Blog

Summary

Jon is the founder JonLar Studio, an independent SEO strategy and Webflow development company based remotely in Denver, CO. Manifest SEO specializes in strategy to grow businesses through Search, content, and developing highly-engaging websites in Webflow.

Beginning and discovery of direction

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In 2006, Jon attended the University of Louisville to earn a Business Marketing and Management degree. These days, Jon’s happiest moments are when he can analyze data, create strategies, and design engaging experiences.

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Jon's passion for consumer behavior and marketing began at a young age when he would think about why people made purchasing decisions while in stores or working his retail job. He would analyze behavior, asking questions like "how are these different products presented that makes someone pay more?" or "How do I describe and explain the benefits of this product?". These were the foundations of why Jon chose marketing and management as his career direction.

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Before consumer behavior and marketing, Jon grew up on computers and loved technology starting at a very early age. His interests grew together with marketing and technology to become a perfect fit for SEO, design, and development.

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Development of core skills

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Another passion of Jon's was Ultimate Frisbee. In 2011 after graduating college and continuing his retail work, Jon found an opportunity to lead a new start-up professional league for the sport (The American Ultimate Disc League). For two seasons he managed marketing, logistics, and development of the local franchise. The league is now very successful with over 20 franchises across the United States.

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In addition, Jon ran a USA Ultimate sanctioned tournament called The Three Ring Rally for a local club team achieving goals of revenue generation and attendance. This experience extended his branding and leadership skills by being solely responsible for delivering the complete experience. In order to be successful, Jon focused on partnership development, assigning roles, and planning.

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While executing that work he also started his professional career at a marketing agency where he was exposed to deeper digital marketing fields of SEO, SEM, and analytics. He learned the basics and began refining skills in communication and strategy. SEO and analytics quickly became fascinating to him and he pushed further into learning everything about it.

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After two years with the small marketing agency he moved to a larger full-service agency as the lead SEO and SEM team member on a performance marketing team where he led website migrations, auditing, strategy, and new business development. Clients he worked with include KubotaUSA, Kindred Healthcare, Texas Roadhouse, SENCO, Progress Software, and many more.

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In 2017 he moved to Denver and began working remotely. He also launched Manifest SEO, his freelance and consulting studio.

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2019 was a watershed moment as he discovered his passion for development and web design through the platform Webflow. Now core to his passion is creating design projects to express the inspiration he sees in the world.

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Extending abilities and the future

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Leaving the agency world in 2019, he worked in SEO as a Technical lead at a start-up (Caring.com) and gained a role at the enterprise level (intuit, TurboTax). One thing that all clients and employers have loved about Jon is how closely he follows industry trends and can bring new ideas and strategies to an organization.

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Today Jon is building his own projects in Webflow, learning Python programming, data visualization, and building a sustainable independent business.

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