In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Louisa Frahm, an experienced SEO strategist who has worked with some of the world’s biggest media and publishing brands including ESPN, Google, LA Times, People Magazine, TMZ, Yahoo, and E! Online. Louisa has built her career specialising in news SEO, audience strategy, and helping editorial teams understand how search can support their content goals. She has also recently launched her own search consultancy, Frahm Focus.

In this conversation, we look at why news SEO is such a unique discipline, how search strategies differ across entertainment, sports, and breaking news environments, and why successful SEO in publishing requires far more than simply optimising articles.

Louisa shares her experience working inside some of the biggest newsrooms in the world, explaining how SEOs can build trust with journalists, train editorial teams, and create sustainable search cultures where SEO becomes embedded into the content workflow.

We also discuss the future of publishing in an AI-driven search landscape, the rise of Google Discover, personalised search, Reddit, multimodal content, and why SEOs increasingly need to think beyond rankings and become audience strategists.

Louisa discusses:

- Why news SEO is fundamentally different from traditional SEO

- The challenges of working in fast-paced editorial environments

- How SEOs can build relationships with journalists and editorial teams

- Why education and training are essential for scalable SEO success

- How to create SEO advocates within newsrooms

- Why performance measurement is changing beyond clicks and page views

- The impact of AI Overviews and AI search on publishers

- Why publishers need to think beyond Google Search results

- How Google Discover and personalised search are changing visibility

- Why SEO teams need to collaborate more closely with social, video, and editorial teams

Topics covered include:

- The differences between SEO for news, entertainment, sports, and traditional websites

- Working as the only SEO within large editorial organisations

- Managing the speed and pressure of breaking news SEO

- Training journalists and editors to understand search behaviour

- Building trust between SEO teams and editorial teams

- Using performance data and “receipts” to prove SEO value

- Creating post-mortem reports after major editorial events- Preparing SEO guides ahead of major news moments and tentpole events

- Google I/O, AI Mode, and the changing search experience

- The impact of AI Overviews on publisher traffic and click-through rates

- Why publishers need to diversify beyond Google

- TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and the growth of alternative search behaviours

- Multimodal search and creating content across different formats

- The rise of audience strategy as the next evolution of SEO

- Google Discover, preferred sources, and personalised search

- How user-generated content is influencing search visibility

- Breaking down silos between SEO, social, video, and editorial teams

- How to get more value from Google Trends data

- Using regional, seasonal, and rising query insights for content planning

In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Ash Nallawalla, an SEO consultant with over 25 years of experience in enterprise SEO, digital strategy, and in-house search operations across large organisations including banking, insurance, telecoms, and global brands. Ash has worked both agency-side and in-house throughout his career and is widely recognised for his focus on governance, operational SEO, and scalable search systems.

In this conversation, Ash introduces a completely new way of thinking about SEO performance and organisational readiness through the lens of governance maturity rather than rankings. Instead of focusing on traditional SEO audits, he outlines a framework designed to future-proof brand visibility across search engines and AI systems by strengthening internal processes, decision-making structures, and operational resilience.

We look at why SEO performance often disappears after improvements are made, not because of external algorithm changes, but due to internal organisational failures such as poor documentation, unclear ownership, and weak change control processes.

Ash also introduces his Visibility Governance Maturity Model (VGMM), a structured workshop-based framework that scores organisations across maturity levels and identifies critical single points of failure (SPOFs) that silently undermine long-term SEO performance.

Ash discusses:

- Why SEO improvements often degrade due to internal organisational issues, not algorithms

- The concept of governance gaps as the hidden cause of SEO performance loss

- Why SEO is a cross-functional responsibility, not a single-team ownership

- How “accidental SEO managers” create structural risk in large organisations

- The importance of documentation, accountability, and decision ownership

- Why crisis response planning is essential for maintaining search visibility

- How pre- and post-migration processes can make or break organic performance

- Why structured data governance is often missing in enterprise environments

- How AI systems increase the importance of structured, well-governed content

- Why visibility now depends on organisational systems, not just optimisation

Topics covered include:

