The Best SEO Podcast

The customer journey isn't a straight line anymore, and last-click attribution may be giving marketers the wrong picture of what's actually driving revenue.

Matthew Bertram sits down with Carol Larson of Marketstorm to explore how AI, changing buyer behavior, fragmented platforms, and longer decision cycles are reshaping digital marketing. They break down Google's "messy middle," the difference between creating influence and capturi...

Using AI is one thing. Building an entire system around it is another.

Matthew Bertram sits down with returning guest Richard Valentine and Hector Herrera for a deep technical conversation about how AI power users are moving beyond individual prompts and building their own AI architecture, specialized agent teams, memory systems, workflows, and internal infrastructure.

They explore model drift, token management, specialized AI teams,...

SEO strategies that worked five years ago may actually be holding brands back today. Matthew Bertram sits down with Calum Kennard, Head of Sales at ClickSlice, to explore how Google and AI search are changing what it takes to earn visibility, trust, and conversions online.

They break down stale and duplicate content, authorship and entity signals, information gain, topical authority, and why e-commerce brands may be better served fo...

AI search is changing what it means to build visibility online. Matthew Bertram sits down with Matt Emgi to explore the evolving relationship between SEO, AEO, and LLM visibility, including why authority, entity associations, consensus signals, and brand presence are becoming increasingly important. 

They break down digital PR, original research, Reddit marketing, link building, attribution, automation, and the strategies SaaS ...

We talk with Karen Tiber Leland about how AI search changes personal branding, rebranding, and what it takes to stay findable when machines summarize the internet for your customers. We break down how to pick a canonical name, reduce mixed signals across channels, and decide whether you need a full rebrand or a focused re-up. 

• Choosing one canonical form of your name and using it everywhere to reduce identity collision <...

We get back to paid ads fundamentals and why AI automation only works when we set clear, revenue-connected conversion goals. We share practical ways to define personas, protect lead quality, and build landing pages that help Google Ads learn what “good” actually looks like. 

• goal-first thinking for Google Ads and paid social automation
• common conversion tracking mistakes that burn budget
• building multi...

AI watermarking and AI search make third-party trust the new battleground for SEO and brand visibility. Host, Matthew Bertram, talks with Austin Holmes about how digital PR, reviews, and consistent profiles can turn your business into the default recommendation.

• why off-page SEO and third-party citations carry outsized weight in AI-driven search
• how Claude watermarking and AI content detection push brands toward real huma...

We dig into how podcasting, digital PR, and SEO now reinforce each other, especially as AI search tools pull answers from trusted third-party sources. We also share practical ways to turn press and interviews into long-term visibility while staying grounded when attention brings criticism. 

• why early podcasting works as a relationship builder and business flywheel 
• how press placements create credibility and authori...

We get brutally honest about why traffic is a vanity metric and how SEO only earns budget when it ties to real business outcomes. We lay out the data and reporting foundation you need to walk into the C-suite with confidence, even when attribution is messy and timelines are long. 

• separating vanity metrics from revenue-driving KPIs 
• building the business case for SEO with CFO-ready numbers 
• fixing data qua...

Join us for a special episode hosted by Geoff Campbell who is standing in for Matt Bertram, we focus on the part of marketing most teams ignore: turning existing traffic into real phone calls, form fills, and sales. We break down a simple conversion framework, why dynamic website messaging works, and how to think about proof, positioning, and AI search as buyer behavior changes. 

• traffic times conversion rate equals c...

We talk through what “AI visibility” really means and why marketers are racing ahead of the data, even as consumer behavior shifts toward AI search and AI assistants. We connect SEO fundamentals to GEO and agentic commerce so you can take practical steps instead of getting stuck in paralysis. 

• AI visibility tools and why the industry lacks a baseline standard
• How context and personalization change AI search ...

We talk about the real shift happening as AI moves from chatbot to teammate, and why persistent memory is the make or break layer for useful automation. We dig into governance, data hygiene, and practical workflow design so AI output gets better over time instead of turning into expensive noise. 

• moving the show toward YouTube and a more educational format 
• why memory matters when AI becomes a partner or agent&n...

Rate the show in your podcast app. Apple ratings are how new listeners decide whether to press play — an honest one takes about thirty seconds. Steps for iPhone, Mac and Spotify:
www.bestseopodcast.com/review

We reconnect with Chris Burres to talk about the real mechanics of podcast marketing, brand legacy, and why consistency beats quick wins when you are trying to earn attention. We also zoom out into AI governance and ...

We get real about what AI search changes and what it does not, then map SEO back to fundamentals like attribution, buyer intent, and revenue. We also share how agency teams can use agent workflows and governance to move faster without turning the business into chaos.
• Matt’s return, agency ownership changes, and why the timing matters
• Cameron’s path from engineering to SEO through referrals and Google Busines...

In this episode of the Best SEO Podcast, hosted by Matthew Bertram, Zara Carbonell joins the show to talk about why AI makes content more important, not less, and how real trust now comes from human context and clear communication. We share practical ways to use AI to analyze performance, sharpen your personal brand, and reach buyers where they already spend attention. 

• AI as a tool that frees humans from repetitive marke...

We map the shift from chat-based AI to real agentic systems that can run workflows, manage memory, and publish results without constant human babysitting. We break down how to design AI agents like jobs so they stay grounded, cost-controlled, and useful for marketing, SEO, and software work. 

• tiering AI use from assistance to automation to full agents with memory and tools 
• writing a clear job description with input...

We talk with Lynn Ward about why marketing is shifting from search and retrieve to solve my problem, and why speed is becoming the moat for agencies and clients alike. We break down what AI-first agencies are building right now to protect conversions, reduce bottlenecks, and stay visible as web traffic and SEO change.

• search behavior shifting as ChatGPT and other LLMs absorb intent
• speed as the new moat for agencies and o...

Matthew Bertram sits down with David Albert of CRO Metrics to unpack what is actually changing across SEO, AEO, GEO, LLM visibility, and the modern stack as tools like Claude Code make custom apps and automations feel effortless.

• the shift from bloated martech stacks to custom AI middleware and small internal apps 
• why compliance, governance, and shadow AI access are now daily marketing risks 
• using guardrails ...

We trace the fast shift from link-based search to AI-generated answers and show how that change reshapes content, measurement, and strategy. Connor Kimball of Cairrot shares data on LLM traffic surges, concrete AEO tactics, and how unified analytics reveals brand lift beyond referral clicks.

• AI search replacing link lists with answers
• AEO as the method, LLM visibility as the metric
• Informational traffic down, tra...