SEO + Digital Marketing Experience
A Deeper Dive Into My Experience as an SEO Consultant & Strategist
As a battle-proven SEO leader, I leave things better than I found them. My professional SEO experience began with a start-up agency and now runs with a global leader in digital marketing and SEO. My track record is driving SEO results and building high-performing teams.
Below, you can find a detailed profile on my “hard” and technical skills. Here’s a quick snapshot into my soft skills. As an SEO leader, I:
- Bring empathy, organization and stability to new or chaotic situations
- Find ways to work and move forward where others have experienced difficulties
- Work comfortably between strategic, technical, and creative settings
- Grow and retain team members with a compassionate and service-oriented approach to leadership
- Bring attentiveness and responsiveness to service in client relationships
Contents
Jump links to sections are returning to this list soon. 🙂
- My Fortes in Marketing Disciplines
- Industry / Vertical Experience
- Sample Brand Service & Support
- Writing, Speaking & Media
- Certifications
- Platform & Technology Competencies
- SEO & Digital Marketing Skill / Qualifications
- Resume / Work Experience
- Volunteering & Service
- Education
Would you like an official resume? Request one today.
My Fortes in Marketing Disciplines
SEO Strategy
I’ve worked almost 10 years as an SEO consultant, strategist and leader. During that time, I’ve driven business growth via organic search (SEO) for dozens of brands and websites. (Here’s an e-Commerce SEO case study, more case studies coming soon.)
My success as an SEO consultant is driven by the sum of the below marketing disciplines. Not only can I drop into most SEO engagements and provide immediate value, I can also do so in many digital marketing scenarios.
Digital marketing & website strategy
90% of new business ventures fail within five years, but beginner’s luck is no guarantee of success. The average lifespan of an S&P 500 company is now only 15 years (down from 67.) However, savvy strategy and marketing often separates the winners and losers.
Yet even among winners, the average CMO tenure isn’t much higher than 40 months. Digital strategy driven and evolved by data is the only road to sustainable digital marketing success. Draw on my experience of helping brands big and small successfully navigate the opportunistic, yet treacherous waters of the digital economy.
Technical marketing
The minutiae matter in digital, a lot. I’ve spotted two wrong characters or a few wayward lines of code tank e-Commerce revenue for global brands for weeks. I bring unique expereince solving a range of technical, front end, server and scripting issues that hamper performance. Transform your complex technical problems back into profitable marketing assets. Test to see if you’ve been reading: where’s the error in this paragraph?
It’s not just troubleshooting! Including technically competent voices in your decision-making processes for platforms and tech can be the difference between successful campaigns and steep losses in money and time for your company.
Content marketing & creative development
Content marketing is so much fun! It’s an area where I can really serve as an equalizer for agile challenger brands, or companies who have amassed digital marketing debt vs. their landscape.
In my consulting work, I consistently use content marketing to help companies across a range of verticals see business-changing increases for organic rankings, traffic, and conversions.
Marketing analytics
The ad industry’s oldest joke says a businessman can’t tell which half of money he’s wasting on advertising. Digital marketing has made significant strides to solving that problem. However, data and analytics are still messy on a good day. Get help with technical implementation, digital measurement, and data visualization. In the right hands, your digital analytics hold the hidden keys to improving your business.
Agency development, mentoring & public speaking
I’ve been blessed with an incredible career at such an early time. Hands-down, the most-rewarding part of my career is making a legacy of creating sharp strategists and compassionate leaders. An extension of this mentorship is giving back through public speaking engagements and sharing my knowledge with like-minded SEO consultants and digital marketing strategists. See a list of my public speaking appearances below.
Experience by Industry / Vertical
In almost 10 years as an SEO consultant, I’ve been fortunate to gain exposure to a ton of industries. This range of experience helps me bring a well-rounded perspective to every SEO and digital marketing engagement.
Apparel
Energy / Oilfield Services
Medical / Pharmaceutical
Travel
Beauty
Luxury Goods
Real Estate
B2B
Legal
Retail / E-Commerce
Sample Brand Service & Support
As a result of working across multiple industries, I’ve also been blessed to partner with or contribute to a bunch of diverse clients. Here is a sample of my brand experience as an SEO consultant and digital marketing strategist.
