Ethical, transparent, and respected, the awards are judged by esteemed industry experts who follow a robust two-step judging process that includes pre-scoring to establish a shortlist and judge discussion to determine winners and in some cases silver awards.
None of our award judges can take part in the competition and any conflicts of interest must be declared.
Alex is the Founder of PixelChefs.com, an award-winning SEO-focused web design firm in business since 2009. He specializes in the latest digital design infused with SEO strategy, Alex and his team work with companies such as CabinetSelect.com, Westgate Resorts, DrinkAGame.com, and many others across the globe. In the past, Alex worked in user interface design (UI) and served as Digital Marketing Manager for one of the world’s largest hospitality companies. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Ringling College and is a frequent speaker at search conferences and contributor to digital marketing publications. Until recently, Alex participated in and was the Founder of the largest SEO Meetup group in Florida. When Alex is not working, he is either chasing his kids around, thinking about work, or both. Find Alex on Twitter @Pixelchefs.
Bill Hartzer | SEO Consultant |
Bill Hartzer is an independent SEO Consultant. He relies on his 20 years of direct SEO experience to provide technical SEO audits of websites, as well as technical link audits and link cleanups of websites. Mr. Hartzer is known worldwide for his research on the topic of search engine optimization and the New gTLD domain names, as well as Dot Brand domain names. He provides research and marketing of white papers and case studies related to the New gTLDs, as well as consulting related to domain migrations.
Dawn Anderson | Founder | Bertey
Dawn Anderson lectures on search and digital marketing strategy at Manchester Metropolitan University, is an international conference speaker (UK, US, AUS, IT), a trainer, and runs a digital marketing and international SEO consultancy agency, Bertey based in Manchester, UK. Dawn has spoken at some of the leading UK and global search marketing conferences, including Pubcon (Las Vegas and Florida), SASCON (Manchester, UK), European Search Conference (Liverpool, UK), Search Leeds (Leeds, UK), Brighton SEO (Brighton, UK), SMX London (London, UK), SMX East (San Jose, US), Ungagged London (London, UK), Ungagged Las Vegas (Las Vegas, US), MozCon (Seattle, US) and State of Search (Dallas, US). Dawn has also spoken at conference across Europe and as far afield as Australia. Dawn has been in digital marketing and SEO for 12+ years and works with leading brands providing digital marketing and SEO strategy and consultancy across a number of sectors. She is a Northern Digital, UK, EU and US Search Awards Judge. Dawn also contributes to leading search marketing industry publications such as Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, The SEMPost, State of Digital and Smart Insights. Dawn also supervises Masters dissertation students undertaking their MSc in digital marketing strategy at Manchester Metropolitan University and also lectures and undertakes workshops on search and marketing analytics teaching International Fashion Promotion students at Manchester Fashion Institute
Deborah Norton | Founder | BRAVO! Interactive Media
Deborah Norton, Internet Strategy Consultant and founder of BRAVO! Interactive Media - creating, optimizing and marketing website since 1997. Formerly Deborah headed up business development for a then tech start up, Catalyst globally acquired by the WPP Group. From print advertising, television marketing to the Internet, Deborah is passionate about media. Presently consulting with her company BRAVO! Interactive Media, a collaborative boutique internet marketing agency established in 2008. Deborah focuses on working with businesses, non-profits & B-corporations on creation and implantation of large-scale complex Internet projects, Internet strategy services, SEO, PPC, web development, content creation & online marketing services. Additionally Deborah is a digital business advisor & instructor at the University of Hartford, Entrepreneurial Center & Barney School of business where she both teaches and advises on digital marketing.
Janna Pugh | SEO Manager | Five9
Janna Pugh is a SEO Specialist with a history of agency and in-house work. She has recently been nationally recognized as the Industry Rising Star in Conductor's 2022 C2 Summit and regularly speaks with college classes about the essentials of organic marketing. With her passion for SEO, she knows firsthand how to make the smallest and largest websites succeed organically. Her areas of focus specialize in enterprise SEO, with scalability and automation for both small and large SEO teams. Her varied approach to SEO combines on-site content with off-site brand management. In her free time, she loves trying out new recipes and reading mystery novels.
Jim Banks | CEO | Spades Media
Jim is one of the original paid media experts, buying his first paid traffic back in 1999. Since then he has worked with over 1000 companies around the world and spent in excess of £250 million on traffic, generating in excess of £1 billion in ecommerce sales and more than 2 million leads for inbound marketing companies. Jim is a well-travelled and sought after keynote speaker.
