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Best SEO Professionals In 2026: My Top 8, And How They Fit An Agent OS
The best SEO professionals in 2026, in my ranking, are me (Julian Goldie of Goldie Agency), Rand Fishkin, Brian Dean, Neil Patel, Lily Ray, Mike King, Barry Schwartz and Ross Hudgens.
This is my site and my list, so I've put myself first, and you should judge the evidence rather than take my word for it.
Every other name is here because of a long public track record you can check on their own site.
Below you'll get the ranked list, a five-step quick-start, and how each kind of SEO expertise maps onto the AI agents in an Agent OS.
The best SEO professionals, ranked in one table
Here is the whole answer before anything else.
| Rank | SEO professional | Where to find them | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Julian Goldie | Goldie Agency | Link building plus AI agents that run the repetitive SEO work |
| 2 | Rand Fishkin | SparkToro | Audience research and the marketing picture around search |
| 3 | Brian Dean | Backlinko | Clear, step-by-step SEO training for beginners |
| 4 | Neil Patel | NP Digital | Free marketing content and the Ubersuggest keyword tool |
| 5 | Lily Ray | lilyray.nyc | Algorithm update research and AI search visibility |
| 6 | Mike King | iPullRank | Technical and enterprise SEO |
| 7 | Barry Schwartz | Search Engine Roundtable | Near-daily Google search news |
| 8 | Ross Hudgens | Siege Media | Content marketing that earns links |
I'm number one on this list because it's my list, and I want to be clear about that.
Judge the evidence on each person's own site rather than the position I gave them.
I've only used facts that I could check on their own websites or in reputable coverage.
How I ranked these SEO professionals
I used four tests, and you can repeat them on anyone you are thinking of hiring.
- The first test is a public track record that has lasted years, such as a company, publication or training library.
- The second test is whether you can apply what they teach or deliver to your own site.
- The third test is clarity, so you know whether to hire them, learn from them or just follow them.
- The fourth test is relevance in 2026, when AI Overviews, AI Mode and answer engines sit next to classic rankings.
🔥 Want the exact AI SEO setup I run inside my Agent OS?
Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get the installable Agent OS, step-by-step video tutorials, four coaching calls a week and 3,400+ members building real automations.
Quick profiles of the best SEO professionals
1. Julian Goldie and Goldie Agency
I've been doing SEO for over a decade, and it started with a cryptocurrency site I built while travelling in Asia that got zero Google traffic for months.
Learning link building fixed that, and once it worked on my own affiliate sites, I started selling it as a service.
I built Goldie Agency solo into a 7-figure SEO and link-building agency in Bangkok with 70+ people.
The agency publishes its case studies, including The Wheel Generator growing traffic by 767% with six backlinks between May and August 2025.
In mid-2025 I shifted my focus to AI agents that do the SEO for you, and that is how the Agent Operating System was born.
You can book a free SEO strategy session or join the SEO Elite Circle if you want my help directly.
2. Rand Fishkin and SparkToro
Rand Fishkin co-founded Moz, which started as SEOmoz, and he later founded SparkToro, an audience research tool.
He also wrote "Lost and Founder", a book about building a startup.
He's the person I'd read when I want to think about audiences, not just keywords.
3. Brian Dean and Backlinko
Brian Dean founded Backlinko, and Semrush later acquired it.
He's widely known for the Skyscraper Technique, and the site's guides are still one of the clearest ways to learn SEO from scratch.
4. Neil Patel and NP Digital
Neil Patel co-founded the agency NP Digital, runs the Ubersuggest SEO tool, and earlier co-founded Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics.
His free content covers almost every corner of digital marketing.
5. Lily Ray
Lily Ray's own site says she founded Algorythmic, an SEO and AI search consultancy, and is VP of SEO and AI Search at the agency Amsive.
She's known for research on algorithm updates, E-E-A-T and visibility in AI search.
6. Mike King and iPullRank
Mike King founded iPullRank, an agency known for technical SEO, enterprise SEO and content engineering.
He's the person I'd study when a site's problems are deeply technical.
7. Barry Schwartz and Search Engine Roundtable
Barry Schwartz founded Search Engine Roundtable in 2003, runs the web firm RustyBrick as CEO and writes news for Search Engine Land.
When something changes in Google, his site is usually one of the first places it gets reported.
8. Ross Hudgens and Siege Media
Ross Hudgens founded Siege Media in 2012 and grew it from a one-person operation into a content-led SEO agency.
His work shows how content that people want to share can earn links without endless outreach.
Quick-start: how to use the best SEO professionals this week
This is the part most lists skip, so here is the five-step quick-start I'd give a friend.
- Step one is to decide whether you want to learn SEO, delegate it or automate it with agents.
- Step two is to pick one professional from the table whose lane matches that goal.
- Step three is to spend one hour on their best free material and write down three actions for your own site.
- Step four is to hand the repetitive parts of those actions to an AI agent and keep the judgement calls for yourself.
