Speakers

Anil Aggarwal is the CEO of Milestone, Inc., a leading provider of digital marketing software and agency services for hospitality, retail and financial services industries. Milestone works with several fortune 500 companies, independent businesses and franchise owners. Anil brings an extensive background in management and technology marketing to Milestone, and has transformed the company into a digital marketing powerhouse.

A recent survey of 167,000 Silicon Valley CEOs by Owler Inc, recognized Anil as one of the top 1,000 CEOs in Silicon Valley. Anil has written several articles and technology white papers related to ecommerce strategies and co-authored the book "From Hotels to HTMLs." Anil is a board member of the HSMAI hospitality association and was named one of the top 25 extraordinary minds in the hospitality space.

Before Milestone, Anil was co-founder and CEO of Zeevo, a wireless connectivity solutions provider that was sold to Broadcom, a publicly traded corporation. Anil has won several awards including FSA's Best Financially managed private company award. Anil holds a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay India, as well as a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hawaii and an MBA from the University of Georgia.

Benu Aggarwal, founder and president of Milestone Inc., is a highly recognized expert in digital marketing solutions, voice search, SEO, and local. Benu oversees product development, client services, technology, and strategic vision for the company. Under her leadership, the company has prospered as it launched a suite of SEO-first software products and thousands of websites of which dozens won design and technology awards. With her technical marketing experience, entrepreneurial spirit, and motivating attitude, Benu has the ability to translate technical ideas into tangible practice that drive results for customers.

I'm a proud James Madison University (JMU) alumni who also took part in the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) in 2016 and received 1st place in the Social Impact Category. This challenge was a catalyst for my interest in digital marketing. I've been in the industry for 6+ years now, have experience managing a range of client accounts including small/medium/large enterprise-level accounts, and now I manage a team of 2 here at Workshop Digital. When I'm not working to help my team exceed their client KPIs, you can find me in the great outdoors either walking/running/camping/skiing/hiking.

Natalie Barreda is a digital marketing enthusiast who is passionate about embracing change in the industry and challenging assumptions. She has spent the last 8+ years of her career agency side working with a wide variety of brands, varying from Fortune 100 enterprises to industry disruptive startups. She has since settled in to an in-house role at the Uncarrier as a Sr. Manager, Media at T-Mobile leading T-Mobile and Metro By T-Mobile’s paid search team. In her downtime, Natalie enjoys packing her bags and traveling around the world, but if she’s not traveling you can find her at the local brewery enjoying a cold craft beer.

Stefanie Bounds is a Sr. Strategic Account Executive at Microsoft Advertising.  She is a digital advertising specialist and top-performing sales professional with a background in digital sales, account management, SEM optimization, advertising, and product development. Proven ability to create and cultivate strategic partnerships and drive sales opportunities. Strong leadership skills with an exceptional ability to communicate strategy and align goals with high-profile clients. 

Ryan Brock is a brilliant storyteller who founded and ran the DemandJump-acquired content agency, Metonymy Media. With 12 years' experience driving measurable content outcomes for businesses in every industry, Ryan is a seasoned SEO expert. Now, as Chief Solution Officer at DemandJump, Ryan works with companies worldwide to remove the guesswork from SEO and drive industry-leading organic traffic results through Pillar-Based Marketing methodologies. Ryan is the co-author of Pillar-Based Marketing: A Data-Driven Methodology for SEO and Content That Actually Works.

James Brockbank is Managing Director and founder at Digitaloft, a multi award-winning digital PR, content marketing and search marketing agency based in the UK, and takes pride in delivering high-performance strategies for clients across a range of competitive sectors including finance, eCommerce and travel.

