The Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast

Charlie Sells brings 15 years of experience in brand messaging and positioning to discuss how small businesses can cut through complexity and build authentic brands that show up in search.

Service Business Branding Charlie explains why service-based businesses should "stay hyper local" rather than trying to compete regionally. His advice for finding your competitive advantage? "Don't try to be bigger. Don't try to be flashier. Don't try to be anything other than who you are."

Working with a Florida event staffing company, Charlie discovered their retention rate was in the 80-90% range. "They're the most trusted name in conference and event staff"—that became their differentiator, not trying to be the biggest.

The Two-Part Brand Audit Framework Charlie always looks for two things: "Are we being really consistent? Every touchpoint of our brand—does it look the same, does it sound the same, does it feel the same on a sales call, social media, website, emails, in-person interactions?"

Second: "Are you really leaning into your unique competitive advantage?"

Branded vs. Non-Branded Search From his time at Dave Ramsey's Ramsey Solutions, Charlie learned a crucial lesson: "If they will get their branded terms right, then you can focus on the non-branded terms." He warns that "shiny object syndrome is rampant amongst entrepreneurs" who chase non-branded traffic while neglecting the basics.

His blunt take: "Search engines are the yellow pages today. You want to make it easy for somebody to just find you like that."

The Website Problem Charlie's most surprising piece of advice for clients: "If the weight of your business lands on your website, you have a problem."

Why? Your website is just one piece of your ecosystem. "If everything in your ecosystem is speaking the same language, then it's going to work." But when there's "no cohesive experience, no ecosystem," that's when brands struggle.

Technical SEO Still Matters Charlie shares a story about his staffing client who had keywords "in the graphic at the top of our page. In a designed graphic that can't be crawled, that had no alt text. I'm like, 'Nobody cares about that and Google's not recognizing it.'"

The lesson? "You have to plant a flag in the ground and say, here I am, and make it easy for people to find you."

Is SEO Dead? Charlie's take on the AI/LLM disruption: "I don't think traditional SEO is dead still. I think it still matters." While LLMs are changing search, "somebody is still looking for what you have" and "it still matters that you match intent more than anything else."

His strategy for the AI era? "I'm pushing folks to go way more grassroots and find ways to get on podcasts with niche audiences that are actually in their ICP."

Charlie's Two Essential Switches When onboarding clients, Charlie always starts with:

Redirecting Good Ideas One of Charlie's most valuable skills is helping clients understand placement: "Just because it doesn't belong here doesn't mean it doesn't belong somewhere." A direct-to-camera video might be perfect for an email sequence but wrong for the homepage.

Website: clarityovereverything.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/charlie-sells

Free Resource: Download Charlie's brand assessment to see if your brand is clear and aligned or confused and complex. Find "the taxes and the costs that are ruining your brand and your business" at clarityovereverything.com.

"If the weight of your business lands on your website, you have a problem." - Charlie Sells

"Don't try to be bigger. Don't try to be flashier. Don't try to be anything other than who you are." - Charlie Sells

"What is it like to be on the receiving end of your brand?" - Charlie Sells

"Just because it doesn't belong here doesn't mean it doesn't belong somewhere." - Charlie Sells

"I don't think traditional SEO is dead still. I think it still matters." - Charlie Sells

Wyatt Bonicelli of Evolve Agency shares practical local SEO tactics for home service businesses—from Google Business Profile optimization and location page strategy to creative link building through local sponsorships and a clever gift card referral system that turns every customer into a lead generator.

In this episode, Jeremy Rivera on the Unscripted SEO podcast by Be Sharp Digital Marketing sits down with Wyatt Bonicelli, founder of Evolve Agency in Edmond, Oklahoma, to discuss the unique challenges and opportunities in marketing home service contractors. An engineer turned marketer, Wyatt has carved out a niche helping window cleaners, roofers, and other service professionals transition from relying solely on word-of-mouth to building a sustainable online presence that generates leads on autopilot.

The conversation covers the full spectrum of local SEO—from the critical importance of Google Business Profile verification to the age-old question of "how many location pages are too many?" Wyatt shares his approach to building local authority through sponsorship link building, Chamber of Commerce memberships, and creative tactics like using ChatGPT to find partnership opportunities.

Perhaps most valuable are the practical, low-cost marketing wins Wyatt recommends: car magnets, A-frame signs, door hangers with neighbor referrals, and a brilliant gift card system that creates a built-in affiliate program for service businesses. He also drops a Google Maps "driving directions hack" that sends trust signals to Google daily.

The episode wraps with a candid discussion about lead follow-up—why 90% of service calls go unanswered and how the Harvard study showing 400% better conversion within five minutes should change how contractors approach their phones.

