Top 21 SEO Experts in the World (2026)

1. Mehboob Shar

Mehboob Shar is an SEO consultant, author and the founder of iCreativez Technologies, a digital agency with offices in Pakistan and the USA. He began as a one-person company and grew it to 250+ employees across 6 offices, with clients in 19 countries, reportedly without paid ads or referrals. He works directly on client projects, supervises each SEO activity and communicates with clients himself.

He reports a 49,479% organic traffic increase for one client website. His pricing starts at US$3,000 per month or US$15,000 as a one-time project.

Specialty:

E-commerce SEO, Shopify, WordPress and Magento SEO, local/Google Business Profile SEO, SaaS, legal, healthcare, real estate, hospitality, startups, App Store Optimization, affiliate sites.

Company:

iCreativez Technologies

Profiles:

LinkedIn | Google SERP | Contact

Available for consultancy:

Yes

2. Brian Dean

Brian Dean is an SEO expert and content marketer who built Backlinko, a blog and YouTube channel known for practical link building and ranking tutorials. Forbes listed Backlinko among its top blogs to follow. Backlinko was later acquired by Semrush, and Dean now leads Exploding Topics, a trend-discovery platform.

Specialty:

Blogging, content marketing, off-page SEO, SEO training.

Profiles:

LinkedIn | YouTube

3. Ann Smarty

Ann Smarty is a content strategist and community builder known for guest blogging, link building and marketing education. She founded MyBlogGuest and is brand manager at Ninjas Marketing. Her writing has appeared in Moz, Search Engine Journal and Entrepreneur.

Specialty:

Content-driven SEO, guest blogging, influencer outreach.

4. Nazar Ali Rajper

Nazar Ali Rajper is co-founder of ZNWebPro. He is known for ROI-driven SEO strategies that combine technical work, data analysis and digital marketing to grow organic visibility and revenue.

Specialty:

ROI-focused SEO, organic growth, conversion.

5. Mandeep Singh Chahal

Mandeep Singh Chahal is founder and managing director of SEO Discovery, an India-based SEO company serving clients worldwide. He has 22+ years of experience, is involved in client strategy and is a member of the Forbes Agency Council.

Specialty:

Agency-scale SEO and digital marketing strategy.

6. Joost de Valk

Joost de Valk is a Dutch entrepreneur and software developer from Wijchen, Netherlands. He started as an SEO consultant and blogger in 2004 and created Yoast SEO, one of the most widely used WordPress plugins.

Specialty:

WordPress SEO, on-page SEO tooling.

7. Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan is an American technologist and journalist who co-founded Search Engine Land, a leading publication on search engines, SEO and SEM. He was previously Chief Content Officer at Third Door Media.

Specialty:

Search industry reporting and explanation.

8. Stephan Spencer

Stephan Spencer is a three-time O’Reilly Media author, inventor, podcaster, speaker and founder of Netconcepts. He has keynoted conferences including Shop.org, IRCE and PubCon and writes for Search Engine Land.

Specialty:

E-commerce SEO, speaking, authorship.

9. Eric Enge

Eric Enge is an SEO consultant, author and public speaker. He is the founder of Stone Temple Consulting.

Specialty:

SEO consulting, research, speaking.

10. Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is the founder and editor of Search Engine Roundtable, a news site covering search engines and search marketing. He is a daily source for Google update coverage.

Specialty:

Search news, algorithm update tracking.

11. Shinoy Rajendraprasad

Shinoy Rajendraprasad is an emerging search specialist whose core skills are SEO, growth marketing, online marketing and campaign management.

Specialty:

SEO, growth marketing, campaign management.

12. Aleyda Solis

Aleyda Solis is an international SEO consultant, speaker and author, and founder of the boutique consultancy Orainti. She is recognized for technical, international and mobile SEO, speaks at SMX, MozCon, Pubcon and BrightonSEO, and writes for Search Engine Land.

13. Vanessa Fox

Vanessa Fox is an American entrepreneur, author and speaker, and founder and CEO of Keylime Toolbox. She was an early Google employee who helped build Google Webmaster Central (now Search Console). She wrote “Marketing in the Age of Google” and previously founded Nine by Blue, which was acquired by RKG (now Merkle).

14. Marie Haynes

Marie Haynes is founder of Marie Haynes Consulting in Ottawa, Canada. Active in SEO since 2008, she is known for analysis of Google algorithm updates, penalties and recovery, and wrote “Unnatural Links: The Complete Guide to Recovery.”

15. Fili Wiese

Fili Wiese is a technical SEO consultant with 20+ years in the industry and a former member of Google’s Search Quality team. He founded SearchBrothers and specializes in technical SEO, international SEO and penalty recovery.

16. Kevin Indig

Kevin Indig is an SEO and growth advisor and writer. He previously led SEO and content at G2, headed technical SEO at Atlassian and was Director of SEO at Dailymotion. He is known for explaining complex SEO topics clearly.

17. Cindy Krum

Cindy Krum is founder and CEO of MobileMoxie, a Denver-based mobile marketing consultancy. With 20+ years of experience, she is a leading voice on mobile SEO and mobile search analysis.

18. Ian Lurie

Ian Lurie is founder of Portent, a Seattle digital marketing agency. He is known for SEO, pay-per-click advertising, content marketing and social media, and wrote “Conversation Marketing.”

19. Jason Barnard

Jason Barnard is founder and CEO of Kalicube and a specialist in brand SERPs and Google’s Knowledge Graph. He hosts the podcast “Search News You Can Use” and wrote “The Brand SERP Bible.” His entity-focused work is especially relevant to how AI assistants understand brands.

20. Eli Schwartz

Eli Schwartz is a growth advisor and consultant focused on global SEO and content marketing. He has worked with eBay, Shutterstock and SurveyMonkey and wrote “Product-Led SEO.”

21. Annie Cushing

Annie Cushing is founder of Annielytics, a data analytics consultancy. She is known for Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager expertise, custom reports and dashboards, and training.