Hi. I'm Simon,Chief Enabler.
SENIOR SEO CONSULTANT
I've been a search engine optimization specialist for 15 years, delivering end-to-end SEO agency services to hundreds of different websites from small local SMBs to multi-billion dollar enterprises. From in-house, I've built, trained, and led successful, happy SEO teams.
Now, I do both: I enable businesses to manage their own SEO, reducing long-term agency fees. I fully deliver audits and strategic plans for each implicated department or business unit, then train and support internal teams to implement plans and autonomously execute follow-on work.
To learn more about my SEO enablement services, go here. If you’d like to learn more about my SEO background and experience, read on!
My SEO Story
Life Before SEO
In 2004, I graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Canada (and University of Sheffield in the UK) majoring in philosophy and linguistics. As Arts degrees go, it was an unknowingly solid primer for an SEO career; extensive technical linguistic research and analysis and the need to communicate clearly around complex, abstract concepts. From metaphysics to meta tags.
A content guy to my core, my real plan was to be a game designer. I began as a tester for Gameloft, putting mobile games like Paris Hilton’s Jewel Jam (pre-smartphone…) through their paces, identifying technical errors and gameplay opportunities. Testing was to be a mere stepping stone, but I got some enjoyment channeling and honing my mild OCD to thoroughly execute (read: grind out) a rigorous QA process and get the job fully done. I liked optimizing.
With concerns (and blatant warnings!) about the games industry, I sought opportunity online. I traveled and needed to learn the ways of the web to live world-wide. Through an opportunity in 2006, I started working online as an affiliate manager. One affiliate in my roster explained to me that he earned his traffic and referring sales via Google and his so-called “search engine optimization” efforts…
“What sorcery is this?!”
This marketing wizard answered all my questions and gave me the lowdown on SEO, deeply piquing my curiosity. I am both technical analyst and creative artist by nature, equal parts letter nerd and number bod, suiting me for SEO work that benefits from both sides. I was so interested that when the chance arose to learn at a digital agency in Montreal as a content writer and junior SEO, I took it. The boss was a smart, bold, and cool ex-pro gamer, and he learned SEO directly from Rand Fishkin, who was already a household SEO name. I wanted to learn from him.
An Agency (Head) Start
NVI, now iProspect Canada, truly gave me my SEO start. Into the agency fire, surrounded by an eclectic band of highly-skilled upstarts and marketing rock stars for colleagues, we grew from a team of 15 to 50-strong. I learned my technical SEO chops and rose to my first SEO management experience, leading a talented team of SEO-first viral content creators and online promoters.
In 2009, life took me overseas to Oxford, UK where I spent 4 years building a network and freelancing. Three years later, life returned me to Montreal, where a longtime colleague and friend and I partnered and specialized in rocketing sales for online stores through e-commerce SEO.
A decade in, having worked across all verticals familiar and esoteric, I realized that I had not only worked on hundreds of websites, but I had researched and manually custom written over 10,000 unique title tags for client web pages. 10,000…
The Road to Enterprise In-House
This was part of why, in 2017, I opted for my first in-house SEO leadership role, building a “client-side” team. Less breadth and more depth, harmonizing with the internal people whose work intersected with my own. I had built a strong SEO foundation and was further expanding creative content when the opportunity presented itself to return to agency life in early 2019, to try SEO in Fortune 500 style with Accenture.
Captaining my own ship(s) and being on the other side of the table had taught invaluable lessons, but this was an opportunity to go deep on enterprise SEO and refresh my SEO perspectives in a cutting-edge ecosystem. So I spent two challenging but successful years doing high-stakes, advanced SEO work for massive, well-known companies.
Wiser, I sought a return to the other side of the table; in 2021, I became Senior Manager SEO & Content Strategy for Canopy Growth, where I successfully mounted an enterprise, multi-business x multi-site x cross-department SEO practice and delivered major ranking growth.
The Best of Both Worlds
I’ve learned that what works best for everyone is for me to wear both hats: build world-class, comprehensive enterprise agency SEO plans, but deliver them as the actionable examples of an in-house SEO training program teaching core SEO principles that relate to each team’s work.
After 15 years of SEO and hundreds of websites and company practices, I believe the quickest, most sustainable, and most cost-effective way to successful in-house SEO is to have a longtime expert fully show you the way, to build up your foundation and teach you all you need to know, every drop of secret sauce, to enable your autonomous SEO practice.
And then to leave.
I’m the help that the team is actually happy to work with, because I’m there to actually help, not replace, threaten, or waste time. It’s part of why each service page has a section for its respective team. The whole is greater for the business than the sum of its parts. SEO can’t steamroll.
I want the web team to be fully equipped to catch SEO issues before they start. I want the executive team to understand the importance of SEO and how to support the team and win. And I want content writers to be able to create their own title tags.
Because I already wrote over 10,000 of them.
Six years ago.
S.A.