"Any page on your website that doesn't have a link internally, externally, it's probably not going to get indexed."

"You're 400% more likely to convert if you call within the first five minutes."

"Let's turn one lead into more. Let's try to get three or four out of every one. And that pyramid will just continue to grow."

"We're kind of in a bubble a lot of times and think that everybody else is using the tools the same way that we are."

"If they don't have any web presence at all, no online reviews or a website talking about what they do and where—it's a little harder to trust them with a big check."

Wyatt Bonicelli is the founder of Evolve Agency, a digital marketing firm based in Edmond, Oklahoma specializing in web development and SEO for home service contractors. With a background in engineering, Wyatt brings a systematic, results-driven approach to helping small businesses—particularly window cleaners, roofers, and renovation contractors—build their online presence and generate leads without relying solely on word-of-mouth marketing.

In this deep-dive conversation, Alejandro Meyerhans shares his journey from Spanish waiter to CEO of a successful link building agency, revealing the mathematical foundations and strategic frameworks that make link building work. We explore the science behind PageRank, the evolving role of links in LLM optimization, Google's HCU updates, and the hard truths about operating within platform ecosystems.

Alejandro Meyerhans is the CEO of GetMeLinks, a strategic link building agency serving agencies and CMOs. Since 2016, Alejandro has built his SEO expertise from the ground up—starting with affiliate sites, becoming a forensic SEO auditor, and eventually leading one of the industry's most respected link building operations. He's known for his data-driven approach, combining mathematics, game theory, and rigorous testing to demystify what actually works in modern link building.

Connect with Alejandro:

Related Resource: How to Start a Link Building Campaign

Related Resource: Link Building for New Websites

Get Your Own Analysis: GetMeLinks Link Report

Related Resource: Local Link Building: 20 Easy Tactics That Actually Work

Key Insight: To rank in ChatGPT, rank on Google first. Then serve robot-readable content and build your online reputation.

Check Your Site: Google Search Console → Settings → Crawl Stats

"SEO changed my life. I didn't want to go back to being a waiter. It played to all my subjects of special interest: math, statistics, game theory, testing, language—that's how you get good SEO done." — Alejandro Meyerhans

"Building a backlink profile is a lot like chess. You don't start a brand new website and run it with 100 digital PR type of backlinks because that just doesn't fly." — Alejandro Meyerhans

"I always equate traffic with trust. If the traffic is real, not some manipulated keywords to inflate the Ahrefs graphs, then it matters." — Alejandro Meyerhans

"SEO is a game of completeness. Link building, same. You only have to be as complete as the guys in the top three, then this much more. Everything else is excess." — Alejandro Meyerhans

"E-E-A-T is not a signal, it's not something. E-E-A-T equals cluster of what? It's an amalgamation of a certain set of signals in particular." — Alejandro Meyerhans

"LLMs are rewriters of the story. Google is a game of who needs to be on this leaderboard. With LLMs, it's 'I'm going to use whatever sources I feel will tell you the most valuable story to solve your problem.'" — Alejandro Meyerhans

"How do we rank in ChatGPT? Rank on Google. Let's nail the job because all the long tail queries related to your industry, that's how it starts getting additional knowledge." — Alejandro Meyerhans

"Helpful content update—helpful for whom? Helpful for Google's finances. We cannot forget that we are making money in their home through the traffic that goes to their website." — Alejandro Meyerhans

"If you're working in somebody else's ecosystem, to quote Lily Ray, it works until it doesn't." — Jeremy Rivera

"We are going to the platform and saying, 'Hey, platform, look, I've done all these changes. Does this please you more according to the math that I know pleases you?'" — Alejandro Meyerhans

Link building is strategic, not tactical. Successful link building requires analyzing what's already winning in your niche and replicating that pattern while understanding the principles behind why it works. The answer is always in the data—competitive backlink analysis reveals the authority, relevance, and velocity needed to rank.

Core link signals extend beyond PageRank. Modern SEO considers anchor text ratios, reasonable surfer signals (link placement on page), passage rank (surrounding text relevance), link velocity proportional to traffic and brand signals, container page authority, and the proper sequencing of link types as a site matures.

SEO is a completion game, not a perfection game. You only need to be as complete as the top three competitors, then slightly better. Focus on filling gaps in your backlink profile rather than building excess links. Strategic difference matters—having what competitors don't can provide massive advantage.

Geographic and vertical relevance matter differently. Local links from institutions provide trust signals and differentiation. Different niches (locksmiths vs. e-commerce vs. YMYL) require completely different link building approaches. Always analyze the specific competitive landscape for your niche.

