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Introducing Areej AbuAli
In this month’s SEO Freelancer podcast, Nick LeRoy talks with Areej AbuAli. Areej recently went out on her own starting her freelancing business Crawlina in January of 2023. Areej shares her adventure both agency and in-house side and how becoming a new parent played a role in her decision to go freelance full-time.
How to connect with Areej online
Women in Tech SEO: womenintechseo.com/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/areejabuali/
Twitter: twitter.com/areej_abuali
This Months Sponsor: BrightLocal.com
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If you are a freelancer interested in joining me on a future episode of The SEO Freelancer podcast Please email me directly at nick@nickleroy.com
Podcast Transcription
Nick LeRoy
welcome to the SEO Freelancer podcast. I'm your host, Nick Leroy. And today I'm very excited to have our guests Areej AbuAli, who very recently went out on her own and today we're going to be talking about her freelance journey, her career to date, and also what made her take the leap. Real quick before we get into this month's interview with Areej, let's go over this month's sponsor bright local. Bright local is the all in one local SEO platform designed to drive traffic and leads from local search. Its focus on local SEO gives you what other platforms can local rank tracking local citation monitoring Google Business Profile adding local competitor insights and review monitoring. It's all here. Bright local offers review generation campaigns a low cost local citation building service and even helps you convert your site visitors into piping hot leads. Perfect for any freelancers looking to scale up. You know what the best part. It's super affordable with agency plans starting at just $49 per month and a white label option to keep your reports professional and on brand. Our listeners can take advantage of an exclusive offer. Sign up at Bright local.com/seo freelancer and receive $75 and citation builder credits immediately. Don't miss out on this opportunity to level up your local SEO, head to bright local.com/seo. Freelancer today. Thanks again to our sponsor bright local, and let's jump into this month's interview. So Rich, thank you so much for joining us today.
Areej AbuAli
Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Nick.
Nick LeRoy
I guess I'm super excited. You have known a Areej for several years. She's probably one of those Pinnacle y'all. And I'm using air quotes here, your online friends. You know, we've been able to work in a couple instances professionally, but it's always fun to see her in the industry. And as many of you may know, you know, she's spoken at conferences publishes quite a bit, you know, organizes women and tech SEO, which we'll get into all of that so much. But again, Areej thank you for your time today. This is gonna be a great opportunity.
Areej AbuAli
Yeah, awesome. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Nick LeRoy
Absolutely. So, uh, Areej. Let's jump in. You know, I'm kind of talking already, like, Absolutely. Everybody here knows who you are. And they probably already do. But do you mind giving us a quick recap? Yeah, who is Areej? What are you up to? How's life going?
Areej AbuAli
Yeah, I think it's going quite well. I mean, this is my first official month of freelancing, which is very, very exciting. I've been doing SEO for the past decade. I initially started out agency side, I did that for a little over five years. And then I moved in house where I worked on aggregator sites, property market, and then I moved over to ecommerce. And then yeah, last year, I was on maternity leave. And I was like, You know what, that's it, I really want to do my own thing. And other than, you know, my day to day SEO, my big, big passion project is women in tech, SEO. I created that a little over three years ago. And we do all sorts of initiatives. So that's something that I enjoy working on tons.
Nick LeRoy
I love it. And we're gonna definitely go into all of that separately. So all of it is just very exciting. But if you don't mind, can you give us just a little bit of history? I know you said already some of the in house, you know, agency side, but walk us through your first like, SEO job, like how did you get into SEO? And if you feel comfortable with it, like are you willing to share a lot of us laugh at what we were making for our first job? And compared to what we're able to, you know, find success with today?
