# UnscriptedSEO.com


## Posts

- [Crystal Carter](https://unscriptedseo.com/crystal-carter/): Head of SEO Communications at Wix on bringing rigor and evidence to how SEO is taught and practiced — and why the industry desperately needs more signal and less noise.
- [Kristina Azarenko](https://unscriptedseo.com/kristina-azarenko/): The Technical SEO Specialist on the insider strategies that separate maintainable technical SEO from the kind that creates new problems every time you fix the old ones.
- [Cyrus Shepard](https://unscriptedseo.com/cyrus-shepard/): Founder of Zyppy on what the quality rater guidelines actually reveal about how Google evaluates pages — and how to use that knowledge to build content that passes the human test.
- [Lily Ray](https://unscriptedseo.com/lily-ray/): One of the most influential analysts in modern SEO on core update patterns, E-E-A-T in practice, and what the industry still consistently gets wrong about how Google actually works.
- [Edd Dawson](https://unscriptedseo.com/edd-dawson/): The affiliate site builder on the practical, results-first approach to SEO that most conference talks skip — and what years of building and selling profitable sites actually teaches you.
- [Kevin Gibbons on the Real Challenges of Growing an SEO Agency](https://unscriptedseo.com/kevin-gibbons/): Re:Signal founder Kevin Gibbons on two decades of agency growth — restructuring, billable vs unbillable costs, going remote-only, and specialising in e-commerce.
- [Nikki Pilkington on No-Nonsense SEO for Small Businesses](https://unscriptedseo.com/nikki-pilkington/): Veteran SEO consultant Nikki Pilkington on demystifying search for small businesses, why she distrusts AI content, and managing realistic client expectations.
- [Harry Evans on Audience-First SEO and Growth Marketing](https://unscriptedseo.com/harry-evans/): TwelveTwentyFive co-founder Harry Evans on audience-first growth marketing, how SEO has moved beyond keywords, and the role of analytics, UX and new platforms.
- [Kate Hendrickson on Strategy, Accountability & the Over-Tooled Business](https://unscriptedseo.com/kate-hendrickson-on-strategy-accountability-the-over-tooled-business/): 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.
- [Nick Eubanks on SEO, Digistore24, and the Moats That Still Matter](https://unscriptedseo.com/show-notes-nick-eubanks-on-seo-digistore24-and-the-moats-that-still-matter/): 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.
- [Content Marketing Mastery with Cauveé: How to Build Your Personal Brand Empire](https://unscriptedseo.com/content-marketing-mastery-with-cauvee-how-to-build-your-personal-brand-empire/): 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.
- [International SEO: Unlocking Global Markets with Christina Spaulding](https://unscriptedseo.com/international-seo-unlocking-global-markets-with-christina-spaulding/): 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.
- [13 Years at REVOLVE: What Paul Baterina Learned About Long-Tail Pages, Link Building & LLM Visibility](https://unscriptedseo.com/13-years-at-revolve-what-paul-baterina-learned-about-long-tail-pages-link-building-llm-visibility/): 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.
- [Why Your Customer Is the Hero (and You're Not) — with Bruce Ashford](https://unscriptedseo.com/why-your-customer-is-the-hero-and-youre-not-with-bruce-ashford/): Message clarity, structural clarity, and the StoryBrand-inspired framework that helps CEOs stop making themselves the hero of their own marketing.
- [What AI Visibility Really Means — And Why It's Not a Buzzword](https://unscriptedseo.com/what-ai-visibility-really-means-and-why-its-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 correctly.
- [The Science and Strategy of Link Building with Alejandro Meyerhans](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 frameworks behind effective links.
- [GROAS Autonomous Google Ads: What Full AI Management Actually Looks Like](https://unscriptedseo.com/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, freelancers, and the future of paid search.
- [Brandon Leibowitz on Schema, AI Overviews, and Playing the Long Game in SEO](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 fundamentals still win.
- [Hot, Warm, Cold: Greg Merrilees Intent Framework That Turns Website Visitors Into Actual Leads](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 model that actually works.
- [Charlie Birch on Where Brand Strategy Meets SEO: What Every Founder Needs to Know](https://unscriptedseo.com/charlie-birch-on-where-brand-strategy-meets-seo-what-every-founder-needs-to-know/): 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 on Black Hat SEO, Drop Domains & the Canonical Trick](https://unscriptedseo.com/timothy-malmros-on-black-hat-seo-drop-domains-the-canonical-trick/): 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.
- [Benas Leonavicius on Freelancing, AI Search, and Building an SEO Agency](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 visibility means.
- [Jeremy Yang on Paid Ads Strategy and the SEO-SEM Divide](https://unscriptedseo.com/jeremy-yang-on-paid-ads-strategy-and-the-seo-sem-divide/): 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.
- [The Golden Rule Applies To Businesses Too: Kyle Merrick](https://unscriptedseo.com/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.
- [Local SEO Strategies for Home Service Contractors: From Word of Mouth to Online Leads](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 businesses making the leap from referrals to consistent online lead flow.
- [Dave Gulas of EZDC 3PL shares lessons from 20+ years in sales](https://unscriptedseo.com/dave-gulas-of-ezdc-3pl/): What two decades of sales experience teaches you about trust, relationships, and building a business where the customer always comes first.
- [Brand Building and SEO Strategy: Key Insights from Charlie Sells](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 connecting brand to organic growth.
- [Lorrie Thomas Ross on Marketing in the AI Era](https://unscriptedseo.com/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.
- [Why Communication Skills Trump Technical Knowledge: Lessons from Josh Squires of Amsive](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 technical SEOs are also the best communicators.
- [Navigating Multi-Channel Marketing in the Age of LLMs with Claude Zdanow and Chris Becker](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 responses, and what multi-channel strategy looks like in practice.
- [Katie Wagner: SEO & Journalism Are The Answer To LLMs AND Google Too](https://unscriptedseo.com/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.
- [Erica D'Arcangelo on Hybrid Teams, Human Content, and the Icarus Effect: Navigating Marketing in the Age of AI Overviews](https://unscriptedseo.com/erica-darcangelo-on-hybrid-teams-human-content-and-the-icarus-effect-navigating-marketing-in-the-age-of-ai-overviews/): Navigating marketing in the age of AI overviews — why hybrid human-AI teams win, and the warning signs that you're flying too close to the AI shortcut sun.
- [SEO Evolution - Chris Turnbull on Local SEO's Surprising Stability](https://unscriptedseo.com/chris-turnbull/): Founder of Catalyst Marketing on why local SEO has changed less than everyone predicted — and what's actually working in regional markets right now.
- [Entity Optimization and AI with Jason Barnard](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 visibility.
- [Write for Humans, Rank for Algorithms: Daniel Alfon's LinkedIn SEO Strategy](https://unscriptedseo.com/write-for-humans-rank-for-algorithms-daniel-alfons-linkedin-seo-strategy/): A LinkedIn expert since 2004 on entity SEO, B2B psychology, and why most people get LinkedIn optimization completely backwards.
- [Anthony Prichard & Paritosh Pareek: Video SEO & WordPress Optimization](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 matters more than most people realize.
- [Melissa Popp: Why Digital Marketers Need to Stop Reverse Engineering Google](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 game entirely.
