Chris Smith

Current

• Director of Optimization Strategies at KeyRelevance
• Expert Consultant at Search Marketing

Past

• Lead Search Strategist at Netconcepts
• Head of Technology & Development Dept. / SEO Expert at Idearc (formerly Verizon Information Services)
• Manager of Technology / SEO Expert at Verizon Information Services

• Manager of Administration - Cartographics at Texas A&M University

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1 more...

Education

• Texas A&M University

Recommended

9 people have recommended Chris

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Marketing and Advertising

Websites

• My SEO Blog
• Key Relevance

Chris Smith’s Summary

I enjoy working with a great many different companies on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Internet Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Usability Analysis, and Technical Product Development.

While I've perhaps been best-known as a specialist in Local Search Optimization (for some of my work on behalf of Verizon's Superpages.com), I have also been consulted by some of the top Internet Retailer 100 & 500 websites, University/.EDU sites, and some of the top online Travel portals and other types of websites.

I blog frequently on various internet technology and marketing topics.

Chris Smith’s Specialties:

Internet Product Development, Technical Project Management, Search Engine Optimization, Usability Analysis, User-Oriented Graphic Design, Yellow Pages, Online Travel, Internet Retail SEO, Internet Analytics, Shopping Search Opt., Image Search Optimization, Social Media Optimization, PDF & Book Search Opt., Local Search Optimization, Mobile Search Opt., Semantic Markup, Microformats, Perl, PHP, dHTML, CSS, Javascript, Team-Building, Motivational Speaker, Press Release Optimization.

Chris Smith’s Experience

• Director of Optimization Strategies

  KeyRelevance

  (Privately Held; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  November 2008 — Present (1 year 1 month)

  Providing expert consulting on Search Engine Optimization ("SEO"), enabling companies to reach their full potential in achieving high rankings in search engine results for queries related to their businesses. Some areas of especial expertise include optimizations for: Universal or Blended Search, Image Search, Local Search, Video Search, Shopping Search, Book Search, PDF optimization, News/Blog/Press-Release optimization, Social Media optimization, Landing Page optimization, Shopping Cart analysis, and also Paid Search Advertising management.
  
  KeyRelevance is one of the top search marketing agencies worldwide, and local to Dallas, Texas, and they are known for highly-ethical, best-practice recommendations which reflect the current-most changes to search engine ranking algorithms. KeyRelevance also supplies Usability and User-Experience Analysis.

• Expert Consultant

  Search Marketing

  (Marketing and Advertising industry)

  October 2008 — Present (1 year 2 months)

  Providing expertise on search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media optimization, local search optimization, online maps, yellow pages, and more.

• Lead Search Strategist

  Netconcepts

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)

  April 2007 — October 2008 (1 year 7 months)

  Providing thought leadership and consulting for the development of a rapidly growing new product: GravityStream (an automatic, near-turnkey solution for optimizing non-optimal, dynamically generated websites).

• Head of Technology & Development Dept. / SEO Expert

  Idearc (formerly Verizon Information Services)

  (Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; IAR; Information Technology and Services industry)

  May 2006 — March 2007 (11 months)

  Overseeing the Technology & Development Department for Verizon's SuperPages.com, I now manage a number of teams which work upon: Taxonomy, Listing Quality Management, Publishing Updates/Maintenance, UI development, New Features Application development, New & Emerging technologies, Webmaster Tools, External Traffic Partnerships, SEO/SEM development, and more.
  
  I have 5 patents pending through Verizon.

• Manager of Technology / SEO Expert

  Verizon Information Services

  (Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry)

  February 1997 — May 2006 (9 years 4 months)

  Directly managing a small team of developers who create applications for the SuperPages.com website, and indirectly managing Verizon Laboratories personnel on technical development projects.
  
  Handling various external partnership technical relationships such as InfoSpace, Lycos, BigFoot, AreaGuides, MIVA, and others.

• Manager of Administration - Cartographics

  Texas A&M University

  (Educational Institution; 5001-10,000 employees; Publishing industry)

  October 1992 — October 1996 (4 years 1 month)

  I managed an office which provided scientific illustration, mapmaking, and digital imaging within Texas A&M. It was a for profit concern, operated within a state educational institution, providing work to students, faculty and also to the private sector. During this time I also conceived of, created and published the Texas A&M University Campus Map with Points of Interest, published by the TAMU Press, and the TAMU Clip Art Disk (the first ever digital version of TAMU trademarks and other symbols). I also designed the 12th Man Foundation logo for the 12th Man Foundation, which may be seen on car decals throughout the state of Texas, and I designed and published a book created by scientists called The Changing Climate of Texas which was successfully marketed and sold through Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.

Chris Smith’s Education

• Texas A&M University

  1985 — 1992

Additional Information

Chris Smith’s Websites:

• My SEO Blog
• Key Relevance

Chris Smith’s Interests:

Local Search Engine Optimization, Image SEO, PDF SEO, Book Search Optimization, Shopping Search Optimization, Mobile SEO, Blog SEO, Social Media Optimization, Rare Books, Painting, Wikipedia, Flickr, Widget App Development, Geolocation, Geocoding, Geotagging, Microformats, Web APIs, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Chris Smith’s Groups:

LinkedSEO, SMX attendees

•    American Marketing Association, Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter
•    LinkedSEO
•    Aggie Networking
•    SMX - Search Marketing Expo
•    Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo
•    Dallas Ft Worth Search Engine Marketing Association
•    Search Engine Land
•    WordCamp

Chris Smith’s Honors:

Verizon Individual Excellence Award for SEO projects, 2003-2004.
Verizon Team Excellence Award for the SuperPages.com Traffic Growth Projects, 2002.
GTE Directories Individual Award of Excellence in Customer Service, 1997.

Chris Smith’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• expertise requests
• business deals
• getting back in touch