Judges

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.

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 Chief Editor at award-winning European digital marketing blog State of Digital.

Dawn Anderson has been in search marketing for over 11 years and runs Bertey, a digital agency in Manchester, UK.  She has worked with both UK wide and international brands as an SEO consultant.  Dawn also lectures at Manchester Metropolitan University on digital marketing strategy and search marketing and supervises digital marketing Masters students completing their dissertations. 

Dawn speaks regularly at well known conferences in the UK, US, Europe and Australia on technical SEO and digital marketing strategy.  These conferences include Pubcon, Brighton SEO, MozCon, State of Search, Ungagged and SaSCOn.  Dawn is also a regular corporate trainer on search marketing.

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. In 2014 he founded WebTrafficAdvisors.com in upstate New York. Chris consults with and coaches business and agency teams ranging from senior executives to technical, brand, content and legal groups; helping to improve validation, efficiency, internal acumen and implementation. Chris has diverse experience across major ecommerce platforms, pharma, retail, and other industries.

Since 2004 Chris has been a highly rated speaker, moderator, and content advisor at conferences and partner events all over the world, covering search engine marketing, social media, analytics and evolving tactics including the promotion of better SEO integration across marketing channels. He has served on the Global Board of Directors of SEMPO.org since 2006, co-hosts the weekly podcast SEO Rockstars, and is a two-time judge for the US Search Awards. Chris also blogs for various industry publications but most of his writing involves analysis and recommendations for clients, while fostering integrated online marketing and branding to a qualified target audience.

Elmer is Director, Organic Search (SEO) with GTB. Following a career in the U.S. Army, he has worked in digital marketing for over 20 years doing everything from coding web sites to managing online reputation management efforts as both an independent contractor and a corporate webmaster. Now 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.

Doc Sheldon has 17 years of experience in search engine optimization, specializing in technical SEO. With a background in journalism and business management consulting, he retired from his consulting agency and launched his freelancing career in SEO copywriting. In 2010, he founded his first agency, and gradually began expanding his offering into SEO services - eventually splitting off two separate San Diego-based agencies for content and SEO services. Both agencies serve English-speaking clients in Europe, Oceania and North America, as well as Spanish-speaking clients in Latin America.

Active in several online communities, Doc enjoys “paying it forward” – sharing with others that which he has learned from more experienced SEOs over the years.   

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  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.

Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Internet Marketing. Dave and his wife Mary started Beanstalk in 2004 and have grown it from a purely organic SEO firm to one offering a full range of services including SEO, SEM, social media marketing as well as training and consulting. Dave is a regular author on Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal and the Beanstalk blog. He also hosts a weekly radio show on WebmasterRadio.fm and has spoken at a number conferences over the years.

With over 15 year of experience in internet marketing Dave has seen a lot of SEO strategies come and go resulting in a passion for what's working today and an apprecaition for the brilliant ideas coming from some of the great minds in the industry. He's proud to be a judge in this year's US Search Awards to be included among the many great names he joins.

Mary Davies, President of Beanstalk Internet Marketing, Inc. began her career as a web designer in 2002 and quickly began to see the importance of SEO and Internet marketing as part of a truly strong web presence. She soon began to approach web design with a strong leaning to not only the design aesthetic but also keeping in mind the necessary technical elements of SEO. In 2004 she chose to switch her primary focus from design to SEO and started the company Beanstalk Internet Marketing Inc. along with her husband and business partner Dave Davies.

Over the past many years she has honed her skills and experience with a strong focus on user experience, conversions, social media, paid search and organic SEO. Mary is actively engaged and keeping up with the current trends and changes within the search industry and the increasing movement into an AI driven algorithm. Her main focus and passion is the user journey though all online platforms whether it be paid search, social media or onsite.

Sean Dolan is the President & COO of PushFire. A keynote speaker and leader in the digital marketing industry, Sean was an early adopter of remarketing and specializes in helping businesses maximize profitability of their digital spend. When he's not managing operations or speaking at marketing conferences, he can be found traveling the world with his family of five, and competing in triathlons. 

