Top 56 Link Building Experts in 2020

It’s 2020. There’s A LOT of great (and not-so-great) link building information out there. So, where do you go for the best link building tips, tricks, and tactics?

Well, fear not, friends. We’ve put together a roundup of the best link builders in all the land. These guys are sure to help you take your link building to the next level.

Whether you are a beginner or veteran in the link building world, here are the top experts to follow:

LINK BUILDING EXPERTS

Jason Acidre (www.kaiserthesage.com)

Jason is a successful digital marketer, speaker, and entrepreneur based in the Philippines and is top-notch when it comes to actionable link building advice. His blog contains some of the best link building guides on the web and is full of out-of-the box ideas.

He is well-recognized in the SEO community, having been featured on authoritative industry sites such as Moz.com and Search Engine Land. If you’re looking to take your link building and content marketing to the next level, definitely check out Jason’s blog.

Anil Agarwal (www.bloggerspassion.com)

Anil is one of India’s top bloggers and the brilliant guy behind Bloggers Passion. He launched his blog in 2010 to create a place where he can share proven blogging tips and strategies for using SEO to convert content into money. Anil has been featured on sites such as Serped.com, Techulator, and Blogging Tips.

Shaun Anderson (www.hobo-web.co.uk)

Shaun is an SEO consultant who swears by practicing and learning about SEO every single day. Having worked on hundreds of websites and online marketing campaigns over the last 15 years, he started Hobo Web to provide professional digital marketing services to individuals and companies. In 2012, he was nominated for Best SEO Blog at the UK Search Awards. In addition, Hobo Web was voted Most Influential UK SEO in Industry Poll in 2010 and landed 60th in their Most Influential Marketer list in 2009.

Peter Attia (www.cucumbernebula.com)

Peter is an outstanding SEO personality specializing in inbound marketing and has worked with campaigns ranging from local businesses to Fortune 100 companies. He began acquiring skills in digital marketing in college when he needed to grow an online store to fund his way to graduation. With 5+ years of experience, he has been involved with the creation of two digital marketing firms and several startup businesses.

Shane Barker (www.shanebarker.com)

Shane is a digital marketing consultant and an active mentor in the Sacramento startup scene. He has worked with companies and individuals, helping them achieve their branding and revenue goals. Aside from offering consulting services, Shane also regularly contributes to publications like Yahoo Small Business, Marketing Profs, and Salesforce. A believer of constant growth, Shane has now developed his consultancy service offering into a full-scale marketing team that companies can rely on for critical tasks including lead generation, customer acquisition, and conversion optimization.

Jim Boykin (www.internetmarketingninjas.com)

Jim founded the Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog after some time being actively involved in SEO and internet marketing. His knowledge and experience have made him one of the most respected and referenced SEO experts in the industry. Along with Internet Marketing Ninjas, which won the Best Places to Work in the Capital Region award in 2011 and 2012, Jim has also created other leading internet marketing communities, including Threadwatch, the Cre8aSiteForums, the Developer Shed properties, and Webmaster World.

Michael Brenner (www.marketinginsidergroup.com)

Michael is an internationally-recognized speaker on leadership, culture, and marketing. He authored the bestselling book The Content Formula, which has been featured by The Economist, The Guardian, and Entrepreneur Magazine. Over the last two decades, Michael has led successful sales and marketing campaigns for software companies such as Nielsen and FullTilt. His experience and success gained him a spot on Forbes’ Top CMO Influencers of 2017 list and a Top Business Speaker recognition from The Huffington Post.

Justin Briggs (www.briggsby.com)

Justin, with his partner Stephanie Beadell, runs a boutique marketing agency called Briggsby with over 15 years of combined digital marketing experience. He is recognized as one of the most knowledgeable and effective technical SEO leaders in the industry. Together with their small team, they help their clients in organic search strategies, video production, and social media services with one goal in mind:- to connect consumers with the best content and products online.

Jeff Bullas (www.jeffbullas.com)

Jeff spends his time traveling the world to speak about how digital marketing can greatly impact businesses and lives. He started his blog as a passion project with a $10 investment, and now it has grown into a resource blog that attracts millions of visitors a year. Recently, he was listed on Forbes as one of the Top 20 Influencers of CMOs and was granted several accolades for digital marketing in the past two years.

