By Tarun Gehani | SEO & AI Visibility Consultant | Ann Arbor, Michigan
Stop Chasing Headlines.
Start Following the Right People.
SEO has always had a generosity problem (in the best possible way). Practitioners share tools, publish research, build free resources, and openly teach what’s working. I haven’t seen that culture in many other industries, and I think it’s genuinely rare and worth celebrating.
Women have been at the center of that culture for as long as I’ve been in this industry. They’re running agencies, leading in-house teams, building communities, publishing original research, and shaping how the rest of us think about search, including how it’s evolving with AI. This list is my attempt to put that on the record in a way that’s actually useful.
These are SEO practitioners whose thinking has influenced how I work. Some I’ve met in person. Some I’ve followed for years. All of them build, share, and teach in a way that makes the SEO industry better. March is Women’s History Month, and while one month isn’t enough, it’s a good reason to do something concrete: audit who you’re actually learning from.
This isn’t a ranking. There are many more brilliant women in SEO & AI than listed here.
If you feel I’ve left someone off who deserves to be featured, reach out and let me know!
Women in SEO & AI to Follow for Your Goals
| If your priority is… | Top Picks to Follow | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Learning AI for SEO | Britney Muller | The clearest, most practical AI education for marketers – start here. |
| AI Overviews & E-E-A-T | Lily Ray, Aleyda Solís | Protect visibility in generative & AI-driven search. |
| Technical SEO / Site Health | Kristina Azarenko Sparks, Jamie Indigo | Ensure your site is readable by humans and AI bots alike. |
| B2B Growth & Link Building | Alexandra Tachalova, Emma Williams | Build authority and revenue-driven content pipelines. |
| Local SEO Visibility | Joy Hawkins, Claire Carlile, Molly Youngblood | Dominate local search and Google Business Profiles. |
| Content & Social Search | Mathilde Høj, Ann Smarty | Adapt to TikTok, Reddit, and AI-generated discovery. |
| Analytics & Measurement | Dana DiTomaso, Sam Torres | Connect SEO performance to real business outcomes. |
| Future Strategy & AI Ethics | Elizabeth Goede, Jes Scholz | Navigate the long-term impact of AI on your business. |
| Michigan / Ann Arbor Focus | Linda Girard, Sorilbran Stone, Shari Rose | Local talent and community doing excellent SEO work. |
Jump to a Section
Section 1: Global Leaders in AI Search & E-E-A-T
These practitioners sit at the intersection of AI search, international SEO, and search-quality signals. In an era where “experience” is a ranking factor – and where AI systems decide whose brand to surface – these are the voices you need to understand first.
If there is one person who consistently sits at the intersection of AI search, international SEO, and actionable practical consulting, it is Aleyda. She runs Orainti, a boutique SEO consultancy with clients like Under Armour, Eventbrite, and Zillow. She has spoken at 100+ events across 20+ countries, and she built SEOFOMO – arguably the most carefully curated weekly SEO newsletter in the industry. I’ve followed Aleyda since the early days of SEO Twitter, seen her at conferences, and her SEOFOMO newsletter has been one of my most reliable ways to stay current with an industry that never stops moving.
- Newsletter: SEOFOMO – high-signal weekly filter for SEO news
- Also publishes: MarketingFOMO and AI Marketers newsletters
- Video series/podcast: Crawling Mondays
- Free resources: LearningSEO.io and LearningAIsearch.com
- Awarded European Search Personality of the Year 2018
Where to start: Subscribe to SEOFOMO today.
Lily is one of the most trusted voices in SEO on E-E-A-T and how Google evaluates quality in the AI era. As VP of SEO Strategy & Research at Amsive, she leads a team of 35+ SEO professionals and has delivered 100+ conference presentations including multiple MozCon keynotes. Her research on SERP volatility, AI Overviews, and quality updates is consistently among the most cited in the industry.
- Role: VP, SEO Strategy & Research at Amsive
- Known for: deep-dive research on AI Overviews, SERP volatility, and E-E-A-T
- Speaker: 100+ international presentations including MozCon and SMX
Where to start: Read this article, I hacked ChatGPT and Google’s AI – and it only took 20 minutes, where she was interviewed by a BBC reporter. Search for her talks on “E-E-A-T in the age of AI” and audit your own About page, author bios, and trust signals using her quality lens.