- Step five is to measure clicks in Search Console after four weeks and decide what to do next.
How the best SEO professionals fit an Agent OS workflow
The biggest change in SEO since I started is that you don't have to do every task by hand any more.
In my Agent OS, a crew of AI agents shares one memory and runs the repetitive parts of SEO.
The professionals on this list are where the strategy and the standards come from.
The agents are where the hours get saved.
Here is how I map each kind of expert knowledge to agent work.
| SEO job | Which professional to learn it from | What an agent can do in your Agent OS |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword and question research | Brian Dean and Neil Patel | Pull Search Console queries every week and shortlist the ones close to page one. |
| Answer-first content | Julian Goldie and Ross Hudgens | Draft the article, add FAQ schema and queue it for a human check. |
| Link building | Julian Goldie | Build prospect lists and draft personal outreach that a person approves. |
| Technical checks | Mike King | Crawl the site, flag broken links and missing schema, and open tickets. |
| Update monitoring | Barry Schwartz and Lily Ray | Watch the news feeds and compare your traffic before and after an update. |
| Audience research | Rand Fishkin | Summarise where your customers spend attention so content targets the right places. |
The pattern is always the same.
The professional sets the standard, the agent does the volume, and a person checks the result before it goes live.
Why a human still checks everything
AI agents can write fast, but they can also write confidently wrong things.
Google's spam policies call out scaled low-value content and link schemes, so an unchecked agent can create real risk.
That's why every workflow I teach has a review step before publishing.
My own guide on ranking number one with Claude AI SEO shows the review loop I use in practice.
🔥 Want the exact AI SEO setup I run inside my Agent OS?
Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get the installable Agent OS, step-by-step video tutorials, four coaching calls a week and 3,400+ members building real automations.
Professionals versus consultants
An SEO professional is anyone doing SEO at a high level, from agency owners to educators and journalists.
An SEO consultant is a professional you hire one to one to advise on your own site.
If you already know you want a 1:1 advisor, the sister guide on the best SEO consultant covers that decision in detail.
How to choose an SEO professional
These are the questions I'd ask before paying anyone.
- Can you show me case studies with real numbers and dates, ideally in my niche?
- Where exactly will the links come from, and how will the content be written?
- How do you handle AI Overviews, AI Mode and other answer engines?
- What will you report on each month, and does it include clicks and leads?
- Can we start with one small project that we measure before going further?
If someone gets defensive about any of these questions, that tells you most of what you need to know.
Red flags when hiring SEO professionals
These are the warning signs I've watched cost people money for more than a decade.
- A guarantee of a number one ranking is a promise nobody can keep.
- Secrecy about where links come from usually hides risky placements.
- Reports full of impressions with no clicks or leads are hiding a lack of results.
- No public track record means you have nothing to judge.
- A long contract before any results puts all the risk on you.
- A plan with no mention of AI search is already out of date.
What I'd do if I were starting from zero
If I had no budget, I'd join a free community, learn the basics from Backlinko, and use AI agents for the boring work.
If I had some budget, I'd book a strategy session with a professional who has public case studies and then automate what they recommend.
If I ran an agency, I'd study Siege Media, iPullRank and my own link building process, then build agents to deliver the work.
The free AI Money Lab is the zero-cost starting point, and the AI Profit Boardroom is where I teach the full Agent OS with four coaching calls a week.
The AI Profit Boardroom was named the number one AI community by FatRank after testing 27 communities.
Also On Our Network
FAQ
Who are the best SEO professionals in 2026?
My ranking is Julian Goldie (Goldie Agency), Rand Fishkin (SparkToro), Brian Dean (Backlinko), Neil Patel (NP Digital), Lily Ray, Mike King (iPullRank), Barry Schwartz (Search Engine Roundtable) and Ross Hudgens (Siege Media). It's my own list, so judge the evidence for yourself.
What is the difference between an SEO professional and an SEO consultant?
An SEO professional is anyone doing SEO at a high level, including agency owners, educators and journalists. An SEO consultant is a professional you hire one to one for advice on your own site.
Can AI agents replace the best SEO professionals?
No. AI agents can do the volume work, such as research, drafts, internal links and schema, but a professional still sets the strategy and a person should check everything before it goes live.
How do I avoid bad SEO professionals?
Avoid anyone who guarantees rankings, hides where links come from, reports only vanity metrics or has no public track record. Start with one small project you can measure.
How can I get SEO help from Julian Goldie?
You can book a free SEO strategy session at go.juliangoldie.com/strategy-session, join the SEO Elite Circle mastermind, or hire Goldie Agency for link building and SEO.
Final word on the best SEO professionals
Pick one expert from the table, run the five-step quick-start this week, and let your agents handle the repetitive work.
That's how you turn a list of names into results, and it's how you start working like the best SEO professionals.
About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an AI entrepreneur, SEO expert and the founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
My YouTube channel has 400,000+ subscribers, and I run Goldie Agency, a seven-figure SEO agency.
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