Building women communities with Areej AbuAli / ep185
Bringing together women is something I'm so passionate about. In this great episode with Areej, we talk about her experience of creating Women in Tech SEO and how to build your own women's community.
In this episode 185 we dive in:
What was the inspiration behind Women in Tech SEO?
What has been the biggest struggles (and what wisdom have you learned) with opening a women only community in a male-dominated industry?
What is the best advice to women who want to grow their own communities and become leaders for other women?
Related episodes:
ep 111 - Feminine and Masculine Magic in Business with Elizabeth Purvis
Listen to episode 185 here:
Areej’s Bio + Links:
Based in the UK, Areej is an SEO Consultant with over 8 years experience who focuses on all things technical and on-site. She is the founder of the Women in Tech SEO community and has spoken in industry events such as MozCon, SMX and BrightonSEO.
Personal Website: https://www.areejabuali.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/areej_abuali
Women in Tech SEO: https://www.womenintechseo.com/
More notes from this episode:
SEO is a male-dominated industry, like most technology industries. Women leaders in these industries have so much to offer and how they innovate and are creative is special. That is why it’s especially important to continue having these conversations.
Areej described how she created the community from her own need to find a tribe of women to network with and feel safe around She started Women in Tech SEO in May 2019 since she was struggling to stay motivated after going to conferences and groups that were mostly male-dominated. When you don’t see yourself represented than it’s hard to feel inspired. Sometimes she felt that if she asked a question, she’d be judged. Was what she was asking too basic?
One of the reasons she created Women in Tech SEO was to create a space where everyone can ask whatever they want and not feel judged or worry that they’ll be judged.
Women tend to be put in the “do-er” box, either project manager or some organization job and that is the highest you can go is middle management. And that’s a problem because women don’t end up reaching those higher-level positions. The world would be a better place with women who are in senior positions too because women lead differently, they empower others differently and they re-invest in their communities differently.
The biggest learning so far has been around putting rules and guidelines in place to scale up the fast growing community. Having these systems in place allowed her to grow quickly while identifying where she was needing support.
One of the community rules is that there are no stupid, simple or basics questions. Even if you’ve been doing SEO for many years, things change and there is always something new to learn. It is important to know that everyone’s on their own journey and everyone has their own knowledge gaps and strengths.
The best part of the community is the workshops where they have different experts walking through specific tasks or information in front of the whole community. Areej felt that that was missing from many online spaces; the type of knowledge sharing where it’s more like a workshop that you can actually see someone doing something live.
If you are looking to start your own community it is totally okay if it is for selfish reasons. Maybe you want to be surrounded by like-minded people or create a group with a special vibe that feels safe and comfortable to you. If you need it, there is probably someone else out there who needs it too.
The other part of this is to get really clear about the time and energy commitment that you are willing to dedicate. It can take some time to grown, scale and moderate so making sure this is something you’re comfortable leading. You can also ask for help and partner up with people who are already involved.
Focusing on quality over quantity is also important. You can have a 20 to 50 people community that is more powerful than a 5000 people community. This isn’t necessarily a numbers game. Invest your time into growing the quality of conversations.
Asking for feedback from your members can help you identify areas of growth: what did they find useful? Would there be something else that is more helpful? Getting curious can be very helpful.
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