The US Search Awards have been judged by industry leaders and experts.
Current Judges
Previous Judges include:
Head judges
Olga Andrienko | HEAD OF GLOBAL MARKETING | SEMRUSH
Together with her team she has built one of the strongest international communities in the online marketing industry. Olga has expanded SEMrush brand visibility worldwide, bringing >90% YoY average revenue growth from top 10 new markets and growing SEMrush presence in the main markets such as USA, Europe and Australia. Olga is a sought-after speaker at leading marketing conferences such as SMX, Pubcon and BrightonSEO.
Carolyn Shelby | Director of Search Engine Optimization | Tribune Publishing
Purna Virji | Senior Manager of Global Engagement | Microsoft
Crowned the 2019 Search Personality of the Year at the US Search Awards, Purna has previously been named by Adweek on their 2018 Young Influentials List, and in 2016 was named by PPC Hero as the #1 Most Influential Expert in the world. She is a regular keynote speaker at conferences across the globe such as AdWeek, DMEXCO, The Next Web Conference and INBOUND. Purna is also a columnist on digital marketing for Search Engine Land and Moz. An award-winning former journalist, Purna is an avid traveler, aspiring top chef and amateur knitter in her spare time. Say hi @purnavirji.Judges
Barry Adams | Founder | Polestar Digital
Barry Adams has building and ranking websites since 1998. Over the years he's honed his skills in a wide range of businesses, from small agencies to Fortune 500 multinationals. In 2014 Barry founded SEO consultancy Polemic Digital, delivering specialised SEO services to clients such as the UK's most-read newspapers The Sun and the Daily Mail and America's most popular news channel Fox News. In 2016 his work was recognised with two UK Search Awards, including Best Small SEO Agency for which he was again shortlisted in 2017. In addition to his consulting work, Barry lectures on SEO and digital marketing for Ulster University, Queen's University Belfast, and the Digital Marketing Institute. He travels the world to speak at digital conferences such as BrightonSEO, Pubcon, UnGagged, SMX, and Learn Inbound. Barry also serves as the Chief Editor at award-winning European digital marketing blog State of Digital.
Azeem Ahmad | Digital Marketing Manager | Staffordshire University
Azeem is currently the Digital Marketing Manager at Staffordshire University. He has spent several years working in the industry, beginning in a paid search focused role before moving into a multi channel specialism. He is experienced in various aspects of online marketing activity, including PPC, Social Media, Display, Programmatic, App Marketing and SEO. He has previously spoken at conferences in the UK including MeasureFest, and BrightonSEO, and also on podcasts and webinars too.
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
Matt Beswick | Co-Founder | Aira
Matt is the co-founder of Aira, one of the UK's leading agencies, has worked in Search Marketing for over a decade, and is a regular speaker at some of the industry's most renowned conferences. A technical marketer at heart, his expertise lies in SEO and Paid Media, and can be regularly heard asking Aira's PR team stupid questions that he should really know the answer to by now. He also likes bourbon
Chris Boggs | Founder | Web Traffic Advisors | @boggles
Chris has been a digital marketer since 2000, starting in-house in the insurance space and subsequently assuming growing leadership roles across large agencies and SEM firms. Chris has led SEO teams and developed Thought Leadership at two now-Publicis agencies in the 2000’s into early 2010’s. Since founding Web Traffic Advisors in 2014, Chris advises business and agency clients helping to improve performance in SEO, Paid Search, and Paid Social Media. Chris supports organization teams and agencies, but also works with sub-contractors and freelancers to deliver direct campaign execution in paid Media (Search & Social) and SEO. Chris also loves developing and delivering customized team training. Chris has current and recent experience serving major brands on various ecommerce platforms, B2B Software & Industrial, Travel, Retail and other industries.
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.
Elmer Boutin | Director Of Organic Search | GTB
Elmer is Channel Director, Organic at VMLY&R and is assigned to WPP sister agency, GTB, as their Director, Organic Search (SEO). Following a career in the U.S. Army, he has worked in digital marketing for over 20 years doing everything from coding websites to managing online reputation management efforts as both an independent contractor and a corporate webmaster. In his assignment with GTB, a global advertising agency and strategic marketing partner for Ford, he leads the team doing organic search optimization on websites for Ford and other clients.
