How many brands out there are really thinking,
OK,
what do we actually want to get out of this community?
What are our values?
Community can be shaped very differently.
I love to think of community as a space for two-way conversations.
It's not just about growth.
It's making sure everybody is having a level playing field.
Yeah,
I mean,
honestly,
I think communities are just going to get bigger and bigger.
Trust is probably the biggest currency there is at the minute.
This is Next Market Live,
the podcast by Wiglot.
We're bringing you the unfiltered stories of CEOs,
CMOs,
and go-to-market pros who've taken their brands beyond their home markets.
From the first,
where do we start,
to major pivots and unexpected challenges,
we explore how international growth is rarely a straight line.
Hi,
everybody,
and welcome to Next Market Live,
the podcast by Weglot.
I'm your host,
Elizabeth Bacconi,
Head of Content and Brand here at Weglot.
And today I'm joined by Areej Abu Ali,
founder of Women in Tech SEO.
Areej started her career as a computer engineer before moving into SEO,
where she's led both technical and in-house teams at scale for companies including Zoopla and papier.
In 2019,
she founded Women in Tech SEO,
a global community for marketers working at the intersection of marketing and technology.
What started as a small support group has since grown into a network of over 12,000 members and 60,000 followers worldwide with a mentorship program and conferences across the UK,
Europe and US.
Arish is also an international speaker and recently shared her expertise in her new book,
Community Building for Marketers.
Okay,
and welcome,
Arish.
Thanks a lot for joining us today.
Let's get right into it.
Awesome.
Thanks for having me.
So we like to start all our podcasts with a bit of an icebreaker.
So our question for you is,
if I had met you
10 years ago,
would you have...
ever imagined you'd end up building this international community and be exactly where you are today?
Absolutely not.
Yeah,
I think 10 years ago,
I was very early in my SEO career,
and there was a lot of like unknowns.
So yeah,
I'm pretty sure
I wouldn't have imagined I'd be where I am right now.
Yeah,
I love your backstory.
You started in engineering and then the first company you worked for,
you went into SEO and they could see you looking at the source code and they were like,
what are you doing,
Areej?
And then it kind of naturally,
you led more into like the technical SEO aspect.
Can you tell us a bit more kind of how you went from a degree in engineer to SEO?
Yeah,
I studied,
I mean,
I grew up in Egypt and...
in Egypt,
you tend to have two options.
You're either going to be a doctor or an engineer.
And I went down the engineering group because I really enjoyed math.
And I moved to the UK to do a master's degree.
This was back in 2012.
So a very,
very long time ago now.
And my first job out of that was actually a very small agency in London who needed someone who was fluent in Arabic.
That was one of the main reasons I got the job role because I was this
in this very weird,
you know,
yeah,
I had the education,
I had the degree,
but then
I didn't have any experience at that point at all.
And so
I literally got the role purely because of my fluency in Arabic.
But then it was an SEO agency.
And in the first month,
they were like,
you know what,
well,
we're going to switch you to the technical SEO team,
because it just makes so much more sense.
Yeah,
they could see that was where your kind of passion and interest was.
Um,
so I guess,
yeah,
let's,
let's go straight into in building a community and the incredible women in tech SEO community you've,
you,
well,
originally single-handedly built.
And now you're a team of,
are you four now?
I think,
yeah.
Yeah.
I just want to say,
obviously I,
I'm a member of women in tech SEO.
So it's really interesting to see even just the last couple of years,
how quickly it's grown.
Um,
I know it's been taken,
it's like a gradual growth over the last few years,
but it does really show how across what,
yeah,
last 18 months it's just suddenly gone even further.
And let's like kind of take it back to the beginnings of Women in Tech SEO.
So you're working in technical SEO.
What was the exact moment you realized,
OK,
there's a space for this?
Yeah,
what was missing for you?
Yeah,
so I mean,
WTS,
we're turning seven years old this year,
which,
yeah,
feels like a long,
long time ago.
And yeah,
I think back in 2019,
I was agency side.
to...
primarily been agency side at that point.
I was very in the technical SEO side of things,
but then
I attended lots of industry conferences just as an attendee,
not as a speaker.
And I didn't really feel a sense of belonging.
I never felt represented on stage and I never felt like I was getting my education or information or knowledge from anyone who looked like me.
And it felt like within the technical SEO side,
it was very,
very male.
dominated.
