Hi! I’m Joost de Valk, an internet entrepreneur from the Netherlands.
I am currently the Head of WordPress Strategy at Newfold Digital, one of the world’s largests web hosts and domain name registrars. I’m the founder of Yoast, which we sold to Newfold in 2021. I have a long history in digital marketing as well as WordPress. I’m married to Marieke, who was Yoast’s CEO until we sold it. Marieke and I have four children together.
Marieke and I invest in companies that play at least partly in the digital space through our company Emilia Capital. We also run our own projects there, most notably Marieke’s Empowerwoment project. You can check out the companies we invested in or get in touch if you want us to invest in your company!
I founded Yoast in 2010, after working in several different companies as a digital marketing consultant. I’ve worked on some of the biggest SEO projects in the world, like the site migration of the Guardian from .co.uk to theguardian.com.
In our spare time, we love spending time in our Tuscan vacation home or travel to other places in the world.
Speaking Engagements
Although COVID-19 has changed things a lot, I love the opportunity to speak at conferences all over the world.
Upcoming Gigs
Your Event Here!
Looking for a speaker? I’d love to hear about your event!
EUROPA-PARK, RUST, Germany
Cloudfest
CloudFest is the #1 internet infrastructure event in the world, connecting the global cloud computing industry. I’ll be speaking about The needs of a WordPress customer.
stayokay Amsterdam east
WP Meetup Amsterdam
A panel discussion on ChatGPT, WordPress and how we can all use it.
NIJMEGEN, The Netherlands
YoastCon
I’ll be speaking at Yoast’s conference YoastCon about Crawlability.
BERLIN, Germany
SMX Advanced Europe
I’ll be speaking at SMX Advanced in Berlin this fall.
munich, Germany
SEOktoberfest G50 Summit
I’ll once again be speaking at the world’s best (invite-only) SEO conference.
Past Speaking Engagements
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the most used SEO plugin for WordPress. With automatic XML sitemaps, the most sophisticated Schema API and lots and lots of technical SEO optimizations inside, your site deserves nothing less.
WordPress
I spend on average about 2 hours a week on WordPress core, mostly making small technical improvements to improve its SEO and performance.
WordProof
I’m an investor in and advisor for WordProof. The WordProof Timestamp Ecosystem empowers internet users and content creators with the tools to build a safer and more trustworthy internet. We’re building a trusted web, together!