James Brockbank | Managing Director & Founder | Digitaloft
James Brockbank is Managing Director and founder at Digitaloft, a multi-award-winning digital PR, content and search marketing agency, with more than 12 years SEO experience behind him. Digitaloft’s work has won multiple awards at European Search Awards, UK Content Awards, UK Agency Awards, Northern Digital Awards and, most recently, the European Content Awards where the agency were awarded ‘Small Content Marketing Agency of the Year.’ James is a regular conference speaker, having presented at SMX West, Search Y Paris, BrightonSEO, YoastCon, Learn Inbound, Ungagged and more, as well as being a contributor to Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch and the SEMrush blog.
Heather Campbell | Director of Marketing | Search Engine Journal
Heather has over 20 years of industry experience and is the Director of Marketing at Search Engine Journal. Having worked on numerous SEO and PPC campaigns, Heather has a great understanding of how search works alongside digital and offline campaigns. Heather has helped many organizations grow their online and lead generation sales through strong branding and consistency in communication. At Search Engine Journal she is partnering with leading marketers to keep up-to-date on the search industry and digital marketing world and drive return from marketing opportunities. Heather believes community, consistency, and content are the heart of great marketing.
Sarah Carling | Senior SEO strategist | Bruce Clay
Sarah Carling is a senior SEO strategist at Bruce Clay; she has worked in the industry since 2006. After running her own business successfully for eight years, Sarah decided she wanted to get back to focussing on SEO instead of the never-ending variety of other tasks that claimed her time as a business owner. While her primary focus has always been SEO, she has become known for having a cross channel skillset that has shaped her approach of optimizing for the customer more than optimizing for Google. This customer-centric approach started when she started to train clients on forum marketing in the days before Facebook; Sarah realized then that being valuable was the most valuable thing a company could do. As part of the Bruce Clay team, Sarah now works on some of the most challenging clients and marries her value focus with technical analysis and strategies to drive traffic and revenue gains.
Christine Churchill | CEO & President | KeyRelevance
Christine Churchill is the CEO & President of KeyRelevance, a full service online marketing company offering search engine optimization, pay per click management, and usability / conversion enhancement services for web sites. Ms Churchill was a member of the founding Board of Directors of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) and the Dallas / Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association. In addition to over 15 years marketing experience, she spent ten years in the U.S. Army as a missile officer and has a Master’s Degree in Business. Ms. Churchill is a regular speaker at PubCon, Search Marketing Expo, and other marketing conferences. Christine and her experienced team of online marketers specialize in helping businesses succeed online by providing a holistic approach to marketing: increasing a site's visibility, improving the user experience on the site, and maximizing the site's conversion potential.
Rob Day | VP of Marketing | Jack's Abby Brewing Co
Rob Day is the VP of Marketing for Jack's Abby Brewing Company. In his current role, he oversees all facets of marketing for Jack's Abby Craft Lagers and Springdale Beer Company. Rob has worked in a variety of industries from babies, to barbeques to beer over a 14 year professional marketing career. Prior to Jack's, Rob did tours at Lord Hobo Brewing Company, Cuisinart Grilling, The First Years Juvenile Products and News America Marketing. He attended school at the University of Southern California, but is originally from Amesbury MA and somehow left the grip of Southern Cal to return to Massachusetts for his career. Rob loves craft beer, food and cooking, music and all of the wonderful things that make up the good life. If you follow his social media, you'll see all of this and some cute dog pics.
Kevin Gibbons | CEO | Re:signal
Kevin is CEO at Re:signal - an award-winning SEO and content marketing agency for brands anticipating the future. Kevin has presented at a large number of conferences around the world, writes frequently online and has worked with well-known brands including Expedia, Deloitte, Pottery Barn and more and was named 2018 search personality at UK Search Awards. Website: https://resignal.com
Wilhemina Gibertson-Davis | SEO Specialist
Wilhemina is a SEO Specialist who has worked within digital marketing for 3+ years. She specialises in technical SEO & is also the Co-founder & operations manager for B-DigitalUK.
