SMX Next Agenda

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 Danny Sullivan's 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 BuinessWeek, 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.

To hire Barry for a site consultation please visit our search marketing consultation page to learn more about rates and how to hire Barry.

You can learn more about Barry at his Wikipedia entry, follow him on Twitter @rustybrick, on LinkedIn, Facebook or read his personal and rarely updated blog at http://www.barryschwartz.org/.

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. 

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.

Bill Hyatt is the senior director of sales engineering for Invoca.  Bill's credentials include a decade of Marketing analytics and Call Tracking solution design.

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. 

Bio:

Steve Sirich is currently a general manager on the Global Advertising Business team at Microsoft.  As the leader of the Microsoft Advertising Marketing team, his primary business focus is to develop and manage the successful execution of the overall Microsoft Advertising marketing strategy.  This includes helping to determine what Microsoft Advertising solutions should be offered to Microsoft advertisers, identifying who Microsoft should target relative to its customer verticals (i.e. the boundaries of the market segments to be serviced), defining how Microsoft will reach its targeted customers, and influencing when Microsoft will roll out Microsoft Advertising product offerings to advertisers.

Work History:

As a general manager in the Online Services Division at Microsoft, Steve Sirich was formerly responsible for guiding the sales, services and marketing integrations of Microsoft’s strategic technology partnerships with Yahoo! and Nokia.  This represented a unique opportunity to see large enterprise organizations align in the strategic areas of digital technology, marketing and media sales – tapping Sirich’s extensive sales, operations and marketing experiences at Microsoft.

Previously, Sirich was a General Manager in Microsoft’s Consumer and Online division where he was responsible for helping the worldwide sales organization meet its revenue and customer satisfaction goals.  In this role, Sirich lead a Global Enablement team (of more than 100) that managed business operations, strategy and marketing efforts in support of the online advertising sales organization.

Prior to this appointment, Sirich directed the Global Marketing and the Sales and Service Excellence teams that supported Microsoft’s online advertising sales business.  His responsibilities included the research of customer and industry-specific trends, training, allocation and measurement of field sales force, the design of incentive programs, as well as industry evangelism and marketing communications development.

Earlier at Microsoft, Sirich was a Senior Director for Global Sales Strategy at MSN.  In this role, he spearheaded efforts to shape MSN’s global sales strategy around product monetization, sales process engineering and inventory yield management.  He also previously oversaw the sales, marketing, business development and product planning for MSN’s vertical automotive sector.

Prior to his tenure at Microsoft, Sirich gained extensive experience in media, working in Sales and Business Development for Newsweek Magazine, Hachette Filipacchi, and in organizational strategy for Maritz Marketing Services.

Cyrus Shepard is an SEO consultant currently working with Moz. His company Zyppy builds SEO software. He loves studying Google's algorithm and over the years has published dozens of SEO experiments and ranking factor studies.

Danielle Waller is an Associate Director on the Amazon & eRetail team at Merkle. She's worked with Amazon Advertising for over six years leading engagement in many verticals. Danielle helps drive strategy and ensures execution of key optimizations for Amazon Ads by providing strategic oversight on CPG and Retail Amazon accounts

Zach Hoffman is the founder and CEO of Exults, a digitally-focused marketing agency headquartered in South Florida. Zach's love for fast-paced culture and growing business markets coupled with his entrepreneurial spirit lead to the creation of several brands- including Exults, UNIM, and Digital PR. After 15 years in the digital space helping brands realize their dreams of internet domination, Zach now focuses on software development, large-scale business growth, consulting, and branding

John Shehata is Vice President of Audience Development Strategy at Condé Nast overseeing SEO, Social Media Strategy, and Email Operations & Strategy for many of US premium brands (Wired, Epicurious, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, etc.). John has 20+ years of experience in the digital marketing space working with top national brands and fortune 500 companies. 