- [SEO in the Age of AI: A Conversation with Jason Berkowitz](https://unscriptedseo.com/seo-in-the-age-of-ai-a-conversation-with-jason-berkowitz/): A veteran SEO on what the AI transition actually looks like from the agency trenches — and the skills that will matter most in the next five years.
- [Marisa Cali: Leveraging Events For Branding & Long-Term ROI](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 person and online.
- [Flynn Zaiger On SEO Agency's Current Critical Evolution](https://unscriptedseo.com/flynn-zaiger-on-seo-agencys-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 looks like.
- [Drewbie Wilson: Why 90% of Business Owners Can't Convert Their Leads](https://unscriptedseo.com/drewbie-wilson-why-90-of-business-owners-cant-convert-their-leads/): The Meme Lord and founder of Call the Damn Leads on the massive disconnect between traffic and revenue — and what most businesses get wrong at the conversion stage.
- [SEO Calculators and Digital Assets with Steven Schneider](https://unscriptedseo.com/seo-calculators-assets-steven-schneider/): Co-founder of TrioSEO on the strategic use of calculators, tools, and digital assets for driving qualified leads — not just traffic volume.
- [Local SEO for Health & Wellness: Expert Insights from Darcy Sullivan](https://unscriptedseo.com/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, what's changed, and what the AI era means for patient-facing practices.
- [Bridging SEO with Multi-Channel Marketing: My Conversation with Melissa Popp](https://unscriptedseo.com/bridging-seo-with-multi-channel-marketing-my-conversation-with-melissa-popp/): Content Strategy Director at Rickety Roo on local SEO, the intersection of multi-channel content, and why the future belongs to brands that show up everywhere their audience looks.
- [From Tactical Links to Strategic Authority — Daniel Horowitz on Enterprise SEO After the HCU](https://unscriptedseo.com/daniel-horowitz-tactical-links-to-strategic-authority/): Informatica's Daniel Horowitz on why enterprise SEO stopped needing tactical links, the HCU that erased a six-figure family business overnight, and losing traffic while conversion rate climbed.
- [SEO for Fun & Profit with Scott Hendison](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 actually teaches you.
- [Laura Lee: Enterprise SEO, Leveraging SME expertise & Cross-Functional Collaboration](https://unscriptedseo.com/laura-lee-enterprise-seo-leveraging-sme-expertise-cross-functional-collaboration/): From WebMD to major enterprise brands — 17+ years of insights on what actually moves the needle in complex SEO environments where content, technical, and stakeholder management all collide.
- [Episode Recap: Psychology Meets Marketing with Rai Hyde Cornell](https://unscriptedseo.com/episode-recap-psychology-meets-marketing-with-rai-hyde-cornell/): How psychology principles from the ELITE Method can revolutionize your content marketing strategy — and why understanding audience psychology is the real unlock for conversion.
- [From Quality of Content to Quality of Conversation — Grady Teske on B2B Marketing in an AI World](https://unscriptedseo.com/grady-teske-quality-of-conversation-b2b-marketing/): Rising Tides' Grady Teske on why personalization isn't the differentiator, why SEO's next metric is quality of conversation, and how he builds authority on the platforms his buyers already trust.
- [AI-Powered Lead Qualification: Insights from Our Interview with Bryan Shankman of Lead Truffle](https://unscriptedseo.com/ai-powered-lead-qualification-insights-from-our-interview-with-bryan-shankman-of-lead-truffle/): How AI is transforming lead capture and qualification for home service businesses — and what smart lead management actually looks like in practice.
- [Grinding Out Success: How Tyler Mumford Left Corporate Sales to Build a Thriving Stump Grinding Business](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 — what entrepreneurship looks like when you bet on yourself and go all in on a physical trade.
- [What PPC Can See That SEO Can't — Lisa Raehsler on AI Overviews, Remarketing and Competitor Bidding](https://unscriptedseo.com/lisa-raehsler-ppc-ai-overviews-remarketing/): Big Click Co. founder Lisa Raehsler on why Google reports nothing about AI Overviews to advertisers either, why pure keyword campaigns are losing air, and the real rules for bidding on a competitor's brand.
- [Dominate the Third You Control — Chris Rodriguez on Keyword Difficulty, Self-Made Links and the New First Slot](https://unscriptedseo.com/chris-rodriguez-dominate-what-you-control-seo/): iExcel's Chris Rodriguez on why keyword difficulty beats volume, why he starts link building with the 20% he controls, and why the first organic slot is now the seventh.
- [Knowledge Is Democratized, Experience Isn't — Michael “Buzz” Buzinski on Wisdom, E-E-A-T and Why Culture Drives Retention](https://unscriptedseo.com/michael-buzz-buzinski-wisdom-vs-knowledge-seo-ai/): Buzzworthy Marketing's Michael “Buzz” Buzinski on why AI is a six-year-old with no context, why novice questions get novice answers, and why your retention problem started in your marketing copy.
- [Your Narrative Is Your USP — Joshua Ramsey on Fractional CMO Work, the Knockdown List and the Trauma Egg](https://unscriptedseo.com/joshua-ramsey-narrative-usp-brand-fractional-cmo/): Fractional CMO Joshua Ramsey on why marketing is always the first budget cut, how the knockdown list beats blog volume in boring industries, and the drawing exercise he uses to find a real USP.
- [UX & SEO Merge: Siege Media's Jesse McDonald on Search Experience Optimization](https://unscriptedseo.com/ux-seo-merge-siege-medias-jesse-mcdonald-on-search-experience-optimization/): Senior SEO Director at Siege Media on the blurring lines between UX and SEO — and what "search experience optimization" actually means in practice.
- [Téa Phillips: How Entrepreneurs Transform Personal Projects into Thriving Businesses](https://unscriptedseo.com/tea-phillips-how-entrepreneurs-transform-personal-projects-into-thriving-businesses/): The journey from passion project to sustainable business — what authentic entrepreneurship really looks like when you build from something personal.
- [“How Do You Know Any of This Was You?” — Gus Pelogia on Proving SEO Impact at Indeed](https://unscriptedseo.com/gus-pelogia-proving-seo-impact-at-indeed/): Indeed's senior SEO product manager on the question that flattened him mid-presentation, why he now A/B tests everything, and why 'internal linking gives a 10% lift' beats any technical explanation in a C-suite room.
- [Building Relevent Links & Agencies with Bradley Benner](https://unscriptedseo.com/building-relevent-links-agencies-with-bradley-benner/): Founder of Semantic Links on rank-and-rent, white-label SEO agencies, and what building multiple businesses teaches you about scalable link acquisition.
- [The People First Framework With Keith Breseé](https://unscriptedseo.com/people-first-framework-keith-bresee/): How Keith was "bitten by a radioactive SEO," his People First philosophy, and what working with Dr. Axe taught him about building trust at scale.
- [Killer SEO Quotes on: Link Building](https://unscriptedseo.com/killer-seo-quotes-on-link-building/): The sharpest quotes from across the Unscripted SEO interview library on link building strategy, site authority, parasite SEO, and what actually moves rankings.
- [Mordy oberstein on brand](https://unscriptedseo.com/mordy-oberstein-on-brand/): Head of SEO Brand at Wix on why brand is now the most durable ranking factor — and how to build brand signals that actually move organic performance.
- [Mordy Oberstein](https://unscriptedseo.com/mordy-oberstein/): From teacher to SEO industry voice — his background, how he fell into SEO in 2014, and the unfiltered hot takes that made him one of the most followed practitioners in the field.