Luis Navarrete Gomez | Global Head of Digital Marketing - Sr Director | Liberty Latin America
Keith Goode | Principal SEO Product Manager | Cox Automotive
Keith Goode is a Principal SEO Product Manager at Cox Automotive, focused on the Dealer.com platform. He brings over 20 years of experience in the online sphere and over 15 years of experience in In-House and Enterprise SEO. He has worked for small and large enterprises including HomeAway, BDX, Dell, and IBM, and he has presented at dozens of conferences worldwide, including Pubcon, SMX, Advanced Search Summit, State of Search, Clarity, and DeepSEOCon. He has been recognized by Search Engine Journal as one of 140 SEO's to follow and regularly appears on industry podcasts
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.
Scott Hendison | PRESIDENT | SEARCH COMMANDER INC | @shendison
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.
Ana Hernandez | General Manager | LoveToKnow Media
Ana Hernández has been working in the digital publishing industry for over a decade. The first few years, she jumped between the ancient realm of monastery libraries where she researched medieval manuscripts for her PhD, and the modern world of SEO and web content. After finishing her dissertation, she became the Senior Content Manager at SeeTheWorld, leading its content, SEO, social media, and growth projects. Ana currently oversees the strategy and operations of WordFinder, one of the products at LoveToKnow Media. Before being promoted to this role, she was the SEO and Content Marketing Specialist on the same team she now leads.
Simon Heseltine | VP OF AUDIENCE GROWTH | TRADER INTERACTIVE | @SimonHeseltine
Simon Heseltine is the VP of Audience Growth at Trader Interactive in Norfolk, VA. His team is responsible for all traffic channels for industry leading sites such as Cycle Trader, RV Trader, Equipment Trader and Commercial Truck Trader. Simon has led US Search Award winning teams at ForRent (2017) and AOL (2014), also working in-house at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and for several years on the agency side. Simon taught digital marketing for 5 years at Georgetown University, and was on the board of SEMPO for 4 years, 2 as VP of Education. Simon is a frequent speaker / trainer / moderator at conferences around the world on a variety of online marketing topics. He has a BA (Hons) from the University of Humberside, and a Masters in IT from Virginia Tech.
Rachel Heseltine | VP of Consumer Growth | TRADER INTERACTIVE
Rachel Heseltine is the VP of Consumer Growth at Trader Interactive in Norfolk, VA. Her award winning team is responsible for all traffic channels for industry leading sites such as Cycle Trader, RV Trader, Equipment Trader and Commercial Truck Trader. Rachel has led US Search Award winning teams at ForRent (2017) and AOL (2014), also working in-house at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and for several years on the agency side. Rachel taught digital marketing for 5 years at Georgetown University, and was on the board of SEMPO for 4 years, 2 as VP of Education. Rachel was a frequent speaker / trainer / moderator at conferences around the world on a variety of online marketing topics in the "before times", and is hoping to get back to that when the world returns to a semblance of normality.
Karl Hindle | Founder | Wellspring Digital
Karl Hindle founded Wellspring Digital in January 2017 and acts as CEO and Head of SEO (for now). He initially trained as an accountant with Arthur Andersen in Birmingham and London UK, but quickly commenced his career as an entrepreneur eventually founding an insurance brokerage, Andersen Hindle Limited which was sold in 2002. He then served in senior positions with a number of British and European countries, including France, Cyprus, Russia and Spain. Attracted to digital since the late-Nineties, at the turn of the century he created a reputation as a technical writer, morphing into a web content creator and was drawn into SEO. In 2009, he emigrated to the United States and worked in agency land primarily as an SEO. He also served as the Digital Director of ChildFund International in Richmond VA and was a member of the Strategy Committee for the global organization. In addition to Wellspring Digital, he is involved as an equity partner in several business ventures in the digital space including Strategic Harbor and SailFish, and he also sits on the board of a corporate governance body. When he’s not working, he can be found spending time with his family and their seven rescue dogs, playing guitar with several other frustrated, middle-aged rock stars, or navigating domestic life with two redheads in the house (his wife, Alissa, and stepdaughter, the Ginger Ninja).