For the past 10 years, James' expertise has seen him lead teams and execute successful organic strategies for some of the UK's biggest brands

Bruce Clay is founder and president of Bruce Clay, Inc., a global digital marketing company recognized as a worldwide leader in search marketing. Bruce began conducting SEO training in 1999, and since then more than 5,000 individuals have attended BCI’s courses internationally. Bruce wrote the first program for web page analysis, and today BCI’s proprietary SEOToolSet™ is in its sixth generation. Before founding BCI, Bruce had a long career as a technical executive with leading Silicon Valley firms. Bruce holds a BS in math and computer science and received his MBA from Pepperdine University. Bruce has authored many books, including “Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies” for Wiley. He has spoken at hundreds of marketing industry events, including Search Marketing Expo (SMX), Search Engine Strategies, WebmasterWorld, Affiliate Summit, Ungagged, PubCon and ad:Tech, and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, PC Week, Wired Magazine and many other publications.

Maria Corcoran joined Microsoft in 2021 and is the on the inhouse Search Marketing team where she provides strategy and account leaderhip multiple commerical and consumer lines of business. Maria has over 15 years of hands-on experience creating and implementing successful search marketing strategies for multiple fortune 500 companies and at Microsoft.

Freddy Dabaghi leads MMI's media team out of Texas, supporting clients by identifying new opportunities to drive business results efficiently and effectively. By aligning media with marketing goals, he helps marry brand values with insights in ways that drive growth and inspire consumers to engage. Over the last 14 years, he’s worked primarily with digital disrupters and category leader brands in the CPG space, including Zevo, SK-II, and Cue Health. Freddy charges his team to be true partners to MMI’s clients – through a data-first mindset, constant knowledge-sharing of our expertise and points of view, and a persistent focus on driving our clients’ business growth. 

Dave Davies is the Awareness Team Lead at the MLOps company Weights & Biases. Dave joined Weights & Biases after running Beanstalk Internet Marketing with his wife Mary for 17 years. Dave's focus is on technical SEO, content strategy, and of course ... machine learning, and its impact on search as well as how it can be used. 

Dave is an author on Search Engine Land, as well as other industry publications. He has spoken at a number of conferences over the years from SMX Advanced and all the way across the pond to SMX London.

With over 20 years of experience in internet marketing, Dave has seen a lot of SEO strategies come and go resulting in a passion for understanding what is happening today, what's being worked on, and what this all mean for the future. How does machine learning actually impact search? What are the machines looking for? And of course, what do we as SEOs and marketer need to do in this brave new world? These are the kinds of questions Dave will be answering at this year's SMX Advanced.

Austin Distel is a marketing leader at Jasper, a Y Combinator-backed startup helping over 80,000 companies write mind-bogglingly good content with the help of AI. 

Janet Driscoll Miller is the president and CEO of Marketing Mojo, an award-winning digital marketing agency.  She has worked with clients including National Geographic, Mazda, Activision, LexisNexis, and many others. She is a frequent speaker on search, analytics and conversion. and guest lectures at the University of Virginia and James Madison University. Janet is the author of "Data-First Marketing: How to Compete and Win in the Age of Analytics," published by Wiley. She is a graduate of James Madison University.

Ivana Dukic has three years of working experience in marketing, particularly in the field of PPC. Before she started her professional career, she was studying Global Sales & Marketing and Digital Business Management. As a customer success manager, she works closely with retailers from various industries and supports them in improving their SEA channel performance. Specifically, her focus lies on the setup and optimization of Google Ads campaigns. Especially with the introduction of new Google Ads specifications and campaign types, just like the launch of Performance Max, those activities are gaining in importance. 

Eric Enge has been speaking about digital marketing for more than two decades. He has keynoted many conferences including Pubcon Las Vegas, State of Search in Dallas, and Next10x. Eric is lead co-author of The Art of SEO, and also provides content to sites such as Search Engine Land, and Moz. Eric is particularly well known for the research that he publishes on key aspects of search. Eric was named 2018 Search Personality of the Year at the Drum Search Awards, 2016 Search Marketer of the Year (Male) at the Landys, and 2016 Search Personality of the Year at the US Search Awards, and Stone Temple Consulting was also named Best Large SEO Agency of the Year at the US Search Awards.