Previously, John was the Executive Director of Search, Social Media at Disney ABC TV Group. Shehata lead SEO and social strategies for (ABC News, ABC TV, Oscars, and Disney Channels) and worked closely with all TV shows (GMA, Nightline, 20/20, World News, etc.). 

John is also the founder of NewzDash.com. a leading News SEO Platform helping publishers and SEOs optimizing their content for Google Top Stories and Google News.

In his long career focusing on editorial SEO and Social Strategy, John has trained many writers, bloggers, journalists and editors on Search Engine Optimization and Social Media and how to write news while keeping Search and Social channels top of mind. 

Prior to Disney, Shehata was the director of SEO and Social Media for Advance Local. Shehata established and led the SEO and Social Media teams for all their digital brands (NJ.com. al.com, Cleveland.com, MLive.com, NOLA.com, etc.) and trained all the news sites and newspapers edit teams (The Plain Dealer, The Star-Ledger, The Oregonian, etc) on best online search/social practices.

Shehata is recognized particularly for his SEO strategies for News and Technical SEO. He built multiple SEO products and has written several articles and continues to speak at conferences which focus on SEO and Social Media.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JShehata 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnshehata/ 

Mike Henderson has been in the online marketing space since 2011. As the CMO at SuretyBonds.com, Mike oversees 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.

A Southern California native, Holly has been slowly migrating northward to the Bay Area from her roots in Orange County. As an SEO strategist, her background spanns advising B2C & B2B brands at an agency and a startup enterprise SaaS platform to her most recent role as an in-house SEO Product Manager at Macy's (for the dual brand Macys.com & Bloomingdales.com). Holly is also adept at digital marketing and has built teams and led end-to-end marketing campaigns driving leads, product demos and brand adoption.  She loves keeping a pulse on the latest digital trends but more than that she's a fan of hard work and is dedicated to delighting customers by listening to what they really want.

Stephan Bajaio joined Conductor from Yahoo in March of 2008. During his tenure, he has built and led multiple teams at Conductor. He founded Conductor’s Professional Services team, growing it to 50+ global SEO experts in just 4 years. Today, he is Conductor’s Chief Evangelist, focused on strengthening and growing Conductor’s community of customers, partners, and great marketers around the world.
Stephan brings a strong, outspoken leadership style and an unmatched level of passion, strategic thinking, and creative industry to Conductor. He also brings a wealth of SEO knowledge and outstanding customer relationship-building skills.

Stephan has a bachelor’s degree in communications from American University in Washington, D.C. and is currently based in New York. He is an active keynote speaker at conferences and events internationally. He is also a co-host of the search podcast: Search On Tap and webcast Search From Home.

Want to see more content by Stephan Bajaio? Then check out: https://www.stephanbajaio.com/speaking

As VP of Marketing, Ashley 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.

Christi is the Head of Evangelism for Search at Microsoft with over a decade of experience in Digital Marketing leading both in-house and agency teams across the retail, travel, automotive and consumer electronics industries. Christi serves on the Advisory Boards for the Paid Search Association, the Internet Marketing Association, and the University of Idaho School of Business. Christi has been recognized as one of the top 25 most Influential Paid Search experts annually since 2014 by PPCHero and additionally is a recognized global speaker on Digital Marketing Strategy, Search, and Cognitive AI. She is a published authored in the Applied Marketing Analytics Journal and regularly contributes to Forbes, AdAge, Marketing Profs, Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal.

Wesley MacLaggan has been working with Marin Software since 2008. He is currently Head of Marketing at Marin Software. Previously he lead the Product team where he was responsible for driving Marin’s roadmap and working closely with engineering to deliver innovative advertising solutions to the market. He has over a decade’s experience developing and delivering analytical enterprise SaaS applications, including four years with Applied Predictive Technologies working on their platform to help retailers maximize the return on their promotional spending. Mr. MacLaggan began his career providing strategic guidance to companies in a range of industries with Mercer Management Consulting. He holds an Economics degree from Dartmouth College.