LLM optimization follows traditional SEO principles with brand emphasis. ChatGPT uses a tier system (seed list → niche authorities → search aggregation) where traditional Google rankings feed tier 2 and 3 placement. Brand mentions with positive sentiment, consensus across sources, and being featured on authoritative sites matter more than exact match optimization for LLM visibility.

Google's HCU targeted cost vs. value. Sites hit by helpful content updates often shared characteristics: expensive to crawl (bloated URLs, slow response times), didn't generate ad revenue for Google, lacked strong backlink profiles and brand signals. The "helpful" assessment considers Google's business model, not just user value.

Operating in platform ecosystems requires acceptance and adaptation. Whether it's Google, Amazon, or any other platform, you're playing in someone else's house. Strategic SEOs plan for algorithm changes and platform pivots rather than expecting static rules. The game is understanding what the platform needs and giving them slightly more value than you extract.

Distance to seed and trust signals form the foundation. Links from .gov, .edu, and tier one authorities (like Healthline in health) provide outsized value because they're manually vetted by search engines. Building towards and from these trust sources should be prioritized, especially early in a site's lifecycle.

Self-Published and Lousy Knowledge Panel by Jeremy Rivera
A practical guide to establishing entity authority even with minimal traditional credentials.

Jeremy Rivera

Alejandro Meyerhans

Stay tuned for more unfiltered conversations with SEO experts who share real strategies, honest insights, and the mathematical principles behind what actually works in search.

Visit UnscriptedSEO.com

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, host Jeremy Rivera sits down with Alison Ver Halen, founder of AV Writing Services and author of Content Marketing Made Easy. Alison shares how she accidentally fell into content marketing after graduating during the 2009 recession, and how writing blog posts for a law firm led to $75,000 in new business within just six months.

The conversation covers the evolving landscape of SEO and content marketing, including E-E-A-T principles, the Helpful Content Update, the "robot sandwich" of AI-driven search, and why storytelling remains the most powerful tool in a content marketer's arsenal.

Alison Ver Halen is the founder of AV Writing Services and a content marketing strategist with nearly a decade of experience. With degrees in English and Psychology from Lawrence University, Alison helps professional service providers attract, engage, and convert high-quality leads through strategic blog content, landing pages, and brand storytelling. She is also the author of Content Marketing Made Easy.

"After six months, he came back and told me that I had brought in $75,000 worth of business to his law firm just through the blog posts I was writing for him."

"We are primed to connect with stories, we are primed to remember stories. So that is critical for getting your point across and for being memorable."

"I refer to it as proposing on the first date. Like, well we just met, dude. That is way too much way too soon. And you're gonna scare them off."

"AI does not generate anything. It just regurgitates what humans have already created."

"It's still SEO, people. Just because the search engine has changed does not mean that it's not SEO."

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People & Companies Mentioned:

Additional Resources:

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could benefit from Alison's insights on content marketing strategy.

Jon Henshaw co-founded Raven Tools, then worked inside CNET, GameSpot, the Paramount Plus launch team, Vimeo and now Yahoo, and writes at Coywolf. He and Jeremy go back a long way, so this one runs long and gets specific: why the SEO industry keeps confusing its own stakeholders, what Google actually uses as a source of truth, and why he thinks the long game belongs to confirmed-human content. Recorded January 2026, on the Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast.

"It's SEO, it's SEO, it's SEO. It's just slightly different."

The cleaned-up conversation, with his diagrams of the old and new Google contract, is at Jon Henshaw on AI Hype, Google’s Sources of Truth, and the Long Game for Human Content.

What Jon and Jeremy cover

Related episodes

Jeremy's IMDB point comes straight out of Entity Optimization and AI with Jason Barnard, where Jason fixed a knowledge graph entry by editing IMDB rather than his own site. Patrick Stox on building in the GEO era covers the same "it's still SEO" ground from the tooling side, and Zack Kadish on enterprise SEO and the evolving SERP on what Reddit and AI answers did to the results page.

On SEO Arcade, the two plays Jon's answer keeps pointing at: schema markup for AI visibility and information gain content.

Jon writes at coywolf.com and lives on Mastodon, not X. More conversations like this in the AI and the future of search hub.

Host: Jeremy Rivera. Guest: Jon Henshaw, Coywolf.

Will Wang of Black Belt Consulting joins Jeremy Rivera to discuss his journey from corporate IT analyst to accidentally building a seven-figure marketing agency. In this candid conversation, Will shares the expensive lessons he learned about hiring (including a $500,000 mistake), how he's leveraging AI for market research while keeping humans in the loop, and why he's betting big on YouTube and Instagram while going bearish on LinkedIn for 2025.

This episode is packed with practical insights for agency owners, consultants, and entrepreneurs who are scaling their businesses and want to avoid the costly mistakes that come with rapid growth.

