Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based Founder operating in the SEO space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
James Henry Blake (Entrepreneur)
CEO and Founder of Vindicta Digital Marketing Agency
James Henry Blake (Born 1993) is a Northern-Irish entrepreneur, award winning businessman/ notable digital marketer and Internet personality. He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vindicta Digital – One of the UK’s leading digital marketing companies. James also is the managing director of Black Holdings Group and is an official council member of Forbes Agency Council.
Follow James Henry Blake (Entrepreneur):
About Black Holdings Group, Vindicta Digital Marketing Agency: Vindicta Digital provides web design, SEO and digital marketing services.
Roger Llewellyn
Managing Director & Founder & CEO of Kognitio
Llewellyn joined Kognitio in April 2003, having previously been Managing Director of Arelon for two and a half years – a company acquired by Cedar Software. Roger instigated the Management Buy-Out of Cedar and the formation of the Redac Group with Alchemy in May 2002. Roger has started a number of American companies in Europe, including WICAT Europe, where he was Managing Director for 6 years and Vice President USA Sales, and Macromedia, where he was Managing Director Europe for 5 years from start-up to IPO. Roger then took the helm at VINCA Europe for 4 years, until it was purchased by Legato, now EMC. He was also Vice President of Elevon Inc. He trained as an Electronic Engineer before taking his first job for Hewlett Packard. He then held senior positions in Digital Equipment and Prime Computers, before becoming Managing Director of Prime Sweden. After two years in this role Roger took the Managing Director role for Prime in Switzerland.
Follow Roger Llewellyn:
About AB Electronics, Kognitio: Kognitio is an in-memory analytical software platform that supports BI, OLAP and analytical applications on large and complex data.
Russell Glenister
Founder, Investor & CEO of Curation Zone
Follow Russell Glenister:
About Curation Zone: Curation Zone develops an online platform that analyzes and ranks creative talents.
Simon Schnieders
Founder and CEO of Blue Array Ltd
Simon Schnieders is a search marketing expert focused on the discipline of SEO primarily. His background includes affiliate marketing, SEM, social media and monetizing sites. Schnieders is the founder of the UK’s largest pure-play SEO agency, Blue Array. Previously he was Head of SEO for Zoopla.co.uk, (0-7 years £1billion IPO) driving the websites largest traffic source into double digit million numbers. Between 2009-11 he worked at European Directories, a pan-European IYP and lead generation company & between 2008-9 is recognized for driving the growth surge in search engine traffic for the UK’s number one newspaper website, Mail Online, (dailymail.co.uk) in 2009. Other sites he’s worked on for SEO include, thisismoney.co.uk, metro.co.uk, www.localpeople.co.uk and yell.com.
Follow Simon Schnieders:
About Blue Array Ltd: Blue Array Ltd provides SEO consulgency (consultancy & agency hybrid) services
Co-Founder of Cheetah Conversions
Naveed Ratansi is the Co-Founder of Cheetah Conversions and Founder of UX Academy.
Follow Naveed Ratansi:
About Cheetah Conversions, UX Academy: Cheetah Conversions is a marketing agency focused on paid social, paid search, and paid marketing channels.
James Connelly
Co-Founder of Charlie Oscar Group
Follow James Connelly:
About Charlie Oscar Group, Whalar: Charlie Oscar Group specializes in acquiring and create a digital brand, SEO Optimisation, paid media and influencer marketing services.
Lisa Myers
Founder & CEO of Verve Search
Lisa Myers is the founder and CEO of Verve Search. She has been working in Marketing since 2001 and got “bit” by the “SEOl” bug in 2005, when she was tasked with setting up the Search department at a Integrated Marketing Agency. In 2009 she decided to start her own agency and Verve Search was born. Lisa is a prolific part of the SEO community worldwide and contributes regularly to publications on and offline as well as best practice guides and round tables. She is the founder of Women in Search, SEO-Chicks.com and co-founder of StateofSearch.com. Lisa also speaks frequently at conferences in the search and general digital marketing industry worldwide and is often hired to train internal teams, agency and universities on SEO, Content Marketing and Social.