- [Grant Simmons](https://unscriptedseo.com/grant-simmons/): 35+ years of marketing experience, freelance SEO consulting, and what the leap from corporate to independent work actually teaches you about building something sustainable.
- [Simon Schnieders](https://unscriptedseo.com/simon-schnieders/): Founder of Blue Array on what nobody tells you about scaling an SEO agency — and the management decisions that make or break growth past 50 people.
- [Lidia Infante](https://unscriptedseo.com/lidia-infante/): Senior SEO Manager at Sanity.io — using psychology, data, and technical precision to push what's possible at the enterprise level of SEO.
- [Sam Partland](https://unscriptedseo.com/sam-partland/): Travelling the world while working freelance on enterprise and programmatic SEO — what the nomad lifestyle actually teaches you about the discipline and yourself.
- [Jason Barnard](https://unscriptedseo.com/jason-barnard/): The Brand SERP Guy on Knowledge Panel management, brand search optimization, and why controlling what Google says about you is the most important SEO task most businesses ignore.
- [Rand Fishkin](https://unscriptedseo.com/rand-fishkin/): Founder of Moz and SparkToro on what the SEO industry gets wrong about audience research — and why understanding where your audience actually spends time changes everything.
- [Barry Schwartz](https://unscriptedseo.com/barry-schwartz/): CEO of RustyBrick and founder of Search Engine Roundtable — 20+ years covering every major Google update from the front row of the industry.
- [Joy Hawkins](https://unscriptedseo.com/joy-hawkins/): Founder of Sterling Sky on the most important and most misunderstood signals in local search — and what rigorous testing actually reveals about how Google Local works.
- [Neil Patel](https://unscriptedseo.com/neil-patel/): One of the most recognized names in digital marketing on scaling content, building multi-million-person audiences, and why the fundamentals always win at scale.
- [Kate Toon](https://unscriptedseo.com/kate-toon/): Award-winning business mentor, author, and founder of Recipe for SEO Success on why good SEO writing is still the most durable competitive advantage in digital marketing.
- [Julia & Serge](https://unscriptedseo.com/julia-serge/): CEO and CTO of JetOctopus on what it takes to build and grow a technical SEO crawler as a bootstrapped company competing against well-funded incumbents.
- [Dixon Jones](https://unscriptedseo.com/dixon-jones/): CEO of InLinks and author of 'Entity SEO' on what entity optimization actually means — and why it's the most misunderstood concept in modern search.
- [Josh Peacock](https://unscriptedseo.com/josh-peacock/): 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 consistently wrong about hiring.
- [Nick LeRoy](https://unscriptedseo.com/nick-leroy/): Freelance SEO consultant, podcaster, and newsletter author on what SEO freelancing actually looks like past the honeymoon phase — and what it takes to build something sustainable.
- [Jen Boland](https://unscriptedseo.com/jen-boland/): Founder of Satisfyly on how to actually measure whether your content is satisfying users — and why the metrics most teams track are measuring the wrong thing entirely.
- [Jamie I.F.](https://unscriptedseo.com/jamie-i-f/): Home›Podcast Topics›Content Strategy & Marketing›Jamie I.F.
- [James Brockbank](https://unscriptedseo.com/james-brockbank/): Managing Director of Digitaloft on how digital PR and link earning have evolved — and why the gap between SEO strategy and PR is closing faster than most agencies realize.
- [Julian Goldie](https://unscriptedseo.com/julian-goldie/): YouTuber and SEO agency owner on why video is the most underutilized distribution channel for SEO-focused content creators — and how to turn YouTube authority into agency growth.
- [Ash Nallawalla on Enterprise SEO and the Accidental SEO Manager](https://unscriptedseo.com/ash-nallawalla/): Fractional enterprise SEO Ash Nallawalla on why big brands need different strategies, elevating SEO to the C-suite, and the Accidental SEO Manager.
- [Joe Fisher on Boosting Ecommerce Sales with Grandchild Pages](https://unscriptedseo.com/joe-fisher/): Ecommerce SEO consultant Joe Fisher on grandchild pages, Shopify canonicalisation, and turning targeted entry points into real Shopify revenue.
- [Apurva Bose on Growing Small Local Businesses Beyond the SEO Norm](https://unscriptedseo.com/apurva-bose/): Overtake Digital's Apurva Bose on local SEO beyond the norm: community link building, storytelling, and tying every tactic to real sales.
- [Kevin Indig on Becoming a Fortune 500 Growth Advisor & Breaking Traffic Plateaus](https://unscriptedseo.com/kevin-indig/): Kevin Indig — ex-Shopify, G2 and Atlassian growth leader — on advising Fortune 500 teams, breaking traffic plateaus, and making an SEO business case executives act on.
- [Gareth Hoyle on Running a Resilient SEO Agency Through Industry Change](https://unscriptedseo.com/gareth-hoyle/): Marketing Signals MD Gareth Hoyle on agency resilience, thinking like a business, and adapting SEO through Penguin, remote work and the rise of AI.
- [Gerry White](https://unscriptedseo.com/gerry-white/): VP of Growth at Mirador Local on enterprise SEO, newsjacking, local trust signals, and why understanding your customer's full journey matters more than any single tactic.
- [Doug Bradley](https://unscriptedseo.com/doug-bradley/): Founder of Everest Legal Marketing on why legal SEO is the most demanding vertical in digital marketing — and why specialization is the only viable path.
- [Liam Quirk](https://unscriptedseo.com/liam-quirk/): MD of Quirky Digital on building a 15-person agency from a bedroom during COVID, shifting clients to ROI-first thinking, and where SEO specialization is heading.
- [Ryan Darani on the Brutal Reality of Six-Figure SEO Freelancing](https://unscriptedseo.com/ryan-darani/): Rise at Seven's Ryan Darani on commercial SEO, the brutal reality of freelancing, and why making money on your own terms beats chasing a viral million. Hosted by Mark A Preston.
- [Mark A Preston on Trading SEO Hours for Equity and Semi-Retirement](https://unscriptedseo.com/mark-a-preston/): Founding host Mark A Preston joins new host Jeremy Rivera to explain the equity, board-seat and semi-retirement mindset behind stepping back from SEO.
- [Tom Marriott, The SEO Punk, on Cutting Through Surface-Level SEO](https://unscriptedseo.com/tom-marriott/): Tom Marriott, the SEO Punk and Ina4 Digital Marketing Director, on cutting through surface-level SEO, why human copy beats AI, and keeping it simple.
- [Brie E Anderson](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 traffic to real business outcomes.
- [Cory Beevers](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 over time.
- [Kev Wiles](https://unscriptedseo.com/kev-wiles/): Enterprise SEO consultant on which technical fixes actually move rankings, how to prioritize an audit backlog, and what separates meaningful technical work from agency busywork.
- [Erika Varangouli](https://unscriptedseo.com/erika-varangouli/): Head of SEO Brand at Semrush on how international SEO strategy intersects with brand-led organic growth — and what most global teams get backwards.
- [Martin MacDonald](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 get things implemented.
- [Danny Richman](https://unscriptedseo.com/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 in value as automation takes over the rest.
- [Joe Davies](https://unscriptedseo.com/joe-davies/): 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 wrong, and how the service business actually works.
