Erika Varangouli
Head of SEO Branding | 12+ Years
About
Who is Erika Varangouli?
- Head of SEO Branding at Semrush.
- I’ve worked in digital marketing for over 12 years. I’ve focused on organic search – SEO, content marketing, link acquisition – and brand management.
- I have two birthdays. (I’m not kidding.)
Erika Varangouli is the Head of SEO Branding at Semrush. In this role I am responsible for creating educational content around SEO, content marketing, brand marketing and more. My key focuses are:
- To build meaningful relations with the community and to act as a liaison between users and Semrush
- To share SEO best practices and
- To leverage data to shed light into topics that are relevant to the community.
I’ve worked in digital marketing for over 12 years. For the majority of them, I’ve focused on organic search – SEO, content marketing, link acquisition – and brand management.
I worked agency-side for 7 years, building search strategies for SMBs, big brands, and enterprises. Then, as Semrush’s Global Content Strategist (at first) and then Director of Organic Search, I helped build and oversaw our organic program. It helped Semrush grow its organic visibility by over +600% in the first year.
Throughout all these years, I found myself feeling increasingly uneasy with the idea of SEO working in silo. As Head of International Brand and Head of SEO Branding, I’ve been able to bridge the gap between different disciplines and to work on multi-channel campaigns and strategies.
I love helping businesses and brands grow in ways that are meaningful and make an impact.
Advice For Anyone Joining The Industry
Be curious. Question all things. Get your hands dirty, break things, come up with ways to fix them, test all the ideas. Use data instead of opinions. Gradually, find trusted sources of knowledge and inspiration, join communities where members genuinely support and help one another (there are a few!) and reach out to people for help.
Areas Of Interest
- Content Marketing
- Brand Management
- Seo Strategy
Education, Awards, Certifications
- LLB in Law
- MA in Communication and Cultural Studies
Published Work & Inclusions
- Google Ranking Factors 2024
- Is AI Going To E-E-A-T Your Experience For Breakfast? The LinkedIn Example
- Expert Series: Learn Content Marketing with Rickety Roo – The Freelance Coalition For Developing Countries
- Content MVP: How to grow your organic visibility by treating content as a product
- The changing shape of SEO – Finite Podcast
Any Results/Highlights From Your Work You Want To Promote? Any Impact You’re Proud Of?
- Growing Semrush’s organic visibility by +600% within less than 12 months
- Setting up a new discipline and program within the Semrush Organic Search team which allowed us to improve monetization of our content
- Creating 10x ROI from content marketing for ecommerce and fintech companies within 12 months
Favorite Articles/Publications You Share/Follow
- Aleyda Solis’ SEOFOMO newsletter
- Kevin Indig’s Growth Memo newsletter
- Nick LeRoy’s #SEOForLunch newsletter
- Marie Haynes’ The Search Bar Community
- Search Engine Land
- Anything Barry Schwartz writes on Search Engine Land and on Search Engine Roundtable
- What Pandu Nayak Taught Me About SEO – AJ Kohn
- The SEO Weekly with Garrett Sussman
- SERP’s Up – Wix Podcast with Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter
Cool Fact
- I have two birthdays. (I’m not kidding.)
- I love writing film analyses and reviews.
Favorite Food And/Or Restaurant
- I love the Mediterranean cuisine more than anything.
- I enjoy Mexican, Brazilian and Turkish cuisines.
- And I survive pretty much all other cuisines apart from: sushi and bananas. (Sorry! I’ve tried!)
Other Greats!
Articles
The Office Characters As A Digital Marketing Team
The Office Characters As A Digital Marketing Team!
SaaS SEO for Beginners: Running Your 1st SEO Campaign
Running your first SEO campaign for a SaaS business can be challenging yet rewarding. Here’s a guide for beginners to kickstart their first SEO campaign.
Content Optimization For SGE: Ranking Factors and More
In some ways, SGE is a bit like the featured snippet on steroids. Let’s walk through how it works—and what you need to know about SGE content optimization.
How to Write AI Prompts for Quality Outputs
AI is working its way into everything. It’s text. It’s visual. It’s sound. And it’s probably not going anywhere.
Getting the Perfect 100 on PageSpeed Insights
Core Web Vitals are far from overrated. They are actually underrated and relatively simple to optimize, especially if you carefully choose your tech stack.
Combine GSC + Bing Query Data In Google Looker Studio
Combine Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster tools to get all your keyword data in one place!