Listen to the full episode: Unscripted SEO Podcast

Will Wang

About Will: Will grew up in Sydney, Australia, worked in corporate IT making $130-150K/year before taking the leap into entrepreneurship. After two years of struggles and making every mistake possible, he built a seven-figure marketing agency which he sold 12 months ago. He's also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt (earned 4 years ago) and now runs Black Belt Consulting, helping businesses scale from $25K to $250K per month with strategic marketing consulting.

On Making the Leap:

"If I don't do this now, then it's never going to get done. But how do you replace $130,000 per year salary? Right? Like that's pretty difficult."

On Building Accidentally:

"I accidentally built my previous business into a seven figure business without really meaning to. It was just like the growth happened."

On Making Mistakes:

"I made every single mistake to the point where I couldn't make any more mistakes. And then the business kind of took off."

On the Hiring Disaster:

"I've probably personally lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in terms of hiring the wrong people, setting them up for failure, setting them up in the wrong way."

"We weren't big enough for a GM. Like we just did not need a general manager. We just needed me to spend less time working in a few of the things on the business."

On Team Building:

"I like having a very small core team of highly competent people. People who you don't necessarily have to micromanage or have a look at what they're doing every single day of the week."

On AI Research:

"AI has made research just such an easy thing to do. Rather than taking days, if not weeks, it's now delivered in a matter of minutes."

"Nothing that we do that gets delivered to clients or that we tell clients to deliver for themselves—none of that is actually AI done. So the output is still very hands on human."

On AI Hallucination:

"There's just so much BS with AI. It hallucinates so much stuff all the time. So you've got to be very, very careful."

On Platform Strategy:

"YouTube is the big one for me. I'm investing a lot into that this year."

"LinkedIn just feels like it's so transactional and kind of day by day at the moment. So I'm a little bit bearish on LinkedIn, but more bullish on video content now."

"I don't like creating content once and then having it just disappear into the ether."

On Content Persistence:

"The fact that we can post a reel up and get long-term growth and every single day it grows—that's kind of surprising to me because it means that the content's sticking around."

On Service Business Marketing:

"As companies start ignoring direct mail or fight to do purely online, I find that the offline has really started to come around and perform a lot better."

On What's Missing:

"With AI coming through, the marketing execution stuff is actually so easy now. What people are missing is the strategic piece."

On His New Approach:

"If you're doing 25K a month and you want to get to 250K, hit me up."

Jeremy Rivera is the founder of SEO Arcade, host of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, and has 19+ years of SEO experience. He specializes in converting podcast interviews into comprehensive content marketing strategies and connecting SEO tactics to actual business outcomes.

Jeremy has worked in-house, at agencies (both good and bad), as a successful freelancer, and now runs SEO Arcade's whitelabel podcast-based content and link building service for agencies and businesses.

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Episode Length: ~47 minutes

Episode Format: Unscripted conversation

Best For: Agency owners, consultants, entrepreneurs scaling service businesses, marketers interested in AI integration and platform strategy

This episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast brings you real conversations with real SEO professionals about their journeys, mistakes, and insights. No scripts, no PR-approved talking points—just honest discussion about what works (and what doesn't) in building marketing businesses.

Jeremy Rivera interviews Kyle Bailey, founder of Front Burner Marketing, about local SEO strategies specifically designed for home service businesses. Kyle brings a unique perspective as one of the few SEO professionals who has actually worked in the trades—framing, roofing, drywall, and kitchen/bathroom remodeling.

Kyle Bailey

Connect with Kyle:

Key Resource: What's Your Story? - Front Burner Marketing

Related Article: Matt Brooks of SEOteric on nexus-based link building

Example Businesses:

Related Service: AI SEO at Front Burner Marketing

Explore Services: Local SEO Services at Front Burner Marketing

"If you're a home service business owner, I can almost guarantee you you're driving past free money every day. Just think—every red light you come to, there's a barrel of $100 bills over there and you just drive right by it."

"Your website's now a vetting device rather than a discovery device because of the changes Google had already made."

"You're out of time. You're in that movie scene where the ferry's pulling away, but the ramp's still down and the car's trying to jump over. That's where you are right now."

"If you could only say one thing to your homeowner, what would it be? That takes some time, some effort, and some meditation."

"When you connect on core values with your ideal customer, they feel something. Even if they never buy from you, they feel it."

✅ Home service businesses need to prioritize storytelling over keyword optimization. The most effective marketing starts with identifying and communicating core values that differentiate you from competitors in commoditized markets.

✅ Co-marketing with complementary businesses is massively underutilized. Simple actions like taking selfie videos with painters, plumbers, or other trades on job sites creates authentic content, builds local authority, and generates natural brand mentions across multiple websites.