A collaborative and polished marketing leader for 20+ years, Eric Eden knows how to manage global marketing campaigns that deliver results. With strong dedication to building high-performing teams and driving B2B marketing demand, he offers an impressive track record of managing large-scale projects and creating strategic plans that enable customer acquisition, sales growth, and overall business development. Notable achievements include leading Socrata and hCentive to acquisition, Cvent to IPO in 2013, and generating 99% of 200M revenue via marketing campaigns. 

Among others, his areas of expertise include marketing strategy, lead generation, event marketing, competitive analysis, brand strategy, and corporate communications. He has built his career around enhancing brand experiences by overseeing the creation of relevant content that connects with core audiences. Now serving as Chief Marketing Officer at Postclick, he leads the marketing team for a tech-enabled services platform that maximizes advertising conversions for consumer brands around the world.

Alex Goldfarb is the Director of Sales at ClickCease. Born and raised in Ann Arbor Michigan, Alex moved to Tel Aviv in 2017 where he has embraced and excelled in the Hi-Tech world. He is an expert in PPC click fraud protection and has mastered the art of getting the most out of your campaigns.

Michael has been in the SEO industry for over seven years and he's developed hundreds of SEO campaigns and strategies for companies of all sizes, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 brands. As Sales Manager at Page One Power, Michael works with prospective partners to ensure goals, expectations, and beliefs all align before the launch of every campaign.

Shaun is the founder and CEO of PPC Samurai; a marketing automation platform used by agencies across 24 countries.

A Google Ads manager from "the olden days" (remember, when Scripts were just a twinkle in Google's eye?) Shaun was growing an agency of complex clients when he had an idea. What if he could build a product that would allow him to use flowcharts to systemise and automate all his strategies so he could scale without compromising the outcomes for his clients? And so, he did. The rest is history.

Today, Shaun leads the PPC Samurai team from their Australian headquarters and enjoys the privilege of working with some of the most strategic and innovative digital managers heading agencies around the world, in their quest for quality automation; automation without homogenisation. He's looking forward to sharing with you a strategy that will save you hours and deliver results.

Eric Wu is the VP of Product Growth at Honey Science, part of the PayPal family.

As a Product Manager and Marketing Technologist, he has made a career of connecting millions with large brands while at Edmunds, AT&T, SpinMedia, Demand Media, and REALTOR. 

Since 2000, Eric has worked at scale across a variety of industries for some of the internets most popular brands including Uber, Pinterest, Trip Advisor, Rent.com, Dollar Shave Club, and SPIN.com.

In addition to assisting large brands, Eric is also an angel investor, advisor and start-up mentor for UCLA's accelerator program and Mucker Capital accelerator classes. He coaches entrepreneurs on how to best leverage analytics, technology, and growth strategies to jump start their companies.

He holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Cognitive Science & Human Computer Interaction (HCI) from UC San Diego.

Carolyn Shelby has been developing and marketing Internet technologies since early 1994, when she co-founded a large regional Internet Service Provider. Her specialties are news, technical, and enterprise SEO, and she has been helping corporations adapt to digital media by integrating “search awareness” into corporate culture for more than 20 years. In her current role at ESPN, Carolyn is responsible for news/technical SEO and organic audience-generation strategies across ESPN's vast global network.

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.

Mike Henderson has been in the online marketing space since 2011. As the CMO at SuretyBonds.com, Mike oversees 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.

George Nguyen is an editor for Search Engine Land. He has written guides on SEO, Amazon's A9 algorithm, podcast advertising and provides the community with news coverage on organic search. His background is in journalism and content marketing. Prior to entering the industry, he worked as a radio personality, writer, podcast host and public school teacher.

