Interviewing Lauren Irwin

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

Introducing Lauren Irwin! Lauren is an SEO Lead at Abstrakt, specialising in Strategy, SXO and IA, and servicing brands and clients internationally. She's interested in digital sustainability and how we can make SEO greener.

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

How did you get into SEO?

I have a Film and Media Production degree, and SEO was an obvious career path. Not! Out of university, fresh-faced and completely clueless, I took a position at a very quirky corporate and envied the marketing department from afar. What they did looked fun; what I did was a lot of phone calls and chasing suppliers.

Somehow, I interviewed internally for a managerial position in marketing with absolutely zero marketing experience and got the role, which had a steep learning curve and little support.

After a lot of self-learning, I went from in-house to agency, where I was again thrown in at the deep end, not knowing much about website design and development. There, I found support and some great, lifelong friends, and eventually, we all left and ended up at the same agency again.

It’s at that agency that, in 2019, the business owner mentioned they’d like me to think about SEO—six years later, it’s a core service that we’ve integrated into our website offering and supercharged with SXO (Search Experience Optimisation).

What is your favourite SEO task?

I enjoy the planning stages and working with our UX designers to create hardworking sitemaps and structures. We go through the same thought process with slightly different heads, and bringing those findings and insights together is super collaborative. There’s the occasional battle, but we always work it out in the end—the outcome is always the same: the best experience for the user. I also really nerd out with keyword mapping to inform user and search intent.

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

I can’t live without Google Search Console; my coworkers would say Google Sheets. I have a spreadsheet for everything. However, SEranking is severely underrated for monitoring, keyword research, competitor analysis, etc. The UI is so easy to work with, and the tool itself is simple, which, in my opinion, isn’t the case with some big competitors. If you’re just starting out or just ‘not getting it’ with some of the others, take SEranking for a spin.

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

Understanding search/user intent is essential to creating robust and hardworking SEO strategies that perform well. When I understood that, how I approached SEO completely changed. Most think an SEOs audience is search engines, but that’s our secondary audience. Our primary audience is the user, too. Our strategies should be user-centric first and foremost, and getting into the head of your audience and understanding why they type and search the queries they do is fundamental to creating an SEO strategy that works.

What is your proudest industry achievement?

As an agency, we were a finalist in the UK Search Awards 2022 for a project with a very small budget but big ambitions, and what was achieved was incredible in such a short time. I was so proud to be judged by peers in the SEO industry and nominated for the work done.

Though honestly, I get a lot of pride from hearing feedback from our clients— especially those who feel supported. I put a lot of effort into educating clients on SEO so they have a much better understanding of why it’s so important and why we do what we do.

What advice would you give those starting out in SEO?

You don’t need to know everything. You don’t need to have mastered anything, either. Be passionate about learning, gaining knowledge through experience and talking to other SEOs in the industry. I didn’t take any courses, wasn't trained in SEO, and didn’t have anyone senior in SEO to talk to or learn from. Be tenacious and learn as you go. There’s no shame in that; it doesn’t make you any less of a professional. A willingness to learn is everything.

Give a shout-out to someone in the industry who inspires you, and tell us why

I saw Crystal Carter at a speaker event a year or so ago and thought she was brilliant. She brought so much energy to the stage and was incredibly engaging with lots of practical tips.

I’ve only been apart of the community for a short time, but I want to thank Areej AbuAli for creating such a welcoming community, too.

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

I just want to keep being better and gaining more knowledge but as importantly, sharing that as openly and clearly as I can with others. A lot of people call SEO a dark art— it doesn't need to be!

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Thanks Lauren for a truly insightful interview! You can connect with Lauren on her website and LinkedIn.

Check out our Interviews page for more interviews. If you've enjoyed reading this, 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! 🙌🏽