Interviewing Erika Austin

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edition where we interview brilliant women in our industry and share their stories with the world! Anyone is welcome to share their story by simply filling this form, we encourage women from all walks of life in our industry to do so.

Introducing

!Based in Vermont, Erika Austin had spent eleven years in e-commerce and digital marketing for one of Vermont's fastest-growing tech companies. Erika used her experience to start her own digital marketing consulting where she interprets data and information into actionable insights for business growth and specializes in search optimization and search advertising. Erika recently announced that she is joining Local Maverick to build a platform for shopping local and empowering local small businesses through Maverick Marketing.

We asked her everything from how she first got into SEO to what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is 💪🏽

How did you get into SEO?

I was hired as a Search Advertiser and saw overlap and an opportunity to learn and grow within SEO by aligning keyword strategies between paid and organic.

What is your favourite SEO task?

Teaching! From transitioning to being an in-house marketer to a consultant, my favorite SEO task is not only discovering opportunities for improvement but being able to educate and share those learnings to empower other marketing professionals to grow.

What is your go-to tool or resource that you can't live without?

ScreamingFrog is my #1. My favorite feature is being able to pull in data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics to get a full picture of how many URLs the website has vs. how many are actually being found in search results.

What is something you learned in SEO that made you have an 'AHA' moment?

Write and optimize for users instead of search engines. While this is a basic concept now, it's one that I've had to relearn and retrain others that it's not about the search engine it's about the intent.

What is your proudest industry achievement?

Starting my own consulting practice and solo gig! After over a decade of working in-house, I like the freedom of being able to help more businesses with the knowledge I've learned and practiced.

It's also been great to work with partners that align with my skills that I am not as experienced or skilled in such as social media, photography and content generation to be able to offer my clients more.

What advice would you give women who are starting out in SEO?

Networking! Building up your network of professionals that you can work with or work for is crucial to getting started and getting a referral base. For those still working in-house this is valuable too to be able to bring on talent that can expedite your process.

I would also say that in the world of SEO since it's not as tangible as a creative field, to provide reports to show your progress.

Give a shout out to a woman in the industry who inspires you and tell us why

Dana DiTomaso was a consultant that I had hired when I was still working in-house to help with all things Search, introduced me to the Moz team to have my first article published and introduced me to this group!

Areej AbuAli for creating this group and making it a safe place to ask questions and seek help from others!

Finally, what empowers you to be the brilliant woman you are?

Support! I can't express enough how finding the Women in Tech SEO group has inspired and supported me in providing answers to my clients that exceeded my own. Also to all the people who have referred business to me that I haven't had to focus on my own optimization efforts since I've been busy building out my portfolio!

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Thanks Erika for a truly insightful interview, you can check out Erika's website and connect with her on LinkedIn.

To view more interviews with brilliant women, check out our Interviews page. If you've enjoyed reading this interview, then we'd love for

to share your story with the world! Simply fill this form here, we welcome brilliant SEOs from all walks of life! 🙌🏽