Joe Zeplin — "The Corporate Guy Turned YouTuber" — on leaving a 104-plant corporate career to go full-time on YouTube, and the AI playbook behind the jump.

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Justin Oberman — fourth-generation salesman, former big-agency copywriter, COVID layoff survivor who built a 7-figure agency through LinkedIn, and self-described publicist. His thesis: all advertising is showmanship, and the person who puts on the best show wins. By that frame, the best SEO strategy for AI search is the same as the best publicity strategy — do things that get talked about.

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Brittany Trafis, founder of Saurian Digital — an AI-native agency she built from scratch around AI search rather than retrofitting AI onto existing SEO workflows. The conversation covers why AI search and SEO are fundamentally different channels, why monitoring data is directional not definitive, and why small businesses are genuinely ahead of large competitors in AI visibility right now.

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Chris Garrett — a digital marketing veteran who connected a 2,000-student college to the internet in 1994. The conversation draws on 30 years of watching what changes and what doesn't: why pure SEO is a fiction, why Bing now feeds multiple major LLMs and can't be ignored, what the Helpful Content Update actually did, and why human creativity still beats AI on one specific quality.

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Julia Bocchese of Julia Renee Consulting — an SEO and Pinterest strategist who teaches college SEO without textbooks because anything printed a year ago is already out of date. The conversation covers why Pinterest is a search engine not a social platform, why pins from 2009 still drive traffic, and the single mistake Julia sees more than any other: writing copy for the bots instead of the humans who will actually pay you.

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Ernesto Ortiz of Structural SEO — a test-driven practitioner who runs month-to-month contracts because he has to perform or lose the client. The conversation covers algorithm updates as dial adjustments, why traffic is a proxy not a goal, and why the scariest thing in SEO right now is LinkedIn gurus selling AI systems to people who ranked their first site three weeks ago.

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Stephan Bajayo, co-founder of Vibe Logic and one of the people who helped build the enterprise SEO industry. The conversation is a wide-ranging diagnosis of why SEOs have failed to define themselves, why "rank in an LLM" is the wrong question entirely, and why the interview is still the most underused research tool in the business.

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Tom Malesic, founder of EZMarketing, for a practical playbook on small business SEO — from town page strategy and client voice extraction, to why H2s should be questions and how every marketing channel you add compounds the value of the ones you already have.

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Robert Spinrad, Associate SEO Director at SEO Interactive, to talk about the shift from learning about AI to earning AI trust — and why the agencies that stay transparent, report on revenue, and build real-world signals will come out ahead.

Greg Digneo of Content Guppy joins Jeremy Rivera on the Unscripted SEO Podcast to talk brand visibility, the Gmail personalization signal, links vs. mentions in LLMs, and the budget flip that's changing how SEO agencies operate.

Kate Hendrickson of The Strategy Lane joins Jeremy Rivera on the Unscripted Small Business Podcast to cover strategic planning, AI authenticity, values-first marketing, and why people are your biggest investment.

Show notes for the Unscripted Small Business Podcast episode with Nick Eubanks, Global CMO at Digistore24. Covers SEO's five deaths, the HCU, AI content workflows, affiliate marketing in the LLM era, and the moats that still matter.

Cauveé the Inspiration Engineer joins Keith Breseé on the Unscripted SEO Podcast to break down what's actually working in content marketing — from Substack and Beehive to the law of reciprocity, category kingship, and how to reverse-engineer a content strategy from your five-year goal.

Christina Spaulding of Manzanita Marketing discusses international SEO strategies, multilingual content, hreflang tags, and how to tap into Spanish-speaking markets in the US. Key insight: people prefer by 85% to purchase in their first language.

Paul Baterina has been the solo SEO at REVOLVE for 13 years — managing SEO across 260,000 products with no blog, no link building team, and a live A/B test currently showing a 25% organic lift on long-tail category pages. Here's what he shared on Unscripted SEO.

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Why Your Customer Is the Hero (And You're Not) — with Bruce Ashford Message clarity, structural clarity, and the StoryBrand-inspired framework that helps CEOs stop making themselves the hero of...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast What AI Visibility Really Means — And Why It's Not a Buzzword Jason Wade's framework for AI visibility and entity engineering — why it's the same game we've always been playing, finally named...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast The Science and Strategy of Link Building with Alejandro Meyerhans From Spanish waiter to seven-figure link building agency — the mathematical foundations, trust signals, and strategic...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast GROAS Autonomous Google Ads: What Full AI Management Actually Looks Like David Pourquery on building an AI that manages Google Ads campaigns end-to-end — and what that means for agencies,...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Brandon Leibowitz on Schema, AI Overviews, and Playing the Long Game in SEO 18 years of SEO experience distilled: why schema markup is the highest-leverage tactic for AI visibility, and why the...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Hot, Warm, Cold: Greg Merrilees' Intent Framework That Turns Website Visitors Into Actual Leads Founder of Studio1 Design on why pretty websites lose conversions — and the cold/warm/hot traffic...

