Market turbulence, SEO layoffs, budgets being slashed, brands tightening up—yet some consultants are building a thriving practice right in the middle of it. On Performance SEO Unpacked, host Ruchi Pardal sits down with Emanuel (Alexandru) Petrescu to ask why this might actually be the best time to plant the tree and bet on yourself as an SEO consultant.

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Emanuel shares how two decades of experience—from running his own business in Romania to agency, in-house and enterprise roles in North America—shaped his move into solo consulting. He talks about reaching out to people, putting information out there, volunteering his expertise, being present in communities and turning conversations into long-term business.

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The discussion moves through social media, LinkedIn as a “necessary evil,” WhatsApp and Meta’s AI, introverts stepping into visibility, structuring consulting around education and transparency, handling algorithm shifts, and dealing with imposter syndrome while still saying yes to pressure and no to the wrong clients.

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Emanuel (Alexandru) Petrescu is a Toronto-based digital marketing and SEO consultant originally from Romania. Around 20 years ago he ran his own business, learning how to build a website, show up at the top of search results, create a press list and maintain relationships with key stakeholders. For the past 10 years he has worked exclusively in SEO and digital marketing for the North American market, across in-house roles, small and niche agencies, big agencies and enterprise as a digital marketing manager. Today he runs his own agency and leads How About Some Marketing as a hub for marketers and business owners who want to get better at their marketing.

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• Why “market turbulence is a default” in SEO and how AI and LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity are changing the job market everywhere, not just in digital marketing.
• Emanuel’s path from his own business in Romania