Jim Cook is a very well-rounded and experienced web developer. Last year he co-founded SEO Refugee with his son, Ben.

Name: James Cook
Aliases: skitzzos_pop, jimbo
Single or Married: Married (22 years, all happily)
Kids: 2 adult children - 1 boy, 1 girl
Home Site: Actually after ten years of producing websites, I have a number of sites scattered around:
    Business home page: StudioJMC
    My art and photography
    Samples of a weekly column about the Internet that I wrote for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch can still be found at Net Detours
    And I help my son out at SEO Refugee
    All New: TOONrefugee.com!
Memberships: SEO Refugee, vBulletin.com, vBulletin.org, smallbusinessbrief.com
Contact info:
    studioJMC, inc.
    105 Moffett Ave.
    Colllinsville, IL 62234
    info@studiojmc.com
    618.345.9019

How did you get into SEO?

In spite of being an admin at SEOrefugee, I don’t consider myself an SEO. I try to take what I’ve learned from the members there and use it in the sites I design but it isn’t the main focus of my efforts.

Basically I got into SEO like this: I helped my son set up FireMartz.com, a site dedicated to getting Mike Martz fired as head coach of the St. Louis Rams. One of the features he wanted was a forum and so we licensed vBulletin. Things were going well until Martz had some kind of heart infection and went in the hospital, essentially ending the season for him (and his career with the Rams). At that point things kind of tanked.

So one day, skitzzo (that’s my son, not his real name by the way) calls me up and says, "I’m a member of this SEO forum where all the members are upset. Can we move the forum from FireMartz to a new site?" Thus SEOrefugee was born, and I was introduced to SEO.

What other areas do you specialize in? How do they compliment your SEO efforts?

Web Design & Development is my main business focus. I teach web design for the Center for Visual Technology at St. Louis Community College. As a writer, I wrote a weekly column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in the nineties, I contributed to a book about Adobe Illustrator for McGraw-Hill and I have contributed to several online projects. Coming from a graphic design background, I still do a bit of illustration, cartooning, maps and graphics, logos, etc.

I’m not sure they compliment SEO at all!

Any favorite projects you’d like to share?

I’ve been fortunate to work on a number of great projects in the past:

• The official site for the 1999 Papal Visit to St. Louis
• The official Vince Gill Fan Club site (my first experience with an online forum)
• The Sports Commissions of St. Louis and Detroit sites (which has included working on sites for some NCAA championship events)

What part of SEO drives you nuts?

Trying to get the .htaccess file right each time I produce a site has proven to be a great challenge. I also find Google incredibly frustrating. I really do believe they are having major growing pains and that a lot of white-hat SEOs are suffering because of it.

What’s your favorite part of SEO?

I enjoy the people I’ve met online through SEOrefugee. Even though my first computer was a Sinclair and I’ve seen it all happen, it still amazes me that I can have friends I’ve never met spread all over North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Where do you see SEO going over the next 5 years?

I believe it will become less about striving for high SERPs and more about online marketing but, if I could see five years out, I would have bought a lot more domain names back in the day.

Any favorite tips or advice?

Join SEOrefugee, duh!

How has SEO benefited you the most?

SEOrefugee has pretty much solved the nagging problem I had with what to do with my spare time.

What industries do you work in?

I do web design for non-profits, community-based organizations and small to medium size business based primarily in the Midwest.

Do you take jobs or just work privately?

Take jobs

What is your SEO Philosophy?

I don’t really have one. I just ask other people what I should do.

James, you have a pretty extensive background in design including teaching and years of web development before you got into SEO. How has that helped you or set you apart?

Teaching benefits me in a number of ways:

• First of all, I enjoy it.
• Beyond that, it forces me to really understand and stay current with the programs I use. I thought I knew a lot about Dreamweaver before I started teaching it. But after the first class, I was astounded at the problems students were able to create.
• Finally, I’ve gotten a number of clients through my students and the school where I teach.

You also raised a family. How did that help/hinder you? Any advice for new developers/SEOs that have family concerns?

In twenty years, no one will care where you ranked for your keywords on Google but you’ll need your children to support retirement. Be good to them.

Seriously:

• Don’t be on call 24/7.
• Always take time for your family and yourself.
• Constantly tell your family that you love them.
• If you have to choose between work and family, family is the better choice.
• If you have to choose work (and some times you do) make sure it doesn’t happen to often.

You seem to have a great relationship with your son. What is it like to work with him at a professional level?

It’s difficult for us to have a "professional" relationship. We know each other too well. It’s too easy for us to press each other’s buttons and too hard for us to cut each other slack. But somehow we manage to work together on a number of projects. He’s a great kid, his mind is always shooting off in a hundred directions. He inspires me.

I get depressed if a day goes by without an email. Even if it’s a dumb idea that I’ll have to try to find time for.

Anything else?

To young people (and, I guess, old ones), I’d say it’s impossible to know what SEO, the online environment or the world, for that matter, will be like in ten or twenty years.

I’m doing work now that didn’t exist when I went to college with tools that didn’t exist. The computer I’m working on does things that the mainframe at the University of Illinois never dreamed of (although computers dreaming may be one of those things coming in ten or twenty years). Learn what you can, follow your interests, be flexible and occasionally decide with your heart rather than your brain and things should work out.

BTW, my degree is in Architecture. I have worked as:

• An Architectural Assistant (my first "real" job, I got fired)
• A store planner (macho code for an interior designer)
• Janitor
• Professional hot air balloon pilot
• T-shirt designer
• Catalog designer
• Newspaper graphic artist
• Illustrator
• Web designer