I first started in SEO back in 2001 when there were only a handful of SEOs in Colorado. It’s fair to say, I got into the game well before it became popular but I wasn’t the first.
How I got my start…
In the early 2000’s I was working at Dish Network. The corporate world wasn’t for me. I kinda knew how to build basic HTML websites so I fired up my first web development company. From there I decided I wanted to get into the publishing world and launched a short-lived print and then eMagazine. At that time, I kinda knew how SEO worked on a very low level and while I got some traction with my own website, I wanted to bring in the big guns. That’s when I found Bruce Clay. I don’t remember much about the correspondence at the time other than I didn’t have much money and I could definitely not afford Bruce Clays SEO services at that time — so I tried to figure out how to do it myself.
From there, I joined forums, built test websites and read as many books as I could. Since I already had a background in web design the basic SEO tricks (which wasn’t much back then) clicked. Before I knew it my website started gaining substantial traction in Google and it wasn’t long after that I was doing SEO services for friends and family. I was addicted to having the ability to drive traffic from thin air. That meant I could help build or create virtually any business I wanted. But, this blog post isn’t about me — I’m not the father of SEO.
Who is the Father of SEO?
Bruce Clay has kinda been an iconic guy in the SEO space. In 1996, Bruce started his Digital marketing agency, Bruce Clay, Inc. out of his house. In 1999 he was a speaker at the very first Search Engine Strategies conference and in 2000 things really kicked into gear for Bruce when he moved out from his house and started to offer his first SEO training courses.
Fast forward about 19 years, I was able to finally catch up to the guy who inadvertently brought me into the SEO game which created an unfathomable career for me.
Did I ever think I’d be an SEO? Nope, but I’m glad I did.
