The SEO Expert Search Process
With over 1.2 billion websites, it’s a challenge to find the best people to follow, and get quality advice from to grow your website.
Though there are many top lists, sometimes these are little more than experts listing their friends.
Data isn’t biased; just the people who interpret it.
According to Search Engine Land, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial,” or “natural” search results on search engines.
Since Google processes over 3.5 billion searches a day, this can amount to several thousands of free visitors to your site every month; if you build your site right.
Which is where search engine optimization comes in.
To find out who are the most influential SEO experts around the world, I compared the scores of 3 sites: Klout, WeFollow, and FollowerWonk.
I’ve compiled some of the best resources available to help increase traffic and convert into followers. Keep reading to receive all of their valuable resources, bonuses, and giveaways. Some that are exclusive only to this post!
FollerWonk considers the social authority of these influencers on Twitter. While it is easy for people to star a tweet, a re-tweet carries the brand message to their followers.
WeFollow uses a prominence score using an algorithm similar to linkbuilding with PageRank. The more people of influence connected to the account, the higher the score.
Since not every influencer was found on WeFollow, the total score is an average of the 3 sites on a scale of 1 to Oprah (err… 100).
After analyzing over 800 SEO accounts, here is…
The Top 100 SEO Experts to Follow, Backed by Science
100. Jordan Kasteler
Jordan Kasteler is a seasoned professional and an Internet Marketing consultant specializing in SEO and Social Media Marketing.
Jordan’s work experience ranges from in-house SEO at Overstock.com, marketing strategy at PETA, to agency-level consulting. Currently Jordan uses his SEO expertise as the Senior SEO Manager at Red Door Interactive.
Jordan also is an author, speaker, and blogger at Search Engine Land.
Website: jordankasteler.com
Twitter: @JordanKasteler
Score: 58.74
99. Matthew Capala
[bctt tweet=”When 80% of consumers search for a product before purchasing it, invisibility is worse than failure. @SearchDecoder #SEO” via=”no”]
An Internet marketer, growth consultant, entrepreneur, international speaker, trainer, and author, Matthew is the SEO expert founder behind Search Decoder.
Matthew is also the founder of Alphametic, an organic growth accelerator. As an adjunct professor at NYU, Matthew teaches an advanced graduate course on search marketing.
Matthew is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, “SEO Like I’m 5.” He recently launched an online course I Will Teach You SEO to share his SEO expertise.
Contributor at: The Next Web, ProBlogger, and Sparksheet.
Website: www.searchdecoder.com
Twitter: @searchdecoder
Score: 58.74
Learn more here and enter “100SEOExperts” to get 50% off the course! Includes free preview, 30 day money-back guarantee, and lifetime access.
98. Eric Siu
[bctt tweet=”#Content featuring compelling images averages 94% more views than content without images. #marketing”]
Co-founder of an online marketing angency, Eric has worked with several major companies, startups and non-profit organizations.
Eric’s experience spans across several fields of digital marketing, including SEO, content strategy, social media, analytics, PR, paid acquisition, conversion rate optimization and more.
As an SEO expert, Eric has worked with Cafe Press, HostGator, Intuit, KitchenAid, Mint.com, Salesforce, TurboTax, Yahoo, RandomHouse, and Sony. Eric has a blog and podcast at Growth Everywhere where he gives insight on business and personal and interviews world-class successful entrepreneurs.
Regular contributor at: Search Engine Watch, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Social Media Examiner.
Website: singlegrain.com
Twitter: @ericosiu
Score: 58.82
97. Garth O’Brien
Garth O’Brien, formerly a practicing attorney, transitioned his career to pursue his passion for Digital Marketing and SEO. Since 2002, Garth has leveraged SEO and SEM and along the way incorporated Social Media and Content Marketing.
He is a former Search Director for Catalyst, a leading search marketing agency, and owned the SEO programs for Hallmark, Windows Phone, Xbox Support, IKEA USA and many others. He now is the Director and Global Head of SEO for GoDaddy.
Website: garthobrien.com
Twitter: @garthobrien
Score: 58.93
96. Jason Acidre
Jason is a Manila-based Search Strategist and SEO expert. Formerly a professional counter-strike player, in 2010 he became an SEO Specialist and is now the CEO and Lead Search Marketing Strategist of Xight Interactive.
Jason aims to constantly learn new skills that interest him to complement his creativity. He always sets to challenge himself in breaking through greater heights each time he succeeds, making learning a never ending cycle.
Website: kaiserthesage.com
Twitter: @jasonacidre
Score: 59.36
95. Kevin Gibbons
Kevin is the Managing Director of BlueGlass, a strategy-driven digital marketing agency. Having been in the digital marketing industry since 2003, Kevin founded a search agency in Oxfordshire in 2006 and formed BlueGlass in 2012.
Kevin has used his SEO expertise and experience working with a number of large brands, including Deloitte, M&G Investments, Miele, Momondo, Vistaprint and Tate.
Website: blueglass.co.uk
Twitter: @kevgibbo
Score: 59.56
95. Brett Tabke
Founder of Pubcon and WebmasterWorld Inc. Brett is passionate about community building and has worked in the computer industry for three decades.
As an SEO expert, Tabke coined several SEO staple terms like “Link Farm,” “SEO Themes,” and the classic term “SERP” (Search Engine Results Page).
He was also featured in the Biography Channel special on the Google founders. Tabke was also a founding board member of SEMPO.
Website: Pubcon.com
Twitter: @btabke
Score: 59.59
94. Nick Stamoulis
Founder of Brick Marketing, Nick has worked with hundreds of companies small across all industries since 1998. Through his vast web marketing and SEO expertise, Nick Stamoulis has successfully increased the online visibility and sales of clients in multiple industries.
Speaker at: PubCon, MarketingProfs B2B Forum, American Marketing Association (AMA) Webcasts, eMarketing Association Conference, Boston SEO Meetup, eBusiness Symposium, SEMPO
Website: nickstamoulis.com
Twitter: @nickstamoulis
Score: 59.63
93. Nick Eubanks
Nick is a technical marketer focused on finding ways to use data to answer questions and solve problems. Through his organization, he has leveraged search to organically grow websites to millions of visitors, several times, without spending $1 on paid advertising.
His team’s approach to SEO is from a technical and mathematical perspective, using information and analysis to guide the projects, and test everything.
Not only is Nick an SEO expert, he claims to be the #1 Seller of Traffic Cones in America.
Website: SEONick.net/blog
Twitter: @nick_eubanks
Score: 59.63
92. Chris Winfield
Chris Winfield is a passionate entrepreneur and success strategist, who lives in New York City with his wife, and daughter. An “eternal student of life,” Chris is on a quest to constantly improve the world and himself.
Over the past decade and a half, as an SEO expert Chris has worked with many of the world’s best known companies, including Disney, Virgin, Macy’s, Viacom, Conde Nast, Intuit, NBC, Time, Inc. & many others.
Featured in: The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, AP, USA Today, CNN, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, Forbes, TechCrunch, Inc., and 200+ media outlets.
Website: chriswinfield.com
Twitter: @chriswinfield
Score: 59.65
91. Glenn Gabe
Glenn Gabe is a digital marketing veteran with over 19 years of experience. With a heavy focus on SEO, SEM, Social Media advertising, and Web Analytics, Glenn currently helps clients maximize their digital marketing efforts.
Glenn is also a columnist at Search Engine Watch, a contributor at Search Engine Land, and a featured author in the Google Analytics Help Center.
Website: hmtweb.com
Twitter: @glenngabe
Score: 59.80
89. Laura Lippay
Laura is a consultant and marketing executive based in Silicon Valley. Over the years, she has worked with many prominent brands, including Red Bull, several Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL entertainment and lifestyle properties, Icelandair, and Nylon Magazine.
Currently Laura has been the Organic Search & Technical Optimization Lead for Netflix. She has held previous roles including the Technical Marketing Director for Yahoo Media and SEO Specialist for CNET.
LinkedIn: /in/lauralippay
Twitter: @lauralippay
Score: 59.91
88. Meg Geddes
Meg has been around the internet pretty much since there was been one. Having sold used DEC minicomputers and mainframes since she was 16, she’s been around computers even before that.
Her past experience stretches from sales, marketing, tech, web designer, and Technical Support Manager for a networking company specializing in UNIX and Netware.
Meg is currently an internet and marketing consultant and web publisher. She mainly concentrates on SEO, pay per click (PPC), e-commerce, and usability and general business and marketing consultation.