Areej AbuAli
Yeah, I'd be happy to I mean, I, I moved to the UK Exactly. 10 years ago, actually, this month is my 10 year anniversary. I know it's really exciting. And I did a master's degree in business it my background was computer engineering. And then somehow I kind of, you know, stumbled across this world of SEO through like, internships that I was doing while I was doing my master's degree. And the very first role I got was purely because I'm fluent in Arabic. And so it wasn't a SEO agency that were that had just won an Arabic client. And so they needed someone who was fluent in Arabic to work with that client. So it was actually a content marketing executive role. But then, after the first month, they switched me over to the technical SEO team right away. And my first salary was 20,500 pounds a year. Yeah, I think that was back in 2014.
Nick LeRoy
Yeah. And people have now heard many, many times. But you know, when you take at least at the time that comparison you and I'd be making very similar Yeah, I was, I think it was $34,000 USD. Yeah. So we would have been very close by it was back in 2009. But again, this is one of my most favorite part is, you know, when we've all put the time into this industry, it's fun to look back and laugh at it. Back then I'll speak for myself only, you're just excited that you have a job and an opportunity. Yeah, so let's talk about your choice of going out on your own. I know you had already kind of told the CEO, you were pregnant with your child, you were kind of looking for other opportunities. But I'd love to better understand considering you've been in the industry, and you've kind of checked everything out the box, the in house, the agency, you've spoken at events, you've been published all the above. So why freelance like what made you say, this? Is it? I'm gonna do it?
Areej AbuAli
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, like, I've been overthinking it for a while, maybe a little bit in the last two or three years. The last full time role I had was pretty much perfect. Like I love the company I worked with, it was an in house ecommerce role, I was setting the tech team, I loved the team, we were getting a lot of stuff done. And I think it's what you said, like I felt like I checked most of the boxes there where I knew I would probably not be able to go out and find the role that was going to be as good as that one. But then like something still felt missing. I think a big part of it is because of all the work I do for women in tech SEO, being part of a full time nine to five job made it very, very difficult for me to work on some of these other projects, except during my evenings and weekends. And I really, really needed the flexibility of just owning my own schedule and being able to go like, No, you know what, today's Monday, but that's fine. I'm going to spend all of it on WTS, for example, and then tomorrow, I can pick up client work. So I feel like that was probably the piece of the puzzle that was missing. And then yeah, the other point was, I also really wanted flexibility, like around you know, now having a family and so forth and not being kind of, you know, I think a lot of things came out of the pandemic in terms of commuting, and, you know, the the luxury of working from home and so forth. And I just felt like it did, it didn't matter how good of a full time role you had, you probably were never going to be able to have as much flexibility.
Nick LeRoy
Absolutely. I mean, I'm nodding my head at everything that she said, you know, a lot of people are familiar with my, my story. And unfortunately, I was let go of my gig during the pandemic, and the alternatives, you know, we're going back to work for other people, and I didn't like it. But as you said, just the flexibility and ownership of your schedule is so amazing. And before we even jumped on this podcast, you know, we were talking, you know, a resume is fairly new to this full time freelancing role. And you always tend to overextend yourself, as you're kind of figuring it out, you want to over deliver, which is normal. But the good news as I reassured her it was, it gets better. Like as you kind of figure everything out, not everything is brand new kind of back to those days that we were talking about joining the agencies, your as your entry level positions, it gets better, and not to drag on here. But I remember what you're saying not to compare my newsletter to women in tech, SEO, because you do so much more. But I remember doing the nine to five, coming home, putting my kids to bed, and then having to write it, it felt like it was such a pain in the butt because it'd be like two hours. On top of it all. Yeah, and to be able, I do the same thing you had case that like Mondays are really kind of personal project days. So I wake up, I write the SEO for lunch newsletter, I am a little bit more engaged on LinkedIn and Twitter. And then I jump into projects and you know, all the way up until Friday, you know, I try to be a lot more available to clients and stuff like that. So, again, that was a lot of talking. But it just to say I agree and I completely understand. With that said, so I know you just gave us the full list. Was there any one particular moment knowing that you were considering freelance where you were just like, Okay, this is it like this is what pushed me over? Or is it just like walk us through just kind of that that actual moment where you made the decision and even put in your notice at work?
