In a never-ending world of search engine algorithm updates, SEO can be tricky.
But that’s where the guidance from the top SEO influencers can be helpful.
Certain people have proven their expertise in the field of search engine optimization by accurately analyzing the changes and breaking them down into actionable tips that you can follow to get results.
But who are these SEO influencers? And how do you connect with them?
That’s what this post will cover: the 31 best SEO influencers to follow this year.
Note: You may also want to check out my lists of the top SEO Facebook groups to join, SEO Twitter accounts to follow, and SEO YouTube channels to watch. And if you like reading blogs, then visit my top SEO bloggers page. And don’t forget to get your daily dose of SEO news today on the homepage!
Table of Contents
Top SEO Influencers List
Aleyda Solis
An international SEO consultant, speaker, and author, Aleyda Solis is a top SEO influencer to follow. She is the founder of Orianti, an SEO consultancy, and Remoters, a resource hub for remote workers. She has more than 90,000 followers across her channels.
You can follow Aleyda on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and her blog.
Andrew Shotland
As the founder of LocalSEOGuide, Andrew Shotland manages a team that provides local SEO services for enterprise-level clients and agencies. A few notable accomplishments throughout his career include helping launch Showtime Networks first website, joining NBC’s Internet division and launching some of the first TV to Web experiences on NBC.com, and launching InsiderPages which was acquired by CitySearch in 2006. This top SEO influencer has more than 15,000 followers.
You can follow Andrew on Twitter, LinkedIn, and his blog.
Andy Beal
A pioneer in digital brand management and repair, Andy Beal leads an expert team at Reputation Refinery. He is considered the world’s leading expert in all things about online reputation management. He even wrote a book it…twice, and is one of the top SEO influencers with 30,300 followers on Twitter, where he regularly posts about the importance of maintaining (or improving) an online reputation. He has more than 27,000 followers.
You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and his blog.
Angie Schottmuller
As a growth marketing advisor, Angie Schottmuller has been named as one of Forbes’ Top 10 Online Marketers and Entrepreneur’s Top Online Marketers to Follow. She is also a popular keynote speaker that talks on the topics of SEO, conversion rate optimization, and content marketing. Across her channels, she has more than 24,00 followers.
You can follow Angie on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and SlideShare.
Ann Smarty
Anny Smarty has a long list of achievements in the SEO and marketing world. She is a professional blogger; community manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas, SEOchat, and Threadwatch; co-founder of ViralContentBuzz.com; founder of MyBlogU and TwChat. She’s also a regular contributor to Small Biz Trends, Business.com, and Chamber Of Commerce; has had articles published on Mashable and Lifehack; is a columnist at Epoch Times, Search Engine People, MakeUseOf, Social Media Examiner, and MarketingProfs. Ann is also a regular Speaker at Pubcon Conference.
If you want some of the best SEO advice from a popular industry expert, then Ann is a top SEO influencer to follow. She has more than 70,000 followers across her channels.
You can follow Anny on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and her blog.
Barry Schwartz
As a prolific writer, reporter, and SEO consultant, Barry Schwartz is one of the top people to listen to when it comes to Google updates and search engine optimization. He reports the top chatter going on in the SEO forums on Search Engine Roundtable and writes in-depth articles at Search Engine Land and Search Engine Watch. He also owns his own SEO company, Rusty Brick, and has been interviewed by Forbes, NBC Nightly News, and a number of other publications. It’s no surprise that he is a top SEO influencer and has a large following of more than 160,000 followers across his channels.
You can follow Barry on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and his blog.
Brian Clark
Brian Clark is the founder of Copyblogger which has been called the “Bible of content marketing”. He also created Unemployable, a community of freelancers, solo entrepreneurs, and startup founders and is the CEO of Rainmaker Digital marketing company. As a top SEO influencer, he has accumulated over 170,000 followers across his channels.
You can follow Brian on Twitter, LinkedIn, and his blog.
Brian Dean
Brian Dean is the man behind Backlinko, place for next-level SEO training and link building strategies. He exemplified the idea of quality over quantity in terms of content marketing and search engine optimization. Brian has some of the best content in the industry on white hat link-building and SEO tactics. He has around 600,00 followers in total.
You can follow Brian on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and his blog.
Note: If the concept of white hat SEO is new to you, check out my page on the difference between white hat SEO and black hat SEO to learn more about these optimization strategies.
Cyrus Shepard
Cyrus Shepard was the former Lead of SEO at Moz between 2012-2015. Today, he runs his own SEO company known as Zyppy. He enjoys teaching people about SEO as well as connecting people who need SEO services with expert consultants. He’s highly active on Twitter and is one of the most trusted voices in the world of search. As a top SEO influencer, he has more than 72,000 followers.