Website: netmeg.com
Twitter: @netmeg
Score: 59.94
87. Gerald Weber
Gerald likes to call himself the head janitor and toilet cleaner guy at Search Engine Marketing Group.
In December 2005, Gerald founded Search Engine Marketing Group and co-founded Viral Content Buzz with Ann Smarty, a free platform that helps bloggers and internet marketers generate real “social buzz.”
Currently, Gerald as the head SEO expert for STDcheck.
Website: About Me
Twitter: @the_gman
Score: 60.04
86. Jennifer Sable Lopez
Jennifer is the Director of Community at Moz. Originally hired at Moz as an SEO consultant, she soon became an integral part of the team.
As an SEO expert, Jen has worked with companies like Simply Hired, Etsy and Real Networks.
You’ll often find Jen speaking and attending online marketing conferences all around the world.
Website: jensablelopez.com
Twitter: @jennita
Score: 60.18
85. Brian Dean
Brian Dean founded Backlinko and is an internationally-recognized entrepreneur and SEO expert.
If you’re not getting the traffic you want…
If you get your butt kicked every time Google launches an update…
If you’re confused by all the conflicting SEO information out there…
Then follow Brian’s proven SEO tips to scale and grow your site.
Brian specializes in providing marketing professionals and entrepreneurs practical strategies they can use to get more search engine traffic.
Website: backlinko.com
Twitter: @Backlinko
Score: 60.25
84. Greg Boser
Greg is the president & co-founder of Foundation Digital, a digital consultancy company that helps companies develop and execute data-driven earned media strategies to increase the bottom line.
Over the years as an SEO expert, Greg has had the opportunity to develop and execute winning organic search strategies in some of the web’s most competitive spaces.
Website: foundationdigital.com
Twitter: @GregBoser
Score: 60.28
83. Sujan Patel
Sujan Patel currently is the VP of Marketing at When I Work, and had previously founded Single Grain. Sujan has helped companies like SalesForce, TurboTax, Sony, Mint, KitchenAid, LinkedIn, and hundreds of others.
Through SEO and other marketing stategies, Sujan will help you acquire more customers, build brand awareness, and grow their businesses.
82. Lyndon Antcliff
Lyndon has a deep experience in website usability, having started building websites since 1998.
As an SEO expert, Lyndon specializes in content marketing management to help websites produce content that attracts, persuades and influences their readers.
Lyndon’s works have been seen in publications like Time magazine, Wired, Mayo radio show, and Fox News and mentioned by BBC, Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.
Website: cornwallseo.com, Cognitiveseo.com
Twitter: @lyndoman
Score: 60.76
81. Pedro Dias
An ex-Googler of the search quality, webspam team, Pedro now works as an SEO consultant as the managing partner at apis3. Pedro is also a co-founder of Engeeno, which is based down in Brazil.
Website: pedrodias.net
Twitter: @pedrodias
Score: 60.81
80. Matt Siltala
Matt Siltala is an online search industry leader and President of Avalaunch Media. Matt has worked with many prestigious companies like SalesForce, Century Link, The Home Depot, and ESRB.
Matt has been a speaker at prestigious conferences such as Pubcon, SMX, and Search Engine Strategies.
This SEO expert has such an awesome beard, that it has two twitter accounts: @siltalasbeard and @matsbeard.
Website: avalaunchmedia.com
Twitter: @Matt_Siltala
Score: 60.97
79. Kristopher B. Jones
Kris is the former founder, President and CEO of Pepperjam, an internet marketing agency and affiliate network that won the Inc 500 award, which he later sold to eBay.
Currently, Kris uses his SEO expertise and business acumen as the founder and CEO of ReferLocal.com, the chairman of Internet Marketing Ninjas, founder of the local SEO software as a service company LSEO.com, co-founder of the French Girls app, and founder, President, & CEO of KBJ Capital, an early stage angel investment fund and incubator.
Kris is also the best-selling author of “Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing
Website: krisjones.com
Twitter: @krisjonescom
Score: 61.02
78. Kevin Raposo
An once notable drummer for a metal band, Kevin is the founder and owner of KnowTechie, a tech blog for people who love tech, but live outside the bubble.
On KnowTechie, Kevin writes about tech, internet, social media, and other digital related topics. The mission of KnowTechie is to keep the articles short, simple, and informative, allowing you to find out what you need to know quickly and efficiently.
Website: KnowTechie.com
Twitter: @Kevin_Raposo
Score: 61.05
77. Lisa Barone
Lisa is the VP of Strategy at Overit, a digital agency redefining creative content through motion graphics, development, design, SEO/PPC, PR, content & social marketing.
Lisa’s obsession with characters, their stories, and how they share their message is as ingrained in her being as her dark hair and eyes. As a marketer, this makes her dangerously good at her job as she is able to create stories that consumers resonate with as a fiercely story-driven consumer herself.
Through this ability, Lisa can create a brand personae to connect you to your audience and make them give a crap about who you are.
Website: overit.com
Twitter: @LisaBarone
Score: 61.09
76. Barry Adams
An SEO expert and polemicist, humanist & twitter ranter, Barry is the Dutch founder of Polemic Digital, an expert SEO consultancy in Belfast, Ireland. Barry Adams started Polemic Digital in 2014 as a specialised SEO consultancy.
As an active SEO practitioner for over 15 years, he has earned a fair share of accolades. A true specialist and counted among the top SEO providers in Europe, Barry has a wealth of SEO knowledge to give.
Website: PolemicDigital.com
Twitter: @badams
Score: 61.10
75. Mike King
While you may associate Michael King being an SEO expert, his career and contribution to digital marketing is far bigger. While at Publicis Modem and Razorfish, he was working for major brands like Ralph Lauren, Johnson & Johnson, LG, and Citibank.
As the former Executive Director of Owned Media, Mike led teams that covered consumer insights, content, social strategy, SEO, marketing automation and technical marketing for brands like SAP, HSBC, SanDisk and Wharton.
Currently, Mike has been working as the founder & digital marketing consultant of iPullRank, providing the same great service to many companies.
Website: ipullrank.com
Twitter: @iPullRank
Score: 61.51
74. Craig Wilson
A digital marketing consultant, Craig now resides in Australia and is the founder of Australia’s leading inbound marketing agency Sticky Digital, an automated website analytics and SEO system NLYZR, InsiderJobs, and Newcastle’s online magazine UrbanInsider.
Craig is an accomplished sailor and cyclist who has lived in Finland, Washington and Colorado.
Website: MediaHunter.com.au
Twitter: @mediahunter Score: 61.68
73. Paul Shapiro
An amateur programmer and horror and zombie movie guru, Paul Shapiro is a search marketer that loves to take both a technical and creative approach to SEO.
Currently Paul works as the SEO director for Catalyst. Through them, Paul has worked with Procter and Gamble, Volkswagen, BlackRock, Eveready, Royal Caribbean, Colgate, Sam’s Club, General Electric, Humana, HSBC, AtTask, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, YSL, and SAP.
Paul also moderates Reddit’s “bigseo” sub-community, where you can find advice from some of the top SEO experts.
Website: searchwilderness.com
Twitter: @fighto
Score: 61.79
72. Andrew Shotland
A pioneer in getting Showtime and NBC online, Andrew has had quite the experience from the early days of the Internet.
At Showtime, Andrew hosted the very first web chat with Mike Tyson, covering his first match after getting out of prison. As the general manager of NBC.com, Andrew was instrumental in getting TV viewers to connect online, which paved the way for many networks to follow suit.
Andrew later moved to becoming the head of product and business development for Insider Pages, which was later bought by CitySearch.
Since 2006 Andrew has been running LocalSEOGuide.com, an influential local seo blog and a full service SEO consulting company specializing in both multi-location SEO and enterprise SEO consulting.
Website: localseoguide.com
Twitter: @localseoguide
Score: 62.05
71. Angie Schottmuller
Angie helps organizations get smarter and exceed their goals with customer-centric marketing, data-driven technology and persuasive psychology.
The former Chief of Conversion Marketing for Unbounce, Angie is now an inbound marketer for ThreeDeep Marketing, a digital marketing agency providing lead generation and marketing automation solutions.
As an inbound marketing and SEO expert part of Forbes “10 Online Marketers to Follow in 2015,” Angie is skilled at wielding magnetic content optimized for search, social, conversion and mobile with over sixteen years’ multichannel B2B and B2C experience.
Angie has worked for brands like Nestle USA, Gerber, Andersen Windows, and The Home Depot. Adept at harnessing online and emerging technologies to drive tangible results for improving business – social engagement, lead generation, sales conversion, customer loyalty, and brand advocacy.