Anders Hjorth | Digital Marketing Strategist | Innovell
Anders Hjorth is the author of the Search Strategies Report and the Amazon Marketing Report and the founder of Innovell, a Digital Marketing Insights consultancy researching trends in Digital Marketing. As a pioneer in SEO, one of the first Google Advertising Professionals and the co-founder of several agencies: Relevant Traffic (Search Marketing), BDBL MEDIA (Biddable Media) and AZNOS (Content Marketing), he has a broad and long-running experience across SEO, Paid Search, Social Media, Content marketing and Programmatic. Anders was also COO for GroupM Search across EMEA. Anders is also a member of various awards juries and advisory boards including Paid Search Association and the Global Search Awards.
Jennifer Hoffman | VP of Marketing | Banked
Jennifer is an enthusiastic and passionate Marketing Director with over 15 years of experience in brand building and strategic marketing, with an impressive track record of developing key partner relationships and driving business growth. Fascinated by all things impacting the customer journey; brand experience, user experience and customer experience. Hyper curious about new tech, innovation and startup culture!
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.
Kenny Hyder | Founder | Hyder Media
Jonathan Jones | VP of SEO | Forbes
Jonathan Jones is the VP of SEO at Forbes and has over 13 years working in the SEO industry. He is the co-author of the book ‘Mastering In-House SEO’ alongside 26 other brilliant co-authors. He has a computer science background, runs his own online businesses, and is an entrepreneurial mindset. Prior to working at Forbes, Jonathan worked at MoneySuperMarket, where the team won ‘Best In-House Team’ three times at the EU Search Awards in 2016, 2017, and 2018 and also at the UK Search Awards in 2015. Prior to this, he has worked on major national and international sites such as Toyota, NatWest/RBS, John Freida, Sage, Unum, & more. To get in touch with Jonathan, go to MrJonathanJones.com.
Mark Knowles | CEO | Pixelsilk, Inc.
With over three decades of experience and hundreds of software, web marketing, and development projects under his belt, Mark Knowles has an in-depth understanding of web marketing, development, and search engine optimization (SEO). His professional background includes developing marketing technology solutions for companies such as JELD-WEN, Intel, adidasGolf, PacifiCorp, and many others. And as an entrepreneur, Mark has helped create and build several multimillion-dollar technology companies. Currently, Mark helps his team and clients prioritize and focus their marketing efforts. He also found and developed the first SEO-friendly content management system (CMS), Pixelsilk. At Smartz and Pixelsilk, Mark leads a team that combines innovative marketing application solutions with SEO best practices for client websites across the globe. In addition, Mark speaks at marketing conferences and universities, co-chairs the Swivel Digital MarketingConference in Bend, Oregon, and serves as an advisory board member at SEMpdx in Portland, Oregon. On a personal note, Mark is known for his relentless energy, an insatiable appetite for learning new things, and his ability to connect disparate trends and anticipate the future of marketing and technology.
Judith Lewis | Founder | DeCabbit Consultancy | @decabbit
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.
Trond Lyngbø | Senior SEO Consultant & Founder | Search Planet AS | @trondlyngbo
Trond Lyngbø is the founder of Search Planet and a senior SEO Consultant. He has over two decades of experience in SEO, e-commerce, content strategy and digital analysis. His clients include multinational Fortune 500 corporations and major Norwegian companies. Trond has helped grow businesses through more effective search marketing and SEO strategies. He is most passionate about working with e-commerce companies and web shops to develop and expand their omni-channel marketing initiatives.
Carla Marshall | Head of Content Marketing | vidIQ
Carla Marshall is the Head of Content Marketing at YouTube analytics platform vidIQ. She has 10+ years of experience in video marketing, social media management, content marketing, Digital Rights Management, and SEO. She was previously Editor in Chief at ReelSEO.com and TubularInsights.com. She is YouTube Certified and a judge for the UK, US, Canadian, and EU Search Awards.
Debra Mastaler | President | Alliance-Link.com
Debra Mastaler is an experienced traditional marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) specialist with a deep skillset in link building, SEO content strategy and media relations. She has owned Alliance-Link since 2001 and specializes in combining big idea content and smart SEO to build links, traffic and brand growth. Debra is a regular conference speaker, trainer and contributor to numerous search and tech sites and is OMCP certified link building trainer.