- [Ryan Jones](https://unscriptedseo.com/ryan-jones/): Razorfish SEO Director on how large agency SEO actually works, what enterprise clients really need, and his unfiltered take on where the industry is heading.
- [Charles Floate](https://unscriptedseo.com/charles-floate/): The affiliate SEO and link builder on the tactics the industry whispers about, the tests that revealed how Google actually works, and where the real lines are.
- [Kasra Dash](https://unscriptedseo.com/kasra-dash/): The link building specialist on what separates links that move rankings from links that just look good in a report — and the authority-building frameworks that actually compound over time.
- [Mike Blumenthal](https://unscriptedseo.com/mike-blumenthal/): Co-founder of Near Media and one of the most respected local search researchers on the signals that actually determine who shows up in the local pack — and what's changed.
- [Nina Payne](https://unscriptedseo.com/nina-payne/): The content director on how to brief writers who produce something rankable, what separates content strategy from content production, and the briefs that consistently get ignored.
- [Kristine Schachinger](https://unscriptedseo.com/kristine-schachinger/): The forensic SEO consultant on the patterns she finds in penalty recoveries, what core updates are actually targeting, and why most audits miss the thing that actually matters.
- [Forecasting SEO Revenue Before You Rank: Jeremy Rivera](https://unscriptedseo.com/jeremy-rivera/): Jeremy Rivera on turning keyword research into a revenue forecast, the co-ranking overlap signal, negative SEO keywords, and the soft ROI the C-suite tracks.
- [James Dooley on Scaling a Nine-Figure SEO Lead Generation Empire](https://unscriptedseo.com/james-dooley/): James Dooley, the 'digital landlord' behind 1,300+ sites, on scaling a nine-figure SEO lead gen empire, rank and rent, disavows, EEAT and hard graft.
- [Cindy Krum](https://unscriptedseo.com/cindy-krum/): A true pioneer of mobile SEO on how mobile search has evolved from an afterthought to the primary surface — and what practitioners still get wrong about optimizing for it.
- [SEO Is Words - Bridget Willard on Why X Still Feeds Google and AI](https://unscriptedseo.com/bridget-willard-seo-is-words/): Bridget Willard found her tweets in Google's News tab. Hear why she treats an X handle as a URL, feeds LLMs in public and calls attribution kind of a lie.
- [Keith Perhac of SegMetrics: Attribution Is Not a Panopticon, and Chat Is the New SaaS Interface](https://unscriptedseo.com/keith-perhac-segmetrics-attribution-ai/): Keith Perhac of SegMetrics on first touch vs last touch attribution, chat as the new SaaS interface, and the ad setting three agencies missed for eight years.
- [Zeke Camusio on Why 36 Cents of Every Ad Dollar Is Wasted, and How Pixels Skew Attribution](https://unscriptedseo.com/zeke-camusio-ad-spend-pixels-attribution/): Data Speaks founder Zeke Camusio on why ad pixels miss 42% of conversions, double count 53% and over-credit retargeting, plus the three pillars of unified marketing measurement.
- [Dr. Christiane Schroeter on Finding Your Voice When AI Says Yes to Everything](https://unscriptedseo.com/christiane-schroeter-finding-your-voice/): Cal Poly professor and Happy Healthy Hustle host Dr. Christiane Schroeter on storytelling as marketing's through line, why AI makes a poor critic, picking one channel, and mining your own transcripts for your about page.
- [Maxwell Ivey on Accessibility: Headings, Keyboard Navigation and the Disability Tax](https://unscriptedseo.com/maxwell-ivey-accessibility-advantage/): The Blind Blogger Maxwell Ivey on why headings are the first accessibility fix, keyboard-first checkout, alt text that says why the image is there, and the disability tax.
- [Angelo Ponzi: Google Is Your Number One Customer, and Other Lessons From a Fractional CMO](https://unscriptedseo.com/angelo-ponzi-google-is-your-number-one-customer/): Fractional CMO Angelo Ponzi of Craft Marketing and Branding on the luxury watch CEO who called Google his number one customer, the med tech company nobody would buy, and why you dig into your own house first.
- [Vinod Kumar on Khaki vs Khakis, Agentic AI and the Probabilistic Marketplace](https://unscriptedseo.com/vinod-kumar-agentic-ai-ecommerce-merchandising/): Syntheum AI CEO Vinod Kumar on why one letter changes search intent, how agents take over on-site search work, and why nobody controls how ChatGPT presents a brand yet.
- [Lem Garcia: How a Personal Injury Firm Got Ahead on Reviews, Content and Local Links](https://unscriptedseo.com/lem-garcia-personal-injury-law-firm-marketing/): Personal injury attorney Lem Garcia went all in on client reviews in 2014, before other firms caught on. His take on content that stands out, a scholarship that earns college links, and AI.
- [Alan Lazaros on Delete, Delegate, Double Down and Why Success Doesn't Make Life Easier](https://unscriptedseo.com/alan-lazaros-delete-delegate-double-down/): Next Level University CEO Alan Lazaros on the 3D plan (delete, delegate, double down), cutting 24 departments to 8, and the four-column time log his 18-person team runs on.
- [Dmytro Perepelytsia: Swap Backlinks With Your Local Referral Partners](https://unscriptedseo.com/dmytro-perepelytsia-local-seo-backlinks-referral-partners/): Dmytro Perepelytsia turned a referral deal that never sent a customer into a backlink from a trusted Austin site. Here's his local link playbook for home services.
- [Josh Thompson: AI Agents Will Pick the Plumber, So Win the Search Underneath](https://unscriptedseo.com/josh-thompson-local-seo-ai-agents/): Josh Thompson of Brightbeam SEO put one word in a client's H1 and moved them to number one in a chat search within a week. Here's his local SEO plan for the AI agent era.
- [Andre Savoie: How to Be a Better Marketing Client, and Why AI Only Knows the Known](https://unscriptedseo.com/andre-savoie-better-marketing-client/): Andre Savoie ran an agency for 20 years. His advice: stop expecting a magic show, take inventory, and own the process you pay for.
- [Melanie Whittaker on Trust, Showing the Work and Letting Go of Viral](https://unscriptedseo.com/melanie-whittaker-you-are-your-marketing/): You Are Your Marketing founder Melanie Whittaker on earning trust online, filming the work in boring industries, picking two or three channels and dropping the word viral.
- [Lum Kamishi: GEO Is SEO Plus Digital PR, and Links Matter More Now](https://unscriptedseo.com/lum-kamishi-geo-seo-plus-digital-pr/): Lum Kamishi says GEO is what the web is saying about you. Hear why niche-relevant links matter more than five years ago and why he cut 60% of a client's blog.
- [Eva Mermingi: Core Web Vitals Won't Save You - Technical SEO Audit Priorities](https://unscriptedseo.com/eva-mermingi-technical-seo-audit-priorities/): Technical SEO Eva Mermingi on the order she audits in: duplication, links and indexation first, Core Web Vitals last, and why a healthy site always has some 404s.
- [Ann Carden on Premium Positioning: Are You Going Low When You Should Be Going High?](https://unscriptedseo.com/ann-carden-premium-positioning/): Business growth strategist Ann Carden on charging three to ten times more, why high-end clients are easier, and when SEO and Google Ads are the wrong play for relationship-driven buyers.