Angie also is on the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) Board of Directors and columnist for Search Engine Watch.
Angie is also an Army veteran and Star Wars geek, which becomes quite apparent when you read her articles like “SEO Wars: Forget Black Hat, White Hat – What Color Is Your Lightsaber?”
International marketing speaker at: SES, SMX, SMX Advanced, Marketing Profs, Conversion Hotel, Hero Conference Conversion Summit, SiteTuners Webinar, Call to Action Conference, Unbounce Webinar, Conversion Conference, and eMetrics Summit.
Website: ThreeDeep Marketing
Twitter: @aschottmuller
Score: 62.09
70. Ross Hudgens
Founder of Siege Media, a no B.S content marketing agency that builds content for the sole purpose of making your company better through content development, promotion and maintenance, and a specialty in SEO.
Marketing runs deep in Ross’s veins as the former Marketing Assistant for Janix, Senior SEO Analyst for SingleGrain, and SEO Manager for MediaBoost and Full Beaker, Inc.
Website: SiegeMedia.com
Twitter: @RossHudgens
Score: 62.12
69. Danny Groner
Danny Groner is the manager of blogger partnerships & outreach for Shutterstock. He is also a freelance writer who was once described by a blogger as “a walking Wikipedia.”
Website: Danny Groner
Twitter: @DannyGroner
Score: 62.16
68. Todd Malicoat
An internet entrepreneur, and offshore charter fishing boat captain in Miami, Todd is a marketing consultant for Gallant Fish, and part of the SEO faculty for Market Motive.
With 10 years of experience building websites and improving traffic as an SEO expert, Todd has worked with companies like PBS, Meredith Corporation Properties, Amazon.com, ReachLocal.com and Real.com.
Website: stuntdubl.com
Twitter: @stuntdubl
Score: 62.31
67. John McTigue
Every organization has that one person you can look to for answers and direction. With 33 years of professional experience, John strives to find the right combination of marketing strategies that will deliver each client a defined ROI with his SEO expertise.
John believes all marketing efforts should have clear, measurable business objective. These efforts that have been instrumental in Kuno Creative achieving the HubSpot Happiest Customer award for the past three years.
Website: kunocreative.com Twitter: @jmctigue Score: 62.33
66. Adam Connell
[bctt tweet=”#SEO isnt about staying under the radar. Its about putting your visitors 1st. @adamjayc”]
While working as the Operations Manager at a UK-based marketing agency, Adam helped launch a new service selling marketing services to other agencies.
The service quickly grew it into a 5-figure monthly business. The catch? He did this working only 15 hours a month in less than 5 months!
Adam’s content and strategies have been featured on KISSmetrics, ProBlogger, Boost Blog Traffic, Search Engine Journal and The Huffington Post.
A fan of Firefly and Chinese takeout, be sure to follow this SEO expert.
Website: bloggingwizard.com
Twitter: @adamjayc
Score: 62.39
65. AJ Kohn
[bctt tweet=”#SEO is a user-centric activity and advocate for the user. @ajkohn #marketing”]
AJ is the owner of Blind Five Year Old, a San Francisco based online marketing firm specializing in SEO. The strange name comes from a specific SEO philosophy: to treat search engines like they are blind five year olds.
AJ combines a deep understanding of search marketing with a passion for product strategy with a successful track record spanning almost 20 years.
A recognized thought leader and widely referenced expert in publications ranging from The Street to Forbes, AJ has presented at leading search conferences including MozCon and SMX Advanced.
AJ currently works with two comScore Top 50 web properties and serves as a marketing advisor to a number VC-backed start-ups.
Website: blindfiveyearold.com
Twitter: @ajkohn
Score: 62.48
64. Arnie Kuenn
Arnie is a hiker traveler, sports player, an instructor for the Online Marketing Institute and the Content Marketing Institute, and CEO of Vertical Measures, a search, social & content marketing agency.
Arnie is also author of the award winning, content marketing book Accelerate!
Website: VerticalMeasures.com
Twitter: @ArnieK
Score: 62.59
63. Bob Rains
A former bartender, cook, and server at The Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Command, Bob now seems himself as an SEO nerd.
As a hands-on leader with expertise in branding, advertising, media planning, website development, and both online and offline marketing campaigns, Bob has quite the breadth of marketing acumen beyond just as an SEO expert.
Bob excels in designing highly effective online marketing strategies that reduce cost per sale and dramatically improve a companies ROI.
Bob has extensive experience managing successful marketing strategies for diverse companies and industries such as CBS Interactive Music Group and Download.com.
Google+: +BobRains
Twitter: @bobrains
Score: 62.89
62. Duane Forrester
Duane is the Sr. Product Manager for Bing’s webmaster outreach program. He has had over 15 years of direct search and online marketing experience, including planning ad campaigns, managing ad buys, and running e-mail campaigns.
Chances are good, if it’s a search, blogging or online marketing conference, Duane will be there.
Duane is also the author of How to Make Money with Your Blog
Website: Bing Blog and his personal blog, theonlinemarketingguy.com
Twitter: @DuaneForrester
Score: 62.93
61. Debra Mastaler
Debra Mastaler is the president and owner of Alliance-Link, an SEO agency focused on providing customized link building services.
In addition to her business endeavors, Debra donates time and resources to charities such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, The Houston Heart and Stoke Walk, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and her current project, SHINE for Girls.
Debra describes herself as a link marketing consultant, wife, Mother and Army brat. Outside of work she loves gardening, basketball and hiking.
Website: Alliance-Link.com
Twitter: @debramastaler
Score: 63.06
60. Rhea Drysdale
Known as “The Woman Who Saved SEO,” Rhea is now using her SEO expertise as the CEO of Outspoken Media, a digital marketing agency that grows, protects, and manages brands online.
Rhea speaks often on the subjects of online reputation management, search engine optimization and link development at conferences like Search Marketing Expo, PubCon, Web 2.0 Expo, SEMNE, and Social Media Breakfast.
In the past, Rhea blogged for Search Engine Journal and Bruce Clay Inc. She was featured in the SEO Bible by the Wall Street Journal.
Website: outspokenmedia.com
Twitter: @Rhea
Score: 63.09
59. Bas van den Beld
Bas has been doing PR and Marketing for Linkdex and Momentology.com, and is the founder of State of Digital, a site to help marketers know how to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time.
Bas is a master at knowing the ever changing digital marketing space. It may surprise you to find out that the secret to his success as an SEO expert comes from his grandma.
Bas has quite the impressive list of clients he’s done work for, including KLM/Air France, Viacom, MTV, and Sam Noble of Koozai Digital Marketing.
Bas is also an international speaker, having given speeches in countries such as the US, Iran, Turkey, Ukraine, UK, Spain, Sweden, Iceland, Germany, and many more.
Website: basvandenbeld.com and State of Digital
Twitter: @basvandenbeld
Score: 63.14
58. Dan Sharp
Dan has an uncanny ability to help Screaming Frog‘s clients stay ahead of the competition. How does Dan do this? Simply by researching and monitoring the latest developments in search and predicting tweaks to the search engines’ ever evolving algorithms.
Using his SEO expertise, Dan also designed and managed the Screaming Frog SEO Spider, one of the leading onsite technical SEO auditing software in the industry.
When not being a geek he likes to spend time with family and friends, travel and chat about football to everyone who cares to listen (which in his words, is nobody at Screaming Frog).
Website: ScreamingFrog.co.uk
Twitter: @screamingfrog
Score: 63.15
57. Mark Traphagen
“Here, learn how to market us on the Internet.” And with those words, Mark first began his path to Internet marketing. The indie bookstore was dying because of a new site called Amazon.
In two years, Mark went from no idea about the Internet world to creating an e-store that saved the store from losing over $150,000 / year to profitability. Mark has never looked back since.
Mark’s currrent goal as an SEO expert is to produce a highly actionable book on how Personal Brand Representatives (PBRs) impact content marketing, social media marketing, branding, and SEO.
Speaker at: MozCon, SMX, SEOClarity, Pubcon, SearchExchange
Website: stonetemple.com
Twitter: @marktraphagen
Score: 63.19
56. Dan Shure
A former professional musician, Dan began his career in SEO as a freelancer in 2007. Dan later founded Evolving SEO in 2010 with his wife Sarah.
Dan has been an Associate at Moz since 2012 where he is very active in their community as an SEO expert contributor.
Dan has spoken at industry events such as SMX and Mozcation.