Kevin Gibbons is Managing Director of Re:signal, a digital marketing agency specialising in SEO and content marketing. 

With offices in London, Zurich and Tallinn, Re:signal helps clients such as Expedia, Totaljobs and the Financial Times by acting as an extension to their teams.  Kevin has been involved in digital marketing since 2003 often speaking at industry leading conferences and writing for high profile marketing and digital publishers.

Greg Gifford is the Vice President of Search at Wikimotive, a boutique agency that provides SEO and reputation management to multiple verticals all over the US. He's got over 17 years of online marketing and web design experience, and he speaks internationally at digital marketing conferences, teaching thousands of small business owners and marketers how to get their sites to show up higher in local search rankings.

Greg also spends his time doing freelance website design and SEO for local businesses. He graduated from Southern Methodist University with a BA in Cinema and Communications, and has an obscure movie quote for just about any situation.

Judith Lewis is the founder of the deCabbit Consultancy specialising in integrated digital marketing consultancy and execution. She is a specialist integrated online marketer with skills in SEO, PPC, and Social Media Marketing as well as other digital marketing techniques. She has been doing SEO since before it had a name and has worked both in-house and agency-side. 

She has judged both UK & EU Search Awards, is a founding everywoman Modern Muse and is the coordinator for London Girl Geek Dinners.  Having both an in-house and agency background, her clients have included Google, Virgin, NSPCC, Zopa, Slendertone, the Guggenheim, SAP, Amadeus, Blue Cross, & ShareThis. She works from planning through to execution, integrating her digital expertise through research & analysis, design & build through to deployment.

Judith writes for the SEO Chicks and Mostly About Chocolate as well as the Huffington Post.  She speaks at various conferences around the world and is passionate about teaching and helping businesses large and small (as well as chocolate).

Keith Goode is the Sr. SEO Strategist for SecurityIntelligence, IBM and brings over 20 years of experience in the online sphere and over 10 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, Cross Forum, and Clarity. A big proponent of democratizing SEO, Keith helped build the Search Certification program at Dell University and regularly presented a Technical SEO class, and he currently is building a virtual courseware for SEO at IBM. 

Jenny Halasz is the President and Founder of JLH Marketing, Inc. With nearly 20 years’ experience in search, she uses her skills to provide consulting to medium to large enterprise companies on SEO, Analytics, and Search Strategy. Jenny has been named a top SEO to follow by Rand Fishkin (formerly of Moz), has been featured on Search Engine Journal’s Top SEOs to Follow list in 2017 and 2018, and was voted the #3 SEO Specialist in 2018 by Serpstat. Jenny is an international keynote and session speaker, and writes the #AskAnSEO column on Search Engine Journal. She’s also an advocate for Women in Tech and Mental Health Awareness. When she’s not traveling or working, you can find Jenny in her hometown of Raleigh, NC with her husband and two sons, where she volunteers for the PTA and other causes. This is her second time serving as a US Search Awards Judge.

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 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.

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.

Anders Hjorth is the author of the Search Strategies 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 active as a member of various awards juries and advisory boards.

Motoko has been providing the online marketing services targeting Japan, Asia, and other markets to companies from around the world for since the mid '90s. Her search marketing consulting services with her extensive knowledge of Asia and Japanese market have been highly valued and made a big impact on some of the world’s popular multi-national brands’ search marketing campaigns.

A number of her articles have been published on industry websites and printed media. She also writes about the Search Marketing and SEO on her blog and other websites. She is a frequent speaker at the search marketing conferences globally and gives seminars and training about International search marketing, In-House SEO, and Enterprise SEO.

In 2014, she received the Best Consulting Awards form the US Search Awards. 

Kenny Hyder has been helping businesses with their digital strategies since 2004 when he got his first digital marketing position as an in-house “webmaster” after stretching the truth on an interview about knowing how to build websites. The boss that hired him is now his best friend. 

Eventually, his first agency grew to $1.5m in annual revenues and was later acquired by Position Technologies, Inc. Currently Kenny runs Hyder Media, a small boutique agency that specializes in high competition paid and organic verticals. His experience has led him to work with some of the largest brands online including: Staples, Gap, and Zales, among others. Kenny is also a speaker at some of the largest internet marketing conferences including: Pubcon, SMX, Blogworld, Affiliate Summit, & DMA.

