Former Bing Personality, Duane Forrester Now Working As VP Of Organic Search At Bruce Clay

Duane Forrester, former Bing’s Webmaster Outreach specialist who was known as many as the face of Bing and Webmasters, who also announced he was leaving Bing announced last night that he is joining Bruce Clay, Inc. as the Vice President of Organic Search Operations.

The announcement is on the Bruce Clay site where Bruce Clay, the owner of Bruce Clay, Inc. said “everyone knows that Duane could have gone to work for any company he wanted,” adding “it is an honor that he chose to work here.”

Duane Forrester originally worked at Microsoft as an SEO on the MSN properties. He then moved over to the Bing team to work on outreach and Bing Webmaster Tools. In October 2014 he was laid off from Bing during downsizing, only shortly later to be rehired to do a similar job. Then less than ten months since he was rehired he quit Microsoft and announced he is working at Bruce Clay.

Here is what Duane Forrester sent us:

“I will be responsible for organic search operations. Part of the reason I wanted to come to Bruce Clay, Inc. is that the brand is well-respected, well known and very good in the digital marketing space. I feel I can say that given the exposure I’ve had over 18 years of being involved in this industry and seeing things grow.”

One of the highlights of Forrester’s career at Bing was designing Webmaster Tools for Bing, launched in 2012. He reflects, “The Bing Webmaster Tools were a huge success: popular and well used. I have grown this desire to build good tools – and I think I’m capable. I feel I’ve done good work at Bing and I’d like to bring that talent over to Bruce Clay, Inc. BCI has a great tool set — but what else can we do? What else do businesses need? How can we bring more useful information to them?”
Duane is looking forward to trading in the corporate challenges that go along with working for the search engine and returning to his in-house/agency roots:

“There’s something about being able to come back in a role in a small business where there is a faster twitch muscle in place, where if you see an idea, you can capitalize on it quickly. Because you get to try these ideas out very quickly, there’s an almost instant feedback gratification that happens when you say, ‘I think I have a good idea, let’s launch it,’ and then it takes off.”

“I have to be honest, I’m also excited about being able to take all of my cumulative experience and using it in new ways because I love helping businesses. I love helping small businesses have that moment. Where they have that a-ha moment and they say, ‘I can do this. Not only can I do it but I can do it in minutes a day. I don’t have to pay that random person for this because I can manage it.’ They’ve been managing it, they think the return is there, but they’re not so good at it, and you as a consultant have the resources that take them from mediocre to excellent. When they’re happy with us it’s because their business is successful. I’m honestly looking forward to that.”

Best of luck to Duane and Bruce on this new venture.

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