Jesse McDonald | Global SEO Strategist | IBM
Jesse McDonald is a Global SEO Strategist with IBM. Located in Austin, TX, Jesse has been working within the digital marketing industry as an SEO professional for over 6 years. He cut his teeth within the SEO industry focusing on local SEO before expanding his expertise into e-commerce and large/enterprise-level businesses. Jesse is also a frequent conference speaker and can often be seen presenting at Pubcon, State of Search, SearchHOU, and Rocks Digital. He is also an active contributor to industry blogs like Search Engine Journal and the SEMrush blog. He was also listed as one of Search Engine Journal’s top 140 SEOs to follow.
Brian McDowell | Senior Director of SEO and Content Marketing | Credit Karma
Amel Mehenaoui
Amel Mehenaoui has been working in Digital Marketing for 15 years, helping small, medium and large businesses grow their organic traffic. She worked with canadian brands like Lacoste, Keurig and ALDO Group, and she’s currently Head of SEO at Puffy. Amel is passionate about SEO, Analytics and Conversion Optimization. Amel also teaches SEO & Web Analytics, and offers customized upskill private training sessions to entrepreneurs, digital marketers, and in-house SEO specialists. Amel enjoys sharing her knowledge on Twitter and Linkedin where she offers advice and shares content on topics around digital marketing, SEO, and Productivity. Currently, Amel is learning and experimenting with integrating Artificial Intelligence in content marketing. Outside of work, she enjoys playing ping pong, and billiards with friends.
Lexi Mills | MANAGING PARTNER | SHIFT6
Lexi Mills is a multi-award winning digital marketing expert specialising in PR SEO and data-driven business intelligence. She is President of The Future of Search Foundation and Managing Director of Shift6, an international consultancy which provides training and consultancy services to agencies, businesses and investors, alongside advising government entities on the risks and opportunities of algorithmic technology. Her research work focuses on the opportunities, ethics and risks of machine learning and AI within the sector of internet search.
Luke Monaghan | SEO Manager | lululemon
Luke Monaghan is the SEO Manager for global athleisure brand, lululemon, where he is responsible for helping to drive their organic strategy in the North American market. Having worked agency-side for over 7 years, Luke comes with a wealth of director-level experience from working with many globally recognized brands, leading strategies and solutions across many areas from Technical SEO through to Content Marketing.
Roger Montti | Owner | martinibuster.com
Roger Montti is a search marketing consultant with 20 years of experience. He has presented at major Internet marketing conferences including SES, SMX, PubCon and Affiliate Summit. In addition to SEO consulting, Roger is a staff writer at SearchEnginerJournal.com, he publishes an award winning forum and other websites.
Dudi Nakdimon | SEO Lead | Payoneer
Dudi Nakdimon is an SEO Consultant with 10+ years of expertise on online marketing and digital experience. In the past 6 years he was the Head of SEO at Ladbrokes Coral. As part of his job at LCG, Dudi was responsible for building an in-house team of SEO - SEO managers, content writers and technical specialists, while collaborating with SEO agencies. His experience working for a large corporation with various departments has taught Dudi that the best to achieve SEO results is by educating colleagues throughout organizations on the importance of SEO, working close mainly with Product, Dev, Creative, Legal and Compliance departments. “SEO is more than just work. It’s my hobby and a passion!” – Dudi Nakdimon
Xavier Naudeau | Consultant
Xavier is a digital data-driven consultant who thrives on understanding consumers' behaviour to optimize their Search Journey through Digital. After ten years of combined experience between SEO, Web Analytics and Data, he now works within Business Intelligence at Philip Morris International to provide critical insights on consumer performance for smoke-free future campaigns.
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.
Zbigniew Nowicki | Co-Managing Director | Bluerank
Zbigniew has been working in the digital industry for over 20 years, advising market leaders and innovators. Co-owner of Bluerank, awarded the "Best Large Integrated Search Agency" in the European Search Awards 2017 competition. Founder of CEE Digital Alliance and Digital Alliance Int. - business partnerships of independent digital agencies in Europe. Pioneer of research on customer experience and user satisfaction, co-founder of the opiniac.com platform. Speaker at digital conferences in Poland and abroad. Privately - double happy dad, ultramarathon runner, keen on hard rock and Labrador Retriever dogs.
