Top SEO Experts In 2026: One Per Speciality, And The AI Models To Pair With Them

The top SEO experts in 2026, one per speciality, are Julian Goldie for link building and AI agent SEO, Aleyda Solis for international SEO, Lily Ray for AI search, Areej AbuAli for technical SEO, Darren Shaw for local SEO, Andy Crestodina for content, Luke Carthy for e-commerce SEO, John Shehata for news SEO and Derral Eves for YouTube SEO.

This is my own list on my own site, so I've put myself at number one, and I'd rather you judged the evidence than trusted the ranking.

Every other person is here because of a public track record that you can check on their own website.

Below you'll find the ranked list, how to judge expertise, when to learn and when to hire, and a late section on the AI models that score best here for SEO-style builds.

The top SEO experts at a glance

The order after number one is my opinion about how often a typical site needs each speciality, and it is not a benchmark score.

How I chose the top SEO experts

I picked one expert per speciality because no single person is the best at every part of SEO.

Each person had to be publicly known for one clear area of depth.

Each person's current work had to be confirmed on their own site or in reputable coverage.

Each person had to publish free material, so you can learn from them before you spend any money.

I also kept this list different from my posts on the best SEO professionals and the best SEO consultant, so most of these names are new.

The 9 top SEO experts, by speciality

1. Julian Goldie for link building and AI agent SEO

I've worked in SEO for over a decade, and I started with a cryptocurrency website that I built while travelling in Asia.

I wrote content for months and got no Google traffic, and that is what pushed me to learn link building.

It worked on my own affiliate sites first, and then I began selling it as a service on my own.

That became Goldie Agency, a 7-figure SEO and link-building agency in Bangkok with 70+ people.

In mid-2025 I moved my focus to AI agents that do the SEO for you, and I built the Agent Operating System for that purpose.

I run this leaderboard because I wanted real evidence about which models can be trusted with that work.

You can book a free SEO strategy session or join the SEO Elite Circle if you want my help directly.

2. Aleyda Solis for international SEO

Aleyda Solis founded Orainti in 2014, and it is a boutique SEO and AI search consultancy.

The consultancy lists international SEO, e-commerce and SaaS search growth among its specialities.

She was named European Search Personality of the Year in 2018.

She also publishes the SEOFOMO newsletter and curates the free LearningSEO.io roadmap.

3. Lily Ray for AI search and E-E-A-T

Lily Ray's own site lists her as the founder of Algorythmic, an SEO and AI search consultancy.

The same page lists her as VP of SEO and AI Search at the agency Amsive.

She's known for her work on E-E-A-T, AI search, Google Discover and Google algorithm updates.

4. Areej AbuAli for technical SEO

Areej AbuAli founded Women in Tech SEO in 2019, and it's a free global community for SEOs and marketers.

The community runs the WTSFest conferences in London, Portland and Philadelphia.

Her speaker bios describe her as a technical SEO consultant and the founder of the consultancy Crawlina.

5. Darren Shaw for local SEO

Darren Shaw founded Whitespark in 2005 as a web design and development firm.

He moved the company's focus to local search in 2010, and it now offers local search software and services.

He leads the Local Search Ranking Factors survey, which is widely cited in local SEO.

6. Andy Crestodina for content marketing

Andy Crestodina is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Orbit Media Studios.

He wrote "Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing", which is in its seventh edition.

His agency runs an annual survey of more than a thousand bloggers.

7. Luke Carthy for e-commerce SEO

Luke Carthy's site describes him as an e-commerce consultant who specialises in growth through SEO, Google Analytics and conversion optimisation.

He's based in the UK, and his listed services include e-commerce audits, conversion rate optimisation and e-commerce SEO.

8. John Shehata for news SEO

John Shehata founded NewzDash, a news and editorial SEO tool that helps publishers appear in Google Top Stories and Google News.

His company bio lists a former role as Global VP of Audience Development at Condé Nast.