Areej AbuAli
I think probably being on maternity leave gave me some time away from work, which helped because then I could kind of sit back and reflect on you know what I wanted to do next? Whereas normally if I was doing my normal nine to five every day in and out, I wouldn't have had much time to kind of stop and think about it and think oh, you know, everything's kind of going well, why would I change it? I am Like, I'm very much into the whole, what do they call it a creature of habit? That's me. And, and I do, like stability is so important for me. So I'm very, very risk averse. So for me, it was like, you know, I had to kind of sit down, I remember I had a random evening where I spent several hours just like throwing out like a forecast, where I was like, Okay, if I get this amount of work, if I do this, if I do that, what's it going to look like in the year. And then once I had, it was almost like a life plan, which was literally just a very messy Google Sheet. But once I put that out, I was like, You know what, that's not so scary. After all, I think I can make this work. And I kind of gave myself this almost like a deadline, where I was like, give yourself the chance in 2023, just do it from January to December, and then see what happens. And you know, like, if it doesn't work out, doesn't work out. Like there are still tons of jobs out there. And hopefully, I'll be able to kind of see, see what's there. But even while I was saying that I knew in the back of my head that this, this is really what I want to do. And but probably I felt better putting down a plan and kind of documenting that for me to decide, Okay, that's it, let me You know, I really need to take the jump now.
Nick LeRoy
I think that's fantastic. And I had a very similar situation, as I mentioned before, you know, I was kind of out of my, my job. But as I was talking to other people and getting some offers that weren't so great, you know, I kept talking to my wife, and she had known that I've been interested in going out on my own for years. And for me, in the US, health insurance always scared me the most, because my family has some health issues that we can't afford to have anything but very good insurance. But we did a similar thing that you did, like I sat down and kind of forecasted. Okay, here's what I was making. If I could even make half of that by, you know, six months in, like, how would that impact us? And it got to the point where my wife and I went, you know what, for six months, let's go ahead and do it. Let's set a goal. If you can make it, give yourself another six months, if you can't, then you know what, boohoo you know, you have to go try to find a six figure in house job or agency job, right? Like the opportunity was, it was there. So I completely understand that. And, you know, up until going out on my own, I would say I was not very risk averse, either. So kudos to you is what I'm trying to say. And that's fantastic. And I think that really transitions us into the next question that I'd love to get into is, you know, you had mentioned that you were pregnant, and I'm on maternity leave and making this decision. And as a father, you know, I understand that freelancing, and parenting is not easy. You know, each one has their own challenges. So I'd love to just understand, like, talk to me a little bit about freelancing and parenting, you know, what challenges have you faced from the freelance side of it, as well as like learning the ins and outs of raising a family on top of, you know, this new venture that you have?
Areej AbuAli
Yeah, I mean, something I always like to talk about is, like, productive procrastination is kind of how I get anything done. Where I would, for example, have like, massive to do lists, but then I know, I have a list of 10 things to do. But there's one very important thing on there, but I ended up wasting time on the other nine, but it means that I get a lot of things done, but I don't really get the most important thing done. Now, I think what was happening like over the last few months, you have very, very limited time. And I would tweet about this a lot. Where for example, like my baby literally has two naps a day. Each nap is maximum one hour. So then it's like, okay, Areej you have two hours to get everything on your list done. And that was it. Like it's now or never. And it's kind of the same that's happening right now where she just started nursery, but she goes to nursery only three days a week. And then it's like, these three days are my three days to get absolutely everything done. And so I in a really weird way, I do think it has helped my productivity because then it's like, you know, I have no idea if I'm ever going to be able to get anything done on the other four days. But then at the same time, it's draining great. Like it's really, really exhausting. And I definitely have had to do the whole. I'm if I don't work on it today, like tonight at midnight, I'm probably not going to get the chance to work on it. So I need to pull an all nighter kind of thing, which made me feel like I was back in my school days again. So yeah, there's a little bit of everything but I, I do I mean, I work really well when I have, you know, tight timelines and I have like specific that kind of helps me become productive. So I think that's that's helped a little bit there. But uh, you know, it comes with its challenges like I wrote a LinkedIn post earlier this month where we were very sick at home. We keep getting all kinds of germs, from nursery of course and so you know, week I had like all this stuff planned out for my week. And then nothing, we didn't really get much done in any of us at home. Because, you know, we were really, really sick. And so that stuff happens. And I think I just need to become more accepting of that and have more like Plan B and Plan C in motion.
