As founder and President of Rank Smart, Ben Pfeiffer is widely recognized as an SEO pioneer and veteran industry leader with more than 23 years of experience elevating client search visibility and growth. He has consulted for large corporations, guided mid-sized businesses and dynamic start-ups to the next level, and built his own entrepreneurial ventures to profitable success. He has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and others.
Ben was an early SEO pioneer, alongside many well-known founding names of the industry including Barry Schwartz from SERoundtable, Lee Odden, Chris Boggs, Rand Fishkin, Bruce Clay, and others. He helped start the liveblogging movement, chronicling the latest developments emerging from SEO conferences to a large audience. He also served as Senior Editor of Search Engine Roundtable for many years.
Ben frequently serves as an SEO consultant for large Fortune 500 companies and venture-funded tech start-ups, embedding himself in large teams to help them build a solid, sustainable SEO infrastructure from the ground up. However, he often finds his most rewarding client projects involve helping local and family-owned businesses in elevating their online presence.
It’s Ben’s entrepreneurial spirit that sets him apart. Throughout his career, he has honed his SEO skills by using them to build his own businesses. By walking in his clients’ shoes and building his own revenue streams, Ben stays constantly aware of the shifting landscape of search and the challenges his clients face.
In college, Ben founded his first online company—which was so successful it became an acquisition target. It was ranked by Quantcast Top 5000 websites on the Internet, and he sold it at age 25 to a large publicly-traded firm. Since then, Ben has shepherded many of his own e-commerce businesses to financial success, in fields including online education, healthcare training and certification, real estate, law and more.
His online companies frequently break new ground. His online education property pioneered high-quality, flexible video learning techniques soon adopted throughout the industry, and his online nonprofit brought national attention and media spotlight to a little-known conservation issue.
Ben’s multidisciplinary expertise is unique in his field. He combines pragmatic entrepreneurial experience, an eye for customer-focused design, and advanced technical savvy to provide his clients with expert guidance that encompasses all aspects of SEO.
“I have a 99% success rate in working with clients,” Ben says. “Whether that means fixing major technical SEO issues, responding rapidly to game-changing Google Algorithm updates, identifying UI / UX design issues that are holding clients back, or training teams of all sizes to maintain organic growth, I am always able to help them improve their businesses.”