A special Q&A from TheButterRoom.com:

Ah, so this is The Butter Room … it’s everything I imagined and more! Seriously, though, I am excited to be a part of such a talented group of professionals and I’m even more excited about my first contribution to this unique site.

First, allow myself to introduce … myself … I’m Gary Cope, the In-house Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Professional for a company in Roanoke, Va. I also founded and run CWI Media & Marketing. If you want more detail, check out my bio. The bottom line is, I spend about 10-14 hours a day working on search engine optimization.

SEO is a never-ending learning process, mostly in part because the search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Ask, MSN) are constantly modifying their algorithms to adjust for changes in the SEO landscape and to combat Black Hat SEO practices. The biggest part of my job is keeping up with those changes and that means reading a lot (and I mean A LOT) of SEO-related blogs. And that brings us to our interviewee Jane Copland, a Search Marketing Consultant for SEOMoz.org. Jane has established herself as one of the most respected search marketing professionals in the business. SEOMoz is a Seattle-based SEO company that serves as a hub for search marketers worldwide, providing education, tools, resources and paid services.

Photo of Jane is Property of SEOMoz.org.

The Butter Room and SEO-KungFu.com thanks Jane for her time and response.

For those who may not be familiar with your background, can you give us a quick overview and a little bit of info about SEOMoz?

Jane Copland: SEOmoz is a search marketing company based in Seattle, Washington. We specialise in creating both SEO tools and in creating educational content for the search marketing community, as well as maintaining a popular Q&A service and a daily SEO blog.

I started working here in September 2006. Looking back, I was incredibly lucky to get this job: there were over 100 applicants, many (most?) of whom were way more qualified to work here than I was. However, I made it through the rather grueling interview process SEOmoz had set up and have been working here for almost a year and a half. Before that, I attended Washington State University and competed on the school’s swim team for four years. I’m originally from New Zealand, but I’ve been living in the U.S. for six years now.

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