn't be happier with how that went.
Isaline: Did you meet a lot of new members or were there lots of members who also came at one time in London?
Areej: Yeah. It was a mishmash. I think that's what really encouraged me to consider taking it to the US. Because just this year and the year before, I was really surprised we had people flying in from the US. and Canada and coming to attend the festival in London, and I just couldn't believe it. I was like, "I can't believe they're crossing the Atlantic Ocean just to come and attend the conference that I'm organizing." And so, being able to go there in person, I saw some of the folks there who had come to London before, but also a lot of people who were so active on Slack or the Facebook group, but I've never actually met them in person before. It was amazing. It felt like we all knew each other because we talked to each other all the time on Slack. It didn't feel like I was meeting new people at all. I think what was very interesting about the Philadelphia edition is every single person who got tickets was already community members.
And so, it really did feel like a big community celebration. Whereas, in London -- and that's probably because it's a bigger conference, a lot of times we tend to have people who aren't community members, but they just get tickets because they want to attend the conference. So, I found that really, really interesting how close-knit everyone was there because everyone kind of knew each other virtually already.
Isaline: Maybe it felt like a bit like the beginning when it was smaller. I remember that the first time I went to the conference in London, it felt like a school trip, sort of. I really got to see in person the people I had talked to and it really felt like, "Oh, I'm going on holiday!" I have my little bag.
Areej: Honestly, I completely know what you mean. I can't quite describe how it felt in words, but you're right. I mean, when you think about numbers as well, it was very similar. Because our very first London one was around 150 people. This one in Philadelphia was always around that number as well, 150 starting with the first one. Whereas, now in London, we're a little bit over 400 of us. So, of course, there is still that intimate feel of we're all here together. But, of course, it feels a little bit different when you're talking about like that type of scale. But, yes, I think everyone was just so happy and excited that it was happening and it was finally happening, and we were there in person. And so, I just couldn't be happier with how it went for sure.
Isaline: There's something maybe we should mention. I think for each conference; you have scholarship tickets. Is that right?
Areej: Yeah. That's so important for us. I mean, we always partner up with scholarship sponsors specifically. So, a scholarship for every scholarship sponsor. We are able to give away at least 10 scholarship tickets for folks who aren't able to afford to buying their own tickets. Also, with some of our festivals, we give the option for people to buy an individual scholarship ticket. And so, that could either be a recording ticket for an in-person ticket. It depends on where people are based and not everyone can come attend in person. But, the recording option helps folks on a global level to be able to tune in to our recordings and learn as well.
I think scholarship tickets, in general, are definitely something that I feel like most, not just conferences, but when you think of conferences or courses or all types of things, it's just really important to be able to have that option. Even if you aren't able to give away many of them, at least be able to give away some of them for folks who aren't in a position where they're able to either buy a ticket themselves or work for a company who buys one for them.
Isaline: So, you plan to have further scholarships to get? We have four conferences next year.
Areej: We have three.
Isaline: Yeah, three.
Areej: I mean my original plan actually was to do a fourth one. But then, I was like, "Areej!" That's no. Three is more than enough. Because last year we had one, this year we had two. And so, next year, we'll have three. So, it's like small gradual increments. But, yes, we do have scholarship ticket options for all three of them.
Isaline: That's wonderful. So, next year, we have March in London, June in Berlin, and September in Philadelphia, right?
Areej: Yes. London, Berlin, Philadelphia; March, June, and September, which is very, very exciting.
Isaline: That's really exciting. I actually did not know that anyone could buy a ticket. I mean, obviously, anyone identifying as a woman, but I didn't know that it was open to outside of the community. That's lovely. I guess that's maybe why I saw so many people in London that I didn't know who they were.
Areej: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's interesting, right? Especially with the London one. Actually, we ended up with a lot of community members of the back of folks who heard about the conference and they attended the conference and they really enjoyed it. And then, they realize, "Oh, wow! There's more to this." It doesn't have to be just once a year. We can be together within the community. Yes, of course, the festivals are amazing, and it's very nice to be able to meet up in person and learn from one another, but a lot of the magic actually happens on a day-to-day. In our Facebook and Slack groups, the questions we ask, the answers we give, and the support we give one another, and things.