And then there was also like this exclusivity that you found in a lot of like the groups where,
oh,
if you want to be part of that group,
you had to be a full-time speaker or something along those lines.
So I really did feel like very,
like demotivated.
And I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to continue being a technical SEO because it was very hard to have that network around me.
And so,
yeah,
it was just very,
very random.
May 2019,
I just decided,
why don't I put together a group and see,
maybe we can meet up in London,
we can discuss things together,
we can share knowledge,
we can share career advice.
And I,
back good old Twitter,
back when it was around,
I put a tweet out and within the first few days,
I had like 100 members join.
Wow,
that's really impressive.
And at this point,
I I
presume you didn't have much of a network yourself.
It was just clearly you had seen a need and everybody was with you on that.
And that's how it naturally picked up.
Yeah.
I mean,
in 2019,
I didn't have,
I wasn't,
that was actually when I started speaking for the first time in conferences,
but I did not have a big network and I pretty much only worked in like the same company the whole time.
Okay.
And am I right in thinking that it first started on Facebook?
That's where you kind of...
You went from this tweet and then you're like,
OK,
let's let's put a group together.
Yeah.
So I initially started a meetup group.
That was the very,
very first thing I did with just an idea of we can do monthly meets in London.
But then right away on Twitter,
a lot of the folks who replied were not based in London or not even based in the UK.
I got a lot of people replying from like different parts of the world.
So I was like,
OK,
well,
maybe it would make more sense to set up a Facebook group.
So I set up a closed Facebook group where we,
yeah,
we had a lot of people joined.
And the first few months it was primarily on Meetup and Facebook group.
And then
I started the Slack group,
which is the one that we have till this day.
Yeah.
How many members do you have now?
There's a little over 12,000 now.
That's incredible.
That's really interesting how you said instantly from day one,
day one tweet.
you already saw the international interest for your community.
You started with the concept of really meeting in real life.
And quite quickly,
you could see,
okay,
there's a need for this to also be online.
So,
yeah,
if you were to start again,
where would you find those first 20 members?
Would you do anything differently?
I mean,
it seems like you kind of had natural success from the off.
Yeah,
I think a lot of people now when they ask me,
you know,
I want to start a brand new community.
What do I do in the first instance?
My advice tends to be connect to people,
you know,
already who would be interested in joining forces and get a lot of feedback.
You know,
what would you like to see?
How would you like to grow this?
What initiatives do you want to take place?
But I didn't really have that network at that point.
And yeah,
I think it was just being.
very honest and forward in my tweet around how,
you know,
it's taken me,
I don't have that sense of belonging and I want to create this network for,
and I have a feeling that others may feel similar that had a lot of people interested and enjoying.
Yeah.
I think one thing we can really get out of that is that just like honesty and really,
you know,
you built this community,
not from a business side,
from really...
you know,
I,
I want to make this,
build a community,
build connections.
Um,
it's a genuine,
a genuine like desire from your side,
which I,
I wonder if,
um,
businesses get this wrong is that they think there's a community that's needed and it doesn't grow because there's just not the following.
And it's a maybe bit disingenuous.
Um,
I don't know if you've had any,
anybody coming or,
or comments from your book about,
yeah,
how...
do you ensure that there's a genuineness at the kind of center of community building?
Yeah,
I mean,
I tend to say two things when folks ask me,
oh,
how come you started the community?
Like my very,
very honest response is it was very selfish reasons.
And then with brands,
because I mean,
community marketing definitely is like this new thing that a lot of people are talking about.
I always advise to just don't don't start your own community right away.
There are a lot of excellent engaged communities that are already built very well and are thriving.
The first thing to do is to tap into those communities,
understand how they're built,
how they're running,
contribute as a member yourself before seeing whether it is worth starting your own or is it just a matter of partnering up with an engaged one?
Yeah,
that's really,
really good advice.
And yeah,
certainly from Weglot's side,
we've obviously,
we're an active sponsor of Women in Tech SEO and something that we've really...
loved being part of and and actually yeah your whole point of like getting feedback it's a fantastic way to to engage with an audience that you may not have ever touched before without yeah having to start from scratch yourself because you think you can you can do it easily
one thing that's also very interesting to to discuss is how do you actually engage the members because as you said you felt like it was a natural you
clicking of minds building this community but how do you get people to participate because it's all very well having
12 000 members in a community but if no one's actually chatting and doing this knowledge sharing um yeah how did you how did you help um stimulate that yeah so i mean like quality over quantity and like any any time of the day for sure um i always tell folks if you have 100 active members that
is
just it weighs so much more than having 5000 inactive members.