- [Erika Braeger on Machine Readability, Page Speed & Schema for LLMs](https://unscriptedseo.com/erika-braeger-machine-readability-page-speed/): Erika Braeger of Ten Speed returns: why machine readability comes first, the page speed and redirect debt she fixes most, and how EEAT and schema feed LLM visibility.
- [Mike Martin on the GBP Loop: Google Business Profiles Have No End Date](https://unscriptedseo.com/mike-martin-gbply-google-business-profile/): GBPly's Mike Martin on the GBP loop, verifying last, editable citations, independent practitioner profiles, Ask Maps and opening a second location.
- [Josh Shankowsky: AI Tools Are Consensus Engines](https://unscriptedseo.com/josh-shankowsky-consensus-engines/): Snap SEO's Josh Shankowsky on information gain, cultural onboarding, nonprofit sponsorship links, the Search Console I am filter and Google Discover.
- [Laura Iancu: AI Search Quick Wins Are a Wave About to Crash](https://unscriptedseo.com/laura-iancu-ai-search-quick-wins/): Searchpedia's Laura Iancu on AI search quick wins, synthetic visibility data, AI slop vs AI-generated content, and Google Discover.
- [Chris Panteli: Digital PR, Brand Signals and the Zero-Risk Link](https://unscriptedseo.com/chris-panteli-digital-pr-zero-risk-link/): Chris Panteli of Linkifi on why digital PR is a homepage game, why a BBC link is zero risk, and what ChatGPT actually cites.
- [Laurent Cohen: We Are Indexing Voice Agents, Not Pages](https://unscriptedseo.com/laurent-cohen-indexing-voice-agents-not-pages/): Laurent Cohen launched a 1.6 million page directory and got 300,000 pages indexed in about four months. His explanation: voice agents on every page, and the retention they create.
- [Laura Smith: Localize, Don't Translate, and Get Remembered](https://unscriptedseo.com/laura-smith-localize-not-translate/): Laura Smith of ICS-digital on localizing campaigns, hreflang and US media pitfalls, meme culture, and the Human-Machine Memory Gap.
- [Ross Hudgens on GEO: Versus Pages, CRO and the Co-Citation Vote](https://unscriptedseo.com/ross-hudgens-geo-siege-media/): Ross Hudgens of Siege Media on why versus pages, proof on the page and being best for something drive AI search visibility.
- ["80% of the work that comes across my desk": Bradley Benner on what agencies are still selling](https://unscriptedseo.com/bradley-benner-outdated-seo-services/): Bradley Benner does white-label fulfilment, so other agencies' SEO work reaches his desk first. Four out of five briefs, he says, are built on a model of search that stopped being accurate years ago.
- [Dave Valentine: It Has Never Been Easier to Start a Business, or Harder to Scale One](https://unscriptedseo.com/dave-valentine-easy-to-start-hard-to-scale/): Dave Valentine of Finch has sold nine of eleven companies. On the Unscripted SEO Interview he explains why SEO is a 401k, why goodwill beats a referral fee, why you should give A players the 20% raise before they ask, and the one-hour-a-week podcast play that earns backlinks and leads.
- [Cahill Camden: podcasts as the trust channel AI can't flood](https://unscriptedseo.com/cahill-camden-podcasts-trust-channel/): Cahill Camden sells AI and says the one channel it can't flood is a human talking to a human. Why the transcript is the content, what a med spa should record instead of a show, and the fastest way to grow a podcast. Listen now.
- [Cyrus Shepard: the disavow test that did nothing, brand signals and de-optimizing after HCU](https://unscriptedseo.com/cyrus-shepard-brand-signals-disavow/): Cyrus Shepard disavowed 3,219 domains and nothing moved. Then the 20% branded-anchor number from his winners-and-losers data, and why his best HCU recoveries came from removing internal links. Listen now.
- [Martin McGarry: an ex-black hat on the spam flooding Google, WordPress exploits and perspective in AI search](https://unscriptedseo.com/martin-mcgarry/): A reclusive UK SEO who went clean ten years ago explains Telegram link sellers, the HCU profile theory, and why your opinion is currency in AI search. Listen now.
- [Nick LeRoy on the SEO Job Market: If You Can Bullet-Point It, You're Replaceable](https://unscriptedseo.com/nick-leroy-on-the-seo-job-market-if-you-can-bullet-point-it-youre-replaceable/): Nick LeRoy describes the SEO hiring market in one word: ugly. On what AI actually removed, the 25% efficiency question, and why he refuses the who-do-I-cut meeting.
- [Links are getting rarer, which is exactly why they are about to matter more](https://unscriptedseo.com/links-getting-rarer-matter-more/): Three guests on the same show landed on the same uncomfortable conclusion: the industry quietly defunding link building is the best argument for doing it.
- [HouseFresh after Google: the two-minute AI visitor](https://unscriptedseo.com/gisele-navarro-housefresh-ai-traffic/): Gisele Navarro measured what AI referrals do on her site. Two minutes. Reddit and YouTube stay six to eight. Listen to the full Unscripted SEO episode.
- [SEO SaaS Panel: Patrick Stox, Ben Wills and Ben Senescu on Building Tools in the AI Era](https://unscriptedseo.com/seo-saas-panel-stox-wills-senescu/): Three SaaS founders at three different stages on what actually changed about building SEO software: the build constraint is gone, taste is the new bottleneck, and how to get recommended by an LLM before you are anywhere near the training data.
- ["I Don't Think The Industry Actually Thinks SEO Is Dying" - Laura Hoot on Discoverability and the New Order of Operations](https://unscriptedseo.com/laura-hoot-seo-not-dying-order-of-operations/): Laura Hoot has been doing SEO since 2007. Her hot take: the industry does not actually think SEO is dying, and she sees hiring rather than mass firings. Best practices have not changed, but the order of operations has.
- [Another Tuesday of Google Taking Control: Lisa Raehsler on AI Max](https://unscriptedseo.com/another-tuesday-of-google-taking-control-lisa-raehsler-on-ai-max/): Google's AI Max moves paid search from keywords to intent and starts choosing the landing page off your own site. Lisa Raehsler on what that does to advertisers, and why PPC now needs the SEO team.
- [One Word Changed the Answer: Ben Wills on Unscripted SEO](https://unscriptedseo.com/ben-wills-one-word-prompt-llm-testing/): Ben Wills ran one hotel-recommendation prompt over and over and changed a single word in it: the car he was flying to Los Angeles to pick up. Civic, BMW, Ferrari. The hotels moved with the car, across every ChatGPT model and every level of thinking. Twenty-six years between marketing and engineering, 13 of them writing crawlers in pure C, and he came back with the one thing SEO never had: a feedback loop you can actually test.
- [SEO Is the Batter to Your AI: Stephanie Long on Vetting Humans and Verifying Machines](https://unscriptedseo.com/stephanie-long-seo-is-the-batter-to-your-ai/): Stephanie Long of Mrs. SEO and Junction Jack on why the gig platforms' "vetted" section means vetted by AI, how to verify what the tools hand you, and the link building you can actually explain to a nervous client.
- [Gert Mellak: Your Search Console Impressions Are Bots](https://unscriptedseo.com/gert-mellak-search-console-impressions-bots/): Jeremy brought Gert Mellak a query showing 10 searches a month in the keyword tools and 1,100 impressions in Search Console for the same month. Gert's answer was bots, and he had already stopped reporting impressions to clients because of it. The rest of the episode takes apart search volume, SEO ROI math, and what to track instead.