You can follow Cyrus on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, and his blog.
Danny Sullivan
Danny Sullivan is a renowned SEO influencer. He was a co-founder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, and MarTech Today and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017 and is now Google’s public search liaison. He has more than 500,000 followers.
You follow Danny on Twitter, Facebook, and his blog.
Dharmesh Shah
Dharmesh Shah is a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Hubspot, a top resource for inbound marketing. He also founded and writes for OnStartups.com, a top-ranking startup blog and community with more than 700,000 members. Another highlight of Dharmesh’s career was when he was named in Inc.com’s Founders 40 list in 2016. This SEO influencer has over 280,000 followers online.
You can follow Dharmesh on Twitter, Facebook, Slideshare, LinkedIn, and his blog.
Douglas Karr
Douglas Karr is a top SEO influencer with a lot of accomplishments in the Internet marketing industry. As the founder of Martech Zone and a recognized expert on digital transformation at DK New Media, he has become a popular keynote speaker, consultant, and trainer. He is the vice president and co-founder of Highbridge, a firm specializing in assisting enterprise companies to digitally transform and maximize their technology investment utilizing Salesforce technologies. Douglas is also the author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies and co-author of The Better Business Book. He has more than 40,000 followers across his channels.
You can follow Douglas on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and his blog.
Gary Illyes
Gary Illyes works with John Mueller as a webmaster trends analytics at Google. He is a straight shooter who often answers questions more directly than you would expect from John Mueller. He has around 40,000 followers.
You can follow Gary on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Glenn Gabe
Glenn Gabe is an SEO consultant at his company G-Squared Interactive. He is focused on Google algorithm update recovery, technical SEO audits, and SEO training. Glenn is also a top SEO influencer and columnist at Search Engine Land. He has more than 36,000 followers.
You can follow Gary on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and his blog.
John Mueller
John Mueller is the Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google. He’s been working at Google since September of 2007 and has become the public face for deploying information to SEOs. He works together with the Webmaster Central, Sitemaps, and Search Quality teams at Google and helps to make sure that information flows freely between webmasters and the engineers at Google. He has more than 90,000 followers.
You can follow John on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
John Rampton
Best known as an entrepreneur and connector, John was recently named #2 on Top 50 Online Influencers in the World by Entrepreneur Magazine as well as a blogging expert by Forbes. He is the founder of Calendar.com, a calendar app, and Due.com, an invoicing app. John is also a popular public speaker and start-up coach. His proven track record for giving away expert advice on SEO and Internet marketing has amassed him over 1 million followers.
You can follow John on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and his blog.
Joost de Valk
Joost de Valk is a fast-growing influencer in SEO. He is the founder and CPO of Yoast, an SEO agency that also built a WordPress plug-in that makes it easy for your site to meet the highest technical SEO standards. He is also an advisor at WordProof, a company that provides tools that help you prove ownership of your content via timestamping. He has more than 20,000 followers across his channels.
You can follow Joost on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and his blog.
Julie Joyce
Julie Joyce is the owner of Link Fish Media, a link building and SEO services company. She is also a top SEO influencer and monthly columnist for Search Engine Journal. She has around 25,000 followers.
You can follow Julie on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Kyle Roof
Kyle Roof is the pioneer of doing science-based SEO. He has conducted over 350 scientific tests on Google’s algorithm in order to find out what strategies actually work to improve keyword rankings. Kyle is also a co-creator of PageOptimizer Pro, an on page optimization tool, co-founder of Internet Marketing Gold (IMG), an online community for SEO science, and co-founder of the High Voltage SEO firm. He doesn’t have the most followers on this list, but don’t let that fool you. Kyle is one of the top SEO influencers around and is the go-to source for trusted information on search engine optimization.
You can follow Julie on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and his blog.
Lisa Paasche
Lisa Paasche is the founder and CEO of the Verve Search SEO agency. But she is more than just a top SEO influencer. Lisa is also an Angel investor, mentor, and conference speaker. She has over 20,000 followers.
You can follow Lisa on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and her blog.
Marie Haynes
Marie Haynes is the founder of Marie Haynes Consulting. She is an industry leader in terms of analyzing Google algorithm updates, auditing link profiles, and recovering from Google penalties. She also sends out a weekly newsletter called “Search News You Can Use”. Marie doesn’t have a ton of follows right now, but she is definitely a trusted source in the SEO industry and a good SEO influencer to follow.