Eric is President of Pilot Holding, and was the Founder and CEO of Stone Temple Consulting (STC), a 70+ person digital marketing agency based in Massachusetts. Stone Temple was acquired by Perficient in 2018 where Eric worked for three years, and with which Eric continues to work with on many projects.

Melissa Fach is the Lead SEO Content Manager for Kelley Blue Book & Autotrader. She has been in the SEO field for 17 years. While owning her own consultancy, she worked for several industry companies focusing on optimizing content and ensuring articles about SEO were factual. Melissa has worked as an SEO editor for Semrush, Moz, SEJ, and AuthorityLabs. She also worked at Pubcon for 5 years as their Community Manager.

As a former Marine Corps veteran, Nicole Farley started her marketing career in 2011. She completed her MBA in 2014 and started working as an in-house affiliate manager for a large supplement brand. After leaving there she gained experience working for agencies, as a freelancer, and then finally started her own digital media company in 2014. She enjoys travel, true crime, podcasts, and reading historical fiction and non-fiction books. During the week she can be found testing the newest cookie flavors at her local coffee shop, hanging out on her patio next to the fire pit, and (most definitely) in bed by 9. 

Greg Finn is a performance-based marketer who manages global paid spend as a Google Partner. In the past, he has contributed more than 700 articles to Third Door Media. He is also on Search Engine Journal's weekly News Podcast: Marketing O'Clock.

As VP of Marketing, Ashley Fletcher is responsible for continually expanding the global audience and market for Adthena’s groundbreaking search intelligence solutions. He joined Adthena from Criteo, where he led the product marketing team launching its Predictive Search product, an automated performance solution for Google Shopping in the US and EMEA. Prior to Criteo, he headed up marketing for finance and insurance comparison products across global markets at Google. In his 5 years at Google Ashley also working for the broader Search Ads Team, including Google Shopping, and Google Express products. Ashley’s career began on the agency side at Coast Digital, and he holds an MSc in Global Marketing and attended Wharton's Mini-MBA Program for Executives.

Matt Ford is a Product Manager at Lumar, focused on building user-centric solutions to genuine problems. His experience leading Customer Success teams drives his holistic approach to product development. When he's not working he's usually hanging off a cliff somewhere.

Olivia Gartz is a Senior Sales Engineer at Wrike. As an SE, Olivia works with small to mid-sized customers to evaluate work management software and understand the unique benefits Wrike can bring to their workflows. Prior to Wrike, Olivia was a Partner SE and a Presales Engineering Specialist at Citrix.

Brad Geddes has been involved in PPC since 1998. He is a co-founder of AdAlysis, a PPC recommendation engine. Brad is the author of Advanced Google AdWords, the most advanced book ever written about Google's advertising program. Brad has worked with many of the world's leading companies in managing and perfecting their PPC management and workflows.  One of his trademarks has been demystifying the complicated aspects of SEM. Not one to hold secrets, Brad prefers to educate marketers on the various aspects of crafting successful marketing campaigns to ensure the success for all parties involved. 

As VP, Strategy for Adlucent, Ryan Gibson supports the delivery of high-performing multichannel campaigns for performance-driven advertisers by helping to thread the needle through the channels that live between advertiser goals and consumer objectives. 

Ryan has over 16 years of experience working with digital and multi-channel marketers to drive better results from their programs. His perspectives of online marketing are based on analyzing data-driven insights from an array of advertisers - from enterprise to start ups- as they capitalize on customer-centric, full-funnel programs across search, social, shopping and digital media.

When he’s not helping to grow digital programs, Ryan is most likely found outdoors- often playing tennis, volleyball or biking in the woods.

Danny Goodwin is Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & SMX. In addition to writing daily about SEO, PPC, and more for Search Engine Land, Goodwin also manages Search Engine Land’s roster of subject-matter experts. He also helps program our conference series, SMX – Search Marketing Expo. Prior to joining Search Engine Land, Goodwin was Executive Editor at Search Engine Journal, where he led editorial initiatives for the brand. He also was an editor at Search Engine Watch. He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.