Greg Sterling is the VP of Market Insights for Uberall. He is a recognized expert on a range of digital marketing topics and a contributing editor for Search Engine Land. Previously, Sterling was VP of Strategy for LSA (now Localogy). Before that he held various analyst and executive roles at Opus Research, The Kelsey Group, Allbusiness.com and TechTV. Sterling is also a former attorney. 

Leslie is an SEO Solutions Consultant at Botify, the leader in enterprise SEO solutions. With 18 years of experience, Leslie is as well-versed in SEO as she is passionate. Leslie enjoys spending her free time honing her skills in amateur photography, hoping to use her art to make the world a better place. 

Mark Traphagen is Vice President of Product Marketing and Training for seoClarity. He is a sought after speaker at conferences such as MozCon, PubCon, and SMX, and a featured writer for major online publications such as the Moz Blog, Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, and a VIP Columnist for Search Engine Journal. 

In an interview on Reddit, Rand Fishkin of Moz named Mark as one of his top 5 people to follow on social media.

Although Mark believes his previous careers as a salesman and then a teacher were excellent preparations for what he does now, his deep dive into online marketing began about ten years ago when he was tasked with turning around a failing independent bookstore. Mark took the store online and developed practices of content marketing, influencer relationships, exceptional customer service, and community building that brought the store to profitability in two years. Since that time he has dedicated himself to learning what really works for online business success.

After five years of helping to build one of the best-known brands in digital marketing and as producer/creator of YouTube's most popular digital marketing video series, Mark now helps seoClarity's clients and potential clients to make the best possible use of the world's most powerful SEO platform.

Anthony Allison is a Sr. Marketing Consultant at Affirma, one of the largest consulting groups in the Pacific Northwest region. As the search team lead, his focus is on helping B2B and B2C companies of all sizes better understand, connect with, and convert their customers from paid and organic channels. Under his leadership, aggregate PPC conversion rates across clients grew over 77% in 2019 and he strives to keep a team-wide 100% customer satisfaction metric.

Jim Boykin has been actively involved in SEO and Internet marketing since 1999 when he started his business. Boykin's knowledge and experience have made him one of the most respected and referenced SEO's in the industry and his passion for innovation and growth has led his company, Internet Marketing Ninjas, to become one of the world's leading online marketing firms. Boykin is also the former CEO of several Internet marketing communities including: Threadwatch, the Cre8aSiteForums, the Developer Shed properties, and Webmaster World.

Link is responsible for ChannelAdvisor’s digital marketing strategy, serving as a strategic consultant to leading brands and retailers, helping them with the strategy and solutions needed to successfully advertise their products online. 

Link is a digital marketing and e-commerce thought leader who often speaks at industry events and regularly contributes to ChannelAdvisor’s blog. Prior to joining ChannelAdvisor in 2005, he managed online marketing for Art.com, an online retailer. Before Art.com, Link worked as a management consultant helping companies in finance, strategy and organizational design.

He received a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Drexel University and an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

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.

Sara Resnick is the Senior Director of Enterprise Community Marketing, SEO & Social for 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. where she leads organic marketing efforts across its family of brands including 1-800-Flowers.com, Harry & David, Shari's Berries, Cheryl's Cookies, and more.  Having worked in marketing for more than 16 years, Sara's well-rounded experience spans a variety of industries ranging from e-commerce and music, to television and publishing. Prior to joining 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc., Sara held marketing roles at America's flagship PBS station WNET, Music Sales & G. Schirmer, and Sony Music. In 2020 Sara was listed as a Women2Watch in Business Disruption by Remodista.  

As Director, Digital Marketing and Growth Brands, 1-800-Flowers.com, Stephen is responsible for driving digital innovation initiatives for select brands in the company’s portfolio across the end-to-end customer journey. This includes everything from discovery to post-purchase engagement, all of which are designed to increase sales. Stephen also architects marketing efforts to benefit the entire company around personalization and analytics to help teams make meaningful, data-driven decisions.