Website: evolvingseo.com
Twitter: @dan_shure
Score: 63.47
Also, check out my interview with Dan: The Quintessential Basics of Rapid SEO Growth: Begin With The End and learn how Dan’s keyword strategy can help you grow your blog from 0 to 50K visitors/month in a year by clicking here.
55. Dennis Goedegebuure
Dennis is a Dutchman living in San Francisco who loves photography, travel and blogging. Formerly the director of SEO at eBay and head of global SEO for AirBNB, Dennis now works as the VP of Growth & SEO for Fanatics, the ultimate fan shop for sports apparel and fan gear.
Speaker at: BlueGlassX Tampa, Snap Conference, Searchfest, Authority Intensive Expert at SEOktoberfest
Website: thenextcorner.net
Twitter: @TheNextCorner
Score: 63.51
54. John Doherty
John Doherty is the founder of Credo, a marketplace connecting businesses with the best digital marketing and growth professionals and agencies. He was formerly senior growth manager at Trulia Rentals, head of marketing at HotPads.com, and a senior consultant with Distilled in New York CIty.
John has lived in 9 cities in the last decade, including two years spent in Europe in a hippie community. He’s passionate about being outdoors, whether cycling, skiing, hiking, or doing any other number of extreme sports. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Courtney and their very large black labrador Butterbean.
Website: johnfdoherty.com
Twitter: @dohertyjf
Score: 63.83
53. Gabriel Weinberg
After selling The Names Database to United Online for $10 million, Gabriel self-funded DuckDuckGo, the search engine that doesn’t track you.
DuckDuckGo distinguishes itself from other search engines by not profiling its users and by deliberately showing all users the same search results for a given search term.
Gabriel is also the co-author of Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers
Website: ye.gg
Twitter: @yegg
Score: 64.33
52. Jill Whalen
Starting a new website? Found your current site is no longer bringing you the search visitors it used to?
From start to finish, Jill has helped provide her clients with a unique learning environment so that your website will succeed long into the future.
Website: highrankings.com
Twitter: @jillwhalen
Score: 64.64
51. Bill Slawski
Bill Slawski is the president and founder of SEO by the Sea. After working for the Superior Court of Delaware for 14 years, in the mid ’90s Bill started helping a couple of friends put together a website for an online business.
While continuing to help his friends gain visibility, he began starting to work on promoting other sites as well and soon became a prominent SEO expert.
Bill started SEO by the Sea in 2005. Through his blog, he is committed to offering information as accurately and helpfully as possible, while remaining civil as well as fair and impartial.
Speaker at: New York Search Engine Strategies Conference, Pubcon Las Vegas, San Jose Search Engine Strategies Conference, Internet Summit, SMX East 2012, Advanced LocalU Keynote on The Future of Search, SEO Event at the Search Church, Digital Marketing for Business, SearchLove Boston
Website: seobythesea.com
Twitter: @bill_slawski
Score: 64.67
50. Kim Krause Berg
Kim started into the online world in 1995 when a neighbor showed her AOL. From that first interaction, she decided to teach herself how to make websites. A few months later, she was hired by a local company to build and promote 13 websites.
Kim has taught and worked in SEO since launching Cre8pc.com in 1997. In 1998, she founded Cre8asiteforums.com. Later in 2002, Kim began practicing and teaching what she terms “Holistic Usability and SEO”.
Recently Kim founded Creative Vision Web Consulting, a full service usability and user experience digital marketing agency. Her company provides website usability audits, user testing, accessibility testing, mobile and software testing, and SEO.
Contributor at: Internet Marketing Ninjas, Search Engine Land, and Search Marketing Standard.
Website: creativevisionwebconsulting.com
Twitter: @kim_cre8pc
Score: 64.72
49. Adam Audette
An active member of the search marketing industry since 1996, Adam contributes to the strategic direction of Merkle | RKG’s paid and organic search marketing services.
Previously, Adam founded AudetteMedia, a leading SEO agency. Through his company, he partnered with premier brands like Zappos, Gannett, Kroger, HSN, Charming Shoppes, University of Phoenix, Amazon, and Michelin.
Adam graduated from OSU, enjoying things like ultimate frisbee, climbing, ping pong, platonic philosophy, and math for geeks and an emphasis in Classic Philosophy.
Website: rimmkaufman.com
Twitter: @audette
Score: 64.77
48. Julie Joyce
Julie Joyce is the owner of the link building company Link Fish Media, Inc. and co-founder of SEO Chicks. Julie has done everything from programming, technical writing, quality assurance testing, to search engine marketing and optimization, pay per click management, SEO project management, technical project management, and link building.
Website: linkfishmedia.com
Twitter: @JulieJoyce
Score: 64.85
47. Marcus Tandler
Marcus is a German search theorist geek and is absolutely in love with SEO! He is the Co-Founder and Managing Director at OnPage.org – an award winning, leading technical SEO software with the mission to help Webmasters make better websites.
Marcus is also the host at SEOktoberfest, a SEO ThinkTank for savvy SEO experts from around the world. He has also presented a TED talk in Munich on “The future of search“.
Website: mediadonis.net
Twitter: @mediadonis
Score: 64.96
46. Annie Cushing
Annie Cushing is the VP of Marketing for YourTango. Her goal? Make data sexy.
Annie has played just about every role in creating and promoting content online: writing it, editing it, market it, optimize it, acquire links for it, email about it, and “pimp it” on social media.
But at the end of the day, if you don’t measure it, how will you know what you did worked?
That’s why Annie focuses on SEO, PPC, analytics, social media, and competitive analysis to help business grow and retain their customers.
Website: annielytics.com
Twitter: @AnnieCushing
Score: 65.00
Annie Cushing also offers 1-1 consulting to help you scale your business and turn visitors into customers. She also offers her Annielytics Dashboard Course, an in-depth, 16-hour online course.
45. Tamar Weinberg
Tamar is a woman who has worn many hats, from Global Advertising Director at Mashable from 2007 to 2013, to her current positions as the founder and CEO of Techipedia, Chief Strategy Officer at Small Business Trends, LLC, Social Media and Social Customer Experience Manager at Namecheap, Director of Business Development at AddShoppers, and VP of Customer Success at Shelf Inc.
Speaker at: PubCon, Search Marketing Expo (SMX), IZEAFest
Website: tamar.rocks
Twitter: @tamar
Score: 65.43
44. Dave Naylor
[bctt tweet=”My rule of thumb is build a site for a user not a spider. @DaveNaylor #SEO #Marketing”]
Back in 2003 Dave bought the Internet service provider Bronco, and has continued expanding the services with Organic Marketing, Pay Per Click Search Advertising, Digital Media Marketing, PR, Social Media, Conversion, and Video Creation.
Dave runs the company with his beautiful wife Becky and 20 other diligent employees as the Head of Search Marketing. Together they have helped several major brands like Digg, Virgin Holiday Cruises, and SaxoBank.
Speaker at: Search Engine Strategies (SES), Search Marketing Expo (SMX), iGaming Affiliate conferences
Website: davidnaylor.co.uk
Twitter: @DaveNaylor
Score: 65.51
43. AJ Ghergich
A serial entrepreneur and founder of Ghergich, AJ has been heavily involved in the SEO industry since 2004. His focus has been on blending his SEO expertise with Content Marketing, Social Media, PPC, Ecommerce, & Infographics.
If you are looking for someone to help you create powerful, persuasive content that earns your customers attention and earns better rankings, AJ is your man.
Website: ghergich.com
Twitter: @SEO
Score: 65.52
42. Will Critchlow
Will Critchlow is the CEO of Distilled, a company he founded in 2005 with Duncan Morris. Distilled provides online marketing services from offices in London, New York and Seattle, hosts the SearchLove conference series in the US and UK and produces the popular online training platform DistilledU.
Will is an avid writer for the Distilled blog and Moz community, ranked as a prestigious oracle on the site.
Website: distilled.net, willcritchlow.com
Twitter: @willcritchlow
Score: 65.82
41. Cynthia Johnson
Cynthia Johnson is a partner and Director of Marketing & Social Media at RankLab, a digital marketing agency in Santa Monica. Through her company, she has also applied her SEO expertise with companies like REI, 3M, and North Face.
Cynthia has been very involved in social media and has been in an instrumental role for viral campaigns with Levi’s, Vans, Chevy, Susan G. Komen, Peta2, and Maker Studios.
She has been referenced by Forbes, Inc Magazine, and Entrepreneur Magazine.