Nick LeRoy
Absolutely. One thing that I have found that being freelances, a lot of my clients in those type of situations, whether it just be parenting, you know, getting my kids on the bus or, you know, they're sick, they seem to be pretty flexible. Like if you're communicating and like, you know, your, your your again, just being flexible and informing people, they don't seem to care, which I think is, you know, one of the benefits of the pandemic. It's kind of humanized, a lot of us, especially with work. But I think there's a lot of us freelancers, that worry if you're not grinding, you're not meeting that exact deadline. You know, and it makes us nervous. But I think the reality is, is if you're communicating appropriately, a lot of people are actually willing to help and give you the flexibility to take care of family, which is definitely been your experience, too.
Areej AbuAli
Yeah, I've already had just this month, two different meetings that I wasn't able to attend last minute, because, you know, my baby was either sick, or had to pick her up early from nursery or we had to go to an appointment. So yeah, just in the last two, three weeks, I there are two meetings that I had to cancel last minute, which is so unlike me, like I would not normally do that at all. But as you said, I think people are super understanding. And I do think a big part of it was the pandemic where you know, that kind of a lot of people's careers and work and home and everything kind of merged into one. And so it became I think it's exactly what you're saying, like people just need to be honest and communicate upfront and just be yourself. And people are always going to be understanding about this. But again, there isn't this pressure of, oh, no, you know, my boss, or, or this nine to five, or I had to go in the office today or so forth. Like at least there's this flexibility of, it's fine. If I didn't get it done today at noon, like I can get it done in the evening if I need to.
Nick LeRoy
Absolutely. And the reality is, if you're doing good work, the timeline is less important than the quality of the results that you're getting. Now, again, the caveat, and I'm sure you would agree to this is you have to communicate like missing a deadline. It's not okay. It's about being able to say, here's what happened, you know, this is what I'm planning on doing it, please let me know if this is going to cause significant issues. And at that point, you know, I don't think I've ever had somebody tell me, you know, this is not okay. And if that were the case, as you know, it's like, okay, you pull the all nighter, or you figure it out, because it's not waiting until the deadlines missed before you're communicating. Yep. Batteries. One thing I just want to commend you and I did this offline is one of my personal biggest regrets from my career is I worked so many hours when my children were very little, and I missed so much time. And for me, I always had, you know, justified it because I was making the income and my wife was a stay at home mom at the time. But again, looking back at now, I really miss that I missed all that. So part of the biggest benefits for me, freelancing is I'm so much more available. And I see my kids all the time. And the fact that you have, you know, you're tackling two challenges of the time. It's like you're a mother, and you're parenting, and that's hard. But you're also building this freelance business that not only is really difficult in itself, but it allows you the flexibility to be available for your kids. So no particular question there. But just want to commend you for that. I think that that's amazing. And, and that a lot of people, you know, have that opportunity. So thanks for you inspiring a lot of us. And I know there's people that are listening to this and saying, I don't know how she's doing this, but I think that your family is going to be exceptionally thankful to you for that as well.
Areej AbuAli
Oh, thank you. Well, thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it.