Alcon
American Airlines
Billiard Factory
Carter’s
CEMEX USA
Christian Brothers Automotive
ConocoPhillips
Dinerstein Companies
Estee Lauder
Frankel Building Group
Goode Company
The Hanover Company
Houston Fertility Institute
Intel
John Deere
The Kellogg Company
Laura & John Arnold Foundation
Lids (Genesco)
Matcor
Merck
Michael Kors
Mid-America Apartments
MW Cleaners
Prometheus Real Estate Group
Sport Clips
Tory Burch
Toshiba
UniKey Health
United Van Lines
Waste Management
Writing, Speaking & Media
I wish I could say that I regularly blog on SEO these days, but the day-to-day is action-packed that my SEO blog gets a little dusty sometimes. 🙂 Here’s a collection of presentations, articles, features and the like – archive links are included where possible!
Type | Title + Link | Date | Wayback Machine Link |
Article | What is UCaaS? | 11/16/2022 | |
Article | Need for Speed: Winning Searches and Customers | 8/3/2018 | Archive link |
Guest Lecture / Speaking | Speaking Up: Integrating Voice With Search Marketing (Event page link) | 6/14/2017 | Archive copy of event page |
Article | Mastering Marketing Metrics for Lasting Business Impact | 12/14/2016 | Archive link |
Guest Lecture / Speaking | University of North Texas (UNT) Digital Retailing | October 2016 | |
Article | Answers Before You Search: Knowledge Graph Results Come to Chrome Omnibox | 10/2/2015 | Archive link |
Guest Lecture / Speaking | University of North Texas (UNT) Digital Retailing | October 2015 | |
Article | Dodge the Naughty List: Essential Holiday Paid Search and SEO Planning Guide | 8/12/2015 | Archive Link |
Article | Why Emojis Aren’t Showing in Your Search Results | 5/26/2015 | Archive Link |
Article | Google Mobile Update and Your Site (Co-Author) | 4/20/2015 | Archive Link |
Presentation / Speaking | Energy Digital Summit Expert Panelist (Digital Marketing Strategy + Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | January 2015 | |
Feature | Forthea Digital Marketing Specialist to Speak at Energy Digital Summit | 1/14/2015 | Archive Link |
Article | Dazzle With Your Numbers: How to Visualize Data | 15/15/2014 | Archive Link |
Interview / Speaking | Advertising in the digital world with Digital Media Specialist, Zach Doty | 12/10/2014 | Archive Link |
Article | Incubating Success in Healthcare: Digital Marketing for Hospitals | 11/21/2014 | Archive Link |
Feature / Media | Can new social network Ello topple Facebook? | 10/3/2014 | Archive Link |
Article | Triumphant Christmas Marketing Ideas: Your Ecommerce Marketing + SEO Strategy | 9/12/2014 | Archive Link |
Article | Crafting Holiday Marketing Campaigns + Ideas for 2014 | 8/19/2014 | Archive Link |
Article | Dynamic Call Tracking | 7/28/2014 | Archive Link |
Article | Digital Marketing Conferences in 2014 | 6/2/2014 | Archive Link |
Article | How to Build a Landing Page: Best Practices | 3/14/2014 | Archive Link |
Feature / Interview | SEO Spring Cleaning with Forthea | 2/28/2014 | Archive Link |
Article | Social Media Marketing Myths | 11/15/2013 | Archive Link |
Article | Google Secure Search: Keyword & Provided Data Changes | 9/24/2013 | Archive Link |
Presentation / Speaking | Smart Keywords: Unlocking Your Blog’s Potential (Blog Elevated 2013) | 9/24/2013 | |
Article | Forthea Speaking Recap: SEO & Marketing from the Ground Up | 3/19/2013 | |
Presentation / Speaking | SEO: Marketing From the Ground Up | 2/21/2013 | |
Article | Tips and Tricks to Get the Most From Free Google Products | 2/19/2013 | Archive Link |
Article | Facebook Advertising Tips | 1/24/2013 | |
Article | Social Media for Business: How to Use it For Your Advantage | 1/10/2013 | Archive Link |
Article | The New Year’s Resolutions of an SEO | 1/2/2013 | Archive Link |
Article | 8 Holiday Blunders to Avoid This Year | 12/24/2012 | |
Article | 5 Christmas Presents for Homebuilders | 12/20/2012 | Archive Link |
Article | Digital Marketing Strategy for Homebuilders | 12/14/2012 | Archive Link |
Article | How Much is Social Media Impacting Your SEO? | 11/26/2012 | Archive Link |
Article | Homebuilder Marketing How-To: How to Start Building a Twitter Following in 3 Weeks | 11/21/2012 | Archive Link |
Article | Houston SEO Mythbusters, Episode 2: Keyword Stuffing | 11/14/2012 | Archive Link |
Article | EntreLeadership: Our Day With Dave Ramsey and Company | 10/30/2012 | Archive Link |
Article | Houston SEO MythBusters: Hiding Text to make up for images used as headings on a page | 10/19/2012 | |
Article | When is the Right Time to Invest in Search Engine Optimization? | 9/28/2012 | Archive Link |
Article | How to Innovate Your Internet Marketing Company | 9/25/2012 | Archive Link |
Article | How Do Google Search Rankings and SEO Affect Your Business? | 7/12/2012 | Archive Link |
Article | Google+ is Becoming Relevant by Force: What Most of Us Forgot | 6/20/2012 | Archive Link |
SEO and Digital Marketing Certifications
Continuous learning and improvement has always been a focus in my career as an SEO and digital marketing consultant. Some of the certifications will date themselves, or have expired. However, this should help demonstrate my emphasis on professional development and focus on maintaining a well-rounded nature.
