From the Host: Jeremy Rivera on SEO Agency Life & Freelancing
I’ve worked inside agencies, alongside agencies, and as an independent practitioner — and the gap between how agency and freelance life gets described online versus what it actually requires is enormous. The guests I’ve brought on for this topic have collectively built agencies from bedrooms, sold them, gone independent, hired and fired, won and lost major clients, and made every mistake worth learning from. Their honesty about what actually happens — not the LinkedIn version — is what makes this the most frequently recommended section of the podcast by people who are considering the agency or freelance path.
“We’re humble experts. We know what we know, but we also know what we don’t know, and that’s OK. We’ll keep learning.”
— Robert Spinrad, Agency Owner
The Honest Account of Building an SEO Career
Agency SEO and freelance SEO are two very different career paths with very different success criteria. Running an agency requires organizational thinking, client management, talent development, and financial discipline that has nothing to do with SEO knowledge. Freelancing requires sales, positioning, scope management, and personal resilience in ways that agency life doesn’t prepare you for. The guests on this page have done both — and they’re refreshingly direct about what each path actually demands.
Episodes on SEO Agency Life & Freelancing
Simon Schnieders: Hidden Truths About Running a Large SEO Agency
Simon Schnieders — Founder, Blue Array
Simon built Blue Array into one of the UK’s most respected SEO agencies, and this conversation is one of the most honest accounts of what nobody tells you about scaling an agency past 50 people. The management decisions, the talent challenges, the client relationship dynamics — and the specific points where growing agencies tend to break — are covered with a candor you won’t find in case studies.
Nick LeRoy: The Reality of Living the SEO Freelancing Life
Nick LeRoy — Freelance SEO Consultant, Podcaster & Newsletter Author
Nick is one of the most honest voices in SEO about what freelancing actually looks like past the honeymoon phase — past the first exciting independent clients and into the work of sustaining a practice, managing scope creep, building recurring revenue, and staying sane. His newsletter and podcast have become reference points for anyone serious about building an SEO freelance career.
The Brutal Reality of Generating 6-Figures as an SEO Freelancer with Ryan Darani
Ryan Darani — Search Strategy Director, Rise at Seven
Ryan built a thriving six-figure freelance SEO practice — and then walked away from it. His account of the sacrifices behind the numbers, why commercial thinking beats technical knowledge at the business level, and the specific reasons he chose to return to an agency environment is one of the most valuable decision-making frameworks in the library for anyone choosing between freelance and agency life.
Flynn Zaiger on SEO Agency’s Current Critical Evolution
Flynn Zaiger — Agency Owner | 13 years of agency experience
Flynn’s analysis of what’s actually breaking in the traditional agency model right now — and what the next phase of SEO service delivery looks like — is one of the most forward-looking agency perspectives in the library. His specific diagnosis of where agency revenue models are under pressure from AI, commoditization, and client sophistication is directly relevant to every agency owner making positioning decisions right now.
Grant Simmons: The Incredible Switch — From Corporate to Freedom
Grant Simmons — Freelance SEO Consultant | 35+ years of marketing experience
Grant’s leap from corporate to independent consulting after 35+ years in marketing is one of the most thoughtful and emotionally honest accounts of career transition in the library. His perspective on what the corporate-to-freelance switch actually teaches you about building something sustainable — and what he wishes he’d known going in — is essential for anyone considering the same move later in their career.
Josh Peacock’s Unfiltered Take on SEO Recruitment
Josh Peacock — CEO & Co-Founder, SEO For Hire
Josh runs the most specialized SEO recruitment firm I’m aware of, and his view of the SEO job market from the inside — what agencies consistently get wrong in how they hire, what candidates get wrong in how they position themselves, and what the real skill gaps in the industry look like — is a window into the talent side of agency life that practitioners rarely see.
Adapting to Industry Changes with Agency Director Gareth Hoyle
Gareth Hoyle — Managing Director, Marketing Signals | 15+ years in digital marketing
Gareth’s more than 15 years at the helm of Marketing Signals have given him a front-row seat to every major industry disruption — and a well-developed philosophy for how agencies need to adapt rather than resist. His frameworks for staying relevant as the industry evolves and the specific changes he’s made to his agency model in response to AI and algorithm shifts are directly applicable to any agency owner thinking about the next three years.