So quality over quantity,
absolutely.
I do think some of the things that helped me in like the first few months,
were just really connecting with folks on a one to one basis,
understanding why did you join?
What is it that you're looking for?
What would you find helpful?
A lot of these conversations,
which I still do many of to this day,
but probably not at the same scale as before,
because it's very difficult,
helped...
integrate folks in.
And I think with community,
it's like,
as a community builder organizer,
I am simply providing that safe environment for folks to participate in.
But it's not my job to be the one initiating every single conversation.
So making sure that all your members feel like they have a say in the community that they're a part of,
And they get to steer the direction of
Yes,
we want more webinars.
We want more coffee meetups.
We want more of this.
We want more of that.
So being able to get that feedback and actually understand what is it that they want and what is it that they're looking for,
as opposed to simply like dictating,
here's our calendar of events and here's what we're going to do.
Yeah,
yeah,
that's a really good one.
And how actually did the events come about?
Obviously,
like you were saying,
you started with meetups.
How did that start?
go to the huge events that women in tech seo now now run and champion and you're almost known for your events and the community is kind of a bonus like oh great i can i can go to this event and actually there's a conversation online following from it yeah
yeah i mean initially the the first year was monthly meetups we were very very consistent i believe it was the first wednesday of every month where we...
always held a meetup and then they kept growing and growing.
Like we went from
10 people meeting up for coffee to a hundred people in a big office space doing talks in the evening.
And I think it was only three or four months of starting it where I was like,
how cool would it be for us to have our own full day conference where we're amplifying women and people of marginalized gender,
we're taking over the full stage.
It's just us and we're able to host many of us.
And yeah,
it must have been August when I started planning it.
And then we held our first conference in March 2020,
right before COVID,
which was very,
very lucky.
But it just,
people wanted it.
Like it was,
you know,
I was learning everything on the clock and
I didn't know if it was going to work or not work.
And it was going to be a big risk.
but um
we made it extremely accessible and it just worked out really,
really well.
And then we continued having our London festivals like every year,
but then our digital community kept growing more and more and we realized we need to start going to other locations.
Yeah,
that's incredible.
I guess the best learning here is,
like you say,
listening to what your community wants.
So you've started in engineering,
technical SEO,
building a community and now running events.
These are skills,
I imagine,
as if we go back to the first question of where did you see yourself in 10 years?
I can't imagine you for a minute thought you were going to be running events and being on the stage as well.
Yeah,
how did that feel?
Yeah,
I mean,
honestly,
I do take it one day at a time.
I always say now,
my job never feels like a job,
which is so beautiful.
You know,
when I was running,
I ran WTS for many years as a passion project alongside my full time job.
So it was taking over like all of my evenings and weekends.
And then I went on maternity leave.
And during that time,
I was going to do
I was thinking of pivoting and starting to do some freelancing and consulting.
purely from an SEO basis while continuing to build WTS.
And it was kind of that point where I found myself decreasing more of my
SEO consulting time and increasing more of my
WTS time.
And then
I sat down with a big Google sheet and just kind of like weighed up all my options and made the decision,
okay,
I'm going to give myself six months of only working on WTS.
And if it doesn't work out,
it doesn't work out.
I can always go back to
SEO.
But then I do think it was that decision to put 100%
of my time on it that probably helped it grow and get to the point that it has gotten now.
And in terms of building this community,
obviously,
we're now at 12,000 members.
Were there sort of pivotal moments where you saw this peak in growth?
Was it after events or you yourself sponsoring of your sponsor of
Brighton SEO?
How did you keep?
growing?
How have we still got the momentum at Women in Tech SEO?
Yeah,
I think for us,
something that's really helped was this idea of trying and testing different initiatives.
So one of the initiatives we did very early on was our
WTS mentorship program.
And now it's at 10th cohort,
10 edition at the minute that we're running.
And the first time we ran it is completely different from how it looks now.
And the way it works is that we match some folks apply to be mentors,
some apply to be mentees.
And then I do some matchmaking and I connect them with one another.
We give lots of training and guidance.
And it's like a cohort that lasts three months.
And after each cohort,
we collect lots of feedback and then we make changes and we adjust to the to the next time around.
And that mentorship program has truly been probably one of our biggest drivers,
both with retaining and growing our membership.