Ali joined Lumar (formally Deepcrawl) in 2015 with a wealth of experience in web technologies. With a martech background, Ali has been part of every investment round representing tech, engineering team scaleup and platform improvements.

Ali Haeri leads all marketing and communications efforts at MNTN. Ali is also an instructor at UCLA Extension, teaching marketing and advertising courses in the Business & Management certification program. Previously, Ali served as principal product designer at Symantec working on the Norton Security line of consumer software. Prior to Symantec, Ali oversaw digital marketing for the Digital Media Services division of Verizon.

Mallory is a Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft Advertising.  She is a digital media and advertising enthusiast with a history of influencing product development, business strategy, sales enablement, and marketing communications. Always learning and seeking new opportunities to grow. Strong communicator and leader who is passionate about empowering others.

Eric manages the strategy and execution of MNTN's full funnel paid media program. Prior to joining MNTN, Eric worked for multiple advertising agencies overseeing paid media efforts for clients ranging from SMB to Fortune 500 organizations and spanning numerous industries from B2B to CPG.

Dr. Marie Haynes is the founder and CEO of Marie Haynes Consulting Inc. (MHC). Marie is a leader in the SEO industry with over 14 years of experience in SEO. She is known for her expertise in Google’s search algorithms, the topic of E-A-T, Google penalties and Google algorithm updates. Marie writes for Search Engine Land and other SEO publications and is often mentioned on Search Engine Roundtable.  Marie speaks regularly at SEO conferences like SMX and others. Her SEO podcast and newsletter keep the industry informed on SEO topics.

Amy Hebdon is the founder of Google Premier Partner agency Paid Search Magic. She is a top Google Ads conversion expert & paid search coach with nearly 20 years of hands-on experience, and has been named one of the Top PPC Experts by PPC Hero and Marketing O'Clock. Her PPC marketing experience and insights make her a welcomed contributor to Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, PPC Hero, CXL, Copyhackers, Supermetrics and Unbounce. She co-hosts the free Facebook group Google Ads for Savvy Digital Marketers.

Michael Henderson has been in the online marketing space since 2011. In his current role as VP of Performance Marketing at Paytient, Michael is responsible for the effectiveness of communication across both B2B and B2C audiences.

As the CMO at SuretyBonds.com, Michael oversaw all marketing operations including search engine optimization, paid media, and web analytics. Previously, he was the Digital Marketing Director at SuretyBonds.com and prior to that he worked as a Digital Specialist at an advertising agency. Mike's desire to grow and learn new things fuels his passion for the always-evolving industry of digital marketing.

With over 15 years of experience in digital marketing and a five-year-in-a-row speaker at Hero Conference, Cory Henke is no stranger to the importance of finding creative strategies for online engagement. He’s an expert in organic and paid advertising, specifically YouTube, which has helped advertisers scale through the 5-year-old ad agency Variable Media. He specializes in data visualization to help bring advertising data to life and provide immediate actionable results to clients and agencies.

A veteran of the digital marketing industry and "Top 25 PPC Expert", Navah Hopkins began as an SEO in 2008, transitioning to PPC in 2012. She manages the strategy and execution of paid media campaigns, as well as helping brands build relationships with profitable partners and customers.

Throughout her career, Navah makes a point to give back and loves sharing lessons learned on the international speaking circuit as well as local universities. She is a frequent contributor to SEJ, SEL, SEMrush, and WordStream blogs/webinars.

In 2019, she became a founding member of the Paid Search Association, a group dedicated to empowering the next generation of PPC practitioners, as well as serving as a resource for all practitioners to learn from and share with the community.

Tim Jensen is a Sr. Search Engine Marketing Specialist at M&T Bank. With over a decade of experience in the digital marketing industry, Tim has worked with both B2B and B2C brands in a wide variety of industries. While comfortable managing ads across all major platforms, he’s particularly intrigued with the crossover between analytics and PPC. Tim frequently contributes to the industry through writing articles for sites such as Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land, speaking for conferences and webinars, and participating in the #ppcchat Twitter community.

