SEO Consultant
Kate Rafferty has been working in the Search Engine Optimization industry since 2002 when she founded Virtual Where LLC. a consulting organization that provides SEO services doing business as www.KateRaffertySEO.com.
When Kate Rafferty launched Virtual Where LLC she was focused on helping small businesses design websites and using technology for their businesses. Quite quickly Kate discovered that she had the aptitude for Search Engine Optimization technologies. After getting certified in SEO she began acquiring clients and growing their businesses via the Internet.
MISSION: To help small to medium size businesses “BE FOUND” on the Internet.
To say it is a mission is not an exaggeration. When Kate was studying for her Computer Information Systems degree and family asked what she was going to do on computers she would daydream about working with local businesses and helping them use computer technology. At the time not many businesses even had computers. There wasn’t much software, this was before email and the Internet!
Over the years Kate became a programmer, then a business analyst, and finally found her true affinity for database work. As you can imagine when she realized that Google is just a giant database – she knew she found “the thing she loves to do”.
All that experience working in large corporations like Viacom turned out to be the solid foundation for getting organized and structured and to be able to work-from-home. When COVID hit and everyone began working from home, she shared her tips for how to effectively work from home and how to create a relatively distraction-free home office.
Kate will work directly with your web team or can recommend specialists from a consortium of Internet technology providers and business solution providers.
More About Kate Rafferty
Kate began her career in 1984 with an Information Technology degree and jobs in programming, business analysis, and business liaison. She has worked in large corporations and traveled the world! She worked at a dot com, ParentWatch and some large international corporations Viacom, Valassis Inserts, and The MONY Group, Republic National Bank. And two international consulting businesses Seer Technologies and Computer Automated Business Systems.
Kate’s first step out of the corporate world and into entrepreneurship with the launch of Virtual Where LLC, a franchise with WSI. As a franchisee with her “WSI for Web Solutions” she met local businesses and worked with various Internet software companies to build websites. It was through a WSI group that she became certified in SEO and decided to change the direction of her business.
Expanding and Exploring
In addition this SEO business, Kate was one of the founders of Connect The Dots Networking. This company’s vision was to share resources for women in business and to help women trying to connect the dots with work, money, and lifestyle and to better balance their lives. As a single mom and the daughter of a mom with severe Alzheimer’s, Kate found that the support of family, friends, and other women in business is essential to living what can be a mighty stressful life. The business kicked off in high gear but was leveled by COVID restrictions – making face-to-face networking impossible. Not a great success story, but an incredible learning experience. Co-founder Lori Brand launched a free online group, the Monmouth County Women’s Business Connection of which I am an admin.
Kate has also been involved in an Etsy shop and the ebook Self-Publishing industry. Both use SEO in different ways. Just like she was excited to be involved in SEO in the early years, she found that ebook publishing was like the Wild West and Amazon was to books like Google was to businesses. Now she helps independent authors who are interested in self-publishing their books as print-on-demand (POD) and ebooks. She converts and formats WordDocs for Amazon ebooks and print-on-demand. Kate’s first foray into this industry was with Al Pirozzoli, a true Renaissance Man who writes, creates art, and provides marketing services with businesses. Take A Book Around was their early entry into the Self-Publishing industry and launching Al’s self-published books. Now her focus is to utilize the self-publishing experience to help business owners who are subject-matter-experts to create and distribute their stories in an exciting yet reasonably priced fashion.
GIVING BACK: Kate has been Technology Committee Chair for The Woman’s Club of Red Bank since around 2005. She supports the WordPress website and helps with the organization’s online calendar, email distribution, and some social media. www.WomansClubOfRedBank.org