Britney Muller – AI Educator for Marketers
Founder & AI Consultant, AI Educator, Keynote Speaker
Website | DataSci101 | AI Course | OrangeLabs | LinkedIn
I first met Britney at Traffic Think Tank Live in Philadelphia in 2018, and her thinking has stayed with me since. More recently, I took her Actionable AI for Marketers course on Maven – and learned more in a short time than I expected. She’s a genuinely friendly and encouraging teacher who makes complex material feel immediately usable. The course covers a remarkable range: Claude, Reddit, vector embeddings, practical AI workflows. With over 10 years of experience in machine learning and generative AI, she brings a depth of understanding that most marketing-facing AI educators simply don’t have. She also led the launch of BLOOM – the largest open-source multilingual LLM – a project that was covered by the Washington Post, New York Times, and 60 Minutes.
- Course: Actionable AI for Marketers on Maven – top-rated (4.8/5.0)
- Author of The Beginner’s Guide to LLMs – free resources that demystify AI for non-technical marketers
- Former: SEO Scientist at Moz; Marketing Manager at Hugging Face; led launch of BLOOM multilingual LLM
- Developed 12+ in-house AI applications for large marketing teams
- Keynotes: BrightonSEO, MozCon
Where to start: Enroll in her Actionable AI for Marketers course – it is the single best investment you can make if you want to understand how AI actually works for SEO and marketing. Then watch her keynote “Stop Talking About AI – Start Using It.”
Jamie Indigo – Technical SEO For Humans
Director of Technical SEO at Cox Automotive; Consultant
Jamie brings a rare combination of deep technical rigor and genuine humanist perspective to SEO. Jamie’s approach to crawl budget and JavaScript SEO has informed how I think about technical audits – there are client projects where their frameworks directly shaped my recommendations.
- Role: Director of Technical SEO at Cox Automotive + consulting at Not a Robot
- Newsletter: Rich Snippets – 80% technical SEO, 20% sharp commentary on the state of the web
- Specialist: JavaScript SEO, rendering strategies, crawl budget, ethical automation
Where to start: Subscribe to the Rich Snippets newsletter. Review your AI content strategy through their “content zombification” lens.
Marie Haynes – Algorithm Updates & Site Quality
Founder of Marie Haynes Consulting; Search News You Can Use
Marie has been the industry’s most trusted guide for decoding Google algorithm updates since she left a career in veterinary medicine to focus on SEO full time. I’ve been reading Marie’s newsletter for years. When a core update hits and the industry is full of hot takes, her analysis is the one I actually trust to be careful, evidence-based, and honest about what we don’t yet know.
- Consultancy: Marie Haynes Consulting – traffic drop recovery, E-E-A-T, and quality
- Newsletter + Podcast: Search News You Can Use – weekly deep-dives on algorithm updates
- Focus: YMYL industries, helpful content analysis, Google quality rater guidelines
Where to start: Subscribe to Search News You Can Use and read one of her post-core-update breakdowns.
Olga spent nearly 12 years helping build Semrush from a small tool into a globally recognized brand. In 2025, she left to pursue entrepreneurship full time. She is now CMO at Foxtery and advises companies on using AI agents to rethink marketing operations from the inside out.
- Former: VP Brand Marketing and VP Marketing Operations at Semrush
- Current: CMO at Foxtery; building marketing SaaS focused on AI-powered operations
- Named one of the 25 most influential women in digital marketing (TopRank, 2018)
Where to start: Listen to her Humans of Martech podcast appearance on why she left Semrush to build AI marketing systems from scratch.
Alisa Scharf – SEO & Generative AI
VP of AI & Innovation Seer Interactive
Alisa sits right at the intersection where SEO, AI, and data collide. What I appreciate most about Alisa is her presence on LinkedIn – she engages genuinely and consistently, and her thinking on AI’s role in SEO strategy has been worth tracking closely.
- Role: VP of SEO & Generative AI at Seer Interactive – a B-Corp certified agency
- Focus: AI innovation in SEO workflows, zero-click search adaptation, executive reporting
Where to start: Find one of her webinars on AI SEO reporting and compare your own reporting framework to how she frames search impact for leadership.