Nick Katseanes has been a Project Manager for Page One Power for over 8 years. His experience in link building, SEO Consulting, and relationship management has helped create numerous and successful custom campaigns for his clients.

Hyung Jin Kim, also known as HJ, is a Vice President of Engineering for Google Search. HJ joined Google in 2004, and he leads various teams responsible for the algorithmic systems behind Google Search. HJ is a foremost expert in Search Ranking, responsible for more than 20 patents that drive Google Search. Before Google, HJ led teams in finance and various startups, including D.E.Shaw & Co. HJ received both his Masters and Bachelor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although part of him knows it is no longer possible, HJ still holds onto to his childhood dream of playing baseball in the Major Leagues.

Adam is the Founder and President of SEMbyotic, with over 20 years of experience helping enterprise customers improve their digital presence. He loves to develop innovative strategies to reach his customers’ target audiences online.

Adam began his career as a web developer, which later transitioned into a variety of in-house digital marketing roles. Later he joined a boutique full-service marketing agency based in Silicon Valley where he became the Managing Partner. He focused on helping enterprise B2B companies navigate the complexities of web design & development, SEO, paid search (PPC), and branding.

His passion for digital marketing led him to found SEMbyotic, helping customers bridge the gap between building and maintaining websites, and optimizing them for search and digital advertising.

Diane Kulseth is the Senior SEO Consultant and Trainer at Siteimprove, where she leads SEO education for the US team and works with customers and prospective customers in building a stronger SEO strategy. Prior to her current role, she served in Digital Strategy positions at the University of St. Thomas, the largest private college in Minnesota and local non-profit, CaringBridge.org. With over 10 years of cross-vertical experience, including Fortune 500 brands, e-Commerce, Healthcare, and Government, Diane enjoys digging into and solving complex digital marketing problems that customers face, enabling them to connect with qualified audiences and increase their brand reach. She is a frequent speaker on SEO & digital marketing with recent appearances at the Digital Summit and SMX Next.

Nikki is a seasoned SEO and well-rounded marketer leading the growing team of 45+ best-in-class Organic Search strategists at NP Digital U.S. She assists in pitching and formulating award-winning SEO campaigns for NP’s growing roster of enterprise & Fortune 1000 clients. Nikki works across teams and channels to ensure consistency, ongoing innovation, and operational excellence. She boasts a wealth of successful cross-channel experience working with brands such as Lenovo, Under Armour, Adobe, Levi’s, T-Mobile, Office Depot, American Airlines, Western Union & more.

Melissa Liu is a seasoned digital marketing expert with over a decade of paid search experience. She started her career in NY working at several holding companies supporting brands like Coca-Cola, Aetna, and GSK. She quickly climbed the ranks and became a director within 5 years. Having worked in and developed performance media solutions in the USA, New Zealand, Australia, and China, she can offer valuable insights across countless markets and verticals. Her exceptional ability as an artist also helps her to inject creativity into a specialism that can often be mechanical, driving business growth and compelling results for her clients.

Andrew Lolk is a paid search/social marketer, speaker, and agency owner since 2010. He's the founder of SavvyRevenue: a PPC agency solely focused on managing paid search for ecommerce stores looking to scale their PPC advertising profitably. Our core opinion on PPC is that automation should drive everything at scale, and you need to understand and solve the business problem, not solely the PPC challenges, to scale successfully. We focus on the European market, and are headquartered in Denmark taking US stores across Europe. 

Matt has been an Analytical Lead within Microsoft Advertising for almost 5 years, analyzing search and consumer data to identify digital trends and opportunities. Most recently he has worked within the Retail & CPG group, helping evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on buying patterns from online grocery to bird watching supplies (both trending up!).