Follow Lisa Myers:
About Verve Search: Verve Search operates as a SEO and content marketing agency.
Ben Knight
Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Croud
Ben is the Co-founder of Croud, Google’s fastest growing agency in the UK in 2013 and 2014 Having worked within search for over ten years, Ben realised that there was a gap within the industry to deliver a more innovative and creative service to clients that could rival other agencies. In 2011, Ben, founded Croud as a new concept in digital to deliver excellence to clients expertise to help their clients grow their businesses. Prior to Croud, Ben has worked for a number of prestigious search agencies. Ben spent his first 6 years at The Search Works where he joined a small team learning his trade and later heading up the financial search vertical, Ben was a key member of the team during it’s growth from 12 to over 100 people. Following the sale at TSW, he joined Harvest Digital as Head of Search in a full service digital agency where he was responsible for paid and natural search as well as social media and analytics, in the 2 and half years he spent at Harvest he grew the size of them team 7 fold and revenues 10 fold before leaving this role in early 2011. Outside of work, Ben is an avid but often disappointed Liverpool football fan.
Follow Ben Knight:
About Croud, Croud: Croud is a digital marketing agency that provides services including SEO, PPC, content, programmatic, paid social, and analytics
Dixon Jones
Founder of DHJ Ventures LTD T/A Dixon Jones
As of November 2019, Dixon Jones is the founding CEO at inLinks Optimization LTD and founder of the early-stage investment company, DHJ Ventures LTD. He was the Marketing Director of the world’s largest link analysis engine, Majestic, between 2009 and 2018, transforming the Search community by providing link intelligence on a scale not previously open to the industry. He has worked at the forefront of search marketing since 1999, since he set up the UK based search marketing consultancy, Receptional. During that time, Dixon has been a consistent speaker on the search conference circuit all over the world and has helped clients in all sectors – including national papers and international search engines themselves to understand their own search strategy. His consulting clients come from a wide variety of difficult sectors, from travel to gambling.
Follow Dixon Jones:
About DHJ Ventures LTD T/A Dixon Jones, Inlinks: Internet Marketing Venture partner acting as in mentor and board roles to help build out startup SAAS and Internet businesses
Ricardo Varela
Founder of Localistico
Ricardo has worked in search and maps teams in Microsoft, Google and Yahoo.
Follow Ricardo Varela:
About Localistico: Localistico is a local marketing and analytics platform for brick-and-mortar retailers.
Rasmus Gustavsen
Founder & iCEO of NerdPeople
Follow Rasmus Gustavsen:
About NerdPeople: DIgital Marketing, Software Development, Web and App development, QA. Our nerds will help you reach your business goals in next to no time!
Christopher Elkins
Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder of MUSO
Chief Strategy Officer since June 2017. 2015 – 2017 served as the Chief Commercial Officer for MUSO, the world’s leading content protection, data-analytics and audience connection company, responsible for global growth & commercial strategy. Co-founded MUSO and served as its co-CEO from 2008-2011. Previously founded tech b2c music portal Sound Generator, exiting in 2006 following acquisition.
Follow Christopher Elkins:
About MUSO: MUSO is a software company that provides anti-piracy solutions for enterprises.
Chris Mackie
Director and Founder of 205 Media LTD
Chris Mackie is a Director and Founder of 205 Media LTD.
Follow Chris Mackie:
About 205 Media LTD: 205 Media is a creative agency that offers a range of personalized services to its clients.
Myles Anderson
Founder and CEO of BrightLocal
Follow Myles Anderson:
About BrightLocal: Take the lead in local search.
Ed Eliot
Founder & CTO of BrightLocal
Ed oversees technical operations. He built our first two tools and the basics of our admin panel. Ed brings 15 years of development experience to BrightLocal.
Follow Ed Eliot:
About BrightLocal: Take the lead in local search.
Jenny Woods
Founder and Social Media Strategist & Analyst of Jwoo Social
Follow Jenny Woods:
About Jwoo Social: Jwoo Social is a social media agency that focuses on the entertainment and events space.