And
I have many other examples of those sorts of initiatives that we that get people excited and get them even like newly engaged in the in the community.
Now we have webinars and workshops and talks and we have our own online publication.
We have a weekly newsletter and we just test and learn different things.
And I feel like folks then either hear from us because of a new initiative or.
we retain them and they get re-engaged because one of these initiatives.
Yeah,
I love that.
Yeah,
because I suppose like from the kind of mentor-mentee program,
you're re-engaging the people that have been in your community for a long time to be that mentor and to kind of promote your whole ethos of giving back.
And we really see the giving back element throughout Women in Tech SEO,
which again,
I think is a testament to kind of the genuine and community you've built.
I'm thinking particularly about the free tickets you try and keep for your events.
How fundamental do you think it is to community building to have core values on how you think you want to build and shape and the type of people and attitudes that should be in the community?
Because I imagine it's pretty easy to set up a community and it can go bad in some ways.
There can be some...
bad conversations.
Yeah,
I mean,
I always say like a code of conduct makes or breaks a community for sure.
And that's one of the things that a lot of people who are building a community need to make sure is there and it's very clear and very obvious from the start.
We started off by just having some rules in our Facebook group,
like many other communities do.
But then we kept growing that more and more.
We call it the WTS way.
And that's our code of conduct,
our values.
which are to be kind,
to be helpful,
to be respectful and to be a judgment-free place.
And those really,
in many ways,
just kind of drive a lot of the initiatives and a lot of the work that we do.
I also think a code of conduct is very important because then it isn't...
You're not kind of second guessing yourself on any decisions you need to make.
Something I always say is you can't make everyone happy as a community organizer.
Sometimes you might make decisions that upset some people,
but it is for the benefit of the community as a whole.
So if you have a proper code of conduct in place,
rules,
values,
and they're all very clearly labeled,
very clearly marked,
there are things that you share from day one in the onboarding and you continue to remind your members of.
If a problem happens or if something needs to be escalated,
you can so easily refer back to that code of conduct and say,
this is actually a break in this specific rule or so on.
Yeah.
And it's funny because,
you know,
if you have a company,
of course,
there's always a code of conduct.
Why doesn't that get translated to a community where,
in fact,
you have even less control over what people are doing and how many?
brands out there are really thinking,
okay,
what do we actually want to get out of this community?
What are our values?
How do we translate our company values to this community?
How are we going to filter out people if something is against our policies?
If you were hired by a company tomorrow,
how would you build a community from scratch for them?
I mean,
I imagine we're going to get some lovely lessons from your book because that's what...
kind of the goal of the book is.
I mean,
honestly,
I wouldn't,
as I said already,
I don't think I'd go in right away and be like,
let's build a community from scratch for us.
I'd absolutely research the space and try to understand our audience intersection and see what communities already exist within those audience intersections that I can then engage in and become a very,
very active member of before making the decision of potentially starting our own community.
I feel like there are,
it's almost like this flow chart of a lot of companies might.
Or brands go right away into build your own community from scratch,
as opposed to following this beautiful flowchart of what other communities are out there?
You know,
how are our different audience persona kind of split across them?
How can we engage in those communities?
Some of them,
it might purely be being a helpful active member and seeing some of the conversations.
Other it might be partnering or sponsoring with them and becoming part of their both their digital ecosystem and their in-person ecosystem,
for example.
And once you've done that,
you might realize,
well,
that's enough.
You know,
we're dedicating a lot of time in this.
We are putting budget across it and we feel like we're reaching our people through that.
Or people or the company might realize that there is still this gap and we've learned all these learnings from being part of these communities.
And so we can now start our own and that will look
X, Y,
Z.
And it's going to help.
close the gaps that we haven't been able to materialize there.
So
I feel like that's something I tend to speak to a lot of our partners and some of the brands out there.
And also it's this idea of community can be shaped very differently.
I love to think of community as a space for two-way conversation.
And so,
for example,
some brands might think about,
I don't know,
their
audience newsletter as a community,
but that's not necessarily the case because you're kind of speaking at them.
But then your social channels might be a community in a way,
because maybe you're constantly engaging with them and having back and forth.
So it doesn't have to be all this work of create a big digital space,
have a big in-person presence and so on.
It could literally be tapping into a single channel,
but ensuring that there's back-to-back conversation happening.
Yeah,
everybody,
as you say,
it's very big,
this community,
a brand having a community.