Website: RankLab
Twitter: @CynthiaLive
Score: 65.82
40. Peter Caputa
Peter has worked with 100s of businesses directly as the VP Sales at HubSpot. With all clients he works with, he is able to achieve predictable, measurable and improvable ROI from the marketing and advertising services they provide.
Website: collaborativegrowthnetwork.com
Twitter: @pc4media
Score: 65.91
39. Adam Singer
Adam Singer is an Analytics Advocate at Google, a marketing SEO expert, media and PR industry speaker, and startup adviser and blogger. Singer has have been cited by top media outlets such as TechCrunch, AdWeek, NY Times and more for creative use of digital marketing and PR.
His blog is ranked among the “best search marketing blogs on the net” by TopRank’s BigList, has been featured in the marketing section of AllTop, ranked the #1 PR blog by Invesp, and ranked in the top 10 blogs by Social Media Examiner.
Website: TheFutureBuzz.com
Twitter: @AdamSinger
Score: 66.36
38. Eric Enge
Eric Enge is the CEO of Stone Temple Consulting, a 45+ person digital marketing agency that helps businesses with SEO, Content Marketing, and Social Media.
Eric is also the lead author for The Art of SEO, which he co-authored with Rand Fishkin, Stephan Spencer, and Jessie Stricchiola. Eric also writes regularly in Forbes, Search Engine Land, Moz, Copyblogger, Marketing Land, and other places, and speaks on a regular basis at many industry conferences.
Website: stonetemple.com
Twitter: @stonetemple
Score: 66.46
37. Jon Henshaw
Imagine a neutron star, spinning at 1,122 rotations per second. Then stick it inside a person, and you’ve got Jon.
Jon Henshaw is the co-founder of Raven Internet Marketing Tools, a company designed to help Internet marketers manage and report on all their online marketing with expediency.
Jon has been involved with website development and Internet strategy since 1995. Before Raven, he worked as an Interaction Designer for Visa in Denver, CO, where he helped develop Web applications for their consumer and corporate customers.
Website: raventools.com
Twitter: @RavenJon
Score: 66.66
36. Kristi Hines
Kristi is a freelance writer and professional blogging expert on online marketing including content marketing, search engine optimization, social media, and web analytics. She is also the creator of ContentPromotionPlan.com.
Kristi has helped many people create high-quality blog content, lead magnets, ebooks, and powerful web copy for many businesses. Her work has been published at Social Media Examiner, HubSpot, Search Engine Watch, Unbounce, KISSmetrics, iAcquire, FreshBooks, PostPlanner, and SumAll.
These articles have generated over 300k social shares and receive over 150k clicks from Google search visitors per month!
Website: KristiHines.com
Twitter: @kikolani
Score: 67.31
35. Matt McGowan
Matt McGowan has led quite the fascinating life. He has done everything from a stint on Wall St, executive manager over two startups, and running Incisive Media’s North and South American Advertising Technology business.
Currently Matt is responsible for cultivating deep relationships, building partnerships with the major advertising agencies, in addition to driving awareness, perception, and adoption of Google’s products and technologies.
Matt has been a contributor to Search Engine Watch, ClickZ, ClickZ Asia, and SES Conference and Expo.
Twitter: @matt_mcgowan
Google+: +MattMcGowan
Score: 67.36
34. Elisabeth Osmeloski
Elisabeth is the VP of Third Door Media and is responsible for growing brand recognition & readership at MarketingLand.com, SearchEngineLand.com, plus the digital marketing industry events.
Elisabeth specializes in marketing analytics, SEO, SEM, social media and online PR. She has a passion for audience building through content development and community engagement.
Website: marketingland.com
Twitter: @elisabethos
Score: 67.39
33. Alan Bleiweiss
Alan Bleiweiss calls himself a Forensic SEO Consultant, Author, Trainer, Speaker, and “snarky rant” specialist. For 20 years, Alan has been providing Internet marketing professional service solutions from sole proprietors to Fortune 500 companies all across the United States.
Some of the companies Alan has given his SEO expertise to include PetCo, Disney, NBC/Universal Studios, Mashable, UGG Australia, Beats by Dre, and the ChamberofCommerce.com.
Website: AlanBleiweiss.com
Twitter: @AlanBleiweiss
Score: 67.55
32. Vanessa Fox
Named one of Seattle’s “Top 40 Under 40” and “Top 25 Innovators and Entrepreneurs,” Vanessa uses her SEO expertise as the CEO of Keylime Toolbox, a robust software that provides key SEO metrics and analytics. Vanessa takes a fresh approach to understanding SEO with comprehensive reference library, tutorials, and answers.
She also wrote the book Marketing in the Age of Google.
Website: vanessafox.com
Twitter: @vanessafox
Score: 67.75
31. Richard Baxter
A veteran digital marketer of 10 years with experience of delivering digital solutions for major clients.
Richard is the CEO of Builtvisible, an agency of people who love SEO, Search, & creating content that communicates ideas and builds brands.
Builtvisible has worked with many major companies including Intuit Quickbooks, Telegraph Jobs, Red Bull, Prezzy Box, Icelandair, and Casio.
Website: builtvisible.com
Twitter: @richardbaxter
Score: 68.03
30. Rae Hoffman
At Pushfire, Rae seeks out vast opportunities to help businesses thrive using search engine optimization, PPC, link-building, and advanced brand promotion.
Rae has a big heart, having supported many organizations like American Heart Association, Heart Walk – Houston, and Kiva.
Rae likes to describe herself as an entrepreneur, white-collar redneck, born & raised Jersey Girl, CEO of PushFire, diehard Buccaneers fan, and an honorary Canadian.
Website: sugarrae.com
Twitter: @sugarrae
Score: 68.17
29. Melissa Fach
A mother of two boys, ages 23 and 11, Melissa is a woman who has done many things. Melissa previously was an writer/editor for Search Engine Journal, Sphinn.com, CopyPress, and smallbiztrends.com.
These days, Melissa now works as the Community Jedi on social media for AuthorityLabs, as an Associate at Moz.
Melissa is the owner of SEO Aware, a marketing consulting company that offers Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Content Marketing, Blogging, SEO Copywriting, and Web Design Development. Due to her obligations, she only works with a select group of clients.
Melissa also considers herself a geek, non-cook, Star Wars fan, and cat slave.
Website: SEOAware.com
Twitter: @SEOAware
Score: 68.25
28. Wil Reynolds
Wil started working in the Internet marketing space in 1999 with a firm named NetMarketing. In 2002, Wil became an associate with SEER Interactive, a Philadelphia-based SEM/SEO consulting firm.
SEER Interactive is composed of a nimble team that is extremely talented on natural and paid search marketing, with everything they do tracked to give an exact ROI to their clients.
Website: seerinteractive.com/blog/
Twitter: @wilreynolds
Score: 68.44
27. Aleyda Solís
With more than 7 years of experience doing Search Engine Optimization for European, American and Latin-American companies, Aleyda is a powerful international SEO Consultant, Entrepreneur & Speaker.
Aleyda is the founder of Orainti, an international SEO consultancy. She has given talks about SEO in Spain, the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Chile, Belgium, Israel, Turkey and Malta.
Speaker at: MozCon, SearchLove London, SMX London & Munich, SES London, SEO Campus Paris, BrightonSEO, KahenaCon Jerusalem, OMCap Berlin, Congreso Web, Congreso SEO Profesional, Search Congress
Website: aleydasolis.com
Twitter: @aleyda
Score: 68.58
26. Lisa Buyer
Lisa Buyer is an expert in Social PR and an advocate on the influence that public relations can have on SEO and Social Media.
Whether it’s analyzing a social identity system, launching a brand on social media, creating effective sound bytes, developing a digital publicity campaign, making sure Google knows about them, or acting as the corporate therapist, clients turn to Lisa when they are looking for the best marketing consultation.
Lisa is also the author of Social PR Secrets: How to Optimize, Socialize, and Publicize Your Brand’s News.
Speaker at: SMX, ClickZ Live, PubCon, MediaPost, Zenith Social Media Conference, PRSA, PRNewswire, OMI, Instant Etraining.com, SFIMA
Website: socialprsecrets.com
Twitter: @lisabuyer
Score: 68.94
Curious what’s inside? Preview the first two chapters free.
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25. Brian Carter
Brian Carter is the #1 bestselling author of The Like Economy, LinkedIn for Business, Facebook Marketing, and The Cowbell Principle. He is respected as an international authority on how organizations can generate bigger business results.
Brian started The Carter Group back in 1999 and has the opportunity to work with many major companies, including Microsoft, NBC, The U.S. Army, Universal Studios, The World Health Organization, Marketo, Salesforce, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s.
