Nine By Blue

In the early days of the web, companies weren’t quite sure how web sites would be valuable to their businesses, but they figured they’d better have a page or two up just in case. In those days, consumers primarily used directories to find web sites that contained content they were looking for. As the web progressed, so did the evolution of search engines, and a new discipline of search engine optimization was born. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of best practices around ensuring that web site content can be indexed by search engines and is ranked well for relevant queries.

Now, the web has reached another milestone. Web sites aren’t built in isolation. They have real business value. Often, they are the business. Being found in search engines isn’t just something that’s nice, it’s vital. And search is simply one part of larger marketing, development, and product initiatives.

Nine By Blue looks at overall customer acquisition and engagement for businesses operating online. How can businesses use online data to understand their customers and develop marketing and product strategies that resonates and builds long term value? How can social media strengthen a brand? And how can companies measure success?

Vanessa Fox

Vanessa spends her time writing, speaking, and training companies on how to use key pieces of data to better drive product strategy and customer engagement online.

She previously worked at Google and built Webmaster Central, which provides tools, information, and community for site owners about how their sites are performing in Google’s search engine. She also was instrumental in the sitemaps.org alliance of Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search.

She spent much of the 90s writing technical documentation for developers and spent a number of years managing feature and user interface development for a variety of consumer and enterprise-level products. In 1995, she built her first corporate web site. She was deeply involved in the tech industry discussion around the move from print to online (particularly as it related to user documentation, training, and marketing). She has run a number of online discussion forums and helped build several online communities.

Vanessa is now involved in a number of projects focused on improving our experiences on the web. She is a sought-after writer and speaker and is highly skilled at navigating airport security.