Brian Clark (www.copyblogger.com)

Brian Clark is a serial entrepreneur based in Boulder, Colorado. He’s the founder and CEO of Rainmaker Digital (formerly Copyblogger Media) and the host of the Unemployable podcast.

Brian built three successful service businesses using online marketing techniques before moving to a completely online business model when he started the site Copyblogger in 2006. The eventual result of that move — Rainmaker Digital — is an innovative company that provides advice and solutions that empower people to successfully grow their businesses through social media and online marketing.

Bruce Clay (www.bruceclay.com)

Bruce Clay is founder and president of Bruce Clay, Inc., a global digital marketing optimization firm providing search engine optimization, pay-per-click SEM, social media marketing, conversion rate optimization, SEO-friendly web design and architecture, and SEO tools and training. As an industry thought leader, Bruce is an accomplished speaker, author, and educator. Bruce co-authored the book Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals and authored the acclaimed Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies, which contains 765 pages of hands-on SEO guidance, now in its third edition, published by Wiley.

Adrian Cojocariu (www.cognitiveseo.com)

Adrian is a passionate SEO analyst and a cognitiveSEO author who discovered the digital marketing world at an early age. He is also a professional piano player and martial arts enthusiast. Still, SEO remains his biggest love of all.

Adam Connell (www.bloggingwizard.com)

Adam is a UK-based marketer specializing in SEO and list building. When Adam started working for a marketing agency in 2012, he decided to start Blogging Wizard as a platform to share his insights and teachings. Today, thousands of bloggers and marketers consider Adam’s community of blogging wizardry as a go-to resource for advice backed with knowledge and experience. You’ll find helpful tool reviews, productivity tips, and actionable SEO strategies you can use to accelerate your blog’s growth.

Doug Cunnington (www.nichesiteproject.com)

Doug is a digital marketing consultant who frequently writes about SEO, productivity, project management, and growing niche sites. After the massive success he achieved building Amazon Associate niche sites, he started Niche Site Project to help marketers grow their sites like he did. In his blog, he distills his experiences and teachings, research results, and case studies into actionable tips that online businesses can benefit from.

Brian Dean (www.backlinko.com)

Brian Dean pretty much rewrote the book on link building and content marketing (literally). He made a name for himself in the SEO industry through his marketing blog, Backlinko, which has become THE authority on all things SEO and link building related.

He is known for publishing practical, yet highly effective, techniques that marketers can apply to grow any online business. Ever heard of the Skyscraper Technique? Yep, that was him. Along with many other popular link building techniques.

From his in-depth articles and resources, you’ll see why Brian is considered the go-to guy for SEO advice: His tips are straightforward, actionable, and proven to work. After spending a few hours reading through Brian’s blog, you’ll be further ahead than most of the link builders out there.

Matt Diggity (www.diggitymarketing.com)

Matt is one of the few link building experts that “keeps it real.” There’s no bullshit on Matt’s blog, just awesome link building advice.

Unlike most link builders who play it safe with only white-hat link building, Matt isn’t afraid to continually search for what actually works, even if that means dabbling in the grey. But whether you’re a white-hat link builder or a black-hat link builder, there’s no doubt his techniques work.

Matt also pretty much does it all when it comes to SEO and link building. Outside of his famous Diggity Marketing blog, he also runs an SEO company, an SEO training course, a link building service, and even an SEO conference in Thailand. So yeah, I think it’s safe to say that Matt knows his stuff.

John Doherty (www.johnfdoherty.com)

John is an entrepreneur and digital marketing consultant who founded Credo, which connects companies with the right agency or consultants for their needs. In the past, he worked for Distilled, a growing online marketing agency in NYC. With the experience he gained, he began sharing valuable insights on business growth, link building, and content strategy on his blog. In his free time, John likes to explore his hometown, take great photos, and go on rock climbing, skiing, and cycling adventures.

Danny Donchev (www.fortunelords.com)

For more than a decade, Danny has been mastering the art of SEO. And mastering SEO also meant perfecting what really works. Once he learned how to rank his own websites, he started helping small to big clients all around the world by increasing traffic on their websites. Danny’s proven strategies for how he brought his clients floods of traffic can be found in FortuneLords’ various articles and videos.

