About Grosen Friis:
My software developer and technical SEO history
I am a self-tought software developer, an I started to code Comal-80 on my Commodore 128D as a boy. However, after ground school I went to business high-school for 3 years. I thought a grade in economics was what I should aim for. After that, approx 1991 I got into what back then was called "Handelshøjskolen i Aarhus", studying a combination of economics and IT, in danish called "HA Dat". However, somehow I did not notice that I liked the programming classes (Pascal) much more than all other classes. I should have stopped "HA Dat" and studied what is similar to software engineer, instead.
What instead happened was that I did not finish "HA Dat" - despite only needing two exams - instead I got 2 new jobs, job 1 in the morning teaching IT at ground school level and job 2 in the afternoon was as a keyenter at United Parcel Service, both jobs in Aarhus in 1995. In early 1997 I got promoted to Export Clerk at United Parcel Service in Kolding, however still doing 2 jobs.
Late 1998 I got offered a job as a software tester at Stibo in Aarhus, now I only had to do 1 job. I tested installation of programs on Windows operating systems, I tested the program features and I tested that the programs contained the correct data. During a 2 year period as I did the testing, I also developed software that automated the software testing on data quality. That enabled me to advance to becoming a web developer for Stibo and changed from developing testing software in Pascal on Windows OS to developing web applications in Java and develop installation-software for Windows OS - two very different skill sets. I also set up new webservers to host client web shops (developed in Java) using Apache and IBM WebSphere Java Application servers. I held many interal courses to train other colleges to set up and maintain such Java-based solutions. I held that job until late 2004 where I was laid off due to economic difficulties at Stibo at that time.
In 2005 my family moved form Aarhus to Esbjerg and I started my own small software development business, where I developed my own Content Management System. At this time I bought a white paper about technical SEO and my passion for technical SEO got started. I built all the technical SEO - I knew about at the time - into my CMS. However, I am a software developer, not a business man, so I decided to stop my business. Instead I took a job as a software developer and technical SEO consultant at OP.dk (no longer exists).
Software developer and SEO jobs:
- 1998 - 2000 - Software tester at Stibo Aarhus)
- 2000 - 2004 - Software developer at Stibo (Aarhus)
- 2004 - 2007 - Selv employed (Esbjerg)
- 2007 - 2009 - Software developer and Technical SEO consultant at OP.dk
- 2009 - 2010 - Inhouse SEO at SPAMfighter (Copenhagen)
- 2010 - 2012 - Inhouse SEO at Eshoes.dk (Copenhagen)
- 2012 - 2018 - Technical SEO consultant and partner at Online Partners (Kolding). Also teaching technical SEO at Kolding Business Academy in that period.
- 2018 - now - Software developer and Technical SEO at Kids-world (Esbjerg)
During my career working with Technical SEO I've been co-producing many YouTube videos about, writeing blog posts about and trained/teached in techical SEO
In the beginning of 2018 I decided that I had to get back to my roots as a software developer, I needed to rebuild my skills as a full stack software developer. I wanted to get back to coding, and I also knew I had to get back to coding to be able to maintain my technical SEO skills - you cannot separete them in my opinion. That were the main reasons why I made a career change. I would primarily do coding, but I could still work with SEO, and especially my passion for technical SEO, and implementing technical SEO solutions into every aspect of my current employers webshop.
My top-favorite Technical SEO deciplines are:
- Duplidate Content
- PageRank Sculpting
- Structured Data
As I write this it is June 24th 2019 and I have decided to change my website grosen.com from just being a business card with my contact information - to become a blog about technical SEO, sharing my knowledge like I used to do - making videos, writing blog post and/or teaching. It will not be on WordPress or any other CMS, it will be hand-coded, as I enjoy maintaining my coding as weel as my Technical SEO skills that way.
Enough about me, I hope you learn some Technical SEO here on grosen.com :) First blog post I am working on is about duplicate content!