The changemakers of SEO
I was sitting in a meeting room with the technology and digital category judges for the 2022 Women of the Future awards – shortlisted for my leadership and neurodiversity advocacy – when judge Peter Brown MBE asked me what winning would mean for both me and the SEO industry.
Slightly taken aback by the gravity of the question, I realised Peter had a point; I hadn’t seen SEO widely represented outside of our own industry awards.
We discussed how the perception of SEO to the rest of the UK population could be formed by what they’ve seen on reality TV, such as Mark Wright founding Climb Online on BBC’s The Apprentice.
Indeed, my own perception of SEO has been formed in the many years I have worked in the industry. I have seen it from many angles, some uglier than others. But at the heart of it, I do believe that there is a beauty waiting to be uncovered.
In the end, I told Peter that winning would shine a light on the often mysterious ways of the tech/marketing hybrid discipline in which we work. It would open the door for more stories to be told, and for individual, community and company contributions to be validated.
I realised that being shortlisted for an award like this could even change the narrative I’ve created in my own mind, if not those of others too.
Once you’ve read one too many SEO Twitter dramas, or set up your 97th inbox rule to send the constant stream of link requests to spam, it takes a while to shed the negativity and instead see the light.
The reason I am writing this post is to showcase some of the more wonderful assets of the industry in the UK, which I’ll dub the ‘changemakers of SEO’. This is a non-exhaustive list, so please do reply to this post and comment with the people that make the biggest difference for you.
Let this be something you return back to when you are seeking the positive, and the ways we can make our industry sustainable and supportive in the long-term.
Areej AbuAli
Founder of Women in Tech SEO &