Nick Eubanks (www.nickeubanks.com)

In 2014, Nick founded I’m From The Future, one of the most innovative SEO companies you’ll find. Since then, he’s helped over 100 business grow with his extensive knowledge in digital marketing, especially SEO. In his blog, he shares great tips on technical SEO and content promotion, which earned him features on the New York Times, Entrepreneur.com, The Huffington Post, and various mainstream SEO publications.

David Farkas (www.theupperranks.com)

David Farkas is the CEO and founder of The Upper Ranks, a boutique Link Building Company helping some of the world’s largest brands increase their online presence. With the team he is leading, David proves he is simply one of the best link builders in the industry by providing and customizing the links suited to the needs of the client. Increased traffic, visibility, sales, and conversions are guaranteed when working with David, no matter the size of the project.

Rand Fishkin (www.sparktoro.com)

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past 10 years, you’ve probably heard of Rand Fishkin. Rand is the founder of Moz.com and Sparktoro.com, and is a legend in the world of SEO, link building and content marketing. He only employs white-hat techniques, which he’s successfully leveraged to build Moz into one of the biggest brands in the SEO industry.

Many of the modern-day link building and content marketing tactics employed by countless SEOs were popularized by Rand through his comprehensive blog posts and Whiteboard Friday video series. He understands the “bigger picture” and how link building/content marketing fit into the overall marketing strategy.

I definitely recommend checking out some of Rand’s content to help take your link building and content marketing to the next level.

Garrett French (www.citationlabs.com)

Garrett French is the founder and chief link strategist of Citation Labs, a link building agency, and campaign incubator. He’s also the founder of ZipSprout: Citation Labs’ sister agency focused on local marketing. He’s developed multiple link building tools, including the Link Prospector and the Broken Link Finder.

Garrett has also co-written The Ultimate Guide to Link Building with Link Moses himself, Eric Ward. He and his team lead monthly webinars on enterprise content strategy and promotion from the Citation Labs Blog.

Unlike most link builders who focus almost exclusively on bloggers for links, Garrett focuses on older “resource pages” that link to content on the web. He has a great content marketing course that walks readers through this exact process step by step.

AJ Ghergich (www.ghergich.com)

AJ has been learning and practicing SEO since 2004. His passion for link building and content creation led him to build Ghergich & Co., a successful marketing agency with an awesome website to boot. AJ’s team helps businesses integrate SEO, social media, and content marketing to earn customers and improve search rankings. In his blog, he shares guides to industry updates and great tips on creating quality content.

Nathan Gotch (www.gotchseo.com)

Nathan Gotch is the founder of Gotch SEO, an industry leading SEO blog and SEO agency based out of St. Louis. He started Gotch SEO because he wants to help as many people as he could learn how to do effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

He believes SEO is one of the best ways to grow any business online, and earning SEO is one of the best ways to escape the 9-5 and build a career you love.

Joshua Hardwick (www.theseoproject.org)

Joshua’s obsession with SEO started in his late teens. It didn’t take long until he realized there was a crazy amount of misinformation in most so-called SEO blogs. This motivated Joshua in creating ‘The SEO Project,’ which aims to provide people with profound media content. Now at the age of 28, he still continues his passion for SEO with this project, as well as being a freelance SEO consultant.

Ross Hudgens (www.rosshudgens.com)

TripAdvisor and Shutterfly are two of the million-dollar companies Ross has helped with developing, promoting, and maintaining content. He comes from a background in SEO and link building and has built a content marketing agency in San Diego called Siege Media. Ross regularly shares his thoughts and insights on digital marketing on his blog, which has been featured on Moz, AOL, Hacker News, and Search Engine Journal. He recently spoke at MozCon Seattle and at the Boston leg of Distilled’s Search Love in 2013.

Gareth James (www.garethjames.net)

Gareth is a freelance digital marketer from the UK who specializes in link building. He has been in the SEO industry since 2008, helping travel and finance businesses grow in competitive markets. Gareth now specializes in scalable link building and blogger outreach, and regularly publishes tips on avoiding penalties, new techniques, and campaign optimization.