Website: briancartergroup.com
Twitter: @briancarter
Score: 69.04
24. Matt McGee
Matt is quite the active writer as the Editor-in-Chief at MarketingLand and SearchEngineLand, founder of AtU2 and GlassAlmanac, and blogger at his personal site, MattMcGee.com.
Matt identifies himself as a Christian, husband, dad, introvert, public speaker, and the author of U2: A Diary.
Website: mattmcgee.com
Twitter: @mattmcgee
Score: 69.09
23. Gianluca Fiorelli
Gianluca is an International SEO Expert & Inbound Strategist Consultant. One of the few independent consultants Moz suggests hiring. He started working in the Web Marketing Industry in 2004 and since then he offered his services as an independent consultant.
No one like Gianluca has such a deep knowledge about crafting effective SEO and Inbound Marketing strategies. His approach is enhanced by an equally rich understanding of targeting audiences, designing brand storytelling, and creating synergies across different forms of media.
Website: iloveseo.net
Twitter: @gfiorelli1
Score: 69.45
22. Jonathon Colman
[bctt tweet=”Content ≠ Write the words. Design ≠ Make it pretty. #Content + Design = EXPERIENCE. @jcolman”]
Jonathon Colman, a Webby Award-winning content strategist, works at Facebook with nearly 20 years of experience.
Jonathon is a prominent keynote speaker, having given talks in Cape Town, South Africa to the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
With his previous work as an SEO expert, he has led teams and built experiences that made an impact at Facebook, REI, The Nature Conservancy, and IBM.
Jonathan also served overseas with the Peace Corps to Burkina Faso.
Website: jonathoncolman.org
Twitter: @jcolman
Score: 69.79
21. Ian Lurie
Ian Lurie is the CEO and founder of Portent, a company which takes an integrated approach to digital marketing that optimizes what works and iterates on what doesn’t.
Ian recently published a book about strategy for services businesses called One Trick Ponies Get Shot. He also writes regularly for the Portent Blog and has been published on Forbes and TechCrunch.
Speaker at: SearchLove, MozCon, SIC and ad:Tech.
Website: portent.com
Twitter: @portentint
Score: 70.21
20. Aaron Wall
In 2003, Aaron launched SEO Book originally as a blog that offered DIY SEO tips. His site has since expanded into offering an expansive SEO training program.
Over the last couple years, SEO Book has been mentioned in iMediaConnection, Marketing News, Slashdot, TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal, The London Times, Wired, USA Today, BusinessWeek, Business 2.0, Time Magazine, The Register, MSNBC, and The Guardian.
Website: seobook.com
Twitter: @aaronwall
Score: 70.28
19. Dr. Pete Meyers
Guarding the thin line between marketing and data science, Dr. Pete works on the projects that no one else understands. This SEO expert is the keeper of the Algo History, the architect of the MozCast Project, and the watcher of all things Google.
Dr. Pete is an avid content marketer, especially “big” content. Currently he is beginning to explore how is research can impact the future of our tools, and looking forward to pushing that forward in 2015 and beyond.
Website: drpete.co
Twitter: @dr_pete
Score: 70.31
18. Cyrus Shepard
Cyrus Shepard is the Senior Content Astronaut at Moz. After moving to Seattle, he picked up a book and started learning HTML and soon created his first student website. Ever since then, he has been a huge fan of online marketing and has become quite the SEO expert.
Cyrus loves tackling tough SEO problems and helping online businesses spread their online marketing message. Cyrus was also the editor of the 2012 edition of the Beginners Guide to SEO.
Website: mz.cm/cyrus
Twitter: @CyrusShepard
Score: 70.44
17. John Rampton
After being run over by a large skidster on a construction site in 2006, he believed his dreams of ever walking again would come to an end. As he began an experimental stem-cell treatment in 2007, he began to learn online marketing. With nothing else to do, John began spending 16-20 hours a day, pouring into the art and science of marketing.
Since then, John has been named #3 on Top 50 Online Influencers in the World by Entrepreneur Magazine, as a blogging expert by Forbes, and been awarded top 10 most influential PPC experts in the world for the past 3 years.
He writes for Forbes, Entrepreneur.com, Inc, and Huffington Post and specializes in Content, Conversion Marketing, PPC, SEO, Social Media, and Online Marketing.
Website: johnrampton.com
Twitter: @johnrampton
Score: 70.50
16. Douglas Karr
Douglas is an established leader in the marketing technology space as the CEO of DK New Media and CMO and co-founder of CircuPress. Douglas’s SEO knowledge combined with his cross-channel marketing expertise has put him at the short list of search engine consultants.
He has worked with multi-million page brands and ecommerce sites, with clients including Angie’s List and GoDaddy. Douglas primarily assists in marketing technology related companies with their online marketing presence and establishing their authority in the marketplace.
You may also know Doug as the author of Corporate Blogging For Dummies
Website: marketingtechblog.com
Twitter: @douglaskarr
Score: 70.54
15. Michael Gray
Michael Gray became involved in web development and website management in 1997. As the former webmaster for Fortunoff, Michael helped them go from earning under $10,000 a month to over $25 million in annual sales.
Michael has been the owner of Atlas web services since 2004, offering everything from website design, hosting, search engine optimization and search engine marketing services.
Website: graywolfseo.com
Twitter: @graywolf
Score: 70.69
14. Travis Wright
Some people drive cars to work. Travis drives traffic, leads, and social media channels to websites as the Chief Growth Officer at MediaThinkLabs. He knows the digital marketer’s secret sauce, then creates, curates and amplifies all blog content. Then he micro-targets it to the right audience with organic and paid advertising.
Travis has developed business processes for any of your social needs: social channels, social selling, social support, and social recruiting. Travis is a full stack marketer, growth hacker, and social media strategist.
Definitely not your traditional marketer.
LinkedIn: /in/TeeDubya
Twitter: @teedubya
Score: 71.15
13. Joost de Valk
As a web developer and online marketer, Joost has worked with several large businesses around the world, ranging from the local grocery store to giants like eBay and Salesforce.com.
In 2006, Joost focused his SEO expertise to start Yoast, a company that is a crossover between a software development shop and an SEO agency, currently employing over 21 people.
One such software is the WordPress SEO Plugin, one of the top WordPress plugins to help WordPress website owners optimize their site for SEO. In fact, it has been used on over 3,500,000 websites! As an agency, one of their biggest projects was the migration of guardian.co.uk to theguardian.com.
Through the blog on yoast.com, Joost has continued to give a lot of his experience and knowledge back to the blogging and SEO community. Website: yoast.com/about-us/joost Twitter: @jdevalk Score: 72.25
12. Neil Patel
An entrepreneur, investor, blogger, digital marketer, and analytics junkie, Neil Patel has done some incredible things in the SEO world. He is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, KISSmetrics, and writer at QuickSprout.
Through his companies, he has helped companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP, Viacom, and Techcrunch grow their revenue. Through his many connections, Neil has written multiple complete and definitive guides on many forms of marketing. This includes The Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing, The Advanced Guide to SEO, and The Complete Guide to Building Your Blog Audience.
Website: quicksprout.com
Twitter: @neilpatel
Score: 72.49
11. Mike Volpe
Mike Volpe is the Chief Marketing Officer at HubSpot, the world’s leading inbound marketing and sales platform. After joining as the 5th employee in 2007, he has helped them grow to 13,500 customers, 2,000 partners, 750 employees, and a $125mm IPO in October of 2014.
Mike helps lead the company’s lead generation and branding strategy through inbound marketing strategies such as blogging, search engine optimization, video marketing, and social media.
Mike has given over 50 talks on Internet Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Blogging for Business, Improving Website Conversions, Video Marketing, and Lead Generation.
Website: mikevolpe.com
Twitter: @mvolpe
Score: 72.97
10. Shane Barker
Through one persuasive blog post, Shane became the CMO of Modera, a startup originally based in Uzbekistan.
As as SEO expert, Shane have continued to dominate the SEO and social media landscape as a consultant for some of the top Fortune 1000 companies and as the VP of Digital Marketing for Kamere, a platform built to enrich people’s lives by connecting people and organizations with personalized, meaningful inspirational content.
Shane is a serial and social entrepreneur who has a passion for SEO and Internet marketing.
Detailed Guides:
Website: shanebarker.com
Twitter: @shane_barker
Score: 73.57
9. Larry Kim
Founder of WordStream, provider of the 20-Minute PPC Work Week and the free AdWords Grader, Larry Kim has helped create the best software for search engine marketing automation.
