We know the most influential SEO list has been compiled by many other sites already but unless you are deeply involved in the SEO world, you probably don’t give a damn about who they are.
This is why we compiled this list for out readers because they just want to learn enough SEO, solve their SEO problems, and get back to their business.
Trust us, get to know a little bit about these influential people in the SEO world will do you good.
Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts is the head of the webspam team at
Google where he specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) issues. He is known in the webmaster and SEO community for applying Google’s Quality Guidelines.
Before working at the Search Quality group at Google, Cutts worked at the ads engineering group and SafeSearch a Google’s family filter. There he earned the nickname “porn cookie guy” by giving his wife’s homemade cookies to any Googler who provided an example of unwanted pornography in the search results.
Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin Co-Founder of the web’s most popular SEO software provider
Moz. A leader in the field of search engine optimization tools, resources & community. In 2009, he was named among the 30 Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30 by BusinessWeek, and has been written about it in The Seattle Times, Newsweek and the NY Times among others.
Rand Fishkin co-authored/co-founded the Art of SEO from O’Reilly Media and Inbound.org and was named on the 40 Under 40 List and 30 Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30.
Danny Sullivan
Danny Sullivan is a Founding Editor of
Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also serves as Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and produces the
SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series.
Sullivan started Search Engine Watch in June 1997 after he posted research about search engines, called A Webmaster’s Guide To Search Engines, in April 1996. Shortly after beginning in November that year, he sold it for an undisclosed amount to MecklerMedia (now Jupitermedia).
Joost de Valk
Joost is a well-known specialist in the fields of SEO and web development. He started his career in several companies, ranging from enterprise hosting to online marketing agencies, allowing him to work with several large businesses around the world.Joost founded
CSS3.info – the biggest CSS3 resource on the web – in 2006 and sold it in 2009. Early 2010 he built
Quix, which was featured in many online publications from Mashable to Lifehacker and ReadWriteWeb. He also built many plugin for WordPress (over 3.5 million downloads) and Firefox, he hosts the weekly WordPress Podcast and blogs on WordPress and SEO.
In May of 2010 Joost also founded Yoast, which focuses on consulting in SEO, WordPress optimization and online marketing / content strategy.
Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is the President of
RustyBrick, Inc., a Web services firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales. He is currently the editor of
Search Engine Roundtable, an online news site covering the search engines and search engine marketing.
Barry has written and contributed many articles to the SEO community, by publishing in Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Journal, SEOChat.com, SEO Today, WebProNews, LilEngine and SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization). Barry is commonly quoted and cited in publications including Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, TheStreet, News.com, eWeek and many others.
Wil Reynolds
Wil Reynolds, SEO and Founder of
SEER Interactive, an online marketing agency, in 2002. The company now employs 60 people with specialties including SEO, PPC, and Analytics.
SEER Interactive has been among the top 100 fastest growing companies in Philadelphia for five straight years, and Wil was personally awarded the Philadelphia Small Business person of the Year award in 2012.Wil’s career began at a web marketing agency in 1999, where he spearheaded the SEO strategies for companies like
Barnes & Noble,
Disney,
Harman Kardon,
Debeers,
Doubleclick,
Hotjobs, and
Mercedes Benz USA.
For the last 6 years, Wil and the team of search professionals at SEER Interactive have been assisting clients in maximizing their visibility and sales using search engines in both SEO and SEM.
Aaron Wall
Aaron Wall is one of the most respected professional SEOs in the industry and has been running his site
SEObook.com since 2003. Having blogged for a couple years, worked on over a hundred websites, and read many thousands of pages about search and SEO, Aaron usually knows the answer to most SEO questions, or who to ask when he does not.
He is the author of one of the most popular search engine optimization books SEO book. For the past 6 years, Aaron has given some of the best search advice on his blog at SEObook.com. The site has been the go-to site for people who want to build their own SEO campaigns without hiring an in-house SEO or spending money with an expensive SEO firm.
Avinash Kaushik
Avinash Kaushik, Digital marketing evangelist for Google, Indian entrepreneur, author and public speaker. Avinash is best known for his expertise in Web Analytics. In his writing and speaking Kaushik has championed the principle of aggregation of marginal gains, and encouraged the pursuit of simplifying perceived complexity in the field of data analytics.
In 2008, Kaushik co-founded Market Motive Inc., which provides online education and certification in six Internet disciplines such as Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Advertising, Social Media, Web Analytics, Conversion & Public RelationsHe is also the author of two best selling books: Web Analytics 2.0, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day.
Matt McGee
Matt McGee is Editor-In-Chief of
Search Engine Land and
Marketing Land. He’s been writing for Search Engine Land since February 2007, first as a columnist and then joining the staff as Assignment Editor in September 2008. He was promoted to Executive News Editor in December 2010 and Editor-In-Chief in January, 2013.
