The Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast

Benas Leonavicius Freelance SEO Consultant & Agency Builder Website | LinkedIn | Substack Benas Leonavicius has spent 10 years in the SEO trenches—from working with large e-commerce sites to navigating the bureaucratic nightmare of enterprise SaaS SEO. Now he's building an agency focused on keynote speakers, authors, and coaches, where basic SEO fundamentals deliver outsized results. In this c...

In this episode, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Jeremy Yang, founder of Digital Goliath, to explore the often-siloed world of paid advertising and how it intersects with SEO. Managing over $450,000 in monthly ad spend, Jeremy Yang shares brutal truths about Google Ads setup mistakes, the death of exact match keywords, and why most businesses fail at Meta advertising before they even start. From offs...

Summary In this episode of the Unscripted SEO podcast, Keith Breseé and Cauveé , the inspiration engineer , delve into the intricacies of content marketing. They discuss the importance of platforms like Substack and Beehive for community building, the necessity of finding one's niche, and the long-term strategies required for effective content creation. The conversation also covers the significanc...

What happens when a marketing coach who's also an actor sits down to talk about authenticity in business? You get one of the most unfiltered conversations about trust, AI, and human connection in marketing that we've had on this show. Kyle Merrick doesn't pull punches. As the founder of Anarchy For A Day and a marketing veteran with nearly a decade of agency experience, he's seen it all—and he's n...

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. Key Topics Covered 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? "...

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. Episode Summary In this episode, Jeremy Rivera on the Unscripted SEO podcast by Be Sharp Digit...

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 ecosyste...

How a Psychology Degree, Blog Writing, and Storytelling Built a $75K Content Marketing Success About This Episode 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 h...

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. Re...

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 In...

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 Founder, Front Burner Marketing 15 years in home service digital marke...

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...

Guest: Tianna Mamalick , SMB Marketing School Episode Overview 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. Key Dis...

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...

Marcus Smith runs CloudTrails, a Salesforce consultancy, and came to it from industrial engineering. Asked to describe the deliverable in two sentences he needed one: long term peace of mind in Salesforce. The sharpest thing here is the test he uses to kill work, and how ruthlessly he points it at his own invoices. Key takeaways The lean test. Print the task, put it in front of ten customers, and...

Josh Squires is an Associate Director of SEO at Amsive with 17 years of experience spanning freelance, in-house, agency, and consultancy work. He helped launch the SEO practice at Tableau and has worked extensively across DTC, e-commerce, Shopify, and SaaS sectors. Connect with Josh: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshsquiresrva/ SEO Slack: No Learners SEO Slack channel Key Takeaways Commun...

Melanie Whittaker runs You Are Your Marketing , a PR business that gets coaches and authors onto podcasts, magazines and bigger platforms. Her advice for any business, boring industry or not: "Show behind the scenes, shoot content, if you've got staff, get them to come on camera and explain what they've done." Melanie is originally from England and lives in Spain. She learned selling working front...

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, host  Jeremy Rivera and Jonathan Schüßler delve into the intricacies of SEO , discussing the evolution of the industry, the impact of AI, and the importance of niche marketing. Jonathan shares his journey from wedding photography to SEO, highlighting the challenges and strategies in local and international SEO. His transition from the wedding industry...

Summary In this episode, Keith Breseé interviews David Bell , CEO of  USA Mobile Drug Testing, who shares his extensive experience in SEO and digital marketing, particularly in the drug testing industry. David discusses the journey of rebuilding his website after being penalized by Google, the strategies that led to significant traffic growth, and the importance of engaging franchisees in content...

In this episode, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Adrian Dahlin, founder of Search to Sale , to explore the intersection of traditional SEO principles and emerging AI technologies. Adrian brings a unique perspective as someone relatively new to SEO—having focused on it for just over three years—combined with a master's degree in applied data science and a background in creative marketing. The conversa...

Navigating Multi-Channel Marketing in the Age of LLMs with Claude Zdanow and Chris Becker Episode Overview: The golden age of Google-only SEO is over. In this revealing conversation, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Claude Zdanow (CEO) and Chris Becker (President) of Onar —a publicly traded marketing technology and agency network—to explore how businesses must fundamentally reimagine their digital mar...

Seth Trammell is director of SEO at KlientBoost, running the SEO product for a mostly B2B SaaS client base. His argument is one SEOs have been losing to clients for years. Blog content that does not convert is not failing, because converting was never its job. Key takeaways Stop measuring top-of-funnel content like a pricing page. Judged as a bottom-of-funnel asset it will always look like a waste...

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast , Jeremy Rivera and Mordy Oberstein of Unify , a Brand marketing service , and head of Brand at Wix discuss the evolving landscape of SEO and the critical role of branding in achieving online success. They explore how recent algorithm changes by Google have made it increasingly difficult for non-branded sites to compete, emphasizing the need for SEOs t...

In this episode of Unscripted SEO , host Jeremy Rivera sits down with Erica D'Arcangelo, CEO of Love Content Development , to discuss the evolution of digital marketing agencies, the hybrid work model, and navigating the AI revolution in content creation. About Our Guest Erica D'Arcangelo is the CEO of Love Content Development, a full-service marketing agency with 14 years in business. She also ow...

Guest: Lorraine Ball, Host of More Than a Few Words Podcast Experience: 19 years running a digital marketing agency, sold in 2021 Current Focus: Marketing consulting, teaching, and podcasting Key Topics Covered Building and Scaling an Agency Started in 2002 as traditional marketing company Evolved into digital agency with social media emergence Strategic decision to cap at 10 employees and raise p...