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Kim Krause Berg: Usability is Key While working as a webmaster for a technical magazine, Kim Krause Berg was put in charge of ranking the magazine’s website in search engines. She learned all she could about search engine optimization—enough so that she felt comfortable hiring her services out as a freelance search marketer on the side. She started Cre8pc in 1996, and soon had thirteen client sites to handle as well as her full-time employer. In 1998, Kim started the Cre8pc Website Promotion Club, an online community that gave her a forum to discuss search marketing issues with other professionals—as well as teach people just getting into the industry. Kim gained a reputation for being willing to help people seeking tips and info on search marketing, and soon became a sought-after specialist. She also moderated the Home and Small Business Club. In the meantime, Kim had moved on from her job at the technical magazine. She worked for several technical companies such as Verticalnet and Unisys, as a user interface engineer and in quality assurance and software testing. In this field, she worked to test and develop website usability in-house. This helped her build valuable skills, which she then brought to her freelance consulting business—which was still going strong, even though Kim was still employed full-time. That changed during the dot-com crash in 2001. Kim’s company suffered huge losses and had to lay off most of their staff, including her. Within six hours, however, she was hired by a company looking for a sub-contractor to manage the proprietary online software they built for a telecommunications company. For the first time, Kim was working from home—which gave her the flexibility to expand Cre8pc’s services as well. In 2002, Kim changed Cre8pc’s club to Cre8asite Forums, where she was one of the first to emphasize usability as a crucial aspect of web design. That year, Kim worked through Cre8pc full-time. Her focus is website usability testing. She uses cognitive walkthrough methodologies to make sure client websites are easy to use from a consumer’s perspective. She has a strong background in search marketing, giving her the ability to understand how usability factors affect search engine optimization and how to make sure a website is both usable and search optimized. Today, Kim offers usability testing services through UsabilityEffect.com, a new company she launched in 2004. She also talks about search marketing, design, and usability issues on her Cre8pc SEO and Usability Blog. She still loves teaching, and offers a self-study website usability course through the Search Engine College. Useful website << Return to People of Search Homepage
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