Cindy has been talking about entity-first indexing since before most of the industry caught up. Her mobile-first and entity-first SEO frameworks pre-dated Google’s official mobile-first index. I’ve used MobileMoxie’s tools when mobile SEO was still a specialist discipline most agencies were hand-waving at – Cindy was doing rigorous work on it before the rest of us caught up.
- Tools: SERPerator and Page-oscope – SERP comparison and mobile emulation
- Framework: entity-first indexing – how Google connects your brand, people, and products as concepts
Where to start: Watch one of her deep dives on entity-first SEO and audit how clearly your own brand appears as a distinct entity across the web.
Olga is a great antidote to AI hype. She runs SEOSLY and advocates a simple but powerful philosophy: 90% SEO fundamentals, 10% AI understanding. In an era where AI tools promise to shortcut everything, Zarr’s insistence on doing the fundamentals right – crawlability, indexation, internal linking – is a useful counterweight. Her audit walkthroughs are some of the most thorough publicly available.
- Advocates: solid site architecture, internal linking, and content quality as the non-negotiable foundation
- Philosophy: use AI tools to augment great strategy – not to replace the fundamentals
Where to start: Read her “90/10 SEO fundamentals” content and honestly apply that ratio to your own 2026 roadmap.
Jes is a strategic thinker who challenges teams to fundamentally rethink what they measure as search evolves. Scholz occupies a rare niche: she’s doing rigorous, research-grade work on how AI systems actually cite and surface content, then sharing it accessibly. If you want to understand AI citation mechanics without wading through academic papers, her newsletter is the shortcut.
- KPI framework: advocates tracking brand presence inside AI-generated summaries
- Contributor: Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal
Where to start: Use her KPI framework to audit your current reporting stack. Add one AI citation tracking checkpoint to your monthly report.
Georgia Tan – Search Experience Optimization
Co-Founder at Switch Key Digital; Founder of WiSDM
Georgia underscores something many brands overlook: in AI-powered search, distinctiveness is a ranking signal. She specializes in Search Experience Optimization (SXO) – integrating SEO, UX, and CRO into one coherent strategy. Tan’s SXO framing – treating search and user experience as inseparable – feels increasingly prescient as AI Overviews reshape what “ranking” even means.
- SXO specialist: integrates SEO, UX, and CRO for finance, B2B, and e-commerce
- Community: Founder of Women in SEO & Digital Marketing (WiSDM) in Sydney, Australia
Where to start: Audit how clearly your own brand entity shows up across Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.
Alexis combines nearly a decade of agency-side technical SEO experience with a rare ability to make complex topics immediately testable. She is known for her “SEO lab” style experiments – breaking down dense technical concepts into hands-on, replicable tests.
- Role: Senior Director at dentsu
- Known for: interactive “SEO in the Lab” experiments
- Expertise: JavaScript SEO, structured data, crawl optimization, and schema
Where to start: Search for her “SEO in the Lab” content and pick one experiment to replicate within your own GSC setup.
Crystal Carter – Technical SEO Meets AI Search
Head of AI Search and SEO Communications at Wix
Crystal Carter holds a unique role in SEO – Search Advocate at Wix, where she translates between the technical realities of how search works and the practical needs of millions of website owners. What distinguishes Carter is her commitment to accessibility – she believes SEO best practices should be understandable and implementable by non-specialists.
- Role: Bridging technical SEO and real-world implementation at scale
- Specialist: structured data, schema, AI Overviews, and technical SEO accessibility
- Contributor: Google Search Central | Speaker: MozCon, BrightonSEO
Where to start: Browse her Google Search Central contributions and follow her LinkedIn content on AI search behavior and structured data.
Lily Ugbaja – International SEO & Content Strategy
Freelance SEO Content Strategist; International SEO Specialist
Lily Ugbaja is a Nigeria-based SEO content strategist whose work sits at the intersection of international SEO, content architecture, and underrepresented market perspectives. In a discipline that often defaults to US and UK-centric assumptions, her voice is a genuinely useful corrective – she writes and speaks about what effective SEO actually looks like when you’re building for global audiences, multilingual search environments, and markets that most Western practitioners never think about.
