Matt O’Brien

Matt is the director of online marketing at Cluster Interactive Group. He handles SEO and PPC strategy direction for client projects and company ventures.

Background

Matt got his web development start in 2004, when he began building song lyrics and guitar tabs websites during college. These websites depend on advertisements for revenue, which means that they need high levels of traffic in order to make a profit. Because of this, Matt’s focus was immediately drawn to search engine optimization, which he used to bring visitors to his sites.

Since 2004 Matt has continued building and optimizing websites, operating under the company name V9 Design until forming Cluster Interactive Group in 2010.

Education

As an undergraduate, Matt studied philosophy and psychology, graduating first in his class from Eastern Illinois University. He attended graduate school at the University of Chicago, again studying philosophy and preparing to work for a PhD. He eventually decided that the professor’s life was not for him, and left graduate school to form Cluster Interactive Group.

Personal

Matt plays ice hockey and loves to travel, read and write. He also enjoys snowboarding and riding around on boats.

Matt’s software philosophy focuses on usability, prioritizing function over form. He believes that if a piece of software is well designed, the user experience will be satisfying and rewarding, and this is a kind of beauty.

Matt believes in honesty, hard work and altruism. He likes to sleep good at night and feel good about what he does.