- The Visibility Governance Maturity Model (VGMM) and how it works

- Moving from SEO audits to governance and maturity assessments

- The five-level maturity scale used to evaluate organisational readiness

- Why most organisations operate at a low maturity level without realising it

- Single Points of Failure (SPOF) and how they silently break SEO performance

- Lack of ownership for SEO outcomes across teams

- Absence of structured change approval processes for SEO impact

- Missing pre-release SEO checklists in deployment workflows

- Weak crisis response structures and undefined escalation paths

- Migration risks: pre-audit and post-launch validation failures

- The role of structured data governance in AI and search understanding

- Why AI and search engines reward structurally resilient organisations

- The difference between firefighting SEO and mature SEO operations

- How governance maturity becomes a measurable business capability

- Why documentation and process discipline outperform tactical SEO fixes

- Building organisational resilience against platform and algorithm changes

- Why SEO success depends on enterprise systems, not individual effort

Connect with Ash - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashnallawalla/

Thank you to our partner, SEO Gets, the easy-to-use analytics and reporting tool for your GSC & GA4 data. Be sure to check out the tool and use code search10 for 10% off: https://seogets.com/

In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Amit Raj, founder of The Link Guys, a specialist link building agency and training provider focused on modern off-page SEO, outreach strategy, and authority building. Amit also runs The Link Letter, a newsletter sharing practical insights into link acquisition, digital PR, and evolving search visibility tactics.

In this conversation, we look at how link building has evolved from a metric-led discipline into a more nuanced, relevance-driven practice shaped by editorial quality, brand trust, and AI-influenced search systems. Amit breaks down why traditional authority metrics like DR and traffic are becoming less reliable on their own, and what SEOs should focus on instead.

We also discuss how AI is reshaping outreach workflows, why human judgment is still essential in evaluating link opportunities, and how automation can support but not replace strategic decision-making in off-page SEO.A key part of the discussion also looks at Reddit and community-driven platforms, and how they can be used (carefully) as part of modern visibility and link strategies when aligned with audience intent and platform behaviour.

Amit discusses:

- Why link building is experiencing a resurgence in modern SEO

- The limitations of DR, DA, and other third-party authority metrics

- Why relevance and editorial quality matter more than numerical scores

- How AI is changing prospecting, outreach, and evaluation workflows

- Why “human in the loop” remains essential for quality link building

- The risks and limitations of link marketplaces and scaled link buying

- How Reddit and community platforms can contribute to visibility and brand signals

- Why authenticity matters more than scale in community-driven SEO

- How to define “quality links” beyond traffic and authority metrics

- Why traditional link tactics are becoming less effective over time

Topics covered include:

- The evolution of link building from volume-based to relevance-based strategy

- Third-party SEO metrics vs real-world authority signals

- Evaluating websites using editorial quality and brand trust signals

- AI-assisted link building workflows and their limitations

- The importance of contextual relevance in outreach campaigns

- Building sustainable authority vs short-term ranking gains

- The impact of AI-generated content on link ecosystems and trust

- Why editorial standards are rising across publishers and niche sites

- How agencies are adapting off-page SEO for AI-driven search

- The decline of low-quality link marketplaces and commoditised links

- Reddit strategy: engagement, risks, and opportunity for brand visibility

- Balancing automation tools with human-led decision making

- Why link building remains a core ranking and visibility factor

Connect with Amit - https://www.linkedin.com/in/link-building-expert/https://academy.thelinksguy.com/

Thank you to our partner, SEO Gets, the easy-to-use analytics and reporting tool for your GSC & GA4 data. Be sure to check out the tool and use code search10 for 10% off: https://seogets.com/

In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Gianluca Fiorelli, an international SEO and AI search strategist with nearly 20 years of experience in web marketing. Gianluca is also known for his work with Advanced Web Ranking and for consistently exploring how search behaviour, SERP structures, and AI systems are reshaping organic visibility at a global level.

In this conversation, we go deep into how SEO has evolved from keyword-driven optimisation into a more complex system of content architecture, entity relationships, and search journey mapping. Gianluca shares his perspective on how authority is built in modern search environments and how AI is accelerating the need for more structured, intent-driven content ecosystems.

We also explore how Google’s SERPs have changed over time, how AI Overviews and AI Mode are reshaping visibility and click behaviour, and why understanding search intent and query fan-out is becoming critical for SEO professionals

.Gianluca discusses:

- How “architecture of authority” goes beyond traditional content silos

- Why topical authority now depends on covering full search journeys

- The evolution of SERPs into zero-click and AI-enhanced environments

- How content clusters should include informational, transactional, and product layers

- Why entity-based thinking is essential for modern SEO strategy

- The role of personalisation in AI search and content visibility

- How AI is changing keyword research into intent and consensus analysis

- Why information gain is now critical for standing out in AI systems

- How SEO professionals can reverse-engineer AI Overviews and SERP behaviour

- The importance of understanding query fan-out and search intent layers

- How international SEO is being reshaped by AI-driven translation and ranking

- Why hreflang is not fully respected in AI search environments

Topics covered include:

- The shift from keyword clusters to architecture of authority

- SERP feature evolution: People Also Ask, AI Overviews, video, images

- Zero-click search and Google’s increasing role as an answer engine

- AI Mode vs AI Overview vs traditional search results

- Query fan-out and how Google builds AI responses

- Information gain vs consensus content in SEO strategy

- How to avoid commoditised content in AI-driven search

- Using SERP analysis and AI tools to identify content gaps

- The role of structured data and entity relationships in visibility

- International SEO challenges in AI translation and localisation

- Why Google may be moving toward AI-first search interfaces

- How search intent classification impacts AI Overview triggers

- The future of SERP analysis and visibility tracking tools

Connect with Gianluca - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianlucafiorelli/

Thank you to our partner, SEO Gets, the easy-to-use analytics and reporting tool for your GSC & GA4 data. Be sure to check out the tool and use code search10 for 10% off: https://seogets.com/

In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Myriam Jessier, an independent SEO and AI search strategist based in Denmark. They work with Fortune 500 brands, government agencies, and global SaaS companies to help them adapt their search strategies as AI reshapes how information is discovered, interpreted, and delivered across the web.

Myriam is known for their systems-level thinking around marketing, combining SEO, behavioural science, privacy, and AI search to explore how digital ecosystems are shifting beyond traditional funnels and measurement. In this conversation, we go deep into how AI agents, privacy shifts, and evolving user behaviour are fundamentally changing what “visibility” and “performance” actually mean.

We explore the idea of “God Mode Marketing” and whether marketers ever truly had control of user data, before looking at how AI agents and bot-driven traffic are disrupting dashboards, attribution models, and the assumptions behind performance marketing.

Myriam also shares insights on the fragmentation of the open web, the rise of closed communities, and why users are increasingly moving away from public platforms into private, trust-based environments.

Myriam discusses:

- Why “God Mode Marketing” was always partly an illusion

- How cookies created a false sense of control over user behaviour

- The rise of AI agents and why traditional dashboards are breaking

- Why a large share of internet traffic is now non-human

- The collapse of traditional funnel-based marketing measurement

- How AI systems are reshaping visibility and attribution

- The shift from open web discovery to closed, trusted communities

- Why users are increasingly moving into group chats and private ecosystems

- The erosion of trust in ad-driven social platforms

- Why marketers are being pushed back toward brand and creativity

- The ethical tension between data abundance and data absence

- How privacy shifts are reshaping marketing strategy and measurement

Topics covered include:

- The history of marketing measurement and the Wanamaker problem

- Cookies, tracking systems, and behavioural targeting models

- Choice architecture and funnel manipulation in digital marketing

- AI agents and the breakdown of traditional analytics dashboards

- Bot traffic and its impact on data reliability

- The future of advertising inside AI systems and LLM environments

- The split between agent-first and human-first internet experiences

- Closed communities, WhatsApp groups, and opt-out digital behaviour

- The evolution of social media into advertising ecosystems

- Trust collapse and the rise of private, invite-only spaces

- Why marketers are losing visibility into full user journeys

- The return of brand, creativity, and experiential marketing

- Surveillance concerns, data ethics, and behavioural influence risks

- The growing tension between personalisation and privacy

Connect with Myriam - https://www.linkedin.com/in/myriamjessier/

Thank you to our partner, SEO Gets, the easy-to-use analytics and reporting tool for your GSC & GA4 data. Be sure to check out the tool and use code search10 for 10% off: https://seogets.com/

In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Maeva Cifuentes, founder of Flying Cat Marketing, a SaaS-focused SEO agency helping B2B companies adapt to the rapid shift in search driven by AI, LLMs, and evolving user behaviour.

Maeva has built her agency from a background in translation and content into a specialist SEO consultancy, working closely with SaaS brands on content strategy, organic growth, and now AI-era search visibility. In this conversation, she shares how SEO is fundamentally changing and what businesses need to do to stay discoverable in a zero-click, AI-mediated search world.

We look at how traditional keyword-led SEO is breaking down, why customer language is becoming the most important input for content strategy, and how brands need to rethink both content creation and distribution to stay visible across AI systems, search engines, and off-site platforms.

Maeva also breaks down how SaaS companies should approach product-led content, why transparency and clarity are now ranking factors in practice, and how off-site signals like Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, and review platforms are increasingly shaping AI understanding of brands.