Charlie Birch, Founder of Humaniz Collective, joins Jeremy Rivera to break down why the disconnect between brand identity and search strategy is costing businesses real revenue — and what the Brand IdQ framework does about it.

Timothy Malmros spent nearly two decades in gambling affiliate SEO before retiring to do one thing: investigate and document how black hat SEO actually works. In this episode, we get into drop domains, the canonical trick, Trust Rank theory, and what Google's anti-spam collapse means for the future of search.

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Benas Leonavicius on Freelancing, AI Search, and Building an SEO Agency Why SaaS clients can't scale, how to actually appear in ChatGPT, and the entity-centric shift that's changing what digital...

Jeremy Yang manages $450K/month in ad spend from Sydney, Australia. In this episode, he and Jeremy Rivera dig into the SEO-SEM divide, why exact match is dead, how platform selection depends on your content fuel supply, and what AI search means for the future of paid advertising.

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast The Golden Rule Applies to Businesses Too: Kyle Merrick Ethical business frameworks, customer-first thinking, and why doing right by people is the most durable growth strategy. ▶ Listen to the...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Local SEO Strategies for Home Service Contractors: From Word of Mouth to Online Leads Wyatt Bonicelli on what's actually working for window cleaners, pressure washers, and home service...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Dave Gulas of EZDC 3PL: 20+ Years of Sales Lessons from a Customer-First Logistics Company What two decades of sales experience teaches you about trust, relationships, and building a business...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Brand Building and SEO Strategy: Key Insights from Charlie Sells 15 years of brand messaging, four years at Ramsey Solutions, and what that experience teaches about positioning, clarity, and...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Lorrie Thomas Ross on Marketing in the AI Era A veteran marketer on what changes, what doesn't, and the human-centered principles that survive every algorithm shift. ▶ Listen to the Episode...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Why Communication Skills Trump Technical Knowledge: Lessons from Josh Squires of Amsive 17 years in SEO, Associate Director at Amsive — what actually gets SEO careers unstuck, and why the best...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Navigating Multi-Channel Marketing in the Age of LLMs with Claude Zdanow and Chris Becker CEO and President of Onar on why the Google-only SEO era is over, how to track brand visibility in LLM...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Katie Wagner: SEO & Journalism Are the Answer to LLMs AND Google Too From CNN to KWSM Digital Marketing — why journalistic rigor is the most durable content strategy in the AI era. ▶ Listen...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Erica D'Arcangelo on Hybrid Teams, Human Content, and the Icarus Effect Navigating marketing in the age of AI overviews — why hybrid human-AI teams win, and the warning signs that you're flying...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast SEO Evolution: Chris Turnbull on Local SEO's Surprising Stability Founder of Catalyst Marketing on why local SEO has changed less than everyone predicted — and what's actually working in...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Entity Optimization and AI with Jason Barnard The Brand SERP Guy on the algorithmic trinity of modern search, controlling your digital footprint, and practical strategies for AI search...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Write for Humans, Rank for Algorithms: Daniel Alfon's LinkedIn SEO Strategy A LinkedIn expert since 2004 on entity SEO, B2B psychology, and why most people get LinkedIn optimization completely...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Anthony Prichard & Paritosh Pareek: Video SEO & WordPress Optimization The WP Sprints team on technical WordPress performance, video SEO strategy, and why the back end of your site...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Melissa Popp: Why Digital Marketers Need to Stop Reverse Engineering Google Founder of Rickety Roo on what's actually killing SEO results — and why obsessing over algorithm changes is the wrong...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Marisa Cali: Leveraging Events For Branding & Long-Term ROI CEO of Be Present Events on the intersection of event marketing, personal branding, and digital strategies that build authority in...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Flynn Zaiger on SEO Agency's Current Critical Evolution 13 years of agency experience — what's actually breaking in the traditional agency model, and what the next phase of SEO service delivery...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast SEO Calculators and Digital Assets with Steven Schneider Co-founder of TrioSEO on the strategic use of calculators, tools, and digital assets for driving qualified leads — not just traffic...