- [Why Your Google Business Profile Now Matters More Than Your Website](https://unscriptedseo.com/isaac-justesen-google-business-profile-local-seo-clinics/): Isaac Justesen only markets healthcare clinics, and he says the mechanics of local SEO barely differ from ranking a plumber. What changes is the copy, the regulations, and the two boring things nobody finishes.
- [The $10 SEO Tool: Ben Senescu on How Open Source Broke the $99 Ceiling](https://unscriptedseo.com/ben-senescu-open-source-seo-99-ceiling/): Ben Senescu built OpenSEO because every SEO tool was bloated and priced past what a solopreneur would pay. The customers who actually pay are not professional SEOs, and the reason why says a lot about where SEO is going.
- [Ann Smarty on LLM Consensus, Reddit, and Losing Control of Your Own Brand Name](https://unscriptedseo.com/ann-smarty-llm-consensus-reddit-brand-control/): Ann Smarty has spent twenty years in SEO and her leads have stopped asking about Google rankings entirely. She explains LLM consensus, why Reddit runs on a six-month clock, and why SEO is still the most predictable path into AI answers.
- [Episode Recap: Malte Landwehr of Peec AI on Consensus, Query Fan-Outs and AI Content Guardrails](https://unscriptedseo.com/episode-recap-malte-landwehr-of-peec-ai-on-consensus-query-fan-outs-and-ai-content-guardrails/): Malte Landwehr of Peec AI joins Jeremy Rivera to cover PageRank's survival, why bots are not reasonable surfers, consensus in LLM answers, query fan-outs, and detecting AI slop.
- [Greg Digneo On Building An Audience You Actually Own](https://unscriptedseo.com/greg-digneo-on-building-an-audience-you-actually-own/): Greg Digneo of Content Guppy on tying SEO back to revenue fast, why most traffic is worthless, and spending the traffic you get on an audience you keep.
- [The Content Quality Ratio: When Pruning Beats Rewriting](https://unscriptedseo.com/the-content-quality-ratio-when-pruning-beats-rewriting/): A practitioner framework for deciding what share of a site is dragging the rest down, and whether each audited URL should be pruned, redirected or rewritten.
- [Gareth Hoyle On Creatives Who Skip The Business](https://unscriptedseo.com/gareth-hoyle-on-creatives-who-skip-the-business/): Gareth Hoyle on the uncomfortable pattern in PR and content SEO: brilliant creative thinkers who never learned to think like business owners.
- [Erica D'Arcangelo Will Not Publish AI As Her Own](https://unscriptedseo.com/erica-darcangelo-will-not-publish-ai-as-her-own/): Erica D'Arcangelo of Love Content Development on why she would feel compromised publishing AI work under her name, and reader-first content.
- [Chris Garrett On The Over-Caffeinated Human Brain](https://unscriptedseo.com/chris-garrett-on-the-over-caffeinated-human-brain/): Chris Garrett on the connection an AI will not make: a human who read Scientific Advertising thirty years ago and a Seth Godin book this year.
- [Nick Eubanks: Distribution Is The Last Moat](https://unscriptedseo.com/nick-eubanks-distribution-is-the-last-moat/): Nick Eubanks of Digistore24 on why distribution is the only remaining moat when execution becomes infinite - and how briefs beat AI drafts.
- [Drew Dorenfest On Getting Verified By Crawlers](https://unscriptedseo.com/drew-dorenfest-on-getting-verified-by-crawlers/): Drew Dorenfest explains the mechanism behind AI citations: name your sources, let the crawler verify them, and the model decides you are legitimate.
- [Do Google's Patents Still Hold Up in an Agentic Web?](https://unscriptedseo.com/chris-green-do-googles-patents-still-hold-up-in-an-agentic-web/): Chris Green of Torque Partnership on whether Google's old patents still describe anything live, Reasonable Surfer when most traffic is bots, markdown companion files, access logs as the measurement layer, and the client test that reverses the cannibalization rule.
- [Apurva Bose On Local Links As Real Relationships](https://unscriptedseo.com/apurva-bose-on-local-links-as-real-relationships/): Apurva Bose of Overtake Digital: local link building is not an online activity at all - it is nurturing real business relationships in your community.
- [Melissa Popp: Go Fix Your Google Business Profile](https://unscriptedseo.com/melissa-popp-go-fix-your-google-business-profile/): Melissa Popp of Rickety Roo says stop the podcast and go claim your Google Business Profile - then she explains why most location pages are junk.
- [Jake Melendy On Speed-To-Lead For Home Services](https://unscriptedseo.com/jake-melendy-on-speed-to-lead-for-home-services/): Jake Melendy of Ignitvio on the unclaimed opportunity in home services: not ranking better, but responding at all. The three pillars behind his lead-gen model.
- [Matt Mellinger On Search Console Data You Can Actually Trust](https://unscriptedseo.com/matt-mellinger-search-console-data-you-can-trust/): Matt Mellinger of SEO Gets on why the query export and the page export disagree, what indexation checks reveal about an agency, and how local reporting should change.
- [Jeremy Moser: It Was Always Just Good SEO](https://unscriptedseo.com/jeremy-moser-it-was-always-just-good-seo/): uSERP's Jeremy Moser on why every AI-visibility conversation he has ends up back at fundamentally good SEO with more brand building bolted on.
- [Bradley Benner On Relevance Over DR](https://unscriptedseo.com/bradley-benner-on-relevance-over-dr/): Bradley Benner of Semantic Mastery on why relevance beats DA or DR, what the H1 is really for, and how press releases regained value in AI search.
- [Dan Kurtz on Bots as a Customer Segment, Markdown, and the Agentic Flywheel](https://unscriptedseo.com/dan-kurtz-bots-as-a-customer-segment-markdown-agentic-flywheel/): Dan Kurtz of Miss Pepper AI on why AI bots are simply another customer segment with a preferred content type, the SSL-reissue trick that forces a recrawl, building an agentic flywheel out of MCP connectors, and why deliverables in SEO mean you are not paying attention.
- [The Tail Can’t Wag the Dog: Tom Malesic on Firing Toxic Clients and the Culture That Outlasts Them](https://unscriptedseo.com/the-tail-cant-wag-the-dog-tom-malesic-on-firing-toxic-clients-and-the-culture-that-outlasts-them/): Tom Malesic returns to Unscripted SEO on agency culture, firing toxic clients, running a fully remote team on EOS, one AI agent per client, and the CIPA compliance letters landing in small-business inboxes right now.
- [Money, Time, Energy, Identity: Colby Wegter on Why Most Freelancers Fail at Scaling](https://unscriptedseo.com/colby-wegter-why-freelancers-fail-at-scaling/): Agency coach Colby Wegter on colour-coding your calendar to find leverage, killing hourly pricing, the expectation conversation that tripled his client retention, and the four-level pyramid that turned a $5K deal into $15K.
- [Run Your Context Window: Type.ai's Stew Fortier on AI Writing, Hallucination and the Ouroboros Problem](https://unscriptedseo.com/stew-fortier-type-ai-writing-seo/): Type co-founder Stew Fortier on why Claude and GPT get different jobs, the qualifier words that pull better writing out of a model, what happens when AI content becomes training data, and the one prompt habit that fixed his own keyword strategy work.