Andor Palau | International SEO Consultant | ANDORPALAU.COM
Andor is an independent international SEO consultant based in Berlin, Germany, and has started his online career back in 2009. Having worked both in-house, as well as on the agency side, he is currently advising online shops, classifiers, marketplaces, and other companies regarding international organic growth strategies as well as technical SEO issues as an independent SEO consultant. He is former Head of SEO at Peak Ace, where he was responsible for SEO and managed a 20+ people team of SEO consultants and editors. Before joining the agency side, Andor was In-house SEO for a top-3 comparison portal in highly competitive verticals such as insurance, power, and telco. Andor’s core expertise is strategic SEO as well as technical SEO, covering topics such as crawlability, indexing management, migrations, and site structure optimization. He is a lecturer at the afs Akademie in Germany, which has made it its mission to offer quality education and training in the field of SEO
Gustavo Pelogia | SEO Lead | Teamwork | @pelogia
Gus Pelogia is a former journalist turned SEO, conference speaker, and once-in-a-while blogger. He is currently the SEO Lead at Teamwork, a project management SaaS used by companies like Netflix, PayPal, Disney, and more. Prior to this, Gus worked both in-house and at digital agencies in Argentina, Netherlands, and Ireland. He spent 5 years as an Account Manager and Team Lead at agencies such as Spark Foundry and Wolfgang Digital, working with clients from travel, e-commerce, and professional services, winning several industry awards.
Dan Petrovic | Managing Director | DEJAN
Dan Petrovic, the managing director of DEJAN, is Australia’s best-known name in the field of search engine optimisation. Dan is a web author, innovator and a highly regarded search industry event speaker.
Plamen Popov | Senior SEO Lead Manager | Acronis Global
Plamen Popov is an experienced digital marketer & SEO Expert with history of working for internationally renowned brands. He currently is working as Senior SEO Lead in Acronis, world leader in cyber protection & data security company. Plamen joined last year from the marketing team of Management Financial Group, where he lead global marketing strategies for various fin-tech brands inside the holding. Plamen has a genuine interest in marketing and technology and that drives his experience through out consulting start up companies and leading teams in enterprise brands exploring various aspects of marketing activities including PPC, Social Media, Display, Programmatic, App Marketing and SEO. His passion for Search Marketing & SEO always drives him to learn and explore new possibilities of creating better user experiences and results.
Polly Pospelova | Digital Marketing Director | Delete Marketing Agency
Polly is the Delete agency’s digital marketing director. She works with SEO consultants, PPC managers, content & PR consultants, and technical developers. Polly works on digital strategies and solutions for major brands in sectors including higher education, sport, property, travel and more. She is also a search marketing conference speaker on SEO, page speed and performance and digital marketing.
Carrie Rose | Founder and Creative Director | Rise at Seven
Carrie Rose, 27 year old co-founder and CEO of leading search-first creative agency Rise at Seven. Rise disrupted the search industry just 18 months ago, winning Missguided on the spot without a pitch for presenting a search-first approach to creative. The story spread attracting other disruptor brands that wanted a creative approach to their search strategies including Pretty Little Thing, My Protein, Made.com, Game, Playstation, ODEON and more. Now a multi-million pound agency, we operate across London, Sheffield and US/ Carrie vlogs her journey building a global agency in public over on YouTube. She recently featured on campaign magazines 30 under 30 list and voted rising star by content marketing association. Carrie co-founded Rise at Seven alongside Stephen Kenwright in June 2019 taking a lead on our creative content marketing offering, Digital PR and social media strategy. Having worked in SEO for over 7 years and won multiple awards for her creative campaigns and digital PR executions – Carrie spotted an opportunity and a gap to make creative work for search.
Ardalan Salam | VP of Data and Technology | Allied Global Marketing
Ardalan (Ardi) Salam is the VP of data & technology at Allied Global Marketing overseeing all tech/dev and data/analytics initiatives for the company. Coming from a background of film, digital media and web development he later found himself engulfed in the world of search engines, data, analytics, and all things internet marketing. After years of working in SEO and SEM, he joined Allied in 2014 as the Director of Search Marketing - managing multimillion dollar accounts. Fast-forward to today Ardi now oversees the company's tech, data and insights division working on everything from web-development and marketing technology to data, measurement and analytics. He has led large scale data and analytics projects for companies such as Disney, NBC, STARZ, AMC Networks, Wolfgang Puck and has also been involved in major web development projects with a number of clients in the entertainment industry.