The Challenges and Highlights of SEO Agency Growth with Kevin Gibbons
Kevin Gibbons — Founder & CEO, Re:Signal
Kevin’s journey from university student to agency CEO charts one of the most complete arcs of SEO agency building in the library. His specific account of the challenges and inflection points in agency growth — the hires that changed everything, the client relationships that defined his approach, and the strategic decisions he’d make differently — is a masterclass in intentional agency building.
Mastering the ROI Mindset to Boost SEO Agency Profits with Liam Quirk
Liam Quirk — MD, Quirky Digital | Built a 15-person agency from a bedroom during COVID
Liam built Quirky Digital from a bedroom during the COVID lockdowns to a 15-person agency — and his ROI-first client framework is what drove that growth. His approach to shifting clients from “keyword rankings” thinking to “revenue outcomes” thinking, and the specific frameworks he uses to run that conversation, are the most practical client education tools for agency owners in the library.
Mark A Preston: Transitioning From Full-Time SEO to Semi-Retirement
Mark A Preston — Founding Host, Unscripted SEO Podcast
The founding host passes the mic to Jeremy Rivera and shares the revenue-sharing model, board-seat strategy, and mindset shift that made early retirement possible. Mark’s path from full-time SEO practitioner to semi-retirement through strategic positioning and income diversification is one of the most instructive case studies in sustainable SEO career design.
The People First Framework with Keith Bresee
Keith Bresee — Co-Host, Unscripted SEO Podcast | Former Dr. Axe SEO lead
Keith was “bitten by a radioactive SEO” — his origin story — and built his People First philosophy through years of content-driven SEO at one of the highest-traffic health sites on the internet. His frameworks for building trust at scale, the lessons from Dr. Axe that transfer to any content-driven SEO practice, and his philosophy for prioritizing the human on the other side of the search query are foundational to how the Unscripted SEO Podcast approaches the craft.
Merging Business ROI into SEO with Jeremy Rivera
Jeremy Rivera — Host, Unscripted SEO Podcast
The host turns guest: how Jeremy built his SEO career, the framework that connects organic search to business outcomes, and what 19 years in the industry actually teaches you. This is the episode where Jeremy’s perspective — shaped by nearly two decades of client work, agency life, and independent consulting — is documented most completely.
SEO Strategy, Agency Life & the Future of Search with Ryan Jones
Ryan Jones — SEO Director, Razorfish
Ryan’s view of SEO from inside a major agency network — where large enterprise clients, organizational complexity, and real budget stakes define the work — is one of the most honest accounts of what agency SEO looks like at the highest level. His unfiltered take on where the industry is heading and what enterprise clients actually need is a rare view inside the room where major SEO decisions get made.
Meet Lidia Infante: The Unstoppable Force Changing the Face of SEO
Lidia Infante — Senior SEO Manager, Sanity.io
Lidia uses psychology, data, and technical precision to push what’s possible at the enterprise level of SEO — and her perspective on what it takes to build an SEO career that stands out in an increasingly crowded field is one of the most energizing conversations in the library. Her voice on the future of the discipline, and the kind of practitioner it requires, is exactly what the industry needs more of.
Jeremy’s Key Takeaways: SEO Agency Life & Freelancing
- Communication skills matter more than technical skills for career growth. The SEOs who advance fastest are almost universally the ones who can explain what they do to a business owner or executive in plain language. Technical knowledge gets you in the room; communication keeps you there.
- Agency scale creates organizational problems that SEO can’t solve. Past a certain size, the challenges in an agency are talent management, process design, and client relationship systems — not SEO expertise. Recognizing when the job changes is essential.
- Freelancing requires positioning, not just skills. Being good at SEO doesn’t mean clients will find you or pay you appropriately. Positioning — the specific niche you own, the specific client problem you solve — determines your rate ceiling more than your skill level does.
- ROI conversations precede retainer renewals. The agencies that lose clients almost always lose them at the ROI conversation, not the ranking conversation. Train clients from day one to think in business outcomes, not keyword positions.
- The industry is evolving faster than agency models. The agencies that survive the next five years will be the ones that rebuild their service models around the changed landscape — not the ones that defend the services they built for the landscape of 2015.
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