IndexAbout the FoundersThe Founding of YoastAn Instant Success: SEONowadays, with Internet access at an all-time high, it's not easy keep customers engaged and satisfied. There is so much content on the web that it's quite easy to get lost in all the noise and clutter. To stand out and be heard, articles, blogs and all other types of media must be unique and engaging. They also need to follow the right SEO practices so they can be found by search engines. Search engine optimization is every marketer and content creator's best friend, helping their work get the recognition it deserves. The undoubted king of WordPress SEO is Yoast, and this time we'll take a look at how the company started and got to where it is now. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay About the Founders Joost de Valk started his career working for a digital marketing company. He gave up and started consulting for big companies like eBay and The Guardian. While he was doing this, he was working on a project of his own: a plugin that would help websites improve their SEO score. It started as a simple hobby because Valk was interested in the algorithms that govern SEO. After a while, he started to sense that there was more to this than what met the eye and suddenly he started to see it as more than just a hobby. He became so busy with this hobby that his actual work began to suffer. That's when his wife suggested that maybe he should take this seriously and start trying to make some money out of it. Founding Yoast The entire empire we now know as Yoast started as one man's hobby in 2010! He started his blog in 2004, called joostdevalk.nl, and in 2006 he started css3.info. In June 2008 he founded yoast.com and started earning money through advertising placed on the blog. In mid-2010, he felt it was time to invest in Yoast full-time, quitting his job and founding the company. The journey started with Video SEO, then came WordPress SEO Premium, and that turned into Yoast SEO Premium. All of these ventures became so successful, so fast that they had to build a company around these services. De Valk was the only one involved, taking care of everything from advice to early years support. The first few years were very tiring as he had to handle support, development and testing on his own. During these years, it was his wife who served as his greatest supporter and helper. Even today, Joost, Marieke, his wife and their first employee, Michiel Heijmans, handle almost all the management and logistics. Joost's wife, Marieke, shares Joost's busy lifestyle having majored in sociology with a doctorate in criminology. She began her career as a researcher at Avans University in Den Bosch. But, when her husband's company, Yoast, started to grow, she decided to help her partner with his work. Her love for writing inspired her to start creating eBooks and soon the idea flourished. Marieke is responsible for the entire Yoast Academy board and has been extremely empowering in assisting the company's growth. An instant success: SEOWordPress is a well-oiled machine hosting over 74 million websites and slowly Yoast started to gain momentum, becoming a regular site featured on millions of those websites. One of the most significant problems they had was maintaining and providing support to millions of beloved users.!