- Specialist: international SEO, multilingual content strategy, and organic growth for global audiences
- Writer: bylines across major SEO and content marketing publications
- Perspective: brings non-Western market nuance to SEO strategy – rare and valuable in the industry
Where to start: Follow her on LinkedIn and read one of her pieces on international content strategy – especially if any part of your audience is outside the US and UK.
Section 2: Technical SEO, Site Quality & Community Builders
If your site has foundational technical issues, no amount of great content or AI strategy will save it. These women build the blueprints for technical health, quality measurement, and communities that lift the entire industry.
Kristina Azarenko Sparks – Technical SEO Education
Founder of MarketingSyrup SEO Academy
Kristina’s superpower is translation. She takes technical SEO concepts that would normally send a non-developer running, and makes them immediately usable for both marketing teams and developer partners. I’ve admired how Kristina has built her brand – from practitioner to educator to course creator – with real methodological substance behind it. Her Technical SEO courses are the kind I’d point an in-house marketer toward without hesitation.
- Academy: MarketingSyrup SEO Academy – technical SEO education for marketers and developers
- Course: Tech SEO Pro – flagship technical SEO course
- LinkedIn Learning instructor; 13+ years of agency and in-house experience
Where to start: Grab her technical SEO audit checklist and use it as a sanity check on your site.
Izzi lives at the intersection of SEO, user experience, and conversion – especially for e-commerce. I first started following Izzi through her work at Ryte, where her writing on technical SEO for e-commerce was unusually practical and precise.
- Consultancy: Rurpose-driven workshops and organic growth
- Speaker: BrightonSEO, WTSFest – SERP features, product-page optimization, e-commerce UX
- Former: Technical SEO Team Lead at Ryte
Where to start: Watch one of her BrightonSEO talks on SERP features and e-commerce SEO.
Sam is far from your average technical SEO. Her skill set blurs the lines between technical SEO, data engineering, and business intelligence. At Gray Dot Company, she helped teams make BigQuery and analytics genuinely usable for SEO decisions, not just theoretical data exercises.
- Former Role: Chief Digital Officer at The Gray Dot Company
- Specialist: JavaScript SEO, BigQuery for SEO, analytics implementation
- Speaker: TechSEO Connect, WTSFest
Where to start: Watch her talk on using BigQuery for SEO and try one of her sample queries on your own GSC or Analytics data.
Areej AbuAli – Women in Tech SEO
Founder of Women in Tech SEO; WTSFest; Crawlina
Areej has built something genuinely rare: a global community – Women in Tech SEO – that has grown into thousands of members across multiple continents. I’ve watched what Areej has built from the beginning – it’s one of the few community-first initiatives in this industry that has grown with intention rather than noise.
- Community: Women in Tech SEO – thousands of members globally, founded 2019
- Conference: WTSFest – London, Philadelphia, Portland, Melbourne, and Berlin
- Consultancy: Crawlina – technical SEO for large and complex sites
- BIMA Class of 2024 Champions for Change
Where to start: Join the Women in Tech SEO community at womenintechseo.com – it is free and one of the most genuinely supportive SEO communities in the industry.
If you want to get better at earning links in B2B SaaS and fintech – without gaming metrics or burning relationships – Debbie is the person to follow. She currently leads high-impact SEO initiatives at Stripe, following her previous role as Global SEO Team Lead at Dialpad.
- Current: SEO Manager at Stripe
- Author: Link building articles for Wix SEO Hub
- Substack: SEO philosophy newsletter at debbieychew.com
- Speaker: MozCon, SearchLove, WTSFest
Where to start: Read one of her pieces on B2B link building and audit your current outreach approach against her framework.
Viola connects content strategy, topic clusters, and product-led growth into cohesive organic pipelines for B2B and SaaS companies. Eva’s content architecture work is particularly relevant for SaaS companies that have over-indexed on topical authority without thinking about how their site structure actually supports the buyer journey.
- Agency: Flow SEO – content strategy and SEO for B2B and product-led companies
- Approach: mindful marketing – sustainable organic systems over short-term gains
Where to start: Watch one of her talks on topic clusters or product-led SEO content strategy.