Judith Lewis | Founder | Decabbit Consultancy
Judith is a renowned international speaker, writer, trainer, blogger and digital media consultant specialising in applying strategic understanding of digital technologies to help businesses innovate and optimise their effectiveness within the new, networked communications environment. She is a regular speaker around the world on SEO, content strategy, link building, paid media, and digital strategy, and has been recognised by her peers as one of the most influential people in the UK digital industry. Judith judges the industry leading Search Awards around the world, and has every year since their inception. She has worked with market-leading global businesses including Google, NatWest/RBS, National Gallery, Fidelity, GalaCoral, NBC Universal, Readers Digest, Bayer, Family Search, Amadeus, AMD, AmEx , Virgin.com, Virgin Startup & more. She has over 23 years of experience, predating Google in her entry into the market, and now runs her own consultancy. She has worked both in-house and agency-side. Judith also blogs about chocolate, has contributed to the book “Pimp My Site” and the Econsultancy guide to Paid Search and rewrote the large foundational Econsultancy Best Practice Guide to SEO.
Julia-Carolin Zeng | SEO Consultant | Charlie on the Move
Julia started her career in SEO 5 years ago in the online gambling industry working for an affiliate company. She has since worked in different industries and is a freelance SEO consultant since 2019. She specialises in international SEO and works mostly with B2B SaaS companies in Europe and the US. Her educational background is in linguistics and cultural anthropology, and she can communicate in French, Spanish and Italian, in addition to her mother tongue German. Julia is usually based in London, but she loves travelling and the digital nomad lifestyle.
Keith Goode | Principal SEO Product Manager | Cox Automotive
Keith Goode is an industry leader in SEO with over 20 years of experience in online marketing and over 17 years of experience as an in-house SEO. He has worked at companies such as Dell, IBM, and Cox Automotive, optimizing sites with millions of pages and CMS platforms that power over 11,000 websites. He specializes in Technical SEO, site audits, competitive gap analyses, information architecture, SEO strategy and planning, internal SEO training, and executive budgeting and prioritization. Keith has been an industry conference speaker for over a decade, presenting at conferences like Pubcon, SMX West, DMO (formerly Advanced Search Summit), Digital Summit, SEJ eSummit, State of Search, and DeepSEOCon. Additionally, he has appeared on industry podcasts and webinars for Search Talk Live, Webcology, Search Engine Journal Podcast, and Suds and Search. He presents on a variety of search-related topics, including Content Strategies, Building In-house Teams, Overcoming Obstacles in Search, Advanced SEO, SEO Product Management, and Agile Marketing. He has been recognized by Search Engine Journal as one of 140 SEO's to follow and regularly appears on industry podcasts and webinars. Additionally, he is a regular judge for industry awards, such as the US Search Awards, Global Search Awards, European Content Awards and several others.
Lisa Williams-Scott | Senior Director, Growth & Loyalty | Peace Health
Lisa Williams-Scott is a 28-year veteran of digital marketing and the author of "When Everybody Clicks: Sustainable Digital Marketing". She has been featured in Kiplinger Magazine, Glamour Magazine, Boston Globe, and The Oregonian. Lisa is on the SEMpdx (Search Engine Marketing Professionals of Portland Oregon) Advisory Board. She judges the US Search Awards and Business Tech Awards. She speaks at conferences on the topics of healthcare, digital strategy, marketing integration, team development, and leadership.
Lukasz Zelezny | SEO Consultant |
Lukasz Zelezny, UK Search Awards judge, Top10 UK Social Media influencer and former director of organic performance at uSwitch / Zoopla. Currently is working as an independent SEO Consultant helping in organic traffic acquisition, technical SEO and content marketing. Lukasz started his career in 2005 and has since been responsible for the organic performance of a number of companies including HomeAway, Thomson Reuters, The Digital Property Group, Fleetway Travel, uSwitch, Zoopla. Each year Lukasz is speaking at many SEO and social media conferences. He was a speaker at ClickZ Shanghai China, ClickZ Jakarta Indonesia, SiMGA Malta, SES London as well as Marketing Festival in Brno, Brighton SEO in Brighton and UnGagged in London. Every year he is actively participating in 10 to 20 events as an SEO/Social Media keynote speaker. Additionally, he organizes workshops and meetups where he is sharing tips around SEO, Social Media and Analytics. To get in touch with Lukasz simply search “Lukasz Zelezny” or visit https://Zelezny.uk
Michael Bonfils | GLOBAL MANAGING DIRECTOR | INTL MEDIA MANAGEMENT CORP (SEM INTERNATIONAL)
Michael Bonfils is the CEO and Founder of Int’t Media Management with the trade name of SEM International specializing in International SEO/SEM, multilingual content marketing and display solutions. With over 30 network offices around the world, Michael has been critical to the global digital marketing successes of many of the world’s largest corporations. Michael often speaks and writes on the latest trends in global search marketing and has contributed his time to many major national publications and events. In addition to being the founder of his global advertising agency, he is currently a board member of a number of organizations in technology and advertising as well as a former judge for the US Search Awards.