He co-created the News and Editorial SEO Summit with Barry Adams.

9. Derral Eves for YouTube SEO

Derral Eves founded VidSummit in 2013, and it's an annual conference for YouTube creators.

He wrote "The YouTube Formula", which Wiley published in 2021.

He's also an executive producer of the series The Chosen.

How to judge whether someone is a real SEO expert

Anyone can call themselves an SEO expert, so I use the same checks every time.

A real expert has published work that you can read in full, such as research, a book or case studies.

A real expert has a clear speciality and is honest about what sits outside it.

A real expert shows numbers with dates and explains how those numbers were achieved.

A real expert has a view on AI Overviews, AI Mode and answer engines, because search in 2026 includes all of them.

A real expert refuses to guarantee rankings, because nobody controls Google.

A real expert follows Google's spam policies and explains their methods in plain words.

I'd keep looking if someone failed two or more of those checks.

Learn from the top SEO experts, or hire one?

Most people on this list are best used as teachers, and only some of them take clients.

Before you try to hire a named expert, I'd check their own site, because several of them focus on software, research or events.

I haven't listed anyone else's prices, because I can't verify them and I won't guess.

The AI Profit Boardroom has 3,400+ members and four coaching calls a week, and it includes the installable Agent OS.

Which speciality should you start with?

The right first expert depends on the problem in front of you.

I'd follow one person for 30 days before adding a second, because one clear voice beats nine that you only skim.

If you'd prefer a list built around who led the field this year, my post on the top SEO professionals in 2026 takes that angle.

If you want to build the skill yourself, my guide to AI SEO training sets out the order I'd learn it in.

How I turn expert knowledge into agent work

This is the bridge between a list of people and a leaderboard of AI models.

When an expert explains a process clearly, I write it down as a checklist.

I then give that checklist to an AI agent inside my Agent OS, and the agent runs it on a schedule.

One agent pulls query data from Google Search Console and drafts answer-first updates.

Another agent crawls the site and reports broken links and missing schema.

Another agent builds link prospects and drafts outreach for a person to approve.

A person on my team checks the work before anything goes live.

Every one of those agents runs on a model, and the model decides how well a long brief gets followed.

Which AI models suit each SEO speciality?

GoldieBench is my leaderboard, and it gives every model the same one-shot prompt and scores the result from 0 to 10.

It scores builds such as games, pages, simulations and visuals.

It does not measure rankings, keyword research, link quality or writing quality, so I won't claim that it does.

What it does show is how well a model follows a detailed brief and ships a working page first time.

The two most SEO-relevant tasks on the board are the landing page task and the web OS page task, because both are page builds.

These numbers come from the live model pages on this site.

Claude Opus 5 has the highest single-model average in that table at 8.27, and GPT-5.6 Sol follows at 8.16.

Grok scored 9.0 on both page tasks, and GLM-5.2 scored 9.0 on the landing page task.

My model picks by SEO speciality

These picks are my opinion, and they're based on the scores above rather than on any ranking test.

For running models on your own machine, the local models board shows which free models are worth trying.

I'd still have a person check every page, because a high bench score doesn't stop a model from stating something wrong with confidence.

What GoldieBench can't tell you about SEO

The board can't tell you which model will rank a page, because rankings depend on your site, your links and your competition.

The board can't tell you whether a model's facts are right, so fact-checking stays a human job.

The board can't replace the judgement of the experts on this page.

It can tell you which models reliably follow instructions and ship working pages, and that's a large part of running SEO with agents.

Also On Our Network

• Agent Operatorsthe operator's walkthrough for learning from SEO experts
• AI Income Deskwhich SEO expert fits your type of business
• AI Tool Verdicta ranked verdict on nine SEO specialists
• agentos.guidethe Agent OS quick-start for each SEO speciality
• agentos.guideThe free Claude AI SEO course on agentos.guide

Choose one speciality, learn it from the person who owns it, pair it with a model that scores well here, and you'll be working like the top SEO experts.