Certification (Sorted by Name, A-Z) |
Bing Ads Accredited Professional |
Brightedge Certified Professional |
Conductor Searchlight All Star |
Conductor Searchlight MVP |
Google AdWords Advanced Display |
Google AdWords Advanced Search |
Google AdWords Advertising Fundamentals |
Google AdWords Reporting & Analysis |
Google AdWords Video Advertising |
Google Anlaytics Mobile App Analytics Fundamentals |
Google Analytics Individual Qualification |
Google Analytics Platform Principles |
Google Digital Analytics Fundamentals |
Google Tag Manager Fundamentals |
Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification |
LinkedIn Agile Marketing Foundations Certification |
LinkedIn The Data Science of Marketing Certification |
LinkedIn Machine Learning for Marketing: Essential Training Certification |
Twitter Flight School |
Competencies in Digital Marketing Platforms
Adobe Analytics / Omniture SiteCatalyst |
Adobe Creative Suite (PhotoShop, Illustrator) |
Ahrefs SEO and Link Building |
Analytics SEO (Now Authoritas) |
Asana Project Management |
Bing Webmaster Tools |
Brightedge SEO & Content Marketing Platform |
ComScore |
Conductor SEO & Content Marketing Platform |
Demandware Business Manager & Commerce Platform |
Drupal CMS |
Facebook Ads |
Google Ads |
Google Analytics & Google Analytics Premium |
Google Data Studio |
Google Docs, Sheets, Slides |
Google Merchant Center |
Google My Business |
Google Search Console |
Google Tag Manager |
Hot Jar Advanced User Analytics |
Hubspot Inbound Marketing Software |
IBM Digital Analytics / CoreMetrics |
Inspectlet User Analytics |
MailChimp Email Marketing Software |
Majestic SEO |
Marchex Call Tracking Software |
Microsoft Office (Advanced proficiency) |
MODx CMS |
Netsuite ERP |
Pardot Marketing Automation Software |
PostgreSQL |
PowerBI |
Python (Beginner Competency) |
R (Beginner Competency) |
Screaming Frog SEO Spider |
SEMrush |
SmartSheet Collaboration |
Spredfast Social Media Marketing (Now Khoros) |
Tableau |
Various Proprietary Systems |
Windows command line & batch script |
WordPress CMS |
Workfront Project Management Software |
SEO & Digital Marketing Skills / Qualifications
A non-exhaustive list of my digital marketing skills.
Advanced marketing analytics + reporting |
Blogging strategy |
Complex data modeling + forecasting |
Content marketing planning & strategy |
Global SEO: Hreflang + search engine targeting |
Global SEO: Localization |
HTTPS / SSL migrations |
Leadership & development of remote/distributed teams |
Light front-end development work (HTML & CSS) |
Link building & outreach |
Link detoxification / paid link removal |
Marketing strategy planning |
Organic social media managment |
P/L & budget management |
Paid social media management |
Presentation design |
Press release writing |
Process automation |
Project management |
Schema markup & structured data (JSON-LD, microdata) |
SEO auditing |
SEO copywriting |
Site launches & planning |
Site migrations |
Site redesigns |
Vendor management, sourcing & evaluation |
Video SEO |
Visual basic (VBA) / Macro maintenance |
Resume / Work Experience
Director, Online Marketing – AT&T
February 2022 – Present
- External GM hire creating the SEO practice from scratch at AT&T Business
- Drove +10% Y/Y organic traffic growth in year 1, increased organic visibility (Page 1 rankings) despite the site being reduced in size
- Reversed declines in AT&T Business Insights blog through SEO strategy & governance, resulting in 30%+ lift in rankings and +20% unique visitors Y/Y
- Introduced organic search forecasting & targets, reporting & insights infrastructure
- Evangelized SEO practice through education, governance, including system to mitigate traffic loss from content / product retirement
- Identified Google Merchant Center as a new e-commerce opportunity and drove several percentage points of incremental traffic into e-commerce pages
- Informed vendor rationalization, identifying $XXXK in annual spend that could be recouped
- Initiated go-dark test on parts of paid search program that saved 12% of category spend with minimal effect to lead generation
- Enhanced a navigation redesign & restructure by creating a quantitative scoring methodology that increased engagement, increased conversion, reduced task completion time and improved customer satisfaction metrics
Associate Director, SEO – iProspect
February 2021 – February 2022
- Servant leader helping a distributed team drive year-on-year (Y/Y) organic search growth across a range of verticals including B2B, healthcare and luxury retail.