Kristine Schachinger | Leading Technical SEO
Kristine Schachinger is a leading technical SEO with over two decades experience working with digital media. Kristine began her career as a front-end developer and website designer. She has helped a wide range of clients from small and medium sized businesses to Reba McEntire, AOL, Superpages.com, and USA.gov. As her digital media experience expanded Kristine incorporated accessibility, marketing, and user experience into her work which naturally drew her to learn and practice search engine optimization in order to help her clients gain greater website visibility. She is now a well known and respected in her field as a regular speaker at industry conferences in the US and around the world. She is also a Subject Matter Expert with columns in Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, the SEM Post, Search Engine Watch, and State of Digital. Kristine is the CEO and founder of Nevada based Sites Without Walls. Her current SEO work includes (but is not limited to): · News Publishers and eCommerce sites · Site Recovery Plans · Monthly SEO support · Site Health Audits · SEO Algorithm / Penalty Audits · Conversion optimization · Site usability and testing · Accessibility (WCAG) · and other manner of Technical SEO She has worked with many SMBs and enterprise clients such as Vice News, Vice Media, Salon.com, Top Ten Reviews, Patch Media, Discover, and Zappos.com.
Eli Schwartz | Growth Advisor | SurveyMonkey
Eli Schwartz is the author of the bestselling book Product-Led SEO. He is an SEO expert and consultant with more than a decade of experience driving successful SEO and growth programs for leading B2B and B2C companies. He helps clients like Shutterstock, BlueNile, Quora, Gusto, Mixpanel, and Zendesk build and execute Global SEO strategies that dramatically increase their organic visibility at scale. In the past, Eli led the SEO team at SurveyMonkey, building organic search from nearly zero to one of the largest growth drivers at the company. He helped launched SurveyMonkey’s first APAC office and oversaw international SEO pre- and post-IPO. Prior to SurveyMonkey, he led user acquisition at High Gear Media, pushing the company from 500,000 new users to 6 million every month in just three years.
Bill Sebald | Founder & Managing Partner | Greenlane Search Marketing
Bill loves this industry. The community, the challenges, the detective work required, all of it. He began started his passion for both SEO and eCommerce in 1996. This included leading the first group of SEOs at GSI Commerce, working with clients like NFL, Toys R Us, Dick’s Sporting Goods, PetSmart, and Calvin Klein. He has offered consultive services through the name Greenlane since 2005, and in 2012 he launched our agency. To know Bill is to love him, and if you know Bill you’ve also surely heard one of his crazy rock star stories from his previous life. When he’s not leading our team, writing on sites like Practical Ecommerce and Moz and our own blog, or speaking about digital marketing, he’s probably in his 80’s shrine, listening to hair metal or watching a bad monster movie.
Doc Sheldon | Founder | Intrinsic Value SEO & Top shelf copy
Doc has been working in digital marketing for nearly 20 years, first launching a content agency, then his SEO agency a few years later. For the last half decade, he’s focused on the technical aspects – responsiveness, page-speed, security and privacy compliance, as well as building custom WordPress sites. Having benefited from the many SEO colleagues who readily share their knowledge with others, Doc enjoys paying it forward, passing along what he’s learned to others. In 2021, Doc teamed up with his partner, Steve, in launching the first of many DeepSEO conferences, bringing together a bevy of high-powered, highly respected speakers for some fast-paced sharing of advanced practices.
Chris Simmance | Partner and Co-Founder | Torque Partnership
Chris Simmance is a Partner and co-founder of Torque Partnership. He helps enterprise businesses understand their data, build their strategies and transform their presence. Based in London he spends a great deal of time getting cranky at the state of the web and plans to fix it, one business at a time. He solved the BrightonSEO ticketing platform issues, you know, the one that hasn’t gone down on every ticket release day since he changed it. Love the ballot or hate it, it doesn’t fall apart anymore. He’s a big fan of Bill Gates’ quote “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” as it’s a really good way of getting away with finding a shortcut. Chris is almost entirely much self taught and started working in SEO from a small local agency through to a multinational before deciding to “go it alone” and set up for himself. 5 years later and 2 regional offices and he’s winning work from some well known established high street brands.