Melissa Mackey is the owner of Beyond the Paid.  A veteran PPC marketer, she helps clients achieve maximum ROI from paid search.  Mackey contributes regularly to several industry publications, including Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, MediaPost, and AdWeek, writing on PPC strategy.  Mackey has spoken at industry conferences such as SMX Advanced, SMX Create and HeroConf.

Throughout her career, her achievements include overseeing strategy development and implementation of paid search and paid social campaigns for all types of advertisers, as well as execution and analysis of ad copy and landing page strategy.

Mackey holds a Dual BA from Michigan State University, and a Masters of Management from Aquinas College. She lives in East Lansing, Michigan with her husband and the empty bedrooms of her two grown-and-flown children.

As Google's Ads Product Liaison, Ginny Marvin helps connect marketers and Google's ads teams. She regularly engages with the marketing community to answer questions about how ads products and policies work and brings marketer's insights and perspectives back into Google. As former Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land, Ginny covered the industry for many years. She got her start in search and digital advertising in 2005 and has worked as a consultant and held both in-house and agency management roles. You can find her on Twitter at @AdsLiaison. 

Jonathan Meyer is a Senior Solutions Engineer for Hawksearch by Bridgeline. He has been working in the search, navigation, and recommendations world for over 7 years, with a focus on solving enterprise level problems in this space.

Amanda Milligan is the Head of Marketing at Stacker Studio, an innovative way for brands to create and distribute newsworthy content at scale. With a degree in journalism and a decade in content marketing, she’s spent her career helping brands harness the powerful intersection of content and SEO. Her expertise has been published in Entrepreneur, Forbes, TechCrunch, Search Engine Land, Moz, The Next Web, and more, and she’s spoken at industry-leading events, including SMX Advanced, MozCon, BrightonSEO, SearchLove, State of Search, and Pubcon.

Erik Newton is the VP of Marketing at Milestone Inc. He is a growth marketing executive who takes a full-lifecycle view of customer acquisition, experience, and retention. Prior to Milestone, he was the VP of Growth Marketing at BrightEdge.

Early on in his career he spent 6 years in Japan and earned his MBA there and then started his career at Dentsu agency in Tokyo. Erik has worked in tech marketing for more than 20 years at Adobe, MP3.com, Netflix, and TiVo. He has published more than 175 blogs on SEO, is an accomplished speaker, and wrote a book called Hack the Corporate Fast Track.

Philip Petrescu has been involved in software development since 1996 and search engine optimization since 2002. In 2002, he co-founded Caphyon, a software company specialized in creating professional SEO solutions, serving more than 30,000 paying customers. Caphyon is the company that builds Advanced Web Ranking and Advanced Installer.

Owen Ray is a copywriter that knows how to take the customer’s perspective. “What do they want, why do they need it, and how does this benefit them” are the first questions that come to mind. Right after “how do they talk about it,” that is. He knows that customers want to have a conversation, not to be talked at and inundated with empty business jargon. His writing style is approachable, human, and straightforward, so it gets that ever-important conversation with the customer started and keeps it going.

Owen thrives on challenges and ambiguity and does his best work with the agile freedom and fun of startup environments. “[He] is at once a real professional who takes his work seriously and a real person who makes going to the office fun. His sense of humor is infectious,” said former manager Christian du Lac. And what matters more at work than that?

Sara Resnick is the Global Head of Organic Growth & SEO at Shutterstock where she leads organic channel initiatives while optimizing the integrated customer acquisition strategy.  Having worked in marketing for more than 19 years, Sara's well-rounded experience spans a variety of industries ranging from e-commerce and music, to television and publishing. Prior to joining Shutterstock, Sara was the Vice President of Enterprise SEO & Partnerships for 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. where she led the organic search efforts across their Family of Brands including top gifting brands 1-800-Flowers.com and Harry & David.  Sara also held marketing roles at America's flagship PBS station WNET, Music Sales & G. Schirmer, and Sony Music. In 2021 Sara was listed as one of Brand Innovators' 40 Under 40 Honorees, a Women2Watch in Business Disruption by Remodista, and is an active member of CHIEF.  