Nick LeRoy
Absolutely. So let's jump into we talked a little bit about women in tech, SEO. You know, it's something that, you know, is near and dear to my heart. I think there's a lot of opportunity in this industry for you know, women to succeed and and they don't get the right opportunities. I mean, as a middle aged white man, I realized the privilege that I have in this industry and I try to be an advocate where and when I can and and part of it is pushing the women in tech SEO whether it's an open SEO for lunch sponsorship slot or a you know, tweet, but can you share with us, you know, how you start it, you know, the purpose behind it, you know, I just think it's, it's very special. So I'd love to hear more from you about that. Yeah, definitely.
Areej AbuAli
I mean, a little bit over three years now. I think it's going to be our four year anniversary. dismay, which is so exciting. And you know, like very selfish reasons to have why I started it. To be honest, it was kind of a time where I wasn't feeling super inspired to being an SEO anymore. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And it was very difficult to network and meet other people and kind of just never really felt represented, like in the different conferences you went to. And so yeah, I just figured, okay, why don't we start a group of you know, women who are interested in tech SEO, doesn't matter if they're beginners or advanced. They've been doing it for a while. And we can see where it goes from there. And, yeah, it just, it grew so quickly, way, way, way quicker than I thought it would. And we have so many initiatives that are running all the time now, including, you know, our workshops and podcasts and newsletter and mentorship program and our annual festival. And it's just, it's just been great fun. And there's a little bit over 5000 of us now, which is wow. But yeah, it's you know, it's just, it's made me feel very inspired and motivated to continue being an SEO just being surrounded by all these brilliant women. And it's just, it's a safe space for us to ask as many questions as we want without feeling judged. And everyone there is like super kind and helpful to one another. And we just support each other by like amplifying all the awesome work that we do. And yeah, I really appreciate like all the support you give us, I always send you a random email here and there and be like, Oh, could you please feature, this project or this initiative? So thank you for doing that and amplifying us to your audience as well.
Nick LeRoy
Yeah, of course, like I said, being aware of, you know, the benefits, and the privileges that I have, you know, I think the best thing that I can do, at least from my perspective is one being aware of it, but also being an advocate. You know, when I, you know, previously when I was leading teams, you know, any women that were joining the team, your group was one of the first things that I had recommended, it's like, this is an industry that is very amazing, but there are corners of the industry that can be very toxic. And as you had said, you know, obviously I am not in the group itself. But everybody that I have talked to has only said amazing things and what you have shared, and even how you are very aggressive to keeping the peace in your group. I've heard stories from you and other people that I've talked to about, you will make sure that if someone's causing trouble that they are either represented or removed from the group to allow for that safe area. And I just think that's amazing. And I don't think that has ever been replicated to the larger SEO space. So it's amazing to hear that, that it exists. And I'll just continue to always be an advocate for the group.
Areej AbuAli
So yeah, no, it's really it's really fun. And we're, we're actually planning our first US Festival this year, which is exciting. And we're gonna hopefully launch we're more things soon about that. But yeah, I'm really, really excited about that.
Nick LeRoy
Can you share a little bit so one of the tweets that I love that you had read about? You're saying, I think this is one of your events in the UK, you had said you're really terrified because you had to put a deposit down for like the smallest room in the EU. And you didn't know if 10 people would show up. And now you just booked like the largest room in the venue? Can you just share a little bit about that? Like, I just thought, yeah,
Areej AbuAli
our first festival in London was in 2020, a week before lockdown. And of course, I'd started planning it like nine months in advance, and then a few weeks before it was going to run. I was like, oh, no, I really hope it doesn't get canceled. And thankfully it did not. But yeah, back then I think the smallest room they had, I had to agree a minimum of 100 people and I was like that is a lot of people, I have no idea whether I'm going to manage to get 100 people or not. And, and just like that, I think within um, within maybe, I don't know, three, four weeks, we sold the 100 tickets. And I was like, Oh no, now we have a huge waitlist and I had to go to a bigger room. But I wasn't ready to commit to more than 150 I think in that first one because I was just really scared. And this time around, we were going for a room that I think can hold up to 1000 Potentially. And what I'm not going more than like I was like I'm not going to do more than 500. Like that's my absolute max I logistically I just want to be able to breathe and not stress out. But yeah, we have. I'm not I'm not afraid of like minimum numbers anymore, which is, which is quite nice. And we have a lot of members from the US, which is why this again has been like on my to do list for ages. But I'd love to start introducing it over there as well.