One of my favorite things is the Amplify Me channel on Slack where anyone can share and say, "Oh, I've just written this article," or "I'm about to do a talk," or "Can you please share that with the rest of the world?" And so, we can all kind of help and support one another on that.
Isaline: You mentioned the Amplify Me channel. What does the magic look like on Slack and Facebook? How is it organized for someone who's thinking of joining us or someone who can't? Can we give a sneak peek of what's happening in our channels?
Areej: Yeah. Firstly, the thing I want to say is everyone is more than welcome to join us. I think there can be something a little bit overwhelming with the idea because our name has the word "tech" in it. And so, there might be this thinking of, "Oh, this is only a group for people who are very experienced in technical SEO." That is not the case at all. I've recently worked on a lot of our wording and comms that this is for tech SEO and beyond.
Once you're in our Slack group, you realize, actually, there are a lot of channels on a lot of others. We talk about digital PR, and we talk about content, and we talk about analytics. And so, it doesn't necessarily have to be fully centered on the technical SEO side of things. We are generally like a judgment-free, safe zone for folks to ask as many questions as they want. One of our rules is there is no such thing as a stupid or a silly or a basic question. All questions are good questions. That's something we always encourage one another with.
Other than that, one of my personal favorite initiatives that we've been running now, since 2020, is our mentorship program. I love our mentorship program. We used to only run it once a year, but starting this year, we started doing it twice a year. We pair up 50 mentors and mentees with one another in a cohort of two to three months. Then, we give them a lot of training and support throughout. The feedback that comes off the back of it is just incredible. That's a lot of what this community is about. It's about mentoring others and being mentored by others and help others as well.
Isaline: Having been a mentor and mentee, I can absolutely say that this is a very powerful initiative. One of the ways I use Slack is to communicate with my mentor and mentee, and just keep a safe space that was not my email working inbox, not my personal inbox, but there was this Slack, the safe space where we could discuss and also discuss with all the mentors and mentee in the channel dedicated to the mentorship. So, that was definitely something that I can see have impacts. Also, years after I took part. Sometimes, there's just a glimpse, "Oh, I've heard that before. Oh, yeah. I heard that during the mentorship program." I can see that there was a little seed growing somewhere. We have this initiative twice a year. Remind me how many people? I think we have a lot of pairs. How many pairs?
Areej: When we first started off, I think we were pairing like up to 200. It can easily get out of control this way, and it's very difficult to make sure that we're kind of giving all the focus and attention that's needed. Now, it's down to that an average of 50 pairs per cohort. We run twice a year, so we managed to pair up about 100 people. We always prioritize new mentees so that everyone gets a chance to be mentored.
We welcome return mentors, and we definitely encourage mentees turned mentors. So, that's something that we're very passionate about as well as you got to be mentored by someone. What about trying to give it back the next time around? We give a lot of training and support and making sure that both of our mentors and mentees make the most out of the job.
Isaline: That's the thing that feels really good about the community is that there are options to give back. You ask the questions if you are like, I'm more about content, so of course, I tend to ask more questions about tech and answer more questions about content or international SEO. But, there's always a moment where I can easily have that option to answer someone. It feels like, even though I might not be 100% an expert and everything, I still have in some areas, knowledge that I can share because someone has another level than me. So, it really feels good. It helps me also see what I know. I'm like, "Oh, but I can answer this. I actually know that." "Oh, I have an article for that." It feels lovely to be able to give back and really have this transfer.
I think everybody's really careful to answer the questions. I think we tend to, between each other, sometimes I see, "Oh, this might be a stupid question, but…" I think we're always trying to say, "Oh, but no. This is like, this is a question. This is a normal question. Everybody asks that once. So, just go for it."
