About our Authors

Rachel Ankersen, SEO Analyst

I’m a southern girl with a love for all things Internet Marketing. Never in a million years did I ever think I would grow up to be a Search Engine Optimization Analyst. If someone ever invented a time machine and traveled back to the early 90’s when I was swinging from the monkey bars singing “Straight Up” by Paula Abdul, and told me I would grow up to be an “SEO Analyst”; I believe I would have thought that was a NASA scientist of some sort…and would have proceeded to brag about it to everyone I knew, including the family cat.

If you really think about it, my job really is just as much a science as it is an art. With SEO, and Internet Marketing in general, there’s a lot of room for creativity. It’s all about trying out new things and the voyage of discovery. It’s about designing a website that runs like a well-oiled machine, gets picked up quickly and easily by search engines, and takes users exactly were you want them to be with the greatest of ease. It’s also about measuring results, running tests and making observations, which is obviously where the science part comes in.

I currently work for TeleVox Software as the in-house SEO Analyst. I manage our SEO processes for our WebPlus websites as well as help to maintain the presence and visibility of our company through our website and various social media outlets. I also host live webcasts on SEO, social media, web analytics and so on. Of course my favorite part about my job is passing along what I’ve learned to anyone interested in learning how to get the most out of their online presence, whether it’s through their website, local listing, Facebook Page or perhaps even a blog.

Outside the office, I’m all over the place whether it’s coaching 5th grade girl’s volleyball, jogging by the Fairhope pier, or sitting around sipping iced tea with my girl friends surrounded by 100 year old homes and even older oak trees. Favorite hobbies include: drawing, painting, writing, jogging, volleyball, watching movies, eating pizza and ice cream, and reading.

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Charity Mason, Product Manager

The first job I had doing web design, I have to admit – I had never even SEEN a website before. The closest I had come was an AOL chat room!  I had read quite a bit about the great up-and-coming “World Wide Web” and was trying to learn how one actually creates a website, but had difficulty imagining what that all really meant.  Fortunately some very patient people gave me the chance.  That was in the mid to late nineties in Mobile, AL.  Thankfully, the web and how we used it has evolved quite a bit since then! 

From there I have served as webmaster for corporate websites and company intranets, have created numerous websites for small businesses and non-profit organizations, and spent nearly 10 years in the embedded software industry managing marketing programs, ranging from online campaigns to live events in the U.S and abroad. These campaigns were focused not only on branding and building awareness of the product, but driving more focused, targeted outbound messages.

Now as a product manager at TeleVox software, I am responsible for driving innovation for our company’s web-related product portfolio. By dedicating myself to research in the market, I continuously seek understanding of the problems that members of the market face and lead the organization toward providing web solutions that delight TeleVox clients.  Special topics of interest are creating an engaging online presence and search engine visibility.

When I’m not being a geek, I drive a Mom taxi- I’m a soccer mom and a band parent. I also enjoy travelling, journaling life through photography and cooking, particularly baking – which is what inspired my next hobby….JOGGING!   I’m also about to attempt sewing and quilting.  To that my 11 year old son says, “Does that mean you’re learning to become an old lady?”  Kids!