✅ AI search is fundamentally changing the discovery process. Business owners can no longer afford to wait—80% of effort should focus on clear storytelling while 20% should go toward strategic positioning in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other LLM platforms.

✅ Neighborhood-level content is free money. Taking 30 seconds to photograph neighborhood signage and create location-specific content for every job creates micro-location pages that dominate local search without significant investment.

✅ Franchise models severely limit local SEO effectiveness. Out of 100 franchise conversations, only about 3 can make the necessary changes to compete effectively in local search due to corporate restrictions on messaging and website customization.

✅ Community involvement must be documented and linked strategically. Sponsoring cleanups, attending galas, and supporting local organizations only generates SEO value when properly documented with photos, links, and cross-promotional content across multiple platforms.

✅ The days of H-tag and keyword optimization are over. If your SEO isn't part of telling your authentic story, you're building on sand. Modern algorithms and AI platforms reward authority, authenticity, and relevance.

Lisa Corwood, founder of Fuelled Agency, joins Jeremy to discuss how she transformed creative marketing experiments at a UK car dealership into a full-service agency philosophy. From the viral "Where's Wally" campaign that sparked it all to navigating Search Everywhere Optimization in 2026, this conversation covers authentic community engagement, why no industry is truly "boring," and the looming question of AI-generated content quality.

Lisa Corwood
Founder, Fuelled Agency

"If you're going to go in there, don't just walk in a room and shout what you're saying and go out. Treat it as if it's a group of people—not a place to just spray and pray."

"No matter what business it is—if it's selling a product, if it's shiny, if it's Lamborghinis or diamond rings—behind all of that is a team that makes that happen. Tell everybody about it!"

"If you got 20 leads right now into your business, where would they go and what would happen with them? If you don't have an answer to that, there's something you need to look at."

"Customers will hop from one platform to the other to get what they are looking for. They won't just take a five-star review as gospel."

"I'm not against AI—but use it in collaboration, in conjunction. You can't solely rely on it."

Lisa's Agency & Socials

Industry Resources

People & Companies Referenced

Related Unscripted SEO Episodes

Guest: Tianna Mamalick, SMB Marketing School

Tianna Mamalick shares her 12-year journey in SEO and why she's passionate about working with small businesses. With honest insights on managing client expectations, pairing SEO with paid ads, and the current state of AI-generated content, this conversation reveals what's actually working for service-based businesses right now.

Why Small Businesses? For small businesses, a 10K monthly revenue increase is life-changing. Tianna shares how clients email her about hiring their first employee or taking their first vacation—results that go far beyond vanity metrics.

Managing Expectations Brutally honest approach: clients sign for three months minimum, must have budget they can afford to lose, and receive realistic assessments of whether their business model fits the proven formula.

SEO + Ads Strategy When done strategically, pairing ads with SEO helps prime new location pages and service pages through engagement, even though ads don't directly impact SEO rankings.

The AI Content Reality After extensive testing: AI-generated content isn't ranking. Tianna's agency went 100% back to human-written content, using AI only for outlines based on top-ranking articles.

Content Strategy Shifts

AI Search Adoption Despite the hype, less than 10% of traffic comes from ChatGPT for most small businesses. Prepare by enriching About pages and author bios, but don't panic about immediate massive shifts.

"People want to work with people they like, know and trust. It's not just about the backlink. We're really looking at conversions—how can we get SEO to convert for you?" — Tianna Mamalick

✓ Service pages first: Make product and service pages comprehensive before worrying about blog content

✓ Human content wins: AI-generated articles aren't ranking—use AI for outlines, humans for writing

✓ Record everything: Mine sales calls, customer support logs, and front-line staff conversations for gold

✓ Every service gets a page: Stop using menu-style service listings—create detailed individual pages

✓ Social media SEO matters: Talk about your actual services consistently across all platforms, not just in your bio

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast by Be Sharp Digital Marketing, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Matt Bailey, a digital marketing veteran with nearly 30 years of experience spanning from the pre-Google AltaVista era to today's AI-driven landscape. Matt shares his journey from building real estate websites with journalism principles in 1995 to founding SiteLogic and helping shape the SEO industry through his work with the OMCP (Online Marketing Certified Professional Organization).

This conversation explores the evergreen principles that have survived every "SEO is dead" cycle, the critical gaps in SEO education, and why AI is both a productivity tool and a source of strategic confusion for businesses. Matt and Jeremy discuss the importance of conversion optimization, the holistic webmaster approach that got lost in the 2010-2020 era of easy Google traffic, and why understanding content, context, and community remains fundamental to digital marketing success.

