Webster, NY — The Story So Far
Rochester roots. Digital horizons.
I'm Austin Zsedely — a marketer, a builder, and a founder. This is the story of how a kid from Webster, New York went from bleachers at Bills games to building an SEO agency of his own.
Austin Zsedely — Founder, Sailor SEO
Growing up on Rochester's side of the map
I grew up in Webster, New York — a town on the shore of Lake Ontario, just east of Rochester. Life there moved with the seasons: snowy winters, lake-effect anything, and Sundays in the fall devoted to one thing and one thing only — the Buffalo Bills.
Rochester taught me a particular kind of work ethic. It's a city of makers and tinkerers — Kodak, Xerox, optics, engineering — and being surrounded by that growing up left a mark. I was always curious about how things worked, and eventually that curiosity turned toward the internet: how websites got built, how they got found, and why some businesses showed up everywhere while others didn't.
Oswego, business school, and building a brotherhood
In 2014 I headed to SUNY Oswego to study Business Administration — marketing research, sales management, operations, strategic communication. The coursework mattered, but the bigger lesson of college was this: if the thing you want doesn't exist, you build it.
That's exactly what I did with Greek life. I became a Founding Father of the Kappa Sigma fraternity at Oswego — starting a chapter from nothing, recruiting its first members, and setting the culture it would run on long after my class graduated. Turns out that's a pretty good preview of starting a company.
Degree
B.S. Business Administration
Role
Founding Father, Kappa Sigma
Becoming a founder: Sailor SEO
In March 2023 I took everything — the campaigns, the clients, the late nights reverse-engineering search results — and bet it on myself. I founded Sailor SEO, an SEO agency based in Rochester.
Sailor SEO grew into the top-ranking SEO agency in the Rochester Google Local Maps Pack, built on AI-powered SEO tools I engineer myself — bots that analyze rankings, test strategies, and keep clients ahead of the algorithm instead of chasing it. Every ranking we've earned came from the same instinct I had at Oswego: if you want something to exist, build it yourself.
"The algorithms keep changing. The need for clear strategy doesn't."
— How I think about search
SEO Strategy
AI SEO Tooling
Content Strategy
Team Leadership
Beyond the work
Buffalo Bills
Lifelong fan through every season — the highs, the heartbreaks, and the tailgates. Go Bills.
LA Lakers
Laker basketball, always — from Showtime lore to every clutch fourth quarter. Purple and gold for life.
NY Yankees
Pinstripes, October baseball, and the Bronx Bombers — my team since I first learned to keep score.
Basketball
Pickup games and box scores. The court is where I clear my head and stay sharp.
Reading
Always a stack of books going — business, marketing, and everything in between.
Building Websites
What started as curiosity became a craft — designing and building sites for fun and for work.
Austin & Diana
Winston & Milo
My favorite chapter — the love of my life.
No life story is complete without its person, and mine is Diana Nguyen — my partner, my best friend, and the love of my life. She makes every day better, and every Bills Sunday, Lakers night, and Yankees game an occasion.
Anniversary
October 11, 2024
Our Cats
Winston & Milo
Home these days is the three of us — Diana, me, and Winston and Milo, our two cats and the real owners of the couch.
Whether it's SEO, a website, or just talking shop about the Bills, Lakers, or Yankees, I'm always up for a good conversation.
Webster, NY — Greater Rochester Area