Areej: Yeah, exactly. I think that's the other thing. I love how, sometimes, community members step up and remind newer folks about the rules before I even had a chance to go ahead and do that. Every now and then, someone who just joined us might start the question with, "I know this is a really simple question." And then, I'm about to go in and reply and say, "FYI, one of our rules is…" And, someone's already done that, and someone's already jumped in and said, "By the way, there's no such thing."
But, the other thing we have to remember as well, is we've got people who are very early in their career, and we have people who have been doing this for over a decade, and we're all together in one community. So, yes, even though, some of the questions that some of us might go through, like some of us might be like, "Oh, yeah, I know this already," a lot of other people might be reading it. Like, "I learned so much just from scrolling the questions and answers that people have on their things that I personally have not come across or have no awareness of."
And then, the other thing I always like to remind people about as well as the concept of giving and taking. I talked a lot about this and how the only way a community can thrive, and can continue to grow, and can continue to build momentum is through giving and taking. We give a little and we take a little. This might be the next time around before you go in and ask a question, maybe have a really quick scroll through the channels and see, "Well, am I going to be able to answer another question?" And it doesn't necessarily have to be even like SEO. You could, for example, go on the Amplify Me channel, and help share someone's LinkedIn post. Or you can go on the Motivation channel and help say "Great job" to someone who shared something on a Winning Wednesday, right? It doesn't necessarily even have to be like around SEO. Giving and taking is definitely something that I think is just key for any community to continue growing.
Isaline: A small thing can make a big difference. Because I know that lots of people like me work remotely or work from home, you don't necessarily have a team around you or you don't necessarily speak to lots of people every day at work. So, it feels really nice to not feel alone. Because it feels like there are people around. I think it kind of works well because there are people from different time zones. So, I think you're never alone on the Slack channel.
Areej: Yeah, I love that.
Isaline: You get an answer whenever it happens.
Areej: Yeah, I know. I noticed that especially when I'm traveling. I think earlier this summer when I was like on the West Coast, I remember like writing something in one. And then, I was like, "Oh, what are you doing, Areej?" There's like an eight-hour time difference. But then, it was like, there are other people in that time zone who are online then.
Isaline: Now, what's new for next year? What should we look forward to?
Areej: Yeah. I've been planning so many things around 2024 for the last few months now that I'm so confused that we're still in 2023. I'm so excited about taking the festival to three different locations. Doing London, Berlin, and Philadelphia. It's a big, big challenge, but it's going to be really interesting to see how that happens, what goes on with that. I'm excited to definitely bring forward and make sure we have another two cohorts of the mentorship program.
I would love to do some work around our WTS workshop initiative, which we ran a cohort of earlier this year, and it went really, really well. I'd love to see a way where we can potentially expand that. Just both with our workshops, and with our podcasts, and with our newsletter, and with a lot of these initiatives, the whole purpose and the whole goal is, how can we use some of these initiatives to amplify brilliant women in our industry? The more of these that we have, and the more of these that we can share with the world, then the more that we can say, yep, we're doing a good job around it. So, just keeping focused on that mission and see how we can.
And then, of course, like our big five-year birthday is going to be around May, which is very, very exciting. So, I'll probably have to go through my big list of all the WTS stuff that I'd love to launch, and maybe like pick one of them to launch around that time.
Isaline: That's amazing. I can hardly believe that it's five years already.
Areej: I know.
Isaline: And also, it sounds like so much work. Because it's one thing having an idea, like having the idea to do a podcast and Knowledge Hub. But, it's another thing to actually having it working. And also, what maybe we forget is that starting it is good, but you have to keep it. I mean, you have to keep working on it over time. Otherwise, it sort of falls asleep or dies away. I don't know.
Areej: Yeah.
Isaline: This is a lot of work. This is amazing. I hope you have a sufficient number of people telling you that it's amazing to be able to do this amount of work, but also the organization that is necessary to sort of frame the idea to make it realistic and possible. This is great. This is amazing. I'm very impressed.
I remember how starstruck I was at the beginning of our meetings about the podcast and how anxious I was. So, I'm feeling a lot better. And so, I hope everybody knows how lovely everything is. Yeah, this is a fantastic job. So, I'm saying thank you to everybody.