And yeah,
are we all a bit too quick to jump on it and hope that,
you know,
we see your success with Women in Tech SEO and we all think,
oh,
can we build the same scale?
But that might not be where your ICP is living.
There might not be a need.
Yeah,
really,
really interesting.
yeah it's funny at Weglot we were we were
sort of looking into the concept of building an international community around similar to what we're doing with the podcast and international marketing space um and a little bit reverse to how you've built women in tech seo we have a series of events um this podcast and and
we've then tried to to build the community so we've done a little bit the opposite way but absolutely yeah
It's hard to try and get that engagement early on.
I kind of want to turn now into a bit more of the international aspect.
So obviously,
earlier,
we spoke about how that very naturally happened from day one.
Was that expected?
Did you think when you first launched that tweet that,
okay,
it's going to be outside of the UK?
No,
absolutely not.
I mean,
I didn't have that big of a network,
but my network was primarily in the UK and even
London, more or less.
So I was very surprised that there was an interest around the world.
And I would say initially it was a lot of folks in North America who did join in the early days.
But over time,
so to this day,
I would say maybe a little over 50%
are UK based.
And then 30%
are North America and we have like 10%
Europe and then the rest of the world.
But it did help dictate a lot of our direction when it comes to our in-person festivals.
So the first place that we launched our festival after London was Philadelphia.
And that was a few years ago.
And then from then on,
we went and launched in
Portland to have that West Coast market.
We also had festivals in Berlin and we had ones in Melbourne.
So the community growth dictated where we should go and where we should focus,
just purely based on where our members are and where they're the most active.
But I think having a very engaged digital space does help make it very accessible for people all around the world,
different time zones,
different locations.
And then it's the in-person connections where we are pretty much dictated by how active
our members are in different areas.
As you said,
you,
um,
a lot of your events,
are built from the demand of your community.
Um,
but what about more kind of the local aspect and managing local initiatives?
Have you done anything within your community to,
to create local ambassadors or is this sort of naturally,
because myself,
again,
I,
I'm a member of,
of the,
of the
Slack channel and I do often see like Spanish um
online meetup happening did that again organically happen um from your community or did you try and put that in place your yourself as the community owner yeah so absolutely organically happened to be honest like it was um requests from our members that wanted to have more local connections um we have a few local channels that are built around some of the bigger like wider so we have a duck channel for
Germany, Switzerland.
We have an Australia channel and we have a France channel,
a Canada channel.
So some of these local channels were requested by several of our members and it helps them connect with one another.
Folks in Germany,
both Berlin and Munich,
they do in-person meetups.
But then folks in Australia or Canada,
for example,
they have monthly virtual meetups.
So a lot of it is dictated by...
by the members and what they want to put together.
But also we do we get feedback on everything,
even our Slack channels.
So we do a lot of work on curating our Slack channels,
cleaning them up,
changing them up,
overthinking the naming conventions of how they're going to be listed.
And so much of that is dictated by our members.
But also just,
you know,
our industry is changing all the time.
Yeah,
the.
amount of conversation now around AI visibility tools and so forth.
Of course,
those conversations weren't happening a year or two ago,
but now they are taking up so much headspace of folks in the industry.
And we can see it translated across the board.
So not just in discussions in our digital community,
but also in articles that are going live in our online publication or talks that are being pitched in our in-person festivals.
So it's about being very flexible.
and open to some of these changes.
So even though I'm not an SEO myself anymore,
I haven't actually practiced any
SEO in the last two or three years.
But of course,
we have to be very close and understanding of the shift that's happening in the industry for us to respond back to that.
Yeah,
so let's touch more on AI.
And every podcast episode we've had has kind of slightly gone towards that because it's something we can't avoid.
And like you say,
it's great how you're kind of seeing those trends live,
even in just talk submissions.
How important then do you think community is going to be in this more move towards everything being depersonalized?
Will community...
management community building be the last touch before we lose all personalization yeah i mean honestly i think communities are just going to get bigger and bigger because people are really struggling to get that personalized like touch at the minute of all things and trust is probably the biggest currency there is at the minute with the amount of misinformation out there and how fragmented all the different channels have become um
So that word of mouth is so big and so valid and so important.
And when you're part of an engaged community that you already trust,
it makes a massive,
massive difference to go in there and ask a question and get an answer from a person as opposed to,
you know,
do a I don't know whether it's a Google search or an AI search or whatever it might be.