Shannon Riley brings 25 years of marketing experience to the conversation and has built and managed highly motivated and effective marketing teams and departments. He has worked with many Fortune 500 companies — including Anheuser-Busch and Hershey’s — to strategize and execute their marketing plans. Shannon is a marketing expert who brings a high level of industry-specific knowledge and understands the unique nuances marketing and agency teams face, which helps him provide business-driven results to Wrike customers.

Jes Scholz is a marketing & SEO consultant specialising in the future of digital. Working for the Swiss media company Ringier as their Group CMO, she leads teams that support news and marketplace brands across Europe & Africa.

Barry Schwartz is the CEO of RustyBrick, a New York Web service firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales. RustyBrick sells custom web software including advanced e-commerce, custom content management systems, social networking sites, CRM applications, custom web-based business software, iPhone applications and much more.

Barry Schwartz is the founder of the Search Engine Roundtable and has covered search for over 16 years. Barry is also the News Editor at Search Engine Land. Barry hosts the Search Marketing Expo in Israel and is a speaker, moderator and coordinator at many search marketing conferences, including Search Marketing Expo, Search Engine Strategies, La Red Innova Madrid, Spain, PubCon and many other marketing and technology events.

Barry is always at the forefront of the latest news and trends in search. He was also the former News Editor at Search Engine Watch and is a moderator at several search marketing forums. Barry has and currently provided an advisory role for Google, Yahoo! Search, Microsoft's Bing, and several other Internet companies and many startups. In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land and in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here. Please also see my writer disclosures and disclaimers page. Barry graduated from the City University of New York (Baruch College) in 2002, with Summa Cum Laude honors. Schwartz received several honors while in university, including Beta Gamma Sigma and the Golden Key International Honor Society.

He, his wife and children live in the New York area. Barry is often quoted and interviewed in publications such as Forbes, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg, USA Today BusinessWeek, News.com, Publish and many more. He has appeared on primetime TV, specifically NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams to talk about Google Instant and on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood in regards to mobile apps. Barry has also made multiple appearances on the TWiT network shows This Week in Google and Tech News Today. He has over a decade of hands-on experience in web strategy, marketing and business optimization.

Kristen Seto is an SEO Manager at Trusted Media Brands, formerly known as Reader's Digest Association. In her day to day she is collaborating with editorial teams on keyword research and content strategy, training teams on SEO best practices, and serving as a stakeholder on projects related to user experience. She has been in the SEO space for 4 years, with a prior background rooted in journalism and social media. Kristen holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland.

Nick Sibley is a Global Product Marketing Lead at Siteimprove.  His goal is to empower every person to experience, engage, and thrive in the digital world.

At Siteimprove, he's driven by the desire to show businesses that making the internet a more inclusive, accessible place is good for their users, their business outcomes, and the future of the internet.
He does that that by optimising content for accessibility, user experience, and marketing success so that businesses deliver both purpose and performance.

Siteimprove understands content performance better than anyone. The team at Siteimprove knows what works and why. That helps marketing teams focus on delivering the most accessible, inclusive, relevant, discoverable, and usable content every time, all the time.

Danita Smith leads the SEO program for North America at Schneider Electric.  She advises, consults, teaches, and learns every day, with a mission to help others become more empathetic and create content that gets found.  She also works closely with editorial, media, and global teams to make their web a better place for all who use it.  She enjoys collaborating over a great cup of coffee.  When Danita's not working, she's an active volunteer and treasures spending quality time with her family and friends.

Chris Silver Smith is founder of Argent Media, a search marketing consultancy, and has extensive experience in search engine optimization, social media management, online reputation management, and internet marketing. He has worked as a strategist for some of the top agencies in the field of SEO, researching and developing search optimization and social media marketing techniques, and providing SEO consulting for Fortune 500 companies.