Key Topics Covered:

Matt Bailey

Matt Bailey's journey into digital marketing began in an unexpected place—journalism school. While he quickly realized journalism wasn't his calling, the education gave him something invaluable: an understanding of how to lay out content for quick consumption. Headlines, subheadings, bullet points—these newspaper design principles became the foundation of his website development approach in 1995-96.

Working in real estate at the time, Matt started building websites as electronic versions of printed pages. What he didn't realize initially was that the markup he was using for visual layout was exactly what early search engines needed. This was the AltaVista era, where SEOs would spend entire nights resubmitting pages to chase rankings.

When Google arrived, Matt's content-first approach paid immediate dividends. Pages structured with clear hierarchy and reader-focused design performed well naturally. This early lesson—that optimizing for visitors and optimizing for search engines aren't separate goals—would become a through-line in his entire career.

A pivotal moment came when Matt was working on real estate websites and asked himself: "What can I do on the website that will have the biggest impact?" He didn't have an answer. That question forced him to learn analytics, starting with Web Trends (anyone who's worked with Web Trends knows the pain of the day-long setup-and-pray cycle).

Learning analytics transformed how Matt approached B2B lead generation. It wasn't just about getting traffic anymore—it was about understanding user behavior, measuring engagement, and connecting digital activity to business outcomes. This analytical mindset would distinguish his work throughout his agency years.

Throughout the late '90s and early 2000s, Matt moved through multiple ad agencies in the Midwest, where B2B industrial and B2B services dominated the landscape. At two different agencies, he built entire SEO and digital marketing departments from scratch. But after doing this twice for other people, he had the realization many agency professionals eventually reach: "I think I can do this for myself."

In 2006, Matt founded SiteLogic as a client services company focused specifically on website marketing, auditing, and promotion—deliberately avoiding the development side to maintain focus on their sweet spot.

Around 2015-2016, Matt faced a crossroads. He had developed a parallel business of teaching and training, working with direct marketing associations, travel associations, and automotive associations. He was traveling constantly, speaking to industry audiences about digital marketing tactics and strategy. The demands of running both an agency and a training business forced a choice.

Matt chose training, transforming SiteLogic into a training company. During this period, he also contributed significantly to the OMCP (Online Marketing Certified Professional Organization), helping define what makes an SEO professional. What does an SEO need to know? What are the core competencies? How do you test for those skills? These weren't just academic questions—they shaped how the industry thinks about professional development.

His commitment to education went even deeper: Matt went back to school for a degree in instructional design to understand how to teach 30 years of digital marketing according to educational pedagogy. He's currently working on his master's degree in digital marketing to teach at the undergraduate level.

Jeremy brought up a problem he's encountered working with universities in Nashville through colleagues Ross Jones and Michael McDougald of Right Thing SEO Agency: university SEO programs are typically eight years behind current practice.

Matt confirmed this isn't unique to SEO. When creating training materials for organizations like LinkedIn, Simply Learn, Udemy, and Udacity, he's upfront about reality: SEO course content has a shelf life of 18-24 months maximum. LinkedIn does regular updates, but many educational providers have content that's 10-15 years old still on the market.

The problem runs deeper in traditional academia. Matt shared teaching an undergraduate marketing class last semester where the textbook—only 18 months old—had an entire chapter on how the metaverse would change marketing. Already obsolete. Even worse, the textbook authors were all PhDs who had never held actual marketing jobs. They'd consulted, but had never dealt with the politics of getting ideas approved internally, never had to compromise because IT wouldn't support their vision, never had to play the real-world game.

This disconnect between academic theory and practical implementation affects not just SEO but many marketing disciplines. Academia is starting to ask the right questions, but structural barriers remain.

Jeremy shared a personal enterprise red tape nightmare: editing 10 pages for HCA as a subcontractor of a subcontractor of an agency required a drug test, three separate sign-ons, using only their laptop, and sitting in a room with a security guard to ensure he didn't abscond with their secured device.

Matt's response: "It's absolutely insane." But both agreed this is the reality of enterprise SEO work, echoing McDougald's observation that "the most expensive thing in SEO is red tape."

Jeremy posed the critical question: From 1995 to now, through every "SEO is dead" cycle (mobile-first, voice search, HCU, and inevitably whatever comes next), what are the through lines that remain true?

Matt's answer cuts to the heart of why he's never liked the term "SEO":

"Search engine optimization" implies you only care about the search engine. What are you really optimizing? Ideally, you're optimizing for visitors, for conversion, for engagement. These visitor-centered principles are what's evergreen.

Matt goes back to his origin story: building websites like newspaper pages. Layout, readability, content—that's never changed. Yes, there were tactical experiments—doorway pages, black hat techniques for affiliate and Forex clients. But Matt's B2B lead generation clients couldn't take those risks. His approach was content, PR, and building links with associated businesses. Those skills are evergreen.