- Rehabilitated and stabilized a key $XMM account which previously saw 2X internal staff turnover in 2 years.
- Career advocate for the team, helping a new line manager get the first of her reports promoted.
- Re-established partnerships & collaboration with client-side and partner agency leaders.
- Responsible for strategic & operational excellence across all areas of the engagement, including: content strategy, technical SEO, international SEO, video SEO and regulatory compliance.
Manager, SEO – iProspect
January 2019 – February 2021
- Grew a book of business from mid-six figures to low $XMM in 2 years and drove 50%+ growth in the SERP (page 1 rankings) across the client websites during this time.
- Hired, trained and managed a high-performing distributed team on the largest line of business for the largest SEO engagement by revenue at the agency.
- Demonstrated thought leadership by developing the first offering dedicated to (probable) voice search internally at the agency and externally for the client.
- Managed and optimized reporting for roughly a dozen stakeholders through tools, automation: Cut time spent on reporting by more than half and removed dependency on offshore resources.
Lead, SEO – iProspect
February 2015 – January 2019
- Developed targeted SEO strategies and oversaw execution for global, enterprise clients.
- Coached and mentored junior to mid-level personnel in Midwestern US region.
- Successfully launched global luxury engagement within weeks of start with no CS support.
- Later requested to defend a multi-national account from takeover by consultancy which included former agency leadership. Helped retain the account, eventually secured an upsell.
- Turned around S&P 500 retailer to positive Y/Y organic traffic, revenue through a setting of acute internal roadblocks and search landscape challenges.
- In all engagements, directed client resources to evangelize SEO excellence: merchandising, development, and IT teams on best practices. Also provided turnkey implementations of deliverables and recommendations when possible.
Digital Media Specialist – Forthea Digital Marketing
June 2012 – February 2015
- Trained and managed SEO personnel, responsible for process improvement and service quality across the organization. Advanced client on-boarding process, strategy, execution and reporting capabilities significantly.
- Pioneered the launch of agency’s first SEO projects for enterprise, Fortune 500 and publicly traded clients. Client verticals spanned B2C e-commerce management to B2B lead generation, and everything in between.
- Led SEO engagements, collaborated with client teams, vendors and other channels to provide ambitious integrated campaigns. Assisted with business development.
- Key contributor to agency development and branding. Managed social channels, significant contributor to content marketing initiatives. Was first non-executive to secure speaking/mentoring engagements regularly within the industry and community. Paved the way for others to do the same.
Volunteering & Service
- Christ Chapel Bible Church
- April 2016 – Present
- Volunteer across various ministries and settings.
- iProspect
- February 2015 – present
- Volunteer in various community venues & roles (local food bank, elementary school) for Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) / iProspect iCare.
- A Seattle Church
- March 2019 – August 2019
- Production volunteer. Assisted with setup and teardown for service, video production design. Trained additional volunteers, assisted with inventory and organization processes, created video processes for new volunteer onboarding.
- Enactus
- August 2014 – February 2015
- During my advisory board role at Enactus UH, I served both students and faculty in the college of business. I mentored and taught students about business, marketing and communication in applied settings. Additionally, I helped students by constructively evaluating their strategy, proposals and helped bolster their presentation skills from my experience.
- Houston’s First Baptist Church
- January 2013 – February 2015
- I volunteered and served in a range of capacities and ministries.
Education
University of the Ozarks
August 2008 – June 2012
Bachelor of Science in Marketing
Bachelor of Science in Strategic Communication
GPA: 3.7/4.0
- Dean’s List (2008 – 2012)
- Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges (2010 – 2011)
- American Southwest Conference All Academic Cross Country Team (2009 – 2011)
- McKennon Medal of Communications ( 2009 – 2010)
Squared Online
2016
Invite-only program for Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) on top of existing workload. Collaboration across multiple iProspect offices, DAN sister agencies, and countries. Group project (white paper) identified as best-in-class and submitted to Think With Google. Group was nominated for team of the year by Squared Online.