You can follow Marie on Twitter, LinkedIn, and her blog.
Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts was the famous head of the Google webspam team for years. He was well-known for translating Google Search changes to the tech community at large in an easy-to-understand format. Matt officially ended his time at Google on December 31, 2016. Although he’s since moved on from Google to work with the United States Digital Service. He’s not as active online as he used to be but still commands a presence with over 500,000 followers.
You can follow Matt on Twitter, LinkedIn, and his blog.
Matt Diggity
Matt Diggity is one of the top SEO influencers and digital marketing experts in the world. He is the author of several Internet marketing courses and manages a growing team of professionals who provide top-tier SEO services. He has a very active following is one of the only influencers who share their bulletproof SEO testing techniques to help take the guesswork out of search engine optimization. He has more than 20,000 followers.
You can follow Matt on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and his blog.
Mike Volpe
Mike Volpe was the first CMO and the second hire at Hubspot. Today, he is the CEO at Lola.com, a corporate travel SaaS platform. Mike continues to be a top SEO influencer with over 75,000 followers.
You can follow Mike on Twitter, LinkedIn, and his blog.
Neil Patel
Neil Patel is one of the most recognized top SEO influencers ever to exist. If you’ve done any type of research on search engine optimization or Internet marketing, his name has likely popped up. People turn to Neil for tips and tricks on how to improve SEO and traffic for their websites. He launched Ubersuggest which is a free SEO tool that helps you find new content ideas, learn about your competitors, and get keyword suggestions for your content. Neil has also founded a number of companies, including CrazyEgg and Kissmetrics, and Quicksprout.
A few other tidbits about Neil is that he is a New York Times bestselling author, was named as a top influencer on the web by The Wall Street Journal, one of the top 10 marketers alive by Forbes, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Additionally, Neil was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.
As you can see, Neil has a lot expertise and influence on the SEO industry. Overall, he has amassed more than 1 millions followers across all of this channels.
You can follow Neil on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and his blog.
Pam Moore
Pam Moore is the CEO of Marketing Nutz and has been featured in Forbes’ list of the top 10 social media power influencers. She was also featured as a contributing guest on SEMrush’s weekly Twitter Chat. So it’s no wonder Pam is on our list of the top SEO influencers. She has more than 300,00 followers.
You can follow Pam on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and her blog.
Dr. Pete Myers
Dr. Pete Myer’s is a marketing scientist at Moz, an all-in-one suite of SEO tools, and is the keeper of the Google Algorithm Change History timeline. He is also the architect of the MozCast Project and basically the watcher of all things Google, making him one of the top SEO influencers to pay attention to. He has around 70,000 followers.
You can follow “Dr. Pete” on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin co-founded Moz in 2004. At that time, it was called SEOmoz and was a popular blog and an online community where some of the world’s first SEO experts shared their research and ideas. Today, he is the CEO and co-founder of SparkToro, an “audience intelligence” (or market research) tool that enables you to know your audience’s interests, behavior, and demographics better. As one of the top SEO Influencers for more than 15 years, he has gained more than 475,000 loyal followers.
You can follow Rand on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and his blog.
Shama Hyder
Shama Hyder is the CEO and founder of Zen Media, a digital marketing and public relations firm that identifies and leverages brands’ key moments to drive demand and dollars. As one of the top SEO influencers online, she has over 270,000 followers across her channels.
You can follow Shama on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and her blog.
Shane Barker
Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant, speaker, and influencer who helps businesses accelerate their growth with customized digital marketing solutions. He has won many accolades and has consulted with Fortune 500 companies and a number of A-List celebrities. Shane is a prolific content marketer and a thought leader in SEO and Internet marketing. He blogs regularly on several established publications like HuffPost, Inc.com, Search Engine Examiner, and Forbes. He has around 40,000 current followers.
You can follow Shane on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and his blog.
Wil Reynolds
Wil Reynolds is the Vice President of Innovation and co-founder of SEER Interactive digital marketing agency. This top SEO influencer is fairly interactive online and has a lot to say about search engine optimization in general and Internet marketing.
You can follow Will on Twitter, LinkedIn, and his blog.
SEO Influencers Summary
I hope you enjoyed this list of the top SEO influencers to follow.
These influencers are the best thought leaders in SEO and if you run a website or manage digital marketing for clients, then I highly encourage you to follow these individuals to keep yourself updated on the ever-changing search industry.
As a business owner, it’s not always easy to keep track of what’s going on with Google or its search algorithm. And these SEO influencers can help you keep a tab on never-ending changes as well as give you actionable tips you can use to improve your site’s rankings.