Grant Simmons | SEO Consulting | Simmonet Marketing | @simmonet
Grant Simmons has built and led teams at industry-leading companies, helping drive brand awareness, SEO growth, paid search traffic, affiliate traffic, and lead optimization. With over 30 years of agency & brand experience working with organizations such as; Paramount Studios, Red Bull, M&M/Mars, Disney, Napster, Warner Bros., UPS, Move.com, YPO, GE, Amgen & Fox Sports, Grant brings a wealth of practical and actionable experience to SEO projects, agency engagements, and presentations as a freelance consultant and popular speaker at search industry events worldwide, including; SMX, SES, SIS, Pubcon, Brighton SEO, Chiang Mai SEO, UCLA Anderson School of Business, eMarCom, C3, Social Shakeup, Multifamily Brainstorming, R3, DMA, LRTCon, and has written or been quoted in Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine News, Forbes, Fox Business, MSN, Media Post, Yahoo & other national & international publications. Described as an online marketing strategist, motivator, ideator, entrepreneur, asker-of-tough-questions, and "proud American with a funny accent", he prefers; father, sailor, search marketer & expat Brit - though not necessarily in that order when there's a fair wind.
Aleyda Solis | INTERNATIONAL SEO CONSULTANT | ORAINTI
Aleyda Solis is an International SEO Consultant and founder of Orainti -a specialized, boutique SEO consultancy-, blogger, speaker, author, who also offers actionable SEO tips in her weekly YouTube video series "Crawling Mondays", the #SEOFOMO newsletter, with a summary of the latest news in SEO, and the Free SEO Learning Roadmap, LearningSEO.io. Aleyda has been awarded as the European Search Personality of the Year in 2018, and is also co-founder of Remoters.net, a remote work hub offering a free remote job board, how-to's, interviews, tools, colivings, events for remote based professionals and teams.
Scott Tehrani | Director of Acquisition
I have over 14 years’ experience in delivering search strategies for a vast array of brands, specialising in technical SEO and content campaigns. I’m currently responsible for all acquisition channels at twentysix where my remit covers SEO, PPC, Display, Affiliates, Content, Digital PR and Social Media.
Shari Thurow | Founder | Omni Marketing Interactive
Pinar Ünsal | Founder and Managing Partner | Kubix Digital
Pınar, with more than 15 years of experience in Search Engine Marketing, is one of the founders of Kubix Digital, an award-winning search-focused Digital Marketing Agency based in Istanbul & Berlin. She is an Ex-Googler & was part of the ‘landing crew’ heading up Google’s Turkey office back in 2006. Apart from this, Pınar is the founder of Women.Digital, a network from and for women working in the Digital Marketing Industry.
Thomas Vosper | Founder | Aisle3
With over 12 years in ecommerce Thomas has a long record of delivering growth for many of the largest names online. During over six years at Amazon, he led strategic seller acquisitions; executed new category launches; and delivered cutting-edge merchant services. After moving to Tesco, he tripled their marketplace business in twelve months. He founded online marketplace Aisle3 in March 2020. Thomas has a detailed insight on strategy, performance marketing and operations across thousands of eCommerce sites, high street stores, and digital marketing agencies
Rebecca Weichmann | SVP of Operations | Vizion Interactive
Rebecca ensures a smooth transition from initial sales prospect contact to client project kick-off, creating an interactive onboarding process and for all projects running smoothly (on-time and on-budget). Rebecca has created an employee training program to ensure that all staff are up-to-date on the latest Industry trends and best practices, established internal Accounting controls, and implemented human resource policies and procedures to ensure a smooth and simple employee experience throughout all stages of employment. Rebecca has more than 15 years’ experience in Accounting, Treasury Management and process creation and implementation. Rebecca attended UOP with her focus in Accounting. Her previous experience in large corporate environments provided her with a solid understanding of where Vizion is headed and how to help ensure profitable/responsible growth.
Lisa Williams | Senior Director, Growth & Loyalty | Peace Health
Lisa Williams is a 25-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 founded and leads a Portland Oregon LeanIn Circle and volunteers at Emerging Leaders to mentor diverse, aspiring professionals to serve in technology and health care. She speaks at regional, national and international conferences on the topics of digital strategy, marketing integration, team development and leadership. She is excited to be judging this year's US Search Awards. She is the Senior Director, Growth & Loyalty for Peace Health.
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"