Hayden SchusterSEO and AI visibility

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Hayden Schuster

I'm a Senior SEO Manager at Optimal. I'm from Portland, OR, and recently moved to Austin, Texas, where I'm currently melting in the sun. On nights and weekends I build my own sites so I can put ideas to a real test and show what happened.

Resume LinkedIn

Works at
Optimal, a OneMagnify company, as Senior SEO Manager, since May 2026
Lives in
Austin, Texas, since June 2026
Grew up in
The Portland area, Oregon
Studied at
University of Oregon, 2013 to 2017
Builds
Sites of my own, on nights and weekends
Hayden Schuster with his arms spread wide at the edge of a clear mountain lake

Where I'm from, and where I live now

I'm proud of Portland, where I grew up. It's obviously a massive part of who I am. I'm in Austin now, I'm excited about being here and I love it, but I do miss home still, and it means a ton to me.

On this site Hayden is the Eevee. It adapts to wherever it lands, the way he did from Portland to Eugene to Austin, with Bella along for the run.

Growing up in Portland

I was going to Autzen Stadium before I could walk. I grew up on it. Saturday afternoons in the fall were non-negotiable. Constant drives from Portland. The Blazers, the Timbers and the Ducks all came with me to Texas.

Austin, where I live now

In June 2026 I moved to Austin for a new chapter. How I put it on LinkedIn at the time: Ducks fly south for the... summer?!🔥😎 Starting a new chapter in Austin... The day I told my network, May 4, 2026: “Next stop: Texas. 🧳🤠”

From a September post: I know i'm deep in Longhorn territory now, so I'll be wearing even more green and yellow around town. 😏🦆🏈

How I ended up working in SEO

From a student IT job to SEO for enterprise brands, in five stops. Every title and month is on the resume; this is how it felt.

  1. 20132017

    University of Oregon

    Four years, working as an IT student technician. I went to college during the Marcus Mariota era. A season like that turns you into a person who builds entire websites about it. That website is The Quack Report.

  2. 20182020

    Clark County Event Center

    My first marketing job. My farewell line: So, very simply, to everyone who let me fly before I could run, Thank You.

  3. 2020now

    Rose City Marketing

    I started Rose City Marketing in May 2020.

  4. 20212026

    Adpearance

    Almost five years. SEO went from part of my work to the title on it.

  5. 2026now

    Optimal, a OneMagnify company

    Senior SEO Manager since May 2026: SEO and AI visibility for enterprise brands, or as I put it on LinkedIn, building programs for enterprise brands navigating the shift from search engines to answer engines.

What the work is, in one line

As I put it in a July post: To win the recommendation, content must be visible enough to find (found), verifiable enough to trust (understood), and quotable enough to use (chosen). What that means in plain English, and how I work at my full-time job.

How the building gets done

I'm an SEO, not a developer by training. For years I could audit structured data but couldn't fix the JSON-LD template myself. Now I build with AI: I direct every change and check it. I have made so many mistakes. The checks, and the mistakes behind them, and how I think about the work.

The sites I build on nights and weekends

Two of my own sites started as fan projects: These exist because I’m a fan first and an SEO second, and sometimes those two things collide.

The Quack Report The Quack Report is an Oregon Ducks football site because apparently watching every game isn't enough, I also need to build an entire website about it. How the site was built The Crawler's Cookbook The Crawler's Cookbook is a Dungeon Crawler Carl fan site I built because the series needed a proper reference hub and nobody had made one yet. The page that took off, and why

Both started as “I’ll just make a quick page” and became full sites. That’s usually how it goes. The rest, including the ones that didn't work, are in the portfolio.

What I'm like outside work

Not everything needs a system. This page is the one place on this site that isn’t about search, architecture, or frameworks. Obsessed with my indoor and outdoor leagues, even in my 30s. I also lift, walk a lot, read fiction that messes with time or reality, and jump from hobby to hobby every month or so. Oh, and I’m a huge traveler!

Ten things, four full lines, and one piece still falling. Tap a piece.

Bella, my corgi

What are you probably doing right now if it’s not work hours?

Probably walking my corgi and listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks, or convincing myself I’ll only check one thing and then checking five, or doing something active to shut my brain off and failing slightly at that.

She has her own corner of this site: Ask Bella answers questions about me, and every answer links to the page that proves it.

Bella the corgi sitting on a blanket on the couch, head tilted
Bella, head tilted
Bella, a tri-color corgi, lying on the sand inside a homemade #1 Ducks Fan photo frame
Bella, #1 Ducks fan

Questions nobody asked me

From my old About page: No one actually asked these. I made them up. That’s fine.

What’s the point of this site, really?

To think out loud in public. It’s a place to document how I approach SEO systems, what I’ve learned working on complex sites, and how my thinking keeps evolving. It’s not meant to sell anything aggressively. If it helps someone else think more clearly, that’s a win.

Do you build websites just for fun?

Yeah, constantly. I have a problem. I also build stuff purely because I’m a fan of something and want it to exist. Two of them became real sites.

Why do you overthink way too much?

Awesome question, thanks for asking, wow! Because my brain is always looking for the underlying system, even when something could just be left alone. Once I notice a pattern, it’s hard to unsee it, and my default response is to keep pulling the thread.

What’s a hill you will absolutely die on?

Clear structure and consistency beat clever one-off ideas every time. In SEO, in work, and honestly in most parts of life. Structure compounds. Life swings.

What’s the most common SEO advice you disagree with?

That “SEO is dying, lol.” It isn’t. It’s just evolving, which is a very different thing. What’s dying are shortcuts, surface-level tactics, and the idea that you can outsmart search systems without understanding how they work. The fundamentals still matter. Structure still matters. Clear intent still matters. The people struggling are usually the ones doing SEO like it’s still 2015.

What’s something you refuse to optimize in your life?

Music listening. No algorithms, no efficiency, nada. I’ll replay the same song 20 times a day until I hate it. Pretty embarrassing.

What’s something you love that you’d never put on a resume?

Uhhh, well I’m an absolute sports fanatic, whether it’s NFL (Go Seahawks, Sam legit), College Football (Go Ducks, next year our year????), Premier League (Go Liverpool), MLS (Go Timbers, Thorns), NBA (Go Blazers, we’re winning another trophy in the next three years), and the list goes on. Even love watching and playing tennis and other stuff.

What’s a small thing that can instantly ruin your day?

There’s something personal with me and traffic. I just don’t have the patience.

What’s something you enjoy that surprises people?

Honestly, that I'm an introvert. Love my house, love being alone. My social battery dies so quickly, and if I’m not around the right people, it’s no fun.

That's the person. Say hello

The resume is the record: every role, every date and what I own at work today. The sites are where the ideas get tested.

The sites I keep mentioning, and what happened on each Resume Follow on LinkedIn

A question about a post, something on one of my sites that looks wrong, or just hi: the form comes straight to me, and I read every one. One quick question instead? Ask Bella, my corgi. Every answer she gives links to the page that proves it.

Write to me
Ask Bella

Ask Bella Hayden's corgi. Answers from this site, every fact sourced.

BELLA

WOOF. I'm Bella, Hayden's corgi. He's my human. Ask me about him; every answer cites its source.

How it works: answers written ahead and checked against this site's pages, plus a search of the site that quotes it word for word. Every claim has a numbered source you can tap. Nothing is generated while you wait, nothing is made up, and nothing you type leaves your browser. Every answer, in plain HTML

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