Critically, Matt emphasized: "After learning SEO, if you're not learning conversion optimization, you've lost the game." That's where you maximize your efforts.

When people say "SEO is dead," Matt interprets that as "the old tactics are dead." But writing engaging content that reaches visitors, answers questions, and converts customers? Those skills never die.

Jeremy and Matt Brooks at SEOteric frequently discuss a critical blindness in the industry: what you do with traffic after it arrives is as important as how you got it there.

But somewhere along the way, organizations siloed everything: social media managers handle social traffic, PPC teams manage paid landing pages, SEO controls the blog, brand managers own certain sections. This fragmentation misses massive opportunities.

Jeremy's call to action: "Let's go back to 1998 and reestablish ourselves as webmasters." Look at this holistically. Email sends lead to branded search. Organic social leads to website traffic, which leads to newsletter conversions, which leads to email traffic that still needs converting. These channels aren't isolated—they're interconnected.

The problem emerged during the 2010-2020 comfort zone when Google traffic was so abundant that SEOs could operate in isolation. They didn't need to talk to the email team, the PPC team, or the social media team. Just publish blog posts, build backlinks, and claim credit for all traffic—even when $20,000 in radio and video ads drove massive brand search volume.

Why was ignoring brand traffic ever acceptable? It's the singular signal of market awareness of your business and industry. But because SEOs couldn't control it through blog posts alone, many pretended it didn't matter. That was madness.

Matt confirmed this holistic understanding actually gives SEOs an advantage: OMCP job delineation studies show SEOs have more of a track toward management and leadership than other disciplines precisely because they have their fingers in multiple areas. They understand integration, measurement, and how channels work together.

Jeremy asked whether significant differences exist between verticals—e-commerce vs. B2B lead generation—and whether SEOs should be multi-disciplinary.

Matt loves this question because it highlights what made agency work so valuable. Having multiple client types exposed him to different requirements: e-commerce needs additional UX/UI skills and database understanding; B2B lead generation has different conversion paths; publishing and affiliate work each have unique demands.

Being able to say "I've worked in B2B lead gen, e-commerce, publishing, and affiliate" opens doors. That breadth of experience enables bouncing between industries—travel, automotive, advertising, brand work—with relative ease. The agency experience provides that exposure early in a career.

Jeremy brought up the anxiety in every SEO's mind: CEOs declaring "AI, ChatGPT, we need GEO, we need AI SEO, we don't need an SEO budget anymore." He'd seen three different Reddit threads where SEOs lost their jobs because executives determined SEO was obsolete—instead, they needed to "make content and get articles placed so LLM bots can find mentions and links."

The irony isn't lost on either of them.

Matt's response is direct: "SEO works. It still works. In fact, SEO works on LLMs." They look at the same signals, and honestly, LLMs are like early search engines—almost like pre-Google search right now.

He's amazed by companies jumping on tracking "visibility in LLMs" when even two people using ChatGPT with the same prompt get different answers. How do you track that? How do you measure prompt variations across millions of users? We're back to rank checking, which is fundamentally flawed.

Matt's diagnosis: "It's a lot of shiny objects right now. A ton of shiny objects."

Basic, well-done SEO still works. But it must be combined with good marketing dependent on clear strategy.

Most businesses Matt consults with that are enthralled by AI share a common problem: they don't have a clear strategy. They don't understand what they're trying to accomplish, how they'll accomplish it, or what process they'll use.

One company wanted AI to generate leads and content but didn't even have a CRM in place. No backend process to handle what the frontend would generate. This thinking makes shiny objects take off.

We've seen this pattern before: metaverse, NFTs, big data. Everyone thinks the new thing will save their business. If you don't have clear strategy driving your marketing decisions, you're going to lose.

The AI downside? Losses will take longer to realize. Companies firing people because "AI can write articles" won't see the impact immediately. But it's coming.

Matt looked at a site recently where 90% of blog content was AI-generated. You don't need to be a high-level AI user to spot it—just look at the pages. And the blog doesn't perform well. It's generic, average content.

AI can't create something truly new. You can feed it information, create custom GPTs, and those help. But if you're just using AI to pump out content volume, you're creating slop.

If you want strategic approach, branding, audience engagement, and conversion with all the backend operations required—you need people to manage that. AI can't do that effectively yet, and Matt doesn't think we'll see it soon.

Jeremy asked about what AI and LLMs definitively can't do: make site edits that positively impact conversion rate.

Matt starts every client conversation with seven strategic questions before touching tactics:

These two questions are the client's responsibility. Only then can Matt do the research:

The problem? Most marketers and SEOs immediately jump to tactics: which social media, posting frequency, posting times. They skip the foundational conversation about audiences, needs, location, message quality, competitive differentiation, and communication effectiveness.