And I think a lot of brands and companies are starting to realize that as well.
There's a lot of work that can be done to how can we appear on,
you know,
the
AEO and how can we optimize this and how can we do that?
But at the end of the day is how to get people to actually trust us and to be talking about us.
And I think from a community organizer perspective,
there is there is a big difference between you can absolutely use AI for things that help.
with efficiency.
So make things more coherent,
have a better onboarding structure,
do this,
do that.
But it will never help actually understand the qualitative feedback that might be coming from your members or what's working or what's not working.
And even if you end up tapping into some of these tools and integrating them with the system,
it will always feel just very,
very artificial and it will lose a big part of that,
what makes it human.
So something I get a lot is the matchmaking process of the mentorship program is something that I've constantly done very,
very manually.
Like I would look at everyone who applies to be a mentor,
everyone who applies to be a mentee,
I would read their responses and I would match them with one another.
And I know that if I used AI to do that,
it would not in any way result in how strong some of these matches are.
Yeah,
it's almost full circle,
isn't it?
You know,
You set your tweet out.
people were looking for a community and now we're depersonalizing.
And then everyone's like,
I want to go back to this community aspect.
I want to feel like I belong.
Yeah,
I want to speak to humans.
And I think community,
yeah,
building your communities is just,
it can't disappear because we're all desperate for that connection still.
So we were talking about allowing your community to build.
smaller,
almost subgroups and meetups,
obviously,
likely in their native languages.
How do you ensure that you have the safe space of women in tech SEO in those,
even though they're not,
you've instigated them,
but they're not women in tech owned?
Yes,
yes.
I mean,
it's terrifying and it's scary.
It's the first thing I need to say.
There's a lot of work that goes into it.
We do provide a lot of training and support for folks who host those.
Everything from a conversation,
a call to a one pager of how to ensure that you're following the code of conduct and what our WTS way.
We have certain guidelines around introducing the WTS way at the start of any meetup or conversation and making sure that
you know,
it is aligned.
But something we are working on because we,
at the minute,
this is going to be one of our biggest initiatives this year is
an official like WTS chapters initiative where our hosts,
our ambassadors,
our local guides would be folks that we provide a lot of training to.
And then these local connections then would be officially part of the WTS umbrella.
And I think that's come from,
we're almost doing it like the opposite way around where a lot of people would start with these and then go to like the bigger conferences,
whereas we've kind of done it a little bit differently.
But I do truly believe there is something so beautiful about those micro communities that come off the back of a larger community because it cannot.
It doesn't matter what festival we hold or if it's the best conference in the world or so on.
It will never meet the niche needs of a small local group who may want to speak in the same language or have similar needs or have similar.
So,
yeah.
that's something we're really really focusing on on this year is to cater more to those uh folks and when did the realization that you think we need this um yeah when when did that happen was that from feedback from the groups um yeah i think definitely feedback from the groups but also it does people
are always asking for more ways to connect more ways to connect and i you know it's accessible and inclusive to have like virtual options.
But it's exactly what you were just saying.
Like people need that in-person connection more than ever right now.
I mean,
in many ways,
the only reason we hosted WTS Fest in Berlin twice is because our Berlin community were so active.
They were doing their own monthly meetups every single month.
And we were like,
well,
why aren't we hosting a festival there?
So I do think it will help us as well,
even purely from a data perspective.
What makes sense in terms of where we grow or where we take our conference next or so on?
Yeah,
that's really cool.
And do you imagine there might one day be a conference,
a Women in Tech SEO conference that's not in English and it would be in the native language of that community,
sub-community?
Yeah,
I believe so.
I definitely,
you know,
all of our initiatives that we do at the minute are all in English.
And all of the communication that happens in our digital spaces are in English.
But I absolutely don't see a reason why we can't start supporting different languages.
It's,
yeah,
as someone who,
I mean,
English is my second language.
How beautiful it would have absolutely felt for me,
yeah,
to be part of a community where I can speak in my own language.
Every now and then when I'm running one of our conferences,
I would run into someone who is fluent in Arabic.
And the joy I feel that we like stand there and talk in Arabic a little bit together.
So,
yeah,
of course,
language is just such a big,
beautiful thing that connects many people.
And we were not equipped at the minute to be like organizing those.
But,
you know,
our community members are what makes up our community.
And many of them are extremely,
extremely active and engaged that I would absolutely trust some of them to like help hold some of these with us.
