Interviewing Limor Barenholtz

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Introducing

, SEO Director at SimilarWeb. Limor is based in Israel and has been doing SEO for over 16 years, she has experience with international, multilingual, top brand and publisher sites. She's a hardcore tech SEO and always makes a point learn and understand the entire network communication chain and architecture. 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?

Initially I came from the server-system-cyber field, but then the company I worked for decided they needed internet marketing, so I said hey, I'm willing to learn that. That was when I fell in love with digital marketing, and SEO specifically. To me, it is the purest part of digital marketing. I taught myself everything I could find information about and tried everything I learned.

I then went to be a freelance junior to an experienced SEO, spent some time at William Hill as a link builder and realised I don't like doing only off-page or on-page. From there, I kept improving my knowledge of all aspects of SEO, both in-house and agency-side.

What is your favourite SEO task?

Auditing a site that's been hit for some reason and analysing rank changes.

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

EAT. I must confess I didn't put much weight into it at first, however the pure logic of it and seeing how it works like magic at times made a believer out of me.

For example, I've helped medical industry sites recover after Google updates (we're talking about 80% traffic losses). There I saw that after all the technical optimisation, the meta tags, the mobile usability issues made a small change, it's taking care of E-A-T that made the difference.

What is your proudest industry achievement?

I've accomplished a lot in these 16 years, in many industries and for many big sites. However, I must say that helping a medical site understand why it's been hit by Google update and helping them restore and optimise their site back - to the point the organic traffic passed the numbers from before the update.

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

Learn everything you can, but more importantly - play with everything you can. Do as much as you can yourself. Try out every new thing on websites you use for practice. Buy domains, install WP, mess around with hosting services and so on - dig in there!

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

I adore Kristina Azarenko, she's sharp, always on it. I love to read her stuff. Secondly, Orit Sidi Mutznik. I've known her for years, and she's grown so much and has done so much, she is the symbol of a woman going after what she wants. She keeps on learning all the time, and recently she's also been teaching more and I'm proud to have known her personally.

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

I'm an athlete in practice and spirit, I played handball for most of my life and went overseas thanks to my talent.

I know there's nothing I can't reach if I put my mind to it, and I know the game isn't over until the buzzer rings.

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Thanks Limor for a truly insightful interview, you can connect with her on on Twitter and 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! 🙌🏽