- [Cap the Team, Raise the Price: Lorraine Ball on 19 Years of Running an Agency She Could Actually Sell](https://unscriptedseo.com/lorraine-ball-agency-builder-marketing-strategist/): Lorraine Ball capped her agency at ten people, refused to let any client exceed 30% of revenue, answered the phone on the first ring, and sold in 2021. The capacity math and positioning advice behind it.
- [Jon Henshaw on AI Hype, Google's Sources of Truth, and the Long Game for Human Content](https://unscriptedseo.com/jon-henshaw-ai-hype-google-sources-of-truth/): Coywolf founder and Raven Tools co-founder Jon Henshaw on why it's still SEO, what the Paramount Plus feed taught him about how Google decides what's true, the 404 Media Google News failure, and the case against overbuilding your software.
- [Track Reddit as a Competitor: Zack Kadish on Enterprise SEO and the Shrinking SERP](https://unscriptedseo.com/zack-kadish-enterprise-seo-serp-landscape/): Conductor's Zack Kadish on climbing from keyword research to Senior Director, cutting enterprise red tape, cross-domain cannibalization, why forums and AI overviews are eating enterprise traffic, and the one kickoff question worth stealing.
- [Fortresses of Mentions: Olesia Korobka on Brand SEO, Knowledge Graphs and a Web Without Websites](https://unscriptedseo.com/olesia-korobka-brand-fortresses-knowledge-graphs/): Fajela founder Olesia Korobka on why the blog-post retainer refuses to die, links as references instead of juice, entity homes in a world where AI crawlers ignore your schema, and the SEO for Paws charity behind the episode.
- [Mike Ginley on Digital Trust, Multi-Channel Visibility, and Fixing the Foundation First](https://unscriptedseo.com/mike-ginley-digital-trust-multi-channel-seo/): Freelance consultant Mike Ginley on winning back small businesses burned by agencies, why SEO is the foundation but no longer the whole building, what LLMs can't do, and the billing problem every consultant has.
- [George Little on B2B Branding, AI Tooling, and the Human-Bot Sandwich](https://unscriptedseo.com/george-little-b2b-branding-ai-tooling/): George Little of BrandZap on writing B2B copy for one person, the three buckets of AI use, self-hosting open-source models for consistent output, and why you should stop putting AI gradients on every feature.
- [Gazelles, Not Elephants: Daniel Molina on Building a Local Service Agency That Scales](https://unscriptedseo.com/daniel-molina-local-service-agency-seo/): Red Palm Studios owner Daniel Molina on why he turns down whales, the SOP detail most agencies skip, seasonal PPC in the trades, his three-part local SEO mix, and why brand is swinging back to the person behind the logo.
- [SEO's Identity Crisis Is Our Own Fault — Stephan Bajaio on Fixing How We Define the Work](https://unscriptedseo.com/stephan-bajaio-seo-identity-crisis/): Stephan Bajaio, Conductor co-founder and now Vibe Logic, on why SEOs keep losing the org chart argument, what search really is, and how to communicate the work to executives who don't get it.
- [Use AI Like Iron Man, Not the Terminator — Mike Montague on Human-First AI Marketing](https://unscriptedseo.com/mike-montague-ai-iron-man-not-terminator/): Mike Montague of Avenue9 on why AI should make you a superhero version of yourself instead of replacing you, the C+ problem with generic output, and how small businesses should actually adopt it.
- [Kristiyan Yankov on SaaS Link Building That Still Moves the Needle in the AI Era](https://unscriptedseo.com/kristiyan-yankov-saas-link-building-ai-era/): Kristiyan Yankov of Above Apex on niching an agency down to SaaS link building, how he evaluates a link, why fundamentals outlast hype, and what actually changes when LLMs enter the picture.
- [The Content Ladder: How to Get Found at Every Rung of the Buyer's Question — Alyssa Evans (Grow Your Strategy)](https://unscriptedseo.com/alyssa-evans-content-ladder/): Alyssa Evans of Grow Your Strategy on the content ladder that replaces the funnel, why auto-blogging is a liability she spends her days repairing, what LLMs actually reward, and how link building is quietly turning into networking.
- [Property-Management SEO Done Right — Alex Zweydoff on the Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/property-management-seo-done-right-alex-zweydoff-on-the-unscripted-seo-podcast/): Alex Zweydoff of ClearLead Digital on serving property managers: owner-intent content, three-minute speed-to-lead, hyperlocal pages, and why AI visibility is now non-negotiable.
- [Search Everywhere Optimization: Driving Business Results, Not Just Rankings](https://unscriptedseo.com/search-everywhere-optimization-driving-business-results-not-just-rankings/): Zozimus EVP David Wilson on “search everywhere optimization”—driving business results across social, LLMs, and Google—the expected-CTR model, digital PR as the new link building, and building an SEO moat.
- [How One Freelancer Ranks in 50 German Towns With Programmatic SEO](https://unscriptedseo.com/how-one-freelancer-ranks-in-50-german-towns-with-programmatic-seo/): Wedding photographer-turned-SEO Jonathan Schüßler on programmatic local SEO, low-volume money keywords like “wedding photographer Kronberg,” and the content flywheel that reached 1.5M accounts.
- [Optimize Your Brand, Not Just Your Website — Sonia Urquilla (SEO by Sonia)](https://unscriptedseo.com/sonia-urquilla-optimize-your-brand-not-just-your-website/): Sonia Urquilla of SEO by Sonia on “brand optimization” — getting found and mentioned everywhere your clients search, the local goldmine online providers ignore, and how to vet an SEO consultant.
- [Benjamin Behrooz on Empathy, Blue-Collar Marketing & the AI Silver Lining](https://unscriptedseo.com/benjamin-behrooz-empathy-blue-collar-marketing-ai/): When Benjamin Behrooz — founder of the five-market Branding agency network (Branding Los Angeles, NYC, Texas, Miami and Aloha) and the new real-estate startup noagentlist.com — sat down on the Unscripted SEO Podcast, his thesis was blunt: empathy is the one business skill AI can't replicate, and the brands that win from here will market on the customer's terms and let AI surface the real work they've already done.
- [The Two Types of SEO Left: Zak Ali (Finder) on Surfaces, Retention & Terminal-Native Workflows](https://unscriptedseo.com/zak-ali-finder-search-everywhere-optimization/): Finder US GM Zak Ali on search everywhere optimization, killing the SEO team, and why retention is the real KPI.
- [You Don't Rank Pages Anymore, You Rank Entities: Federico Fancinelli on GeoSonar's GEO Research](https://unscriptedseo.com/you-dont-rank-pages-anymore-you-rank-entities-federico-fancinelli-on-geosonars-geo-research/): Every so often an interview resets a mental model. This was one of them.
- [Trust, Not Clicks: Joshua Altman on the Fractional CCO Role](https://unscriptedseo.com/trust-not-clicks-joshua-altman-on-the-fractional-cco-role/): Every purchase is a trust purchase.
- [Christopher Gimmer on Bootstrapped SaaS, AI Overviews & the New Rules of Link Building](https://unscriptedseo.com/christopher-gimmer-bootstrapped-saas-ai-overviews/): Snappa and GoodMetrics founder Christopher Gimmer on how one blog post built a $10K/mo SaaS, why AI Overviews erode the #1 click, cookieless analytics, "agent traffic," and why useful tools now earn the links.