Ann Smarty – Content, AI, & Reddit Marketing
Co-Founder of Smarty.Marketing; Brand Ambassador at Peec AI
Ann has been publishing SEO and content marketing insight for over two decades. Few people in SEO have her track record of consistent, quality output across guest posts and publications. More recently, I’ve been watching her Reddit marketing experiments closely – she’s one of the earliest practitioners treating Reddit as a serious SEO and brand channel.
- Website: SEOsmarty.com – long-running hub for SEO and content marketing insight
- Agency: co-founder of Smarty.Marketing
- AI visibility: Brand Ambassador at Peec AI
Where to start: Read one of her recent guides on Reddit marketing or AI search visibility.
Alexandra Tachalova – Digital PR & Link Building
Founder of Digital Olympus Agency & Conference
Alexandra is one of the clearest voices in the SEO industry on how to build links that actually last – through genuine industry relationships rather than cold outreach blasts. She runs both a link-building agency and the Digital Olympus conference in Amsterdam.
- Agency: Digital Olympus – relationship-based link building and digital PR
- Former Role: Marketing Director (EMEA) at Semrush
- Conference: Digital Olympus Conference in Amsterdam
- Philosophy: build partnerships, not pipelines
Where to start: Use her relationship-based outreach framework as a contrast to pure automated link building.
Abby operates at the intersection of product, search, and user experience at the scale of one of the world’s largest freelance marketplaces. Gleason’s research on TikTok search behavior – treating it as a legitimate discovery channel rather than a social platform – is the kind of forward-looking work that tends to show up in agency decks two years after she publishes it.
- Former Role: Senior Product Manager, SEO at Upwork
- Also covers: TikTok SEO research and the future of social and AI-driven discovery
Where to start: Listen to an interview where she discusses product-side SEO and map those ideas to how your own site is built.
Dana DiTomaso – Analytics, Measurement & Data
President & Partner at Kick Point; Founder of Kick Point Playbook
If your GA4 setup is a mess and your reports don’t tell you anything useful, Dana DiTomaso is the person to follow. DiTomaso is one of the most respected voices on measurement strategy in North America, with a particular talent for helping marketers understand what their numbers actually mean.
- Agency: Kick Point – digital strategy and analytics, Edmonton, Alberta
- Newsletter: Kick Point Playbook – GA4, measurement, and practical analytics strategy
- Speaker: MozCon, BrightonSEO – making analytics genuinely understandable
Where to start: Subscribe to the Kick Point Playbook newsletter and watch one of her conference talks on GA4.
Tiffany DaSilva is one of the clearest thinkers in the space where SEO and broader growth strategy intersect. She brings a product and growth mindset to search – asking not just “how do we rank” but “how does ranking connect to the thing the business actually needs.”
- Agency: Flowjo.co – SEO strategy for SaaS and product-led companies
- Framework: connecting organic performance to revenue and business outcomes
- Speaker: MozCon – practical, growth-framed SEO strategy sessions
Where to start: Watch one of her MozCon talks and use her growth-SEO framework to pressure-test your current SEO roadmap.
Lidia Infante – Technical SEO & International Search
Head of SEO at SurveyMonkey
Lidia Infante applies deep technical SEO thinking to a product used by teams globally. Her work spans technical SEO, international search strategy, and the structured data considerations that increasingly determine AI visibility. She is one of the most consistently sharp voices on LinkedIn when it comes to bridging the gap between technical implementation and strategic outcome, and her willingness to share detailed, working-level insight rather than hot takes makes her a standout follow.
- Former Role: Senior SEO Manager at Sanity – technical SEO for a content platform
- Specialist: international SEO, hreflang, structured data, and technical site architecture
- Speaker: BrightonSEO and other industry events
- Active on LinkedIn: detailed technical SEO insight with real implementation examples
Where to start: Follow her on LinkedIn and look for her writing on international SEO implementation – her hreflang and structured data guidance is among the most practical available.
Section 3: Content, Social Search & Education in the AI Era
SEO is no longer only about blue links and blog posts. These women help brands adapt to social search, new content formats, and the challenge of educating non-technical audiences in a rapidly shifting landscape.
Mathilde is one of the clearest voices on social search – specifically TikTok and how people “search” on platforms that Google never controlled. If your audience is under 40, her work is essential.