Areej: Oh, no. And, thank you. Like, a massive thank you for carrying the podcast throughout this year, and being part of this mission. You brought a lot of all these women that you interviewed this year, and having them share their stories with the world, and hosting this podcast. That's huge. And so, thank you so much for putting all that effort and energy. It's really appreciated.
Isaline: I was really anxious because I love Sarah, and I love her job, and how she started the podcast. So, I was really anxious at the beginning to do as well and to do something that people would like, and I felt the mission. And now, I'm feeling much more comfortable. And, each guest had so much enthusiasm. Like on the Riverside, you click allow them, and you see their face, and their smile on my screen. I'm like, "Oh, my god! This is amazing." I get to see all of these women. It was fantastic.
Areej: Yeah. Sarah did such a brilliant job bringing this podcast to life. She's doing so many awesome things at the minute with her SEO Mindset Podcast alongside Tazmin. It's just like she's definitely like the podcast queen, and we've both learned so much from her on how to set up a lot of this stuff. It's just really, really exciting to have these different avenues, channels, and ways. Ways that we can distribute our content and publish and amplify all these awesome women to the world.
Isaline: For next year, we plan to have another two seasons of the podcast. And, we plan to have special episodes, maybe behind-the-scenes to share a little bit more of what happens in the community. Since the podcast, everybody can listen to the podcast, of course. We'll have some behind-the-scenes discussions, and what's next? Of course, every community member can pitch a topic and we share our pitch form in the Slack channel. I'm very, very open to coaching first-time speakers.
So, if you have never recorded anything, but you have an idea of a topic, something, an experience, something you'd like to share. Really, really, I encourage everyone to try to pitch a topic. I mean, it's like recording a podcast can be scary, but it's actually not that terrible. You just need to do it once to see how it is, and then you can do it many, many times with other podcast hosts. I would be really happy to read many pitches. What else? Did I forget about something we plan to say during that end-of-the-year episode?
Areej: No, I think that's it. Yeah, it's been an amazing year. I want to say a massive thank you to all of our WTS partners who have supported us this entire year. They make it possible for me to be able to pay a lot of our collaborators, freelancers, and supporters within this community to host some of our initiatives. We're able to pay our writers, our editors, and our speakers. Thanks to them. A big, big shout out and thanks to all of our WTS partners. A massive thank you to all of our hosts, and supporters, and collaborators whom we work with. And then, of course, all of our community members. There wouldn't be a community if it wasn't for the members who log in every day, ask the questions, answer the questions, and support one another, and help one another. So just a shout-out to everyone who makes this group really, really special.
Isaline: As a closing question, of course, I like to ask, who can join the community?
Areej: Yeah. I mean, everyone can join the community. Like, all women, all non-binary folks. Please check out womenintechseo.com/join for all the details. You don't have to be a tech SEO. You can be someone within the marketing industry who's interested in joining a group of brilliant professionals from all walks of life who are very, very passionate about our industry and the work that we do and help support one another. Yes, please, please do check out our website. We hope that we get to see you in the group very soon.
Isaline: Of course, for anyone else who does not join the community, the newsletter is open for anyone to subscribe to, and the Knowledge Hub also. It's like everybody can read the articles. We have also something that we sometimes forget to mention, but we have the Speakers' Hub for anyone, any other community organizer who wants to do podcasts, or workshops, or whatever. We have lots and lots of women you can read who can speak about which topics. This is organized and this is all available for use by anyone. So, use them. They're great.
Areej: Yeah. Use the resources we have. Yes.
Isaline: Thank you, Areej, for joining me on this podcast. It was a pleasure to have you as a guest as usual.
Areej: Yeah, thank you for having me. And, thanks again for all your hard work this year. It's really appreciated.
Isaline: Thank you. And, thank you, everyone, for listening to us today. I'm really, really looking forward to starting the next season of the podcast next year. I wish everyone a good end of 2023. Relax. Everything's going to be fine. We'll see you next year. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Areej.