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Local SEO for Health & Wellness: Expert Insights from Darcy Sullivan Founder of Propel Marketing on over a decade of specialized local SEO for health and wellness professionals — what works,...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast SEO for Fun & Profit with Scott Hendison Veteran SEO and founder of Search Commander on the current state of technical SEO, practical client advice, and what 20+ years in the industry...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Grinding Out Success: How Tyler Mumford Left Corporate Sales to Build a Thriving Stump Grinding Business From corporate software sales to running a successful stump grinding business in Utah —...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Téa Phillips: How Entrepreneurs Transform Personal Projects into Thriving Businesses The journey from passion project to sustainable business — what authentic entrepreneurship really looks like...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Grant Simmons: The Incredible Switch — From Corporate to Freedom 35+ years of marketing experience, freelance SEO consulting, and what the leap from corporate to independent work actually...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Simon Schnieders: Hidden Truths About Running a Large SEO Agency Founder of Blue Array on what nobody tells you about scaling an SEO agency — and the management decisions that make or break...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Meet Lidia Infante: The Unstoppable Force Changing the Face of SEO Senior SEO Manager at Sanity.io — using psychology, data, and technical precision to push what's possible at the enterprise...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Sam Partland: Living the Dream — Programmatic SEO Nomad Life Travelling the world while working freelance on enterprise and programmatic SEO — what the nomad lifestyle actually teaches you about...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Brand SERP Bombshells: Jason Barnard's Exclusive Tips and Tricks The Brand SERP Guy on Knowledge Panel management, brand search optimization, and why controlling what Google says about you is...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast From SEO Pioneer to Audience Research Champ: Rand Fishkin's Epic Journey Founder of Moz and SparkToro on what the SEO industry gets wrong about audience research — and why understanding where...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Barry Schwartz: The SEO News Editor with 40,000 Stories to Tell CEO of RustyBrick and founder of Search Engine Roundtable — 20+ years covering every major Google update from the front row of the...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Joy Hawkins: Groundbreaking Local SEO Insights from Sterling Sky Founder of Sterling Sky on the most important and most misunderstood signals in local search — and what rigorous testing actually...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Behind the 9-Figure Empire: Neil Patel's Secret to SEO Success One of the most recognized names in digital marketing on scaling content, building multi-million-person audiences, and why the...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast How Kate Toon is Shaping the Digital Landscape: Creative Copywriting Meets SEO Award-winning business mentor, author, and founder of Recipe for SEO Success on why good SEO writing is still the...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Bootstrapping a Technical SEO Tool with Julia & Serge from JetOctopus CEO and CTO of JetOctopus on what it takes to build and grow a technical SEO crawler as a bootstrapped company competing...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Behind the Scenes with Dixon Jones: The Unseen World of Entity SEO CEO of InLinks and author of 'Entity SEO' on what entity optimization actually means — and why it's the most misunderstood...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Josh Peacock's Unfiltered Take on SEO Recruitment CEO & Co-Founder of SEO For Hire on what the SEO job market really looks like from the inside — and what agencies and candidates both get...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Nick LeRoy: The Reality of Living the SEO Freelancing Life Freelance SEO consultant, podcaster, and newsletter author on what SEO freelancing actually looks like past the honeymoon phase — and...

THE UNSCRIPTED SEO INTERVIEW PODCAST:The Captivating Fortune 500 Growth Advisor Story of Kevin Indig Kevin Indig, Growth Advisor & Author of 'Growth Memo' Newsletter Kevin Indig is a seasoned Growth Advisor with a...

THE UNSCRIPTED SEO INTERVIEW PODCAST:Growing Small Local Businesses Beyond the SEO Norm with Apurva Bose Apurva Bose, Vice President of Operations & Strategy at Overtake Digital Apurva Bose, affectionately known as...

THE UNSCRIPTED SEO INTERVIEW PODCAST:Joe Fisher on Boosting Sales with Ecommerce SEO Grandchild Pages Joe Fisher, eCommerce SEO Consultant at Fisher SEO Joe Fisher is an eCommerce SEO Consultant at Fisher SEO, with...