- Role: SEO Team Lead at TRANSACT (Omnicom Media Group)
- Focus: how audiences search on TikTok and other social platforms
- Speaker: BrightonSEO, Search London
Where to start: Watch one of her BrightonSEO talks on social search. Ask: where does your audience actually start their search journey – Google, TikTok, Reddit, or AI?
Jess Joyce – AI-Informed SEO & Community
Founder of Inbound Scope; Community Manager at MostlySEO
Jess blends technical SEO and AI search visibility with a strong community lens – and she brings genuine experimentation to everything she does. Through MostlySEO.com, she helps a growing community of practitioners compare notes on what LLMs and AI search actually do with their content.
- Agency: Inbound Scope – SEO programs for B2B SaaS companies
- Community: MostlySEO.com – practitioners sharing AI search experiments
- Instructor: Camp Tech – teaching SEO and analytics to diverse learners
Where to start: Try one of her AI search experiments and run a version on your own site. Then join MostlySEO.com to compare results.
Victoria Olsina helps Web3 and fintech companies improve visibility across Google and AI search platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews. Her work combines technical SEO, LLM optimization, and AI-powered content systems designed for highly competitive search environments. She has worked with leading blockchain organizations including Polkadot, ConsenSys, Bankless, Near Protocol, and Mezo.
- Nominated for Best SEO in Europe, featured in the books SEO in 2024-2026
- Speaker: BrightonSEO, Devcon; industry webinars with Semrush, NeuronWriter
- Author: Upcoming book – Mastering AI Search for Crypto & Web3 Brands
Where to start: Follow her on Youtube for AI Content Systems + SEO.
AnnaLea sits at the intersection of SEO and editorial storytelling – and has done serious work with brands like Marriott, Hilton, and Hearst. Her superpower is bringing newsroom-level editorial standards into SEO programs, ensuring search-driven content still has a strong human narrative.
- Writes for: Search Engine Land
- Client history: Marriott, Hilton, Hearst – applying editorial standards to SEO content programs
- Approach: newsroom discipline meets search optimization
Where to start: Read one of her pieces on content quality and compare 3-4 of your most-trafficked posts against that editorial bar.
Kathryn specializes in developing enterprise SEO and search strategies for B2B and B2C brands. In her previous role, she built the SEO team from 2 to 12, mentoring and scaling up a high-performance team.
- Former Role: Head of SEO at Sleeping Giant Media – managing 12 specialists
- Speaker: BrightonSEO – website migrations, Core Web Vitals, AI Overviews
- Shortlisted: Digital Women Awards 2025, SEO Practitioner of the Year
Where to start: Look up her BrightonSEO talks on website migrations or AI Overviews.
Bianca Anderson – Conversion-Focused Organic Growth
Independent Speaker & Collaborator at Stellar Search Signals
Bianca makes a compelling, data-backed case that traffic is the wrong metric for SEO success. At HubSpot, she led the creation of their E-E-A-T Playbook. Then at hims & hers, she developed the “Heavy Hitter Framework” – a systematic approach for identifying and defending the top 20% of pages that drive 80% of organic revenue.
- Today she’s looking for a new Senior-level SEO or marketing position – contact her on LinkedIn
- Former Roles: Manager of Organic Growth at hims & hers; SEO Strategist at HubSpot
- Framework: Heavy Hitter Process – re-tiers every URL by weighted traffic-to-conversion score
- Speaker: MozCon, BrightonSEO, SEO Week, WTSFest
Where to start: Watch her SEO Week presentation on “prioritizing conversions over vanity metrics.”
Emma Williams – Agency Leader in Link Building
Founder & CEO at Seene Digital
Emma runs Seene Digital, a boutique SEO agency that grew from a freelance passion project into an international operation with clients ranging from S&P 500 companies to e-commerce startups. Williams has steadily built a link building and content operation that punches well above its size – she’s a reminder that the best link builders rarely need to advertise.
- Agency: Seene Digital – SEO, content, and link building for S&P 500 to startups
- Specializes: sustainable link building and long-term SEO strategies
Where to start: Look at how Seene positions its services and case studies – their approach to authority building is worth studying.
Miracle leads both SEO and PPC at John Lewis Finance – the financial services arm of one of the UK’s most iconic retail brands. She is a highly sought-after speaker at MozCon, BrightonSEO, SMX, and WTSFest, known for her energy and data-driven presentations.