Since joining 1-800-Flowers.com in 2014 as an intern, Stephen has since held roles of increasing responsibility for the company’s floral brand. During his tenure, he has helped successfully grow two of the company’s incubated brands, Florists.com and FruitBouquets.com. Stephen also co-leads the company’s Digital Leadership Program, which was created to develop young talent and serve as a catalyst for driving innovation throughout the organization.

Wayne Westerlind is an experienced search engine marketing professional specializing in healthcare. Wayne is a corporate marketing program director for New York's largest healthcare system, Northwell Health, leading their enterprise-wide search engine marketing strategy for their 23 hospitals and 800 outpatient facilities. In addition, Wayne has developed digital marketing strategies for many small and large healthcare organizations in the US. 

Emily is responsible for ensuring best-in-class delivery of digital media strategy and execution across display, social, search, video, and mobile paid media channels. Emily joined Merkle nearly 7 years ago in the Charlottesville, Virginia office to help build Merkle’s media practice beyond search. In 2017, she moved to Silicon Valley and now calls California home. Emily has worked with clients across all major industry verticals, but has been most recently focused on large scale, global engagements within Media, Tech, & B2B. Her passion is building people and teams with a focus on training, innovation, and continuous improvement. Prior to joining Merkle, Emily worked for the shopper marketing branch of Ogilvy, managing digital, print, and in-store execution for CPG brands.

Jordan Cardonick, is a Vice President with Merkle Inc. and oversees the Media Analytics practice that specializes in providing actionable insights through the use of media data, site data and customer data. He is responsible for guiding clients to strategically leverage data and insights through many verticals including Healthcare, Pharma, Financial Services, Retail, Travel and Entertainment. Jordan holds an undergraduate degree in marketing and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.

Kevin Rowe is founder & CEO of PureLinq, a contextual link building solution. Kevin is an enterise SEO and speaker, who has built two 7 figure SEO businesses. He built Rowe Digital, an enterprise SEO firm from the ground up with a focus on quality standardization and scalability. And now he building his next venture, PureLinq, with a 3000% growth trajectory.

Kevin's thorughleadership in SEO Fast Company, Forbes, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, and huffington post. And has been trusted by marketing departemnts from fortune 500 companies wanting to drive organic visibility to Sillicon Valley startups forcused on rapid growth.

Eric has been speaking about digital marketing for more than a decade. He has keynotes many conferences including Pubcon Las Vegas, State of Search in Dallas, and Next10x. Eric is lead co-author of The Art of SEO (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032908.do), 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 (http://www.thedrumsearchawards.us/the-drum-search-awards-us/search-awards-us-2018), 2016 Search Marketer of the Year (Male) at the Landys (http://searchengineland.com/2016-landy-awards-winners-260063), and 2016 Search Personality of the Year at the US Search Awards (http://www.ussearchawards.com/2016-winners), Stone Temple Consulting was also named Best Large SEO Agency of the Year at the US Search Awards, and his new company, Perficient, was named Best Interactive Marketing Agency at the Interactive Marketing Awards in 2019. Eric is a Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions (DMS) team at Perficient, and was the Founder and CEO of Stone Temple Consulting (STC), a 70+ person digital marketing agency based in Massachusetts, which Perficient acquired in July of 2018. Perficient's DMS team offers content marketing, SEO, PPC, conversion optimization, marketing automation, and more services. Clients of the DMS team include some of the world's largest e-tail sites and brands.

François Goube is a French entrepreneur, startup enthusiast, SEO expert, and advisor for French VC firms. He is the Founder and CEO at OnCrawl.com. With 15 years industry experience, he has been involved in many startups and founded several companies including JobiJoba.com, a European search engine for jobs, nominated as “one of the most promising startups in Europe in 2009”. Francois also used to run Propulseo which is an SEO company with a scientific approach collecting tons of Data to better rank on SERPs. 

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!).