Mark Johnstone (www.markjohnstone.co)

Mark is a consultant based in London, UK that specializes in helping marketing teams create better content in a number of ways. His interest in his work started when he spearheaded the inception of a creative team for a company he was affiliated with, where he worked as an SEO consultant. Establishing MarkJoshnstone.co, Mark connects to any client seeking creative consultation, creation, training, and building.

Kerry Jones (www.frac.tl)

Bearing the title of an Associate Marketing Director at Fractl, Kerry leads their agency’s in-house marketing team in generating leads and increasing brand awareness. Her fascination with the online world began when she started blogging as a hobby back in 2001, which would later transition into a career. Kerry’s specialization for her work is backed up by her experience in many different areas, including content marketing, blogger outreach, and community management.

Julie Joyce (www.linkfishmedia.com)

Julie began working in the SEO world in 2002, starting out as Head of Search for a small IT firm for three years and eventually leaving to form her own agency, Link Fish Media, Inc., with her husband, Jay Young. Julie also co-founded SEO Chicks and regularly writes about link-building on authoritative industry sites such as Search Engine Watch, State of Search, Avant Greensboro, and Search Marketing Gurus.

Kelsey Libert (www.frac.tl)

Kelsey is a partner at Fractl, a content marketing agency specialized in content and media relations. She spearheaded marketing research that would further optimize their content creation process and was published in renowned publications like the Harvard Business Review. One of her astounding achievements includes an experiment where she drove a 5,000% increase in organic search traffic in less than two years for Rehabs.com, generated a 330% growth in SEO clicks for eBay Deals in one year, and quadrupled sales growth from SEO and earned 1.7 million social media shares and 1700+ publisher stories across 14 campaigns for Movoto.

Rebecca Lieb (www.rebeccalieb.com)

Rebecca is a strategic advisor, speaker, author, and columnist working with many of the world’s leading brands of digital marketing innovation. Her areas of concentration are content marketing and converged media. She authored The Truth About Search Engine Optimization, which instantly became an Amazon best-seller. Aside from her blog, Rebecca shares sensible advice on content marketing through her regular columns in iMediaConnection and Marketing Land.

Nikhil Makwana (www.bforblogging.com)

Nikhil co-founded B for Blogging, a special guide for blogging newbies and individuals who wish to take their publishing activities to the next level. He loves to explore the world of digital marketing and passionately observes the various trends and changes the industry has gone through over the years. On their blog, he writes about smart ways to build quality backlinks and killer ideas for promoting content.

Todd Malicoat (www.stuntdubl.com)

A U.S.C.G Fishing Captain like no other, Capt. Todd has had 12 solid years of SEO consulting for enterprises and has built and sold various internet companies, including CollegeDegree.com. When he’s not catching billfish, Capt. Todd is focused as a conference speaker and consultant on all facets of internet marketing for large brands and universities. In 2008 and 2009, he was named among the Top 50 Most Influential Marketers by Invesp.com.

Richard Marriott (www.clambr.com)

Richard took a year of trial and error with internet marketing to move out to Asia and live the life. He claims to do things differently than most link builders, and his strategy gets him first page rankings every time. His favorite techniques include broken and expired domain link building, which he has created helpful tutorials for.

David McSweeney (www.top5seo.co.uk)

David McSweeney lives in Perth, Scotland and has been involved in web development/SEO for 20 years, launching his first website way back in 1998. He is completely self-taught and would consider himself an expert in: SEO, Internet Marketing, Web Design/Development, PHP Programming, and Javascript. He has been involved in internet marketing/web development for over 15 years, and in that time he has launched numerous successful websites, been fully self-employed since 2006, and founded an internet retail company which, in five years, grew to sales of £2M per annum and employed 25 people. He has written and developed custom PHP software (ecommerce system, price comparison engine) and custom WordPress plugins.

Paddy Moogan (www.aira.net)

Paddy co-founded Aira, a digital marketing agency based in the UK. He started doing SEO in 2004 and spent seven years as a consultant, mainly focusing on SEO, link building, and general online marketing activities for companies around the world. He discusses the vital aspects of link building in his book The Link Building Book, which has been featured on authoritative sites such as BuzzStream and Search Engine Watch. Paddy has also spoken at MozCon, SASCon, ThinkVisibility, and at Distilled’s LinkLove.