Maeva discusses:

- How SEO has shifted from keywords to intent and real user language

- Why SaaS companies naturally evolve into niche expertise through case studies

- The move toward product-led content and away from purely educational blogs

- Why AI is taking over top-of-funnel discovery and what that means for content strategy

- The growing importance of off-site signals in shaping brand visibility

- How reporting is evolving beyond traffic into AI visibility and business outcomes

- Why most companies underestimate what “modern SEO” actually requires

Topics covered include:

- The decline of keyword-first SEO strategies

- Voice of customer research from sales calls, support tickets, and communities

- Zero-click search and the shift away from traffic as a core metric

- AI search, prompt-based discovery, and emerging visibility tracking

- Consolidating content and focusing on bottom-of-funnel pages

- Building brand authority across multiple digital platforms

- The role of Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, and review sites in AI training signals

- Why SEO now requires cross-functional collaboration across teams

- Challenges of stakeholder buy-in in an AI-driven marketing environment

- How to structure content for both users and AI systems

Connect with Maeva: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maevaeverywhere/

Thank you to our partner, SEO Gets, the easy-to-use analytics and reporting tool for your GSC & GA4 data. Be sure to check out the tool and use code search10 for 10% off: https://seogets.com/

In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Adam Gent, co-founder of Indexing Insight, a tool built to help SEOs understand how Google is indexing and de-indexing pages at scale. With over 15 years of experience in SEO across both agency and in-house roles, Adam shares deep insights into one of the most misunderstood areas of search: indexing behaviour and crawl management.

We explore how Google decides what stays in the index and what gets removed, why indexing is becoming even more critical in the AI search era, and how large-scale websites can lose visibility without realising it. Adam breaks down real-world case studies, including how technical issues can silently remove hundreds of thousands of pages from search.

Adam discusses:

- How Google’s indexing system actually works behind the scenes

- Why pages are actively de-indexed (and not just “not indexed”)

- The importance of crawl demand, engagement, and internal linking

- How Indexing Insight identifies indexing issues faster than traditional tools

- Why sitemap structure matters more than most SEOs realise

- How AI search increases the importance of being properly indexed

Topics covered include:

- Crawl current vs crawl previously indexed explained

- Why Google never emails you about active de-indexing

- The role of demand, engagement, and internal links in indexing decisions

- How to structure sitemaps for large-scale websites

- Splitting sitemaps by page type, demand, and business value

- Case study: how a T-Mobile indexing issue led to major traffic changes

- Why Google Search Console hides key indexing signals

- The 130-day indexing rule and 190-day crawl “forgetting” threshold

- How core updates can directly impact indexing behaviour- Building dashboards to communicate indexing issues to stakeholders

- Using input metrics to improve indexation outcomes

- Why SEOs need better business cases to influence developers

Thank you to our partner, SEO Gets, the easy-to-use analytics and reporting tool for your GSC & GA4 data. Be sure to check out the tool and use code search10 for 10% off: https://seogets.com/

In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Pam Aungst Cronin, a top SEO consultant with over 20 years of experience in e-commerce and digital marketing. Pam has been recognised as one of the leading women in SEO and is a passionate advocate for data-driven marketing strategies and practical approaches to AI search and brand visibility.

We explore how AI is transforming SEO, why brand authority is more important than ever, and how businesses can optimise their content for AI-powered search. Pam shares actionable insights on LLM audits, content consolidation, EEAT implementation, and practical ways to inject human experience and storytelling into content workflows to improve AI understanding.

Pam discusses:

- Why brand strength and authority are now critical for AI search

- How AI models interpret content and the importance of LLM audits

- Consolidating multiple pieces of content for better AI comprehension

- Injecting experience, storytelling, and unique insights into content

- Balancing AI-assisted content creation with authentic human expertise

Topics covered include:

- Measuring AI visibility and topical authority

- Conducting input-output audits for AI content and search evaluation

- Consolidating blog posts and guides for AI ingestion

- Ensuring human experience (the “E” in EEAT) is embedded in content

- Avoiding hallucinations and errors in AI search results

- Optimising brand representation across multiple digital channels

- Practical strategies for small and medium-sized businesses

- Preparing content for AI agents, MCP/UCP, and bot optimisation

- Tips on aligning content workflows with AI search behaviour

- How SEO, PR, and content teams can collaborate in an AI-first world

Connect with Pam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamaungst/

Thank you to our partner, SEO Gets, the easy-to-use analytics and reporting tool for your GSC & GA4 data. Be sure to check out the tool and use code search10 for 10% off: https://seogets.com/