Debra Mastaler is a digital marketing consultant with a deep skillset in SEO link building, content promotion and editing. With excellent organizational skills, a knack for forecasting trends and generating newsworthy ideas that drive links and traffic, Debra’s SEO experience allows her to look at everything as an audience and link opportunity while keeping programs on track and within budget.

Carla Marshall is the Editor in Chief of TubularInsights.com (formerly ReelSEO.com), the world's leading resource for video marketing tips, tricks and strategies. She is YouTube Certified in Audience Development, and specialises in video optimization and organic video marketing. She has provided video marketing consultancy services to clients across the world, and is part of the marketing team at TubularLabs.com, the global leader in video intelligence for the cross-platform world. She divides her time between Manchester, UK, and Mountain View, California. 

Jesse McDonald is a Global SEO Strategist at IBM and has been a professional SEO for over 5 years.

After receiving his Bachelor's of Fine Arts with an Emphasis in Graphic Design from the University of Southern Mississippi, Jesse moved to Austin with his wife, Jennifer McDonald, to pursue a career as a print-focused graphic designer.

During his quest to find a job in this field, he stumbled upon SEO and fell in love with the industry, especially with how similar the graphic design and SEO skill-sets relate to each other.

Jesse is a frequent speaker at several industry conferences like Pubcon, State of Search, and Rocks Digital.

Brian McDowell in an industry leader for enterprise level digital marketing and is the Principal Digital Strategist at BloomReach, Inc. Brian works with the worlds largest E-commerce brands on their strategies, forensics, process and team structures.  He has been building and promoting websites since 1997.

Brian has a true passion for technical application and has established primary revenue streams for multiple startups including LendingTree, RealEstate.com, Red Ventures and Conductor. He has designed and built multiple in-house proprietary technologies and platforms for natural search and established large in-house teams consisting of developers and junior level SEO practitioners. Brian often speaks to large enterprise level decision makers as well as advertising agencies about how to build, recruit and sustain natural search focus within their organizations. Brian holds a BS in Computer Science from UNC Charlotte.

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.

As Head of Operations, Rebecca ensures smooth transitions from the initial sales prospect contact to the client project kick-off,  is responsible for all projects running smoothly (on-time and on-budget) and keeps a close eye on P&L for the company. 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, process creation and implementation. Rebecca attended UOP with her main focus in Accounting. Her previous experience in large corporate environments providers her with a solid understanding of where Vizion is headed and how to help ensure profitable/responsible growth. In her free time, she enjoys volunteer work, reading, writing and spending time with her family.

Polly co-manages Delete agency’s digital marketing team, working with SEO engineers, technical developers, digital marketers, content managers and UX designers. She works on digital strategies and solutions for major brands in sectors including sport, higher education, property, travel and more. She is also a an international search marketing and technology conference speaker on topics dedicated to R&D in search marketing and personalisation.

Ant is the founder of digital growth agency Pure Optimisation and the former Head of Search and Social at FTSE 250 listed AutoTrader UK. As a previous UK Search Awards winner Ant has extensive technical and hands on expertise delivering integrated campaigns across SEO, Social Media, PPC & Conversion Rate Optimisation.

Ant is a keen advocate of data lead decision making and the integration of the silos that often exist between the primary digital channels.

Laura is a marketing professional who has built her career in London and New York City. She is currently the Director of Growth and Marketing for EMEA for Conductor, an Enterprise SEO Platform, having recently relocated back to her native London to launch the EMEA office after 6 years in the US. Previously Laura headed up content for one of the largest global conference and content brands ClickZ and SES, as well as leading Conductor's C3 conference, and has over 10 years’ experience across the b2b publishing and technology sectors. She led her team to an industry award for best conference content team and was on the judging panel for the inaugural SEMPO Global awards. Laura is also a frequent moderator on industry panels and webinars, and contributor to various industry publications including Search Engine Journal. 

