We Love SEO is an event that has been organized by Oncrawl since 2014. It brings together search professionals for a full day of conferences, roundtables and SEO expertise.
This year’s event is just around the corner and the line-up of speakers includes a wide array of extremely talented SEO professionals. Among the speakers is Helen Pollitt, Head of SEO at Getty Images and our keynote speaker.
Helen has been busy with her new role, so we’re thrilled that she is on board and that she took the time for a quick interview before the conference. Below, she shares with us a sneak peek of what we can expect from her keynote address.
“Events like We Love SEO are critical for driving our industry forward. They allow us to connect with other SEO professionals, learn from their experiences and challenge our own way of approaching SEO.”
What initially drew you to the SEO industry, and how have you seen it evolve over the years?
At first I was working in a more generalist marketing role but it was something about the creativity and technical foundations of SEO that really drew my attention.
I love that with SEO there is such a breadth of skills needed and as individual practitioners we rarely have strong expertise across all of them. Because of that, SEO really is a team sport.
Over the years I’ve been excited to see the SEO industry come out of the shadows more. We’re slowly being recognized as not just a marketing channel but a foundational component of any website that touches on so many other areas; product, engineering, copy, UX to name just some. I’m pleased to see that our impact on the success of businesses is being recognised more.
What role do you think events like We Love SEO play in driving innovation or change in our industry?
Events like We Love SEO are critical for driving our industry forward. They allow us to connect with other SEO professionals, learn from their experiences and challenge our own way of approaching SEO.
Without these conferences, many SEOs would feel isolated. Perhaps they are the only SEO in their business, or they are very new to the industry and don’t have any mentors to learn from.
These events can help grow our networks as well as our knowledge. I think, too, that digital events in particular have a specific place in our industry. They are a good leveler, allowing SEOs who perhaps can’t access in-person events to still participate.
Without giving too much away, can you give us a sneak peek into what you’ll be covering in your keynote at We Love SEO?
I’m looking across 5 core areas of the SEO landscape and how they might change over the next year; the industry as a whole, our careers, strategic approaches, implementation techniques and the search engines themselves.
How do you plan to engage the audience during your keynote? Do you incorporate any interactive or unique elements in your talks?
SEO can be a dry subject, for me, injecting humour into my presentations is a key way of engaging with my audience.
I find that bringing some levity and joy into a talk is a good way of driving my points home and also making them memorable.
What do you hope attendees will take away from your presentation?
Honestly, I really want SEOs to feel confident as a result of my talk. There’s been a lot of uncertainty in our industry lately, whether it be the future of Google, or the recent spate of redundancies that seems to have affected a lot of companies.
I still see an exciting and expansive future for SEO. I want my reasoning behind that to be what attendees take away.
What are you personally looking forward to at We Love SEO—either from other speakers or aspects of the event?
I am really looking forward to hearing from the other speakers. The line-up of knowledgeable specialists is such a draw for me!
Thanks Helen for taking the time to share your thoughts with us before the event. We look forward to your We Love SEO session on December 5!
