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Interviewing Kristina Azarenko

Welcome to a new Weekly Interviews edition where we'll 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 Kristina Azarenko, founder of MarketingSyrup, creator of the SEO Challenge Course and the SEO Shop Up Newsletter. Based in Toronto, Canada - Kristina helps her clients thrive in eCommerce and Technical SEO. 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?

About ten years ago I worked at a job I didn’t really enjoy. It had nothing to do with computers or websites. I was looking for a change and one day I accidentally found an SEO course and signed up for it. At that time, I had no idea what SEO was but got very excited in the process to the point that I had to take a vacation from my job. Three months later I started working as a junior SEO at another company and have only been moving forward ever since.

I love the SEO sphere and community, so no regrets about switching to this. I think my story was the reason why I created my own SEO course for people to get into this amazing field.

What is your favourite SEO task?

I love digging into data, seeing connections and building a story based on them. Helping to resolve technical issues like duplicate content or indexing, migrating a website properly and then seeing positive results is what makes me really happy.

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

I'd say Twitter! It's the best place to quickly find out that rel=prev/next is not supported by Google anymore, learn about crazy SEO experiments and connect with amazing people all around the world.

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

For me it's not a specific thing but the feeling when you understand that there are so many factors and scenarios and you are comfortable at navigating through them. I see many people stressing out about the number of characters in the title tags, or the word count on the page or about fixing each and every issue they find in Google Search Console. I was like that too.

But then with all the experience I was gaining, I started to 'feel' SEO rather than trying to mechanically fit all the parts together.

What is your proudest industry achievement?

For me, it was being mentioned on Search Engine Land as one of the 13 women shaping the SEO industry. I'm one of the people who were delivering results and working behind the scenes for almost a decade, so being noticed is a huge win for me. And that's where I'm so grateful to the WTS community which has helped me realise that being in the spotlight is important!

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

One of the most important things I'd recommend is to start sharing. Start a blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and share small tips.

Don't think 'this is stupid' or 'everyone knows it', that's just not true. You will only benefit from giving to others. Also, never stop learning.

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

There's definitely more than one!

  • Tiffany Da Silva: She is an inspiring leader who was not afraid to start speaking about fighting imposter syndrome. I love Tiff and I'm very happy to have her as a friend!
  • Aleyda Solis: She is an amazing and inspiring role model and a super hard-working hero for me. Aleyda has helped me a lot and I just love talking to her :)
  • Areej AbuAli: Honestly, finding Areej's talk on her indexing framework one day, getting inspired by it and messaging Areej to say thanks was one of the best things I've done. That's how I first met Areej online and then offline at the WTS Festival. I'm so grateful for that!
  • Maret: She is one of the nicest and caring people I know. Very smart and funny too!
  • Lily Ray: She is inspiring and empowering. Love watching her speak and also DJing in her live streams!
Finally, what empowers you to be the brilliant woman you are?

I want to be a role model and help others. It means being more than yourself, having courage when needed and always expanding my comfort zone.

Some practical things that I do are meditation, journaling, talking to other amazing humans, learning how the brain and emotions work to be more emotionally intelligent... it's just a never-ending process!

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Thanks Kristina for a truly insightful interview! You can check out Kristina's website, follow her on Twitter or 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 YOU to share your story with the world! Simply fill this form here, we welcome brilliant SEOs from all walks of life! 🙌🏽