Meghan McKenzie is the Director of Enterprise Sales at Crowd Content, overseeing a team of sales and customer success managers. She loves content, SEO, red wine in the winter, white in the summer, doggos and skiing. Crowd Content is a content creation company that helps brands and publishers execute on their written content programs at scale with elite human talent and advanced technology. 

As Founder, CEO & Principal Strategist at award-winning Delightful Communications – a Seattle-based B2B technology marketing agency – Mel’s mission is to help businesses and their leaders be more discoverable, shareable, and memorable. The company applies branding strategies that focus on marketing and PR with a strong emphasis on people and not just pixels.

Before starting Delightful, Mel spent 7 years as Digital Marketing Evangelist at Microsoft where he supported and educated customers through the Microsoft Advertising Blog, evangelizing through social media, writing, and speaking about digital marketing at conferences, trade shows & other events all over the world.

He’s author of the critically acclaimed Pioneers of Digital and Introduction to Personal Branding, and played the “Young Joe Cocker” in the rock legend’s 1997 music video “N’Oubliez Jamais” with French cinema icon, Catherine Deneuve!

Carol Tice is the founder of the award-winning Make a Living Writing blog (2008) and Freelance Writers Den paid membership community (2011). She coaches home-based freelance writers on how to grow their income with her proven program, Freelance Writers Den 2X Income Accelerator. Her own freelance business ramped to six figures in the downturn of ‘08-’10. Her freelance clients have included Forbes, Entrepreneur, Seattle Magazine, Delta Sky, Costco, American Express, Deloitte, and many more. She’s the author/coauthor of 2 print books and 10+ e-books. Her latest release is the free e-book The Recession-Proof Freelancer: A 12-Point Plan for Thriving in Hard Times.

Jessica Foster is an SEO content writer and content strategist at Keys&Copy – a content agency that helps companies get better results from their content. When she's not writing content, you'll find her jet setting across the world, laptop in tow. 

I’m known as a fast-talking, high energy and tell-it-like-it-is redhead. When I first started my SEO copywriting career, Google didn’t exist, PPC wasn’t around and we were all on dial up modems.

I’ve been doing this a long time. Forbes has even described me as the “pioneer of SEO copywriting.”

My 22+ years of experience has helped me safely steer my clients through the choppy search engine waters. I know when you should carefully watch the latest algorithm change and when you can relax. I can explain complex concepts in an easy-to-understand manner. Plus, I can pinpoint new content opportunities and teach you how to leverage them.

Yes, I’m a geek. But I’m a geek who can help make you more money.

In short, I thrive on SEO writing education and consultation. I love helping clients unlock their search positions and boost their conversions. And I love helping writers understand the art and science of SEO writing.

I’ve worked with top companies all around the world – from search engines and television networks, to Fortune 50 companies and major publishers. Over the years, I’ve presented at hundreds of conferences, including SMX, PubCon, SearchFest, AWAI’s Web Writing Intensive, Search Engine Strategies, MarketingProfs and more.

I’ve also been a guest lecturer at the Darden School of Business and keynoted a Direct Marketing Association (DMA) event. Additionally, I’ve trained hundreds of writers worldwide through my SEO Copywriting Certification training.

It’s been a fun ride.

Career highlights include:

• Profiled in the book Online Marketing Heroes as the pioneer of SEO copywriting.
• Mentioned as a must-follow online marketing genius in the book The Complete Social Media Community Manager’s Guide: Essential Tools and Tactics for Business Success.
• Past-chair of the Association of Internet Marketers Search Marketing Council and the DMA’s Search Engine Marketing Council.
• Advisory board member for AWAI and SEMpdx.
• Developer of the SEO Copywriting Certification program, the only industry-endorsed training program teaching SEO Copywriting best practices.
• Voted one of 2012’s Top Women in SEO, and nominated again in 2013.
• Quoted and cited in many publications, including Forbes, The Huffington Post, Target Marketing Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine and others.

Most importantly, I love to make SEO writing accessible, easy-to-understand and fun.

