Bio: Terry Van Horne, AKA Webmaster T

Born: St. Thomas, Ont., Canada, Feb1,1954
Related Certificates: Certificate of Completion, Digital Media Studios (Basic Programming) completed 1998, upon completion a further 9 months as Teachers Assistant

Since completing high school in 1972 I've primarily worked in 4 areas:

• Real Estate (carpenter, agent, owned and managed rental property portfolio)

• Chef (Last Position: Executive Chef at the Ontario Science Center, apprenticed in some of the best restaurants and catering companies in Toronto)

• Sales and marketing: direct (telephone primarily), Internet, sales (you name a type, I've probably done it at one time or another)

• Web Marketing & Development: Internet Presence integration, implementation (project management), consulting and Internet marketing services.

To start off I would like to tell you a little about myself. I have been in the direct marketing business on and off for 28 years. In 1992 I realized that computer networks were becoming the biggest innovation to direct marketing since the invention of the printing press.

In March of '94 my brother Bill and I went into business to develop a local BBS to gather information and test some ideas we had for E-Commerce. The Internet was in its infancy as the first browsers were just coming to market so BBSs' ruled then and still can be used in certain situations today.

In the summer of '94 the BBS got off the ground. We ran a contest to get local residents to visit our BBS and fill out the survey on users wants and needs. The survey allowed me to gather a lot of information on what the users wanted.

Business plans for an on-line liquidator (that was the area of marketing I was working in then) and an E-mall were developed. These business plans weren't implemented because the survey showed Bill and I that there were some major changes coming as well as payment problems with online commerce. The main reason we didn't proceed were the changes we perceived in both the profile and wants and needs of the users.

Users were starting to get hooked on the web and it became apparent that a successful BBS would require a connection to the net. A costly business in the nets infancy. Bandwidth was expensive because there was little competition and the infrastructure and capacity was just beginning to build out. The cost was more than we could "gamble" so I missed my first Internet opportunity as an ISP.

In 1995 International Website Builders was formed. IWB's first foray into Internet marketing started with a survey/study of implementation and integration of  companies that had an Internet site already. The study of over 100 companies indicated that integration and implementation services were needed by almost all that were contacted. IWB's first site included a content area for businesses to get information on integration, development and marketing.

Sales and and support representatives didn't know email addresses, how to properly provide a URL, what was on the site or how to navigate it. Mostly we found that few if any had taken advantage of cutting overhead expenses and/or increasing employee efficiency using Internet technology. Although this is less prevalent today, Presence Integration is still something many companies don't take full advantage of.

In 1995 I became interested in search engine optimization while trying to find information on a number of SE. How things work and the logic behind them has always intrigued me, let's say to this day I am still intrigued and trying to figure them out! Back then when someone asked me what I did SEO was so new there was no real "tag" for it so I just called the service "I can get you found on the Search Engines".

In 1998 unrealistic client expectations (no one can turn a sows ear into a silk purse) and seeing the industry getting a reputation as conmen and "Cowboys" I ceased doing SEO. I'd been down that road before as a telemarketer.

It was at this time that I started to move into more complicated development and project management. First I got a grounding in the basics of programming. I have primarily stuck to Perl and VbScript to date, but have dabbled in JavaScript, Java, VB (mainly component development), PerlScript and C. C to learn about the C functions implemented in Perl.

While in school learning programming basics I saw programmatic solutions to many of the most annoying Internet marketing tasks. The first solution was a pro-active and reactive link management tool. Pro-active links are those you try to arrange yourself a reactive link is one a user adds to their site on their own (by far the most gratifying and quite possibly a better relevance booster).

In 2000, I partnered up with Victor Zajac (Vin Da' Skinman) and SeoPros was formed as a vehicle for development of SecretAgent. Vin's the chief spider programmer and I concentrate on the business and site development.

My interest in the SEO industry and SeoPros.com technology were instrumental in my decision to found SeoPros.org. I left the SEO Industry because I felt it was beginning to get a bad reputation. Optimization myths and misinformation are primarily the reasons for this reputation. All myths and misinformation is the direct result of companies benefiting from the sales of products and services propagating them. In most cases they do this even though they know they are putting clients at risk of de-listing.

SeoPros.org is an Organization of Search Engine Optimizers, search engines and remote technology developers attempting to set Industry standards for SEO services and accessing search engine resources. The Organization is also identifying the propagators of myth and misinformation and providing information to consumers of these services. A more informed consumer in the end will do much to improve the reputation of the Industry. If they can identify "SEO Cowboys" and understand the services offered and provided than both the Industry and consumer benefit mutually.

Canadian Search Engine Marketing was formed as the provider of SeoPros Private Label Services. To date they have been Implemented on SeoPros.org and a number of Beta testers and clients of IWB.