Lisa Myers (www.vervesearch.com)

With seven years of experience in search marketing, Lisa contributed to founding SEO Chicks and built her own search consulting company called Verve Search in February 2009. She is a regular contributor to various publications and has authored several Best Practice Guides, including SEO BP Guide in 2011. Lisa is a regular speaker at industry events, having spoken at Search Engine Strategies (SES), Search Marketing Expo (SMX) and Search Marketing World. She has won a row of prestigious awards in the past five years, including Search Personality of the Year at the UK Search Awards in 2011.

Lee Odden (www.toprankmarketing.com)

Lee Odden is the CEO and co-founder of TopRank Marketing, a Minneapolis-based digital marketing agency specializing in strategic internet marketing consulting services, including content marketing, influencer marketing, organic and paid search marketing, organic and paid social media, online PR, email, and conversion optimization.

Rohit Palit (www.techtage.com)

Rohit is an 18-year-old SEO pro and an inbound marketing consultant from Kolkata, India. He is the whiz behind Techtage, a blog that covers the many technical aspects of SEO and inbound marketing. Some of his most notable publications include guides on increasing domain authority, Bing SEO, and white-hat tiered link building. He also wrote two extensive guides on WordPress SEO and optimization. His skills have allowed him to work across a whole lot of industries ranging from travel to e-commerce sites.

Neil Patel (www.neilpatel.com)

Neil has received impressive accolades from the US government and the United Nations for having created some of the most brilliant companies in the world. He co-founded KISSmetrics, an analytics provider that has helped many businesses make informed decisions. Aside from entrepreneurship, Neil has also taken great interest in internet marketing and learned how search engines work on his own. Now, he regularly publishes valuable advice about online marketing and is recognized as one of the best in the industry.

Joe Pulizzi (www.contentmarketinginstitute.com)

Joe is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, and the founder of the Content Marketing Institute. His blog is considered the leading content marketing educational resource for enterprise brands and was recognized as the fastest growing business media company by Inc. Magazine in 2014 and 2015. Not only does Joe regularly contribute to the most influential content marketing blogs in the world, he shares valuable insights in his column on Entrepreneur.com and Influencer space on LinkedIn.

Wil Reynolds (www.seerinteractive.com)

Wil has been helping Fortune 500 companies develop SEO strategies and grow since 1999. With his knack for advising and passion to help individuals and businesses grow, he started Seer Interactive in 2002 as a one-man operation out of his living room. Today, his agency houses over 100 employees across Philadelphia and San Diego. He continues to shine by developing strategies and innovations to help clients build traffic and make money. His work has shaped the search industry worldwide, and he speaks regularly at marketing conventions across the globe.

Robbie Richards (www.robbierichards.com)

Robbie is currently working as a digital strategist for a rapidly growing tech company and builds digital campaigns for companies across many industries on the side. Robbie was self-taught: He developed his skills in digital marketing through everyday experiments and tests. From these tests, he shares results and proven strategies for driving traffic, engaging leads, and converting them on his blog. He has been featured on many authoritative industry sites such as B2B Marketing Blog, Content Jam, RankPay, and SEODirect.

Jeremy Rivera (www.jeremyriveraseo.com)

With over a decade of experience in the digital marketing industry, Nashville considers Jeremy their SEO guy with his wealth of knowledge in both SEO and SEM campaigns. Aside from SEO consulting and growth hacking for numerous industries, Jeremy is a regular contributor of SEO-oriented content on Authority Labs, SEMRush, Beam Us Up, Caddis, 2 The Top, and Raven Tools.

Marko Saric (www.howtomakemyblog.com)

Marko’s blog is full of practical, action-oriented, and digestible content, writing advice and insights into building a performing blog. He has produced content and grown audiences since 1997, as well as founded How to Make My Blog to share his best lessons learned and know-how. His passion for blogging and sharing his experiences landed him features in Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Yahoo!, Social Media Examiner, and even on a BBC TV show called Click.