I live outside of Portland, Oregon with my husband and two cranky cats. When I’m not glued to my laptop, I love working out, travel, rafting the Colorado River and Starbucks soy milk lattes.

Lover of Local search who enjoys helping businesses get the benefit of a digital presence. Convinced that digital word of mouth in the form of reviews would be a driving force in client acquisition he co-founded GatherUp in late 2012 and wanting to help businesses learn about local digital marketing he helped co-found LocalU in 2010. He has been a Google My Business product expert since before there were product experts and has helped many businesses there since 2007.

His motto: All local, all the time. 

Andrew is CEO of LocalSEOGuide.com a leading SEO consultancy with a specialty in Multi-Location & Enterprise SEO for 10+ years. 

Andrew is editor of the Local SEO Guide blog which includes their definitive Local SEO Ranking Factors study. He has been a regular contributor to SearchEngineLand and co-founder of BayAreaSearch.org, the association of Bay Area search marketing professionals. 

Andrew has over 20 years of experience in the Internet.  He was a founding member of NBC’s Internet group and former GM of NBC.com. He helped start Insider Pages, a pioneering local-social search engine, which was acquired by CitySearch in 2006. 

Joy is the owner of the Local Search Forum, LocalU, and Sterling Sky, a Local SEO agency in Canada & the USA. She has been working in the industry since 2006. She writes for publications such as Search Engine Land and enjoys speaking regularly at marketing conferences such as MozCon, LocalU, Pubcon, SearchLove and State of Search. You can find her on Twitter or volunteering as a Product Expert on the Google My Business Forum.  

C. J. Bland is the co-founder, CEO and principal consultant of Minority Professional Network, Inc. Launched in 1998, MPN has been a leading diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) provider specializing in recruiting (job board, placement and staffing) and retention, marketing, training/speaking and consulting solutions. Mr. Bland’s speaking engagements or media interviews have encompassed the AJC, American Express, CNN, GADOL, NBMBAA, PMI, Walmart and many others. 

mpnDiversityJobs.com and other MPN solutions have attracted 1,500+ clients and partners from 46 U.S. states, including AT&T, City of Portland, FDIC, Gates Foundation, GP, Harvard, Hodes, JWT, PwC, Travelers, USDA, U.S. DOS, Walmart, and many others.  MPN’s web properties and digital marketing campaigns have served millions of culturally diverse corporate professionals, entrepreneurs and students from all U.S. states and 50+ other countries. Mr. Bland has devoted significant energy, dedication and commitment to public service, volunteerism and community service.  His numerous honors and affiliations have included: Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Board of Directors (2003-2012), Atlanta Business Journal Most Influential Multicultural Business Leader, Who’s Who in Black Atlanta, INROADS Facilitator of the Year, National Black MBA Association - Atlanta Chapter President, and APS Adopt-A-Student Program Advisory Board. Mr. Bland previously held various leadership or consulting positions at AT&T, Home Depot, NASA, NCR, SBC, Johnson Controls and Verizon Wireless. He has earned three degrees, including his Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.), B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and B.S. in Physics degrees. 

A native of New Orleans and lifelong Saints fan, Mr. Bland has resided in metro Atlanta since 1995.  He is happily married to his lovely and supportive wife, Shelley, and they’re blessed to be parents of two bright, happy, healthy, inquisitive and energetic young children.

Zenia is an Account Lead at 3Q Digital, where she develops strategy and manages paid media for clients in a wide range of verticals. While she is knowledgeable in all aspects of digital marketing, her passion is in paid social marketing. 

Jackie Leung is the Director of Talent Acquisition at Wpromote where she oversees all of Talent and leads their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. She has been recruiting in the Digital Marketing space since 2014 with prior recruiting experience in the fashion industry. Jackie is not only passionate about matching the best talent with their dream job, she is equally passionate about working to change the advertising industry norms as it relates to DE&I.