In the past, Chris also worked at Verizon Superpages.com for a decade, ultimately serving as head of their technology department. His work there included R&D, local search engine development, map-based search interfaces, mobile app development, and more. Chris was awarded the Individual Excellence Award by Verizon in 2004 for his SEO projects, and he also has patents awarded for local search technology.

Chris has regularly contributed articles to Search Engine Land, and other industry news and information sites for many years.

Duane "DJ" Sprague is a conversion rate expert, and a Certified Behavioral Design Coach by the Online Influence Institute, The Behavioral Design Academy, the Mindworx Academy, and a member of the Baymard Institute and the Interaction Design Institute where he studies the impact of UX on CRO.  

In the role of CMO at Shopper Approved (a Google Review Partner), he works with thousands of ecommerce websites to improve their SEO and CRO. 

As CMO of a billion-dollar national franchise, he leveraged the power of social proof and online reviews to improve SEO and accelerate growth, as he developed and managed a comprehensive online reputation management strategy that spanned nearly 200 websites. 

Duane holds a Master's degree in Integrated Marketing, and received the 1st Place Gold Award in global marketing competition. 

Nichola Stott is the founder and Managing Director of Erudite, the SEO/UX agency. Nichola has a passion for technical SEO and the overlap with good user experience and is a 20 veteran of the search industry. Nichola writes for Search Engine Land and speaks at conferences across the UK on topics around technical SEO, UX and strategy; and manages an ecommerce brand called silkup.com which she founded in 2018.

Anthony plays a key role in Cisco Systems' digital marketing efforts, as the Global Search Marketing Lead. He spends much of his time revamping processes, highlighting scalable tactics & innovation opportunities, as well as developing solutions for complex business problems.

Prior to joining Cisco, Anthony spent the better part of 5 years working with Fortune 100 brands to deliver world-class SEM activations at scale. He enjoyed playing an active role in strategy development, as well as ensuring best-in-class account management practices across offices. Anthony discovered his passion for SEM at Red Ventures in Fort Mill, SC. There, he cultivated a deep passion for data-driven full funnel marketing programs, as well as complex analysis. He has experience with brands across many industries (Finserv, Security, Insurance, B2B Technology, Telecoms & Utilities) and budget levels ($100k-$1.5M monthly spend).

Outside of work, Anthony is a die-hard Boston and UNC Tar Heels fan. When he's not watching his favorite teams, he is often looking to compete with friends in a wide range of outdoor activities or spending time with his family.

William Tseny helps companies drive revenue, understand their customers, discover content, and answer questions using search and machine learning as a primary catalyst. Creating multi-vertical solutions driven by scaleable search and machine learning for E-commerce, Enterprise, Big Data, Insights, and Analytics. Champion of Lucidworks Fusion, Apache Solr, and Apache Spark.

Martha van Berkel is the CoFounder and CEO of Schema App, an end-to-end Schema Markup solution provider based in Ontario, Canada.

As a thought leader in Schema Markup (aka Structured Data), she focuses on helping SEO teams globally understand the value of Schema Markup and how they can leverage Schema Markup to boost their SEO strategy. Martha is passionate about helping Enterprise teams adopt this advanced SEO strategy with agility, and semantic expertise.

Prior to Schema App, she was a Senior Manager at Cisco Systems for 14 years responsible for the global online support strategy, and has experience working with both enterprises and startup/scale-ups.

Martha has a degree in Applied Mathematics and Engineering and attended MIT for Innovation and Strategy. Outside of Schema App, she is a rower and a Mom of two energetic kids. 

Paul VanHevel joined Amsive Digital in June 2015. He currently serves as an Associate Director on a team that earned the Best Enterprise SEO Initiative at the 2018, 2020 and 2022 Search Engine Land Awards. Recently, Paul has been exploring algorithmic changes across search engines and is actioning strategies to ensure his clients remain compliant in the event of core algorithm updates. Before moving to New York and beginning a career at Amsive Digital, Paul managed websites and local SEO campaigns for small business owners in San Diego. His SEO experience dates back to 2012, where he produced content strategies for up-and-coming ecommerce websites.