Samuel Scott (www.samueljscott.com)

Samuel is a keynote speaker on various marketing matters such as server log files and technical SEO audits in 12 countries on four continents. He is the man behind The Promotion Fix column in The Drum wherein he frequently discusses traditional and digital marketing in detail. As a marketing strategist, Samuel always emphasizes the importance of integrating online and offline marketing into unified strategies.

Ron Sela (www.ronsela.com)

Ron is a three-time lead marketer turned consultant specializing in content marketing and social media. Throughout his journey as a digital marketing strategist and award-winning blogger, he has established four highly influential blogs and created several must-follow social media feeds. Ron regularly creates helpful content for marketers, resulting to him being ranked second of the Top 50 Best Global Influence Marketing Blogs by InkyBee and one of the 10 Influence Marketing Bloggers to Follow by LaunchMetrics.

Himanshu Sharma (www.optimizesmart.com)

With over 11 years of experience in digital marketing, Himanshu founded Optimize Smart, which is now one of the world’s most popular blogs on web analytics. He frequently shares tips to approaching link building, raking in over 260,000 monthly readers from all over the world. In 2013, Himanshu was nominated for the Digital Analytics Association Award, a world-renowned association which helps organizations overcome the challenge of data acquisition and application.

Bradley Shaw (www.seoexpertbrad.com)

Bradley is an SEO expert by day and digital marketer and consultant by night. He has been helping businesses throughout the US gain higher visibility in search engines since 1997. He has been featured on popular sites such as Bustle and The Brandpoint Blog.

Nate Shivar (www.shivarweb.com)

Nate started freelance SEO, marketing, and consulting back in 2010. He’s now a full-time digital marketing consultant in addition to building, owning, and operating digital publishing brands. He has increased organic traffic in a wide range of industries, including household name brands to medium industrial firms to small nonprofits. His work won the 2015 SEO Campaign of the Year from the Atlanta chapter of the AMA. He has also spoken at SuperNovaSouth 2015 as a panelist on the Future of SEO.

Arpit Singh (www.digitalseoguide.com)

Arpit is one half of the brains behind Digital SEO Guide, a blog that offers tips on digital marketing, social media, and technology. When Arpit realized the need for SEO when trying to make an impact on the Web, he took it upon himself to learn how to rank in highly competitive industries by creating useful content. He has been featured on industry sites such as Bloggers Papa and GotchSEO.

Ronell Smith (www.ronellsmith.com)

Ronell is an expert content strategist and consultant situated in Dallas. His passion for SEO and his work stems deep from removing obstacles that hinder individuals and businesses in reaching their full potential. He runs his own company, RS Consulting, and helps clients think strategically about how search, content and social work together efficiently in both offline and online environments.

Venchito Tampon Jr. (www.sharprocket.com.ph)

Venchito is one of the hidden gems when it comes to link building knowledge. His blog provides extremely comprehensive guides and case studies on how to build backlinks. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

He founded SharpRocket, the fastest growing digital marketing company in the Philippines at the young age of 21. His nimble team focuses on introducing and guiding companies into SEO and content marketing. Venchito is also an extraordinary speaker and has been featured and quoted in Moz.com, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Technorati.

Fervil Von Tripoli (www.fervilvon.com)

Fervil Von is a passionate SEO specialist & marketing strategist from the Philippines. He spends a lot of time learning about backlinks, observing Google, creating quality content, and developing SEO experiments. His successes and failures helped him grow into an SEM professional who truly understands where clients are and what they need. He’s the founder and CEO of SEMBlitz – a search marketing agency dedicated to helping finance, tech, and real estate businesses generate more leads and sales thru paid and organic advertising.

Aaron Wall (www.seobook.com)

Aaron launched SEO Book, the leading SEO website, in 2003. It is one of the oldest standing SEO resource pools that regularly offers marketing tips, search analysis, and general commentary on the evolution of the search industry. Over the last couple of years, Aaron’s work has been mentioned in niche online and print marketing publications such as iMediaConnection, Marketing News, TechCrunch, and The London Times. In addition to blogging, speaking at conferences, and participating in many search marketing communities, Aaron offers to consult for clients and an SEO training program containing over 100 training modules and exclusive premium tools.