So watch this space,
basically.
Yeah.
And do you think that kind of,
what do you project for the growth then in allowing these sort of micro communities to grow?
I imagine that's going to open up a whole new space for women in tech SEO.
Yeah,
allowing that more freedom,
but with your exact guidance in different countries.
Are you...
Do you put growth numbers on targets on community or you just very much allow it to be more organic?
Yeah,
I mean,
we do have we do have targets with its number of the number of members,
the number of active members,
the monthly messages that are exchanged and then our social followers and our newsletter subscribers.
Those are kind of like the main KPIs we look after.
To be honest,
the main reason we do look after them is because,
I mean,
we're a completely free community.
Everyone and anyone can join for free.
But we fund it through our partners program.
And of course,
partners who are putting money behind it want to know those KPIs and want to know those numbers.
And the better those numbers,
the more likely that they will partner and sponsor up with us.
But I go back to what I said before,
which is quality over quantity.
Yeah,
and it's not all about vanity metrics like,
oh,
you know,
we're present in
60 countries worldwide if they're not actually engaged.
That's really interesting.
Would you ever consider then going for a translated website for the women in tech SEO?
Obviously,
we can have a lot of community led channels.
could break away and be in Spanish and Arabic.
But what about your main,
your website,
your blog,
would that be something you'd ever consider adding that cultural language aspect onto?
Yeah,
absolutely.
I mean,
something when it comes to the accessibility of the education and the knowledge that we're sharing,
it's something that we think about all the time.
So for example,
when we share the recordings of some of our conferences,
we always ensure that there are proper captions,
subtitles available in lots of different languages for it to be more accessible to folks.
I think now that we're generating a lot more content than we used to back in the day,
we have an extremely active online publication that publishes new articles every week.
We have a weekly newsletter that goes out.
We always tell our writers not to worry if English isn't their first language.
because they get to work alongside an extremely experienced head of content who helps them with editing.
But there,
again,
still is something so raw and beautiful about people sharing things in their own language.
What we do at the minute to help meet that demand is we sponsor a lot of other communities that are based in different countries and languages to help support,
because we know that we can't meet.
that market at the minute uh but something i am absolutely aware of especially with the amount of content we have now both in our online publication our newsletters how can we make those more accessible and inclusive and available for people around the world um yeah not just in english and not having language
be be a barrier for for some folks yeah yeah i love that and i actually had no idea that you you added subtitles for so a lot of the for the event that's really cool.
Yeah,
okay,
so that's kind of maybe 2027 plans is to branch out and offer more languages on your website.
And it's a very good point you make about you can be the best writer in your second language,
but nothing beats how the authenticity you can get across in your first language.
Even going back to your comment about...
Bumping into people and speaking Arabic.
It just,
it's like this warm cultural feeling.
Yeah.
I can connect with you on a different level.
I mean,
I find that myself in,
in France and actually,
so I'm,
I'm from the UK and living in France and even the reverse of language.
Sometimes I can't find an expression in
English that
I know exists in French.
It's just these nuances that.
connect us all and I think importantly the comment you made about language and accessibility so often brands and companies look about look at translation as a growth tool which of course it absolutely is you
can't get around that but accessibility should should offer for community especially is the number one it's it's not just about growth it's it's making sure everybody is having a level playing field.
Yeah,
I think it's something at Weglot we're very passionate about saying.
We have a huge amount of clients that are literally translating their website for accessibility reasons.
You've got the United States where many of the states are required to have multiple languages on their government websites.
It's obviously not about growth.
It's about ensuring the community is getting the information that is important to them in their natural language.
So we touched a little bit.
on sort of the next chapter for Women in Tech SEO.
But is there anything sort of more concrete that you can share with us as to what's coming next?
So,
I mean,
I think we,
yeah,
we tend to talk about this a lot,
like as a team.
The long-term goal of
WTS is for it to become redundant and for it to no longer exist.
You know,
the hope is right now.
We do live in a world where we need that safe space for people of marginalized gender.
But the more work that we are doing around our collective career goals in increasing our amplification and our education,
our connection with one another,
and really having that code of conduct of ours be our bread and butter and what we're made from is that down the line,
like WTS is not needed.
And you would absolutely feel that code of conduct.
like across the industry as as a whole it's funny isn't it you create a community and you're the peak of success would be we no longer exist yeah and maybe to go a little bit more full circle from how we started what
would the younger ridge would you ever have imagined publishing a book on something that you had never imagined even going into Okay.
