Steven Cook, President and CTO of VOLTAGE, started at the digital agency in 2008, moving up the ranks from Sr. Developer to Technical Director to his current role. When it comes to *what kind of* development, Steven’s strongest technologies include PHP/Laravel, WordPress/WooCommerce, Shopify, Drupal and all things JavaScript. He stays on the cutting edge of technology by reading, prototyping, attending conferences, blogging and teaching developers and business owners. Passionate about fulfilling the VOLTAGE mission to Be a Force for Good, he serves up innovative code and automation technology that increase business productivity for clients in the fashion and apparel eCommerce space. Steven strives to carry the Force for Good mission into the world through VOLTAGE’s volunteer and service initiatives.
Please introduce yourself and where you work.
I’m Steven Cook, President and CTO at
VOLTAGE in Boulder, Colorado. At VOLTAGE, we leverage creativity and technical expertise to help brands transform their digital presence and drive results. We specialize in fashion and apparel eComm and coded automation for streamlined business practices.
How do you think SEO has changed over the last 10 years?
SEO used to be about gaming search engine algorithms with technical tricks so your site would rank higher and draw in more traffic. Today, we encourage our clients to do the technical SEO groundwork necessary to rank, but then focus on adding substantial value to site visitors. If your goal is to add value to visitors, and a search engine’s goal is to add value to visitors, then your visions align and you win meaningful traffic together.
How did you get introduced to digital marketing, more specifically SEO?
I transitioned from traditional programming to web development a decade ago. We started creating absolutely beautiful websites and online experiences. Our creative spark and technical execution brought us into the eCommerce world, primarily in the fashion and apparel industry. Of course when selling products online, understanding your cost of customer acquisition and ROI on marketing activities is paramount. Years of testing across hundreds of brands have
brought us invaluable experience relating to both SEO and web performance.
What are the services you provide to your clients?
We provide eCommerce expertise in the fashion and apparel industry in the form of online strategy, creative, design, copy, video, web development, analytics and testing. We also create business automation solutions powered by our UI/UX and development teams. Automation streamlines eCommerce flagships and internal business processes for our clients.
What strategy according to you will prevail in 2018 for SEO?
We will focus on generating high-quality content for site visitors in the form of blog articles, infographics and short videos. Content must answer a specific question or fill a specific customer need. Video, when done correctly, is a powerful visual medium for dispersing information, and will continue to rank higher in search algorithms.
What would your advice be to people who are looking to take up digital marketing as a career choice?
I believe there’s no better way to learn something than to do it yourself. Open your own eCommerce store to sell something you are passionate about and start marketing. Learn some web analytics tools – Google Analytics is a great starting point. Analyze and improve your store. The numbers won’t lie.