Eli Schwartz is the Director of Organic Product for SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading People Powered Data platform enabling curious individuals and companies – including 99% of the Fortune 500 – to have conversations at scale with the people who matter most. He oversees SurveyMonkey’s SEO and viral product strategies for the entire product portfolio. Prior to his current role, Eli was the Director of APAC Marketing for SurveyMonkey based out of Singapore. In this role, he oversaw a significant expansion of SurveyMonkey’s user penetration all across the Asia and Oceania regions. Eli is also a frequent speaker at marketing and growth conferences and a regular author for popular business and marketing publications HuffingtonPost, Business2Community, SearchEngineJournal, and Business.com.

I'm the Director of Acquisition (Search) at twentysix (Best Large Integrated Search Agency - UK Search Awards). I have over 11 years’ experience in delivering tech and content optimisation, as well as marketing communication services for a range of clients - from SMEs to FTSE 100 companies, across a vast array of verticals. I employ a hands-on approach, lending my knowledge and experience to stimulate the development of clients' owned, paid and earned channels.

Outside of my day to day work, I'm interested in the wider concept of information retrieval, marketing psychology, sociological impact of technology and futurology as a whole.

Thomas has a long record of delivering growth for many of the largest names online. During 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 currently leads Retailer and Agency engagement as a part of the senior team at Pricesearcher - the UK's largest product search engine. Thomas has a detailed insight on strategy, performance and operations across thousands of eCommerce sites, the high street stores, and digital marketing agencies.

Lisa Williams is a 23-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 speaks at regional, national and international conferences on the topics of digital strategy, marketing integration, team development and leadership. 

Rob is an SEO and online marketer with 18 years of experience. He spent 13 years in-house in both e-commerce and publishing, and has been an SEO consultant (http://robwoods.org/) for 6 years. Rob currently consults with medium to large sites in e-commerce, travel, software, and publishing. He specializes in SEO technical site audits, strategy, and coaching. Rob has spoken at numerous marketing events including Pubcon, SMX Advanced, SEMPO Canada / Bing Search Summit, BlueGlassX, IIMA Fusion Conference, DMA Retail, ACCM (Annual Conference for Catalogs & Multi-Channel Merchants), Endeca Discover Conference, 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".

Murat Yatagan is a distinguished international freelance SEO Consultant with more than 10 years of expertise on SEO and UX, of which 5 years derives from his Senior Product Analyst role at Google Search Quality Team in Ireland. Murat was involved in several sub teams at Google, such as web spam fighting with a specialized approach on manual actions, reconsideration requests, site recoveries, backlink profile analysis and community management. Apart from that, Murat gained expertise on technical SEO, high quality content creation strategy, outreach and international SEO throughout leading an SEO team at Global Savings Group (Germany) and Brainly (Poland), plus managing 65+ clients globally from various business verticals as a freelancer.

Murat is a member of Advisory Board at two startups from Turkey (KTH and Indisera) focusing on growth strategies and technical consultancy. He has been a Judge for UK Search Awards, European Search Awards and MENA Search Awards since 2016. He's a regular speaker of industry events, podcasts and meet-ups. As an active member of the SEO Community, he is authoring on organic search and digital marketing. Plus, he offers in-company SEO trainings and occasionally gives lectures on SEO at universities.

Peter has been actively involved in the Northern agency scene for nearly 20 years, working for some of the biggest agencies in the North including MediaVest (now part of Dentsu Aegis Group), Brilliant Media, Amaze, MediaCom and more recently as Managing Partner of WPP stablemate Wavemaker , supporting clients ranging from Expedia, GE, Thomas Cook, Lexus, DFS through to comparison behemoths such as Compare the Market.

Peter has also been hugely active in the Manchester digital scene having started the original Manchester SEO conference, and more recently as co-founders of both SasCon and Bidex.

In his current role, Peter leads Precision Marketing across the business, delivering data-centric strategies for clients across Programmatic, Paid Search/Social, SEO, Data Consultancy and Analytics – ensuring these are integrated completely into the wider channel offerings within the Wavemaker product.