- Former Role: Head of Search at John Lewis Finance – managing SEO and PPC teams
- Speaker: MozCon, BrightonSEO, SMX, WTSFest – transparent, real-world case studies
- Advocate: brand-led SEO and trust signals in regulated industries
Where to start: Watch one of her conference talks on brand-led SEO or technical SEO in enterprise settings.
Chima Mmeje is the founder of Zenith Copy and one of the most in-demand content strategy voices in SEO. She is particularly well known for her work on topic cluster methodology – making the case, with real data, that strategic content architecture beats volume-based content production every time. Her MozCon and BrightonSEO talks consistently land among the most shared of any conference year, and her ability to connect content strategy to actual business outcomes (not just traffic) is what sets her apart from the broader content marketing conversation.
- Agency: Zenith Copy – content strategy and SEO for B2B and SaaS brands
- Known for: topic cluster methodology and content-led organic growth frameworks
- Speaker: MozCon, BrightonSEO – among the most shared conference talks
- Educator: makes AI content strategy accessible and actionable for non-specialists
Where to start: Watch her MozCon talk on topic clusters and use it to audit whether your own content is organized around search intent and buyer journeys – or just around a keyword spreadsheet.
Section 4: Local & SMB-Friendly SEO – Michigan & Beyond
If you serve local markets – or if you are in the Ann Arbor / Michigan area – these women offer the most practical, boots-on-the-ground advice for local SEO, Google Business Profiles, and SMB-specific digital strategy.
Joy Hawkins – Local SEO & GBP
Founder of Sterling Sky; Google Business Profile Expert
Joy is the voice of local SEO. I’ve followed Joy’s local SEO research for years – she’s one of the few people publishing genuine ranking factor analysis rather than recycling conventional wisdom. One of my former proteges was hired by Sterling Sky, which tells you something about the caliber of team she’s built.
- Agency: Sterling Sky – leading local SEO agency based in Canada
- Community: LocalU and the Local Search Forum
- Recognition: Google Business Profile Gold Product Expert
Where to start: Read a recent Sterling Sky blog post on local ranking factors or GBP optimization. Then do a quick audit of your own Google Business Profile.
Claire Carlile is one of the most respected local SEO practitioners in the UK. She co-authored the definitive BrightLocal Local SEO Guide – the resource most agencies and consultants point to when clients ask where to start with local visibility. Wales-based and with a deep background in helping small and independent businesses compete in local search, Claire brings a practical, no-nonsense approach that translates directly to results.
- Consultant: local SEO strategy for independent and small businesses across the UK
- Co-author: BrightLocal Local SEO Guide – one of the most referenced local SEO resources available
- Contributor: BrightLocal blog, Search Engine Land
- Speaker: BrightonSEO and local search events
Where to start: Read the BrightLocal Local SEO Guide she co-authored – it’s free, comprehensive, and the best single overview of local SEO fundamentals available. Then follow her on LinkedIn for ongoing updates.
Molly brings hands-on technical and local SEO expertise directly to small and mid-sized businesses. Molly and I have worked together in the past, and what stands out is how seriously she takes the craft of GBP optimization – she’s not guessing, she’s testing.
- Agency: Design Right 4 U
- Google credentials: Google Gold Product Expert – multiple certifications
- Specialty: GBP suspension resolution, Local Services Ads, AI policy changes
Where to start: Watch one of her YouTube sessions on GBP optimization and apply her tips to your local site setup.
Linda is the co-founder and CEO of Pure Visibility, an Ann Arbor-based digital marketing agency. I first met Linda at a digital marketing conference at Eastern Michigan University, put on by the Center for Digital Engagement – and went on to spend almost a decade on her team as SEO Lead Strategist and then SEO Director. During that time, I worked across the full client portfolio, built up the SEO team, collaborated on sales calls, and developed the Visibility Audit – a proprietary SEO audit scoring system that helped propel our SEO department and gave clients a structured, repeatable way to measure and prioritize site improvements. Linda has always led with cheerful optimism, and that culture shaped a lot of how I approach client work today.
- Agency: Pure Visibility – SEO and PPC for local and national brands
- Emphasis: data-driven decision making, multi-channel integration
- History: 20+ years of digital marketing – one of the most established agencies in Michigan
Where to start: Browse Pure Visibility’s case studies and blog for insights on how a well-run Michigan agency approaches integrated SEO and PPC strategy.