Yeah,
no,
never.
Hardest things I've ever,
ever worked on.
It was like nine months of,
yeah,
just like constant,
constant work and constant imposter syndrome and questioning myself and wondering if I'm the right person to be putting this together.
And yeah,
I am so proud of getting to the finish line because the amount of times I was going to quit throughout the process were just.
And then when it was all done,
all wrapped up,
Yeah,
probably like one of the hardest projects I've ever worked on.
It's funny,
the concept of imposter syndrome,
because in reality,
like,
look at what you've built.
Of course,
you're the person that should write the book.
But still,
we always have that person inside our head saying,
you're not good enough.
You shouldn't do this.
What would be your advice to somebody that was thinking that in maybe any aspect of life?
I always like I always,
always say like action first.
I feel like when I start working on something,
when I put the action,
like when I just start on a project,
like that's it.
That's where like the motivation and the inspiration keeps going.
It's very,
very easy to keep pushing something in a way where you're overthinking it and you're trying to like plan the whole process and you want to get down to the detail.
But honestly,
exactly what I did when I first I just I put that tweet out and then I just took it from there.
I feel like with all of...
It was the same with the first conference.
I was like,
oh,
wouldn't it be cool if we do this?
And then you kind of like you,
I think building in public has really,
really,
really helped me because it helps me kind of like hold myself accountable and then sharing what's working and what's not working.
So yeah,
just like taking the first step,
taking that first action.
How important do you think it is when you're building a community to have somebody as the face of the community,
for example?
You know,
everybody knows it's you who built it.
And you've created this genuine honesty.
Like you say,
the transparency.
I love how you always publish the numbers from your conference.
You know,
if there's something you can take from a brand,
a company,
a brand could take from that.
I mean,
I think there's definitely both like good and bad about it.
Like the good is I would say the majority of partners and sponsors who come on board are doing so because
they get to know me and they get to see my and understand my passion and know what I'm building.
But then probably the worry is me becoming like the single point of failure.
But I do feel like I've worked a lot on that by having such a brilliant team around me,
like we're lean,
but we're mighty.
And making sure that
I do let go.
And yeah,
I'm not like in control of everything and I'm not being a blocker.
And a lot of the work that we do with WTS is amplify our members.
So,
you know,
no members,
no community.
And we know that very,
very well.
So what can we do to so much of,
I mean,
our conferences,
it's like during the day on socials,
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of user generated content.
It's not even us posting.
It's a lot of our members posting,
speaking on our behalf.
And to this day,
the majority of new members who join.
It's because they heard about it.
They heard about it from a colleague.
They heard about it from someone who shared a LinkedIn post.
They heard about it from their manager.
And it's not me going and speaking to them directly.
Yeah,
Arish,
thank you so much again for joining me today.
It was really insightful to see both the sort of international aspect of growing community and how you've done it all single-handedly and obviously now built an amazing team.
And congrats on your book as well.
Thank you.
Yeah,
thank you so much for having me.
And just a massive thanks to WeGlow.
Like you've been partners for a very,
very long time and you've always supported our initiatives.
And I feel like you truly understand and grasp community because you engage in it as members.
So,
yeah,
I just really appreciate all the support.
Well,
thank you.
That's lovely to hear.
So another fabulous conversation,
and I think a few of the key points we can get out of that one is that.
Don't just start a community for no reason.
Find if there's really a need.
Join other communities that have similar themes.
Chat to people,
engage with people,
build the feedback that you're looking for.
Another great point is code of conduct.
I hadn't actually appreciated that,
that,
you know,
these are communities online.
They have the tendency to go a bit wild.
Having a code of conduct in place.
I think that's something that we'd probably all likely forget,
even though for someone as...
experienced as a reach she felt that it was the number one priority it's really important to have that emphasis on what do you stand for when you're building these communities and thirdly i think in the age of ai which we obviously clearly cannot avoid in any of our podcast chats
community building is just going to continue to play center stage as we all search for that personalization that we're really missing and removing from our day-to-day lives.
If you enjoyed this episode,
you can follow Areej on LinkedIn and we'll include all the relevant links and resources in the show notes.
As we mentioned,
Areej has also recently published her book on community building.
So definitely worth checking out if you want to go deeper into everything we've spoken about today.
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Don't forget to subscribe and stay tuned for our next conversation with another marketer or leader scaling across markets.
See you next time.