If it surrounds the topics of PPC Marketing, AdWords, Content Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Start-ups, Larry is sure to be there!
Regular contributor at: Search Engine Journal, Marketing Profs, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Marketing Land, Hubspot, Moz, Social Media Today, and top 20 contributor at Inbound.org
Speaker at: SAScon, Conversion Conference, SearchLove Conference, PPC Hero Conference, SMX West, SearchFest, United Servicers Association, State of Search Conference, The Local Social 2014, Marketing Profs B2B Forum, Pubcon, iSummit, INBOUND 2014, ClickZ Live SF, SearchExchange, MN Search Summit, and SMX Advanced.
Website: www.wordstream.com
Twitter: @larrykim
Score: 74.23
8. Lee Odden
Lee Odden is the co-founder and CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, a nationally respected digital marketing agency that has consulted with some of the top B2B brands in the world including: McKesson, Dell, LinkedIn, StrongView, Marketo, Livefyre and HP.
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7. Brian Clark
Brian Clark is a serial entrepreneur based in Boulder, Colorado. In 2006, Brian founded Copyblogger Media, the company behind the Rainmaker Platform, StudioPress, and Synthesis.
Brian has been mentioned in many books, including Linchpin and Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin, The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau, Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, Brainfluence by Roger Dooley, The Education of Millionaires by Michael Ellsberg, and Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt, among many others.
Recently Brian launched a curated email newsletter called Further, which provides science-backed tips for living your best life.
Website: copyblogger.com
Twitter: @brianclark
Score: 77.88
6. Ann Smarty
Ann has been a guest blogger and as she began building relationships in the blogosphere community, she began to understand the power of a guest post.
Taking that idea to a greater scale, in 2009 she started myblogguest.com to help bloggers reach new audiences, build up their brand, network, and get great exclusive content.
Ann is the community and brand manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas since 2012, focusing on regularly contributing to the Internet Marketing Ninjas blog and serving as an internal SEO resource for the team.
In July of 2014, Ann started MyBlogU as a content marketing platform to help bloggers and writers collaborate together to create and promote epic content.
Website: viralcontentbuzz.com
Twitter: @seosmarty
Score: 78.50
5. Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is quite a big name in the SEO world and is no surprise that he is ranked near the top of this list of SEO experts.
Barry is the CEO of RustyBrick, founder of the Search Engine Roundtable, News Editor at Danny Sullivan‘s Search Engine Land, Former News Editor at Search Engine Watch, and host of the Search Marketing Expo in Israel.
Barry is often quoted and interviewed in publications such as Forbes, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg, USA Today BuinessWeek, News.com, Publish, on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, and CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood.
Curious to learn more about Barry? Check out Barry’s Wikipedia page.
Website: rustybrick.com/barry
Twitter: @rustybrick
Score: 79.86
4. Dharmesh Shah
In 2006, Dharmesh Shah co-founded HubSpot alongside Brian Halligan, the world’s leading inbound marketing and sales platform. They were on a mission to help businesses attract, engage, and delight customers by delivering inbound experiences that are relevant, helpful, and personalized.
Prior to founding HubSpot, Dharmesh founded Pyramid Digital Solutions, an enterprise software company in the financial services sector. After 11 years in the business and receiving the Inc. 500 award, Dharmesh helped the company get acquired in August 2005 by SunGard Business Systems, a large $11 billion technology company.
Website: OnStartups.com
Twitter: @dharmesh
Score: 80.39
3. Rand Fishkin
Rand first became involved with the World Wide Web back in 1993. After helping many Seattle businesses setup their digital shop online, in 2002 he got involved in the field of search marketing.
In 2004, Rand co-founded Moz with his mother Gillian, which is today one of the fastest growing software companies in the marketing world. Beginning as an SEO consulting company, Rand has helped lead Moz to stay true to their core beliefs: to be as Transparent, Authentic, Generous, Fun, Empathetic, and Exceptional as possible (TAGFEE).
Rand Fishkin uses the ludicrous title, Wizard of Moz. He co-authored and co-founded the Art of SEO, Inbound.org, and Moz. As you can see, he clearly likes doing stuff with other people.
Rand’s an addict of all things content, search, & social on the web, from his multiple blogs to Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and FourSquare.
In his minuscule spare time, Rand enjoys the company of his amazing wife, Geraldine, whose serendipitous travel blog chronicles their journeys.
Website: moz.com
Twitter: @randfish
Score: 84.84
2. Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts joined Google as a software engineer in January 2000. Currently the head of Google’s Webspam team, he works with the search quality to minimize search engine optimization issues.
As one of the co-inventors listed upon a Google patent related to search engines and web spam, he advises and has made statements to help on related issues related to the use of the Google search engine.
As of July 2014, Matt has been on leave to spend time with his wife and completing goals such as a half-Ironman race he finished.
If you would love to hear more from Google Webmasters, why not hear directly from the source?
Website: mattcutts.com/blog
Twitter: @mattcutts
Score: 86.66
1. Danny Sullivan
It is no surprise that Danny is the #1 SEO expert.
Danny first started writing about how search engines worked back in April of 1996. That’s before the days of Google. Since then, he was the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Watch and is now the founder and editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land and Marketing Land.
Danny also serves as Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media, which also produces the Digital Marketing Depot, Search Marketing Expo Conference, and Marketing Tech Conference.
Website: SearchEngineLand.com, MarketingLand.com
Twitter: @dannysullivan
Score: 86.99
Thanks for the inclusion Jason! Love being grouped with such great SEO experts! 🙂
No problem! You put out a lot of great material and definitely should be recognized for it!
Thank you Jason – Honored to be one of the representing women on this optimized list! Thank you for considering the public relations and social media lens as an important influence on SEO.
You do a lot of great work Lisa, keep it up!
And combining those together makes for a great blend of marketing sciences!
Wow…so honored to be a part of the top 100 SEO experts to follow! Thanks for including me brother man!
You put in the hard work Shane, keep it up!
We’re doing what we call Expert Sessions to bring industry internet marketing knowledge into business schools in higher education. This is a great list for finding speakers interested in giving back to college kids.
Those ranked here are bound to get a ton of new followers today on Twitter, as they should. Impressive, well-organized list.
Hey, glad I could help you out Stuart!
Thanks for taking the time to put this list together Jason! It really is a great resource of information from some a lot of great people!
Glad I could be of service to others. If even one person makes a change, from this post, then my work would not be in vain!
Awesome post Jason! Happy to help share.
Thanks for the compliment Brian! Any take away from the post?
Wow what a list! Great job and thanks for including me here! I love the fact that Danny comes #1 btw!
Thanks for the compliment Ann! Would be awesome continue seeing each of you deliver great value to others!
I love the scientific approach to this…have already found some great new people to follow and I am very honored to be on the list.
Glad I could help you Julie!
Can’t take credit for the originality of the idea, but like most, expanded on it and tried to do it better.
Hope it helps others!
Food for my collection 🙂
Thanks.
Awesome, glad that article helped Andrea!
Happy to have been included, Jason. Thanks for all the time you put into this. This list turned out much better than most others of this type, which tend to emphasize a lot of famous faces who aren’t necessarily real practitioners. While not everyone here is a pure SEO (I wouldn’t consider myself that), it’s a very solid list of smart people in the digital marketing industry.
Thanks for the compliment and the feedback Mark!
Curious how you would define someone as pure SEO? It seems to me there will always be a few fields that come together.
I’m more of an SEO theorist, I guess. What I mean is, I understand a great deal about SEO at a high level, and people seem to value that I can interpret that for them. But I have not practiced some of the more technical skills of an on-site SEO, which I would want to have before I would call myself an SEO.
Thanks for the mention.. =)
http://goo.gl/f3xLU3
I know I’m human and can’t find everyone. :/
How did you score between those 3 sites?
Great list. There are, however, a few who I wouldn’t consider SEOs, on the list; there’s a difference between SEO and SEM, and Content Marketing.
If you’re going to call this an SEO list, then tru SEOs should be included only. I would have called this list “Search Marketers” or something similar, since SEMs are included in the list.
And oh yeah, I think you missed a few people, too! 😉
I appreciate the honest response.
As an example, I know Larry Kim via Wordstream is more focused on PPC. But they also produce a lot of content and SEO does come up from time-to-time. Probably isn’t as a pure SEO expert, but where do you draw the line?
And I’m sure I did miss some. I’m not Google after all :).
