About Grant Simmons, SEO
I live in Virginia Beach but often travel for work and pleasure. I may be in your neck of the woods speaking at a search or marketing event, and Twitter is generally the best way to find out where (or ping me and ask)! It’s always great to meet and chat with like-minded SEO marketers over a cuppa, help solve agency bottlenecks, or go sailing!
Connect with me:
- Twitter: @simmonet (I share thoughts, smart folk’s posts, and often live-tweet conferences!)
- Pinterest: simmonet (Rarely there, but some good memories)
- LinkedIn: simmonet (Interested in a business partnership or consulting? Visit me here)
- Instagram: Grantism (Should be here more; a lot of smart folks are sharing & making $ on the ‘Insta’)
- grantisms.com (My slice of quotes and thoughts on the web)
- Speaker Hub (for a collection of my presentations & notable mentions)
———————————
My approach to work and life is simple:
“Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.” – Arnold Glasgow
———————————
Grant Simmons Quick FAQ
Location of birth: London, England
Occupation: Online Marketing / SEO
Expertise: SEO Strategy, Search Strategy, Start-Up Strategy, SEO Consulting
Previous companies: Homes.com, The Search Agency, Diamond Resorts, Simmonet Marketing, TGIF Productions
Current home city: Virginia Beach
When I’m not on social media, I enjoy spending time at the beach – any beach – with my lovely wife or enjoying Summer breezes on a Hobie Cat or Laser sailboat.
I have a stepdaughter at high school and two fantastic, smart & awesome kids in California who will someday change the world.
———————————
Search Awards
I’ve been a Judge for search campaigns, agency awards, content, and digital campaigns in the US and around the globe. Amazing talent, and it’s an honor to assess and select some of the world’s best search, social & content campaigns.
US Search Awards Judge 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024
Global Search Awards Judge
UK Search Awards Judge 2019 2021 2023 2024
European Search Awards Judge
US Search Agency Awards Judge 2022 2023
Northern Digital Awards 2023, 2024
Podcast: How to Stand out Using SEO and SEM
Chiang Mai SEO Conference 2019
Rock Solid SEO. Big Ideas. Big Challenges. Massive Solutions.
Working for clients including FoxSports, Red Bull, Warner Bros, and Paramount Pictures, Grant Simmons has seen search engine and SEO tactics come and go. In this session, he’ll explore some of the lessons learned from the organization, optimization, and content and link strategies that large sites demand. This will help you mitigate some of the onerous sides of SEO circa 2019 to build a rock-solid strategy—with a little Hollywood magic built in.
—
Humantics – Advanced Search Summit Napa 2021
Clear Voice list of published content
Keywords Are Dead! Long Live User Intent! Search Engine Watch 2013
“Your brand’s website and online presence need to align around targeted customer intent(s), not traditional keywords-focused optimization,” notes Grant Simmons in a 2013 Search Engine Watch post. “Focus toward tactics that will play to Google’s more complex side: Mapping queries to actions, intent research, and aligned content creation.”
“Grant Simmons, Director of SEO and Social Product at The Search Agency, writes in Search Engine Watch that keywords are dead, and the era of focusing on user intent has begun.
Simmons points to “Google’s Penguin and Panda updates as the nails in the coffin for over-optimized content and link profiles,” and suggests that those two changes have “contributed to considerable change in SEO tactics and strategies over the past 18 months.” He argues that the “old interpretation of keywords is no longer true,” and that “users are not typing simple keywords that yield simple Google results.”
Instead, searchers use “queries,” which are “phrases that match specific search intent,” and Google “attempts to match that intent based on search data, click data, and heuristics” in an effort to provide more relevant results.”
Skyword: As Grant Simmons writes for Search Engine Watch, “Keywords are dead! Long live user intent!” “The old interpretation of keywords is no longer true; users are not typing simple keywords that yield simple Google results,” Simmons writes. “Users are entering “queries”-phrases that match specific search intent-and Google attempts to match that intent based on search data, click data, and heuristics, and then serves richer (and hopefully more relevant) intent-based results: Knowledge graph “instant results” for people, places, and things; local results; Google Autocomplete; Google spelling correction; product listings or shopping for buying signals; and dictionary results for “definition-based” queries. Your brand’s website and online presence need to align around targeted customer intent(s), not traditional keywords-focused optimization.”
Work Experience
InLinks (part-time) – US Ambassador helping promote *the* Entity SEO Tool to SEOs throughout the United States through thought leadership, demonstrations, consulting, & conversation (hiring press release)
Owner and resident SEO at Brilliant Strategy (a domain I grabbed before I knew I would use it!)
Advisor at Fiat Advisors – Where I consult with startups and companies needing expertise SEO support, experience, and advice!
Fractional Senior SEO Strategist – Healthcare Success
Fractional Director of SEO – ClickFluent Consulting
(Past) Fractional SEO Strategist – Kitely Tech
(Past) Homes.com (now a division of The CoStar Group) (hiring press release)
Led a team of multi-disciplinary search, social, and paid specialists to exceed goals and targets in multi-6-figure budgets.
(Past) The Search Agency – since purchased by Forward PMX – where I drove the SEO and Social strategies for a group of very smart peers.
Led teams providing search solutions for companies you would have heard of, from big Big Box Stores to car manufacturers, Japanese computer enterprises, sports TV networks, and the drink that gives you wings.
(Past) Diamond Resorts – where I helped develop their web presence and ensure brand alignment across 80+ resorts globally
(Current Consulting Business) Simmonet Marketing – excuse the early 2000’s site.. it was built in the early 2000s 🙂 – grew from an idea into a service for multinational and local organizations – mainly through web design, development, SEO, branding, video, and meetings. “Ideas that work. Technology that fits.”
(Past) TGIF Productions – handled large corporate meetings, media, and multimedia, dipped into early web content for GE, M&M/Mars, Kwikset, and other multinational businesses.
(Past) Club Med – Taught sailing and entertained guests at nightly shows while learning about customer service and appreciation of culture in Mexico, French West Indies, Greece, Italy, Israel, Bahamas, and more! Fun times. And some great people I still call friends.
Instant Estimator / Instant Evaluator / Diminifaq – Advisor to the CEO of a national claims processing company – focused on the automotive and parking space.
Bradwell Sailing Centre – Where I taught folks who had never seen the water how to sail, love and respect the sea!
Our Local Beach Local
The Golden Plover, Whitsundays Australia
Fantastic experience, amazing people, and lots of diving off the yardarm!
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” – William Arthur Ward
Sailing Quotes
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving – we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea.” – Isak Dinesen
“A ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” – William Shedd
“To desire nothing beyond what you have is surely happiness. Aboard a boat, it is frequently possible to achieve just that. That is why sailing is way of life, one of the finest of lives.” – Carleton Mitchell
“Only two sailors, in my experience, never ran aground. One never left port and the other was an atrocious liar.” – Don Bamford
“A sailor without a destination cannot hope for a favorable wind.” – Grantism 🙂
———————————————————————-
Thanks for getting this far! Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or any platform you prefer, and let’s chat about business opportunities and consulting work or shoot the breeze about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!
Find Grant Simmons (me) on Google 🙂
Read some old/new/interesting posts on life, SEO, and travel!