Matt is a regular speaker at marketing conferences across the country, and has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Inc. magazine, and several other media outlets.
Michael Gray
Michael is owner and President of
Atlas Web Service; a NY based Internet Consulting Firm.Michael Gray became involved in web development and website management in 1998. He was Webmaster for a major specialty retailer, helping create their website presence and growing their online sales from less than $10,000 a month to over $25 million in annual web sales.
Michael has been involved with affiliate marketing campaigns for several years and does consulting work on a variety of topics such as SEO, Social Media and Blog Management.
Eric Ward
Eric is widely known as one of the world’s top online content publicists, link building experts and linking strategists. Eric founded the Web’s first link building and web promotion services, called
NetPOST and
URLwire, in 1994.Ward is best known as the person behind the linking campaigns for Amazon.com Books, Weather.com, The Link Exchange, Rodney Dangerfield, the AMA, and PBS.org.
His services won the 1995 Award for Internet Marketing Excellence, and he was selected as one of the Web’s 100 most influential people by Websight magazine. In 2009 Eric was one of 25 people profiled in the book Online Marketing Heroes. Eric has spoken at over 100 industry conferences and now publishes LinkMoses Private, a subscription based link opportunity and strategy service. Eric has written linking strategy and advice columns for SearchEngineLand, MarketingProfs, ClickZ, Search Marketing Standard, SearchEngineGuide, Web Marketing Today, and Ad Age magazine.
David Mihm
David Mihm is one of the world’s leading practitioners of Local search engine marketing. He has created and promoted search-friendly websites for clients of all sizes since the early 2000’s. David Mihm is Director of Local Strategy at
Moz, and the architect of Moz Local—a newly-released software product that distributes U.S. business listings to the primary local data aggregators and important local directories.
David writes frequently about Local Search at his own blog, Mihmorandum, and formerly wrote a column on Local Search at Search Engine Land. His annual Local Search Ranking Factors project is among the most important studies of Local SEO.
David created the Local Search Ecosystems [Infographic] at Moz.com that shows how google collect and populate local search data.
Jayson DeMers
Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Peter J. Meyers (AKA “Dr. Pete”) is a marketing scientist for
SEOmoz, former start-up executive, and cognitive psychologist. After 15 years in the trenches with clients, Dr. Pete has headed back to the lab to help translate the
Google algorithm for other search marketers and business owners.
He maintains the Google Algorithm History, a living document of algorithm updates and recently launched the MozCast project, a tracking system for monitoring the Google “weather.”
Jon Cooper
Jon Cooper is a link builder from Tarpon Springs, FL. He’s a part time SEO consultant and currently blogs over at
Point Blank SEO, his link building blog.Jon has been doing SEO for 4 years now, and from the very beginning, link building caught his eye. Jon got his first gig working on his neighbor’s website, and from there, Jon started experimenting & launching a few sites of his own.
Today, Jon is a link builder who follows about 20-30 blogs and 50-60 fellow link builders.
Jon created the Link Building Tactics – The Complete List the most complete list of link building tactics on the web.
Ann Smarty
Ann Smarty has been into blogging and Internet Marketing for 6 years. Throughout this time she was an SEO freelancer, Director of Media at
BlueGlass, Editor in Chief at
Search Engine Journal as well as guest contributor at
Mashable, MakeUseOf and many other high-profile technology blogs.Currently, Ann Smarty is the owner of
My Blog Guest, the free platform connecting guest bloggers to blog owners and her personal blog (oldest site)
SEOSmarty.com. Ann is also the excited part of
Internet Marketing Ninjas Team as the community and branding manager. She is also the co-founder of
Viral Content Buzz, the free social media promotion tool based on the idea of collaborative sharing.
Ann created a slideshare presentation 3 Rules of Relationship-Powered Link Building that shows what she actually doing to her link building strategy.
Aleyda Solis
Aleyda Solis is an International SEO Consultant with wide experience in the definition, development and management of Search Engine Optimization processes.
With more than 7 years of experience doing Search Engine Optimization for European, American and Latin-American companies, Aleyda is an International SEO Consultant -service that she provides through her company Orainti-, co-founder of Tribalytics -a social influencers marketing tool-, and a Moz Associate.
Aleyda illustrated the SEO Competitive Analysis Workflow that shows the different activities and factors of identifying SEO competitors.
Neil Pattel
Neil Patel is the co-founder of
Crazy Egg,
Hello Bar,
KISSmetrics and his own blog
QuickSprout. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 online marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies in the world.
He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 35 by the United Nations. Neil has also been awarded Congressional Recognition from the United States House of Representatives.
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