THE UNSCRIPTED SEO INTERVIEW PODCAST:Stories of a Fractional Enterprise SEO with Ash Nallawalla Ash Nallawalla, Fractional Enterprise SEO & Author of Accidental SEO Manager Ash Nallawalla is a seasoned Fractional...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Julian Goldie on Building Authority via YouTube & Converting Content YouTuber and SEO agency owner on why video is the most underutilized distribution channel for SEO-focused content...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Transforming Your SEO and Digital PR Strategy with James Brockbank Managing Director of Digitaloft on how digital PR and link earning have evolved — and why the gap between SEO strategy and PR...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast An Insider View of Profit-Led Money Hat SEO with Jamie I.F. SEO affiliate and SaaS marketer on grey-hat tactics, monetization models, and what the profit-led approach to organic search actually...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast User Satisfaction and Content Measurement with Jen Boland Founder of Satisfyly on how to actually measure whether your content is satisfying users — and why the metrics most teams track are...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Mark A Preston: Transitioning From Full-Time SEO to Semi-Retirement The founding host passes the mic to Jeremy Rivera — and shares the revenue-sharing model, board-seat strategy, and mindset...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast The Brutal Reality of Generating 6-Figures as an SEO Freelancer with Ryan Darani Search Strategy Director at Rise at Seven on the sacrifices behind six-figure freelancing, why commercial...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Mastering the ROI Mindset to Boost SEO Agency Profits with Liam Quirk MD of Quirky Digital on building a 15-person agency from a bedroom during COVID, shifting clients to ROI-first thinking, and...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Taking the US Legal SEO Marketing Sector by Storm with Doug Bradley Founder of Everest Legal Marketing on why legal SEO is the most demanding vertical in digital marketing — and why...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Navigating the Complexities of Modern SEO with Gerry White VP of Growth at Mirador Local on enterprise SEO, newsjacking, local trust signals, and why understanding your customer's full journey...

THE UNSCRIPTED SEO INTERVIEW PODCAST:Adapting to Industry Changes with Agency Director Gareth Hoyle Gareth Hoyle, Managing Director of Marketing Signals Gareth Hoyle is the Managing Director of Marketing Signals, a...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast International SEO & Building Brand Authority with Erika Varangouli Head of SEO Brand at Semrush on how international SEO strategy intersects with brand-led organic growth — and what most...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Technical SEO That Actually Matters with Kev Wiles Enterprise SEO consultant on which technical fixes actually move rankings, how to prioritize an audit backlog, and what separates meaningful...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Winning at Local SEO with Cory Beevers The SEO Director on what actually moves the needle in local search, the signals most businesses ignore, and how to build a local presence that compounds...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Measuring Content Marketing Results with Brie E Anderson Founder of Beast Analytics on the metrics that actually matter for content, what most teams measure wrong, and how to connect organic...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Misunderstood SEO: Tom Marriott, The SEO Punk, Reveals All Digital Marketing Director at Ina4 on cutting through surface-level SEO advice, why authentic short-form content beats polished...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Grey Hat SEO, Parasite Pages & What Google Won't Tell You with Charles Floate The affiliate SEO and link builder on the tactics the industry whispers about, the tests that revealed how...

THE UNSCRIPTED SEO INTERVIEW PODCAST:The Focused Audience-First SEO Growth Mindset with Harry Evans Harry Evans, Co-founder of TwelveTwentyFive Introducing Harry Evans, the dynamic co-founder of TwelveTwentyFive, an...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast SEO Strategy, Agency Life & the Future of Search with Ryan Jones Razorfish SEO Director on how large agency SEO actually works, what enterprise clients really need, and his unfiltered take...

THE UNSCRIPTED SEO INTERVIEW PODCAST:The Non-wanky Approach to Small Business SEO with Nikki Pilkington Nikki Pilkington, SEO & Content Consultant Meet Nikki Pilkington, a distinguished SEO consultant and content...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Building a Link Building Empire with Joe Davies of FATJOE Founder of one of the UK's largest white-label SEO and content agencies on what link building looks like at scale, what most SEOs get...

THE UNSCRIPTED SEO INTERVIEW PODCAST:The Challenges and Highlights of SEO Agency Growth with Kevin Gibbons Kevin Gibbons, Founder & CEO of Re:Signal From humble beginnings as a university student juggling a placement...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast AI, Automation & the Future of SEO Work with Danny Richman The digital strategist and educator on how AI is reshaping the practical day-to-day of SEO — and which human skills will compound...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Building Profitable Affiliate Sites & What Actually Works in SEO with Edd Dawson The affiliate site builder on the practical, results-first approach to SEO that most conference talks skip —...

🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast Scaling Enterprise SEO with Martin MacDonald Former Head of SEO at Paddy Power on what enterprise SEO really looks like at scale, the systems that make large programs work, and how to actually...