Sorilbran describes herself as a Visibility Engineer – and that framing captures something important. She is not just optimizing for search; she is building systems that teach both search engines and AI models who you are, what you stand for, and why you should be surfaced. I first met Sorilbran at a Black Tech Saturdays event in Detroit, and I’ve since attended one of her Visibility Engineering workshops – it was one of the more practically valuable sessions I’ve been to, the kind where you leave with a different way of thinking about the problem rather than just a checklist. She’s also a Michigan-based practitioner doing genuinely original work at a time when most AI visibility content is surface-level.
- Agency: sorilbran.com – Five-Talent Strategy House, Metro Detroit, Michigan
- Method: V.E.R.B. – Visibility Engineering for Revenue Building
- Tool: NORAH – AI-powered market intelligence engine for brands
- Book: UnInvisible: An AI Visibility Playbook – Build Your Minimum Viable Knowledge Graph
Where to start: Read how she talks about teaching search engines and AI models who you are. If your brand isn’t surfaced in AI-generated answers, her framing may help you diagnose why.
Elizabeth Goede – AI Strategy & Ethics
Founder of Ratliff Consulting & SPARK AI Lab™
I first met Elizabeth at the Midwest House Summit at Bamboo in Grand Rapids. Elizabeth brings over 25 years of experience at the intersection of AI, marketing, and entrepreneurship – including co-founding an AI-based wine startup back in 2012, well before most of the industry had AI on their radar. Through Ratliff Consulting and SPARK AI Lab™, she develops human-centered AI strategies for businesses.
- Consultancy: Ratliff Consulting – human-centered AI strategy
- Initiative: SPARK StartHer™ – platform for female AI entrepreneurs
- Conference: AI In Action Conference – Grand Rapids, Michigan
Where to start: Listen to her SPARK StartHer podcast or watch her session on AI ethics and innovation.
Amanda Jordan is one of the more grounded voices in a discipline that attracts a lot of noise. Her work spans local SEO and technical SEO with the kind of specificity that separates practitioners who have actually implemented things from those who write about implementing things.
- Former Role: Director of SEO Strategy at Rickety Roo
- Specialty: local SEO strategy, multi-location optimization, technical SEO auditing
- Speaking: MozCon x3, BrightonSEO
- Known for: bridging local and enterprise SEO with real implementation detail
Where to start: Follow her conference talks and writing on local SEO strategy – particularly useful for managing multi-location businesses.
Shari Rose – SEO Director & Strategic Practitioner
SEO Director at Pure Visibility; Writer at Blurred by Lines
Shari Rose is the SEO Director at Pure Visibility – the role I held before launching my own consultancy – and someone I had the privilege of working alongside for a number of years. She was a core member of my team, and watching her grow into the director seat has been genuinely gratifying. She brings both strategic depth and hands-on technical fluency to her work, and she’s the kind of practitioner who makes everyone around her sharper. Beyond SEO, she writes at Blurred Bylines, a personal site that reflects the curiosity and range that makes her a strong strategist.
- Role: SEO Director at Pure Visibility
- Background: built up through the Pure Visibility SEO team over several years
- Writing: Blurred Bylines – personal site and creative outlet
- Agency: Cause Engine Marketing – her own consultancy
Where to start: Follow her on LinkedIn for grounded, practical SEO perspective from someone doing the work in-house and in agency settings simultaneously.
Where to Go From Here
The best thing you can do with this list is narrow it down.
Pick 3-5 people whose work overlaps with what you’re focusing on for the next 90 days and actually follow them – one newsletter, one talk, one idea you put into practice.
One quarter of genuine attention will sharpen your thinking more than a year of passively scrolling.
Someone missing from this list? Let me know here or on LinkedIn. This is a living resource, and I plan to update it as the landscape evolves.
If you want a structured framework for putting what you learn into practice, read my Founder’s Guide to Modern SEO. It’s built for founders, business owners, and in-house marketers who want a clear starting point without the noise.
If this article helped you spot gaps in your own SEO or AI visibility strategy, I offer a free 30-minute intro call – no pitch, just a focused conversation about where to start.
