About Barry Adams

The Highlights:

• A Dutchman in Northern Ireland;
• Digital Services Director at Pierce Communications;
• Editor & blogger for State of Search;
• Speaker at various conferences and events;
• Associate Lecturer for the University of Ulster

The Long-winded Version:

Don’t let the name fool you, I really am a Dutchman! I was born and raised in Eindhoven and moved to the outskirts of Belfast in 2009.

When I was introduced to the internet back in 1995 I was immediately hooked. The way the internet allows you to connect to total strangers across the world was a magical experience for a socially awkward geek like myself.

I ended up spending an awful lot of my spare time in online chatrooms, talking to people I would otherwise have never met. Several genuine lasting friendships were born in that period, and to this day I’m still in regular contact with many of the people I met online in those days.

Despite all of this, at the time I failed to see the business potential of the internet. I perceived it as a purely social tool and believed that as a business exercise it was just a passing fad, doomed to fail.

Boy, was I wrong.

Initially, after leaving university I started my career as an IT guy, and I soon gravitated towards all things online. First as an intranet webmaster for large corporations and later as a website manager, I began to explore the potential of the World Wide Web. Around the start of the new millennium I began to specialise in online marketing, specifically SEO.

I’ve worked a range of different positions over the years in a variety of industries, which have helped me develop as an all-round digital marketer. I consult for small and medium-sized businesses but have also been part of large web teams in multinational corporations, so I’ve been lucky enough to have sampled different approaches to online strategies across a broad spectrum.

Today, as the Digital Services Director at Pierce Communications in Belfast, I head up an expert team providing web development and digital marketing services for a wide range of clients in the UK and Ireland.

I’ve had a personal blog since 2001 and started blogging about SEO in 2007 with Searchcowboys. Today I’m an editor on award-winning European search & social media blog State of Search and do some occasional guest blogging for various online publications. Previously I was a contributing blogger for Search News Central and wrote a technology column for the Belfast Telegraph.

In October 2008 I began this blog as a platform for sharing my tips and tutorials about online marketing. It has since evolved into a space to collect my writings on SEO and related topics for the various blogs and news sites I contribute to, as well as a platform for my more outspoken blog posts.

I’m a regular speaker at SEO conferences such as SAScon and ThinkVisibility, an associate lecturer for the University of Ulster’s Digital Media Communication programme, and I provide regular talks, trainings and workshops on digital marketing, SEO, PPC, and Social Media for a variety of organisations and events. Previously I’ve also lectured on SEO and PPC for the Digital Marketing Institute.

I’m available for digital marketing consulting and speaking engagements, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch via the contact form or send me an email.