- [Erika Braeger on Confident Teams & What AI Actually Cites](https://unscriptedseo.com/erika-braeger-tenspeed-unscripted-seo/): Erika Braeger of Tenspeed on building confident teams, using AI to kill the pre-work, writing humans-first-but-machine-readable, never rushing a migration, and what AI actually cites at the B2B evaluation stage.
- [Matthew Slaymaker on Ads, Creative Strategy & Honest Marketing](https://unscriptedseo.com/matthew-slaymaker-honest-ads/): Paid-media operator Matthew Slaymaker on why most brands aren’t ready for ads, why creative is the new targeting, and how to market boring products with honest, shown-not-stated values.
- [Adrian Nikolov on Organic Growth Engineering: Making AI Do SEO's Job Better](https://unscriptedseo.com/adrian-nikolov-organic-growth-engineering/): Adrian Nikolov of Haide Digital on making AI do SEO's job better, self-healing topical authority systems, why authority is the new PageRank, and SEO as the orchestrator of the AI era.
- [Rob Bonham on SEO in the Agentic Age](https://unscriptedseo.com/rob-bonham-seo-agentic-age/): Two-decade SEO Rob Bonham on stewardship over volume, measuring in a post-attribution world, link building as footprint, and getting paid as an independent.
- [Holly Homer on Affiliate Marketing, AI Slop, and Being Replaced by Your Own Words](https://unscriptedseo.com/holly-homer-on-affiliate-marketing-ai-slop-and-being-replaced-by-your-own-words/): Digistore24's Holly Homer on the accidental birth of mom blogging, why affiliate marketing is still underrated, the legendary pajama jeans review, and how human voice and feedback loops beat AI slop.
- [Patrick Stox on Building in the GEO Era](https://unscriptedseo.com/patrick-stox-on-building-in-the-geo-era/): On this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, host Jeremy Rivera sits down with Patrick Stox — who spent about six and a half years in the product seat at Ahrefs (Page Inspect, Site Audit, site structure) and now consults independently while co-running the Tech SEO Connect conference.
- [Bradley Benner on Relevance, Entity Associations & the Future of Link Building](https://unscriptedseo.com/bradley-benner-on-relevance-entity-associations-the-future-of-link-building/): Bradley Benner of Semantic Mastery and Semantic Links explains why relevance — not DA, DR, or Trust Flow — decides whether a link is worth building, how the SEO's real job is creating entity associations, and why press releases and unstructured citations are the fastest lever for AI search visibility. Plus a free relevance link-building ebook and full episode transcript.
- [Joel Miller on AI, Human Marketing & Surviving the Attention Economy](https://unscriptedseo.com/joel-miller-on-ai-human-marketing-surviving-the-attention-economy/): Joel Miller of The SkyFloor on why human judgment still beats AI for sales analysis, what AI Overviews are doing to organic clicks, and how to build an audience Google can't take away.
- [Drew Dorenfest: SEO for Small Businesses, Cited Content & the Trailer Editor Mindset](https://unscriptedseo.com/drew-dorenfest-seo-for-small-businesses-cited-content-the-trailer-editor-mindset/): A video editor who ranked a small LA tax firm above IRS.gov, HR Block, and TurboTax in two weeks — Drew Dorenfest of Client Magnet CRM shares the cited-content strategy, two-button CTA framework, and IRL flywheel that drive real conversions for small businesses.
- [Grant Simmons on Entity SEO, LLMs, and the Future of Search Visibility](https://unscriptedseo.com/grant-simmons-on-entity-seo-llms-and-the-future-of-search-visibility/): Grant Simmons has been in SEO since the mid-90s. In this episode he breaks down entity SEO fundamentals, the EntityMap.org standard, why LLMs hallucinate about your brand, schema markup ROI, beta testing culture, and why reporting is the biggest unresolved agency problem.
- [From Corporate to Creator: Joe Zeplin on Going Full-Time YouTuber](https://unscriptedseo.com/from-corporate-to-creator-joe-zeplin-on-going-full-time-youtuber/): 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.
- [Justin Oberman: All Marketing Is Showmanship and AI Search Is a Consensus Engine — Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/justin-oberman-all-marketing-is-showmanship-and-ai-search-is-a-consensus-engine-unscripted-seo-podcast/): 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.
- [Brittany Trafis: AI Search Is Not SEO 2.0 — Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/brittany-trafis-ai-search-is-not-seo-2-0-unscripted-seo-podcast/): 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.
- [Chris Garrett: The Myth of the Pure SEO and Why Bing Matters More Than Ever — Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/chris-garrett-the-myth-of-the-pure-seo-and-why-bing-matters-more-than-ever-unscripted-seo-podcast/): 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.
- [Julia Bocchese: Pinterest Is a Search Engine and Small Businesses Are Sleeping on It — Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/julia-bocchese-pinterest-is-a-search-engine-and-small-businesses-are-sleeping-on-it-unscripted-seo-podcast/): 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.
- [Ernesto Ortiz: Algorithm Updates Only Hurt the Incomplete — Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/ernesto-ortiz-algorithm-updates-only-hurt-the-incomplete-unscripted-seo-podcast/): 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.
- [Stephan Bajayo: There Is No Rank in an LLM — Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/stephan-bajayo-there-is-no-rank-in-an-llm-unscripted-seo-podcast/): 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.
- [Tom Malesic: The Website Is the Center of Everything — Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/tom-malesic-the-website-is-the-center-of-everything-unscripted-seo-podcast/): 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.
- [Robert Spinrad: Good SEO Is Good AI Visibility — Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/robert-spinrad-good-seo-is-good-ai-visibility-unscripted-seo-podcast/): 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: Visibility Is the New SEO — Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/greg-digneo-visibility-is-the-new-seo-unscripted-seo-podcast/): 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.

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- [Brand, Entity & Visibility: How the Best SEOs Think About Authority](https://unscriptedseo.com/brand-entity-visibility-how-the-best-seos-think-about-authority/): The conversation around brand and entity in SEO has shifted more dramatically in the past two years than in the previous ten.
- [Content Strategy & Marketing: Deep Insights from the Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/content-strategy-marketing-deep-insights-from-the-unscripted-seo-podcast/): Content strategy is one of those disciplines where everyone has an opinion and the quality of advice varies wildly.
- [Technical SEO: Real Talk from Expert Practitioners — The Unscripted SEO Podcast Guide](https://unscriptedseo.com/technical-seo-real-talk-from-expert-practitioners-the-unscripted-seo-podcast-guide/): Technical SEO is the area where I've seen the most overconfident beginners and the most humble experts.
- [Local SEO: Strategies That Actually Work — The Unscripted SEO Podcast Guide](https://unscriptedseo.com/local-seo-strategies-that-actually-work-the-unscripted-seo-podcast-guide/): Local SEO is where I've seen some of the most durable, high-impact work in all of organic search — and also some of the most stubborn myths.
- [Link Building & Digital Authority: Expert Insights from the Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/link-building-digital-authority-expert-insights-from-the-unscripted-seo-podcast/): Link building is the topic where I've seen more mythology, more bad advice, and more wasted budget than any other area of SEO.
- [AI & The Future of Search: Insights from the Unscripted SEO Podcast](https://unscriptedseo.com/ai-the-future-of-search-insights-from-the-unscripted-seo-podcast/): I've been in SEO for nearly two decades. I've watched every major shift — PageRank manipulation, Penguin, Panda, RankBrain, mobile-first indexing.
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