Daniel Titterton
Co-Founder, CEO of Intelligent Positioning
Follow Daniel Titterton:
About Intelligent Positioning: Intelligent Positioning is the leading provider of global real-time SEO technology, empowering brands, corporations, marketers, big, small.
Alyssa Crankshaw
Co-Founder at Ascendant of Ascendant
Follow Alyssa Crankshaw:
About Ascendant, OMN London, The Tetrad Consultancy: Ascendant is a specialist consultancy that helps businesses optimize for scale from venture development to turning ideas into successes.
Tom Craig
Founder of Impression Digital
Follow Tom Craig:
About Impression Digital: Impression Digital is a strategic-thinking team of digital marketing experts with a creative edge.
Justin Young
Founder of We Influence
Follow Justin Young:
About We Influence, Webtise: We Influence is a digital marketing agency specializing in search marketing and conversion rate optimization.
Graham Withe
Founder and Managing Director of We Influence
Follow Graham Withe:
About We Influence, Webtise: We Influence is a digital marketing agency specializing in search marketing and conversion rate optimization.
Rishi Kapoor
Founder and CEO of Webosaurus
Rishi Kapoor is the founder and CEO of Webosaurus. He is the previous Head of Performance Marketing for Monster UK/IE. He has over 15 years of experience in performance based online advertising and recently has taken up a new role where he is focussed on aligning the recruitment sector to the mainstream consumer advertising sector by making recruiting ROI more transparent & accessible. He has also been actively involved with the Internet Advertising Bureau(IAB) helping formulate the best practices for the online lead generation & performance marketing sector. His B2C specialisation is helping him transform talent acquisition strategy for leading gig economy and forward thinking brands. Close
Follow Rishi Kapoor:
About Monster, Webosaurus: Webosaurus is a full service performance marketing agency that transform lead acquisition.
John Keefe
Co Founder & Director of Draw and Code
Follow John Keefe:
About Draw and Code, SwapBots: Draw and Code is a software company that is engaged in a variety of technology based projects.
Beau Buckley
CEO & Founder of Revolucion One Digital
Beau Buckley launched Revolucion One early 2016 and is fast becoming one of Australia’s leading digital marketing agencies. With over 10 years experience in digital marketing, Beau’s expertise in SEO, PPC & Web Design has not only helped him build a six-figure business from home, but his strategies have generated his clients more than $3 million dollars in the last two years. He is also the Founder of SEO Services London, strategic marketing partner at Jack Frost Mobile Car Air Conditioning, and marketing partner at MNU Digital. Never shy of a challenge, what separates Beau from other experts, is taking struggling startups and turning them into six and seven figure businesses. Beau has the unique ability to look at a business, know the exact areas which need improvement and put together an actionable game plan the business can implement to generate results…fast. With his wealth of knowledge, years of experience and proven results, Beau has established himself as a true industry expert and a respected figure in the digital marketing space.
Follow Beau Buckley:
About Revolucion One Digital, SEO Services London, Streemie: Perth Digital Marketing Agency helping businesses generate more leads & sales with SEO, PPC & Web Design Solutions
Sertan Djelal
Founder of Five Geckos
Follow Sertan Djelal:
About Five Geckos: the Web Visibility & SEO experts
Sarah Owen
Founder and CEO of Pumpkin PR
Sarah Owen is the Founder and CEO at Pumpkin PR.
Follow Sarah Owen:
About Pumpkin PR: Pumpkin PR is an independent PR agency specializing in public relations management for creative, tech, and media industries.
Sarah Owen
Founder and CEO of Pumpkin PR
Sarah Owen is the Founder and CEO at Pumpkin PR.
Follow Sarah Owen:
About Pumpkin PR: Pumpkin PR is an independent PR agency specializing in public relations management for creative, tech, and media industries.
Jacki Vause
Founder and CEO of dimoso
Follow Jacki Vause:
About dimoso: It’s all changing. In the new world of apps, tablets and social media, the old media world has been turned on its head.
Jayson Webb
Sales Director / Founder of Telsa Media
Internet marketing Guru, app development, website development. Pay Per Click Expert
Follow Jayson Webb:
About Telsa Media: Digital Marketing, Web Design, SEO, PPC and Lead Generation Services Provider Company