Michael Emiliani | Marketing Director | Freight Right Global Logistics
Mike is a seasoned digital marketing expert with a decade of experience in PPC and digital media. His passion lies in developing and growing businesses through comprehensive, integrated digital media campaigns. His ability to draw on knowledge and experiences from a wide range of challenges from his time in-house, agency-side and as a consultant has given him a unique depth and breadth to solving complex problems in PPC and broadly digital marketing. Mike has shared insights as a contributing writer and speaker at events. His extensive knowledge has also earned her the distinction of being a featured subject matter expert at Endicott College in Massachusetts, a contributor to industry blogs and recipient of the 2018 Interactive Marketing Award.
Motoko Hunt | President | AJPR
Since establishing AJPR in 1998, Motoko Hunt has been providing online marketing services to various companies around the world. Her extensive knowledge of Asia and Japanese markets proves to be highly valuable as her consulting services have made a significant impact on global marketing campaigns for some of the world’s most popular multinational brands. Besides being published in industry websites and printed media, Motoko is a frequent speaker at global search marketing conferences, giving seminars and training about topics on International Search Marketing.
Rejoice Ojiaku | SEO Manager | Nelson Bostock UNLIMITED
Rejoice Ojiaku is an SEO Specialist & Content Strategist, as well as the Co-Founder of B-DigitalUK – a platform for showcasing and empowering black talent in the UK digital marketing scene. Her expertise lies in SEO, Diversity and inclusion, all bolstered by strong personal branding both online and offline.
Rob Woods | Senior Director, SEO | EssilorLuxottica Digital Acceleration
Rob is an SEO with over 20 years of experience. He spent 13 years in-house in both e-commerce and publishing, has been an SEO consultant for 8 years, and is currently Senior Director, SEO for EssilorLuxottica Digital Acceleration. Rob has spoken at numerous marketing events including State of Search, Pubcon, SMX Advanced, SEMPO Canada / Bing Search Summit, BlueGlassX, IIMA Fusion Conference, DMA Retail, numerous marketing and SEO Meetup events, and served on the Advisory Board for SMX Toronto. He is also the Technical Editor of 2 SEO/E-commerce books from O'Reilly "Social eCommerce" and "The Art of SEO"
Scott Hendison | PRESIDENT | SEARCH COMMANDER INC
Scott Hendison is the founder of Search Commander, Inc., an internet consultancy with multiple services and brands. He began selling software online in 1999, attended his first Pubcon in 2004, and is a founding board member of SEMpdx, hosting monthly events and an annual conference in Portland Oregon since 2007.
"This is an extraordinary honor for the company as the U.S. Search Awards, held annually to recognize the ever-expanding world of search marketing, is known for being the premier celebration of SEO, PPC, and content marketing in various territories across the globe." beMarketing
"The US Search Awards ceremony is a momentous event in the digital marketing industry, celebrating outstanding achievements and innovation within the sector. Block & Tam’s multiple nominations underscore their dedication to excellence and their ability to consistently exceed client expectations." Block & Tam
"These nominations are confirmation that we have created an excellent software offering that agencies are finding essential to their client work and strategic planning."Manick Bhan, CTO LinkGraph
"Report Builder 2.0 is the best reporting tool on the market and deserves to be recognized as such. Plus, it has the power to change the industry, so reaching the final of the US Search Awards and getting the thumbs up from the expert judges helps take us one step further towards the change the industry needs when it comes to reporting." Dragon Metrics
“As a company that has submitted to the US Search Awards in the past, we're thrilled to say that the US Search Awards is a platform that celebrates excellence and innovation in the search industry. Participating in this prestigious event not only provided us with unparalleled recognition but also offered us an invaluable opportunity to connect with the best in the field. The US Search Awards is a beacon of inspiration, pushing us to strive for higher standards and achieve greater success in our digital endeavours.”Ryan Edwards Tombras
"This is an extraordinary honor for the company as the U.S. Search Awards, held annually to recognize the ever-expanding world of search marketing, is known for being the premier celebration of SEO, PPC, and content marketing in various territories across the globe."
"The US Search Awards ceremony is a momentous event in the digital marketing industry, celebrating outstanding achievements and innovation within the sector. Block & Tam’s multiple nominations underscore their dedication to excellence and their ability to consistently exceed client expectations."
"These nominations are confirmation that we have created an excellent software offering that agencies are finding essential to their client work and strategic planning."
Manick Bhan, CTO 
"Report Builder 2.0 is the best reporting tool on the market and deserves to be recognized as such. Plus, it has the power to change the industry, so reaching the final of the US Search Awards and getting the thumbs up from the expert judges helps take us one step further towards the change the industry needs when it comes to reporting."