Nick LeRoy
So that's fantastic. And as I said there's quite a bit of women in my network and I'm always telling them to join and I've had people tell me oh my gosh, did you know that a region's come into the US together? Do it. I was like, that's amazing. Like, we need to figure out some way where you can slack the notes because like, it seems like
Areej AbuAli
I'm just as terrified about the US one because it's my first. So I'm gonna I'll do my same tactic where I'll start small, the first time around until I kind of get familiar with it, and then I'll take it from there. But yeah, I love doing these festivals, I get to meet so many of the brilliant community members like in person, and it's just so nice. And it's like a nice celebration of our community.
Nick LeRoy
And that's fantastic. Again, I love everything that you do with the community, and I've only heard amazing things. So thank you for putting it on. And you know, being an inspiration to the community. You know, I know a lot of us really appreciate that. So thank you. So kind of wrapping up here a little bit going back to the freelance life. Can you walk us through any recommendations you have for aspiring freelancers, whether it be like a book, a course a newsletter, individual people that follow you, I'll make sure to link or, you know, tag people that you find valuable.
Areej AbuAli
I think one thing to say is like when I and that's maybe takes us back a little like when I did the whole life plan and all of that, one of the first things I did was actually like out to, you know, people who really inspire me in industry. And ask them if you know if they'd be willing to just jump on like a quick call and kind of give just kind of to hear from them firsthand and to get some advice from them. So you know, some of these people included like a leader, Hannah Smith, I chatted a lot to paddy Mugen. So yeah, quite a few people, Tori, Tori Gray from the great company. And these calls were really, really, really helpful. Because, you know, I got to kind of voice some of my concerns and hear from them some of the challenges that they had when they first started, but then also, like, feel inspired about, you know, how it can feel a bit scary initially, but then how it is down the line. I've read every single one of your SEO freelancer, emails and additions. Like I just, it's really nice to kind of hear from a lot of different, you know, folks from around the world, like how it was for them. So yeah, I think that that's, you know, part of the community is really helpful, where you can just kind of everyone is very, very helpful. And so I definitely recommend that like, reach out to people in your circles and your networks and just ask for a quick call. And they you'll be surprised by how valuable some of the advices. So yeah, that's, that's probably one of the things that I found most helpful.
Nick LeRoy
And that's amazing. I had very similar experience to grant I kind of jumped into the deep end, and then talk to people. But again, when we talked about this industry, you know, there might be some rough patches or corners on it. But when you get the right people, it's amazing. I know you and I have talked offline about several things. And you know, I bounce ideas off of you bounce ideas off from other people. And so if people are willing to share, so I love that you just recommend you're reaching out building that network. It's, it's invaluable. Definitely. But I really appreciate your time and sharing your story with us. Can you share with the audience how people can get a hold of you and connect with you online?
Areej AbuAli
Yeah, definitely. So my newly launched branded website coralina.com. And you can also find me on Twitter, Areej, underscore abuali, and I'm on LinkedIn, as well as regionally. So yeah, please do reach out. I'd love to hear from you. And if you're someone who is currently, you know, thinking of doing your own thing, or going freelance full time, like feel free to reach out with questions like, I'd be more than happy to give back just like others have helped me and supported me. So I'd love to do that as well.
Nick LeRoy
Thank you so much. And we'll make sure that put all those links in the transcript below, and Areej, again, can't thank you enough for joining us and we will see everybody on the next episode of the SEO freelancer. bye Thanks
Areej AbuAli: My First Month As A Full-time Freelance SEO!