Hard to take seriously any SEO “science based” list when it doesn’t include Bruce Clay, Chris Sherman, Stephan Spencer, Mike Grehan, Shari Thurow, Michael Martinez or Eric Ward. Weak science.
I appreciate the feedback. No data gathering system is perfect; I far from it.
Bruce Clay was on my list, but some of his social profiles seem more to be used together as a company and I wanted only individuals. Kinda grey there either way.
And the data was based on social influence from 3 other systems (that aren’t perfect :)). Not necessarily their proficiency.
Thanks for pointing those out though!
Seem that this is more of a representation of search marketers who excel at social media as opposed representing the top SEOs.
Some ways yes, some ways no. People tend to follow and repost those that have the most influence. WeFollow also takes a different approach than looking at social media influence.
Who would you have expected to be on the list?
Well, Jill Whalen would deserve to be on the list had she not quit SEO some time back. But others that have already been mentioned should be included here. Personally, I’m not as “social” as I should be, therefore haven’t earned the right amount of “klout”, but being one of the few people that have been doing this since before 1999 with a recognized brand with articles that are very widely read, might qualify me for such a list. Though, like I said, not being social has it’s disadvantages.
Not to devalue the excellent work you put in compiling this list, but how do we take seriously any “science based” SEO list that does not include Bruce Clay, Mike Grehan, Chris Sherman, Stephan Spencer, Shari Thurow, Michael Martinez, or perhaps most of all, Eric Ward?
Thank’s for sharing with us. Top hundred marketing Boss are now one place.
Glad I could help Palash
Wefollow hasn’t worked since 2013 it seems. That’s their last tweet anyhow.
I don’t see how you can use it as a ranking factor for top SEO’s when it’s last assessment of SEO’s was years ago. Especially since the industry is really starting to change over the past couple of years.
I think network analysts will be the the SEO’s of post 2015.
1. Last tweet doesn’t mean they don’t update their system, just not using that platform.
2. Their system is more based on the reliability of those they know in that same category. Doesn’t affect how old it is really.
Such a great effort for compiling the list of top Digital Marketers.
Thanks for the compliment, just hoped it delivered great value to you!
This is a great piece of information. But I am very curious to know how the “Score” is being calculated.
My piece of SEO advice: Keep your content fresh, create and co-create content with influencers and customers. Curate. Build a community of raving fans who can link your content on regular basis and that’s it.
Sounds like good advice.
I don’t do SEO, so no worries. I’m a linking strategist, so I’m happy to NOT be listed 🙂 This is a great list of extremely talented people. Kudos.
These are SEO personalities, where only some are actual thought leaders. Most are not. I’d personally like to see you try again with different criteria, highlighting the people that bring the industry forward.
Thanks for the thoughts Matt.
How would you quantify that?
Whooaaa what a great list!! Sure, there are a handful of people I don’t recognize but for the most part, these are all spot on! Of course the extra links and resources makes this post a linkable, sharable, bookmarked post!
Glad I could help!
Okay, so there’s a bit of dubious science involved in generating the list. But it’s a great way to extend your relevance and, perhaps, look for opportunities for a JV or two in the future.
Engagement, I guess, would have been a truer metric. Not the scores calculated by the tools; but the value and relevance of the commentary to the individual to whom the expert is responding.
Yeah, immeasurable, except by the person garnering that engagement. Google+ would have been my starter for 10 (ratio of followers to views, engagement, follower distribution,etc.). http://www.allmyplus.com/ is an amazing resource for that.
But, hey – I’m sure those included will be over the moon and I’m sure there’ll be people who aliken the article clickbait. You just know it.
But if it facilitates further engagement, Bob’s your uncle! Thanks for all your hard work – definitely one to bookmark!
There’s always ways that this system could have been better.
Unless I’m misunderstanding you, FollowerWonk and Klout score based on engagement. But might use AllMyPlus if I do something like this again.
Thanks for the feedback, critique, and helpful tool!
Good list although I question the “science” you used. There really is no way to quantify this topic so at least you had some “objective” standard. I might have relied more on Google+.
If I were creating a top 100 list without using any metrics, I probably would have at least 60% of the people you had. My ordering would also have been different. I can think of one notable G+er’ that you do not have: David Amerland.
Great names you got there Jason, although there is a controversial rating from such an inaccurate tool like Klout. But it’s really awesome you gathered all these great names in one list!
Kostas
Thanks for the compliment!
Yeah – all three can be potentially problematic.
Hope you find value from the list!
Any expert list I am not on is immediately suspect. 🙂
Can’t win ’em all :). Also, I’m sure I may have missed some too.
This is a great compilation of people to follow in this industry. I am “newer” (5 years) to internet marketing, and am proud to say I recognized many of these folks. And I’m glad to have heard of new people to learn from. Thanks for doing this.
Not a problem!
Glad you were able to find some great, new people to follow!
Some of the best minds in the Industry. Good to see who I am missing from our SEO Twitter List. Thanks for the good post.
Glad I could help! What project(s) are you working on Brian?
You missed a couple of Ex Search quality Googlers who know more about SEO than many of these folks put together 😉
Thank you for sharing this article.
Helping those who can find their orientation and SEO experts. According to them and learn
Great list and I respect the time it probably took to create this post, but Matt Cutts at #2 as a top SEO expert? He was the head of Google’s webspam team. Has been away from that role for awhile now. How would that make him a top SEO?
Yeah, he used to make vague videos about best practices and Google updates, but I don’t see how that would put him that high on a list like this. Is he now taking on clients, link building, and gaining more traffic and exposure for his clients?
Jason – This is a great list from certain perspectives, and a great piece of linkbait, so kudos to you on that. I have to agree with some of the others here who have correctly pointed out that some of the people listed here are personalities and not practitioners of search.
Sorry, but Matt Cutts will never tell me anything useful in getting my site ranked other than spitting out what Google will permit him to say.
There are a few on here that absolutely deserve to be here, while others, not so much.
Hi! I’m new in the world of SEO and I want to learn more from the experts. Good thing I found this article, this will really help me a lot! Thanks!
Great list, have had to bookmark it for later reading!
Has literally stolen an hour of my work day already haha
Haha, whoops!
Glad you found value in it, hope you’ll find enough great nuggets to make up for the hour! 🙂
Awesome list! Some are new, some are old. Always great to find more seo masters.
Thanks
I think the admin of this website is genuinely working hard
in support of his website, because here every stuff is quality based data.
Glad to Have such an experts list, I definitely bookmark to keep further reading.Thanks Jason.
Great! !! 100 SEO Expert , really awesome you gathered all these great names in one list!
Wow very good list, Now i can learn a lot from these remarkable people in search engine marketing, thanks
Great effort and informative who’s who.
Organic on-page optimization is still and always will be king.
Now the rise of conversion optimization brings cream like Neil Patel rising to the top. I have emulated his strategies, and yes, we are kicking some butt.
I have learned from many of the people on this list. They all have something to offer. After over 20 years of webbing, I know I do.
My mentor was the late great Alan Rimm Kaufman. A statistics genius.
Back around 2004, I hired Jill Whalen as a consultant and picked her brain for a few days. She deserves to be higher on the list.
The gentleman who commented that he never learned anything from Matt C., try reading between the lines.
Again, great job on compiling the list!
CONTENT IS KING!
Thanks for sharing this list. I think it is very interesting to have the advice of experts.
Great list but missing a few
Rui Navarro
CEO
http://tribo51.pt
Brilliant post dude!
First time at The Story Teller Marketer. Here, I discovered 100 SEO experts who’re top on the world wide web.
And I found a lot resource pages those included amazing info.
I really impressed to get the brilliant articles included 100 top SEO specialist’s story.
Keep up the good work. Thanks!
thanks – a ton of resources and information for me to dig into.
Gary
Outstanding post, well researched and superb reading ease Jason. Thanks for sharing. One day I too will be among the top SEO Experts because I don’t know how to give up. I do find SEO accelerating, I may be a little too fascinated by it.
thank you, great post!
A very comprehensive list. I have read blog post and articles from several of those listed.
I don’t see and information as to what sites and keywords they have been successful at ranking for. Was this part of your criteria in choosing placements? If not, how did you make your selections.
Harkaran Singh is the Search Engine Optimization and PPC in the world. He has ranked many websites in the search engine. I think he the best person in this field and I trust him lot. You can contact him on skype id harkaran.garcha1 and his contact number is +918968288460. I think he should also be in this list.
Very good information. Lucky me I found Top listed Seo Experts In New York by chance , I have bookmarked it for later! .. Thanks a lot.