Those foundations aren't things LLMs excel at. It requires planning, framework development, then execution.

Matt worked with Microsoft Worldwide Education for five years, going to different offices and working with marketing and operations teams. A common scenario: asking "Who's your target customer?" for selling Microsoft Office to small business owners.

Invariably, the myopia would take over: "They need a full-service suite that integrates all their content..." They'd describe Word, Excel, cloud storage—product features.

Matt would stop them: "That's not what small to medium business owners want. They want to make payroll. They want to be more efficient and spend less time at the office. They want their people to accomplish more."

Until you change your language to those needs, they'll dismiss you. It's about fitting the product to the need, not hammering prospects with product attributes expecting them to make the connection themselves.

How often is "enterprise solutions" overused in SEO? It's a nonsense phrase that means nothing.

Matt's grandmother would say: "You have got to change your language." It doesn't resonate with your audience. You're not meeting their need. You're hammering your brand attributes expecting them to see the connection—and they don't.

Jeremy has done audits where he copies homepage text from the client and a competitor (or even a totally different industry) and asks: "Which is your copy?"

"You excel at customer service" but so does everyone else. One does restaurant rebrands, another is an industrial carpenter. Your pretty-sounding sales phrases mean nothing to readers, to SEOs, and to LLMs.

One of Jeremy's previous interviewees observed: "ChatGPT is your least trained customer service representative." For them, for SEO, and for your readers, you need to examine what your content actually does to support your business.

Are you providing sample shop drawings for precast walls that construction teams need for RFPs to counties? No? They need those to get bids. If you're not providing them, you're forcing them to create their own—or they'll go to a competitor who provides that resource.

If you're not thinking about friction down the funnel that prevents sales, you're not leveraging your website correctly.

That's what it's really about: you have a fantastic tool where clients and potential clients can get information without mailing books or requiring one-on-one conversations. It's an incredible opportunity.

That's why digital marketing budgets increase by billions of dollars every year. A huge portion will always be SEO spend, but it should be considered part of your marketing strategy: How do we use this tool to its best capability?

Matt sees AI having positive effects: some content is being written so much better, much more in-depth, answering real questions.

When SEOs publish "here's the template that works," Matt thinks: that template is 20 years old. It's about depth, question-answering, and being found for questions people are actually asking.

If you haven't been researching those questions for 20 years, welcome to the party—AI is helping you understand questions better.

Jeremy's "least trained customer service rep" metaphor resonates, but Matt reframes it: "AI is like having a thousand interns."

They work fast, but you still need someone to refine edges, clarify, improve writing, and finalize it.

Matt's team recently rewrote all content for a site because it was too thin. They used AI, but 30% of the project was keyword research—not just finding ranking keywords, but understanding: What are people asking? How do they formulate questions? What words do they use? How do you organize what people want and translate that into answers?

Then develop that in the brand's tone and personality, highlighting distinctive characteristics. Instead of saying "we have great customer service," define what that means. How does your customer service work? Why do people like it? List specifics.

Generalities don't work. But when you define specifics? It works great in AI and it works great in Google.

On the term "SEO":

"I have never liked the term SEO, search engine optimization, because what are you truly optimizing? Ideally, you're optimizing for visitors, you're optimizing for their conversion, you are optimizing for their engagement."

On evergreen skills:

"I built websites as if I was creating a newspaper page. The layout, the readability, the content, that's never changed."

On conversion optimization:

"After learning SEO, if you're not learning conversion optimization, you've lost the game because that's where you really maximize what you've done."

On AI and LLMs:

"SEO works. It still works. In fact, SEO works on LLMs. They look at the same things and honestly, LLMs are like early search engines. It's almost like pre-Google search right now."

On strategy vs. tactics:

"If you don't have clear strategy that drives your marketing and your marketing decisions, you're going to lose."

On understanding customer needs:

"That's not what a small to medium sized business owner wants. What they want is to make payroll. They want to be more efficient and spend less time at the office. They want their people to be able to accomplish more."

On AI's role:

"AI is like having a thousand interns. They could do it speedy, but it still required someone to knock off the edges, clarify, add some better writing and get it there."

Tools & Platforms:

Organizations:

Companies/Case Studies:

Website: sitelogic.com
Learning Platform: learn.sitelogic.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mattbaileysitelogic

Matt offers hands-on coached courses (limited to 5 students per cohort) covering:

These courses include personal coaching, hands-on assignments, real-world activities from agency work, and portfolio development.

Website: jeremyriveraseo.com
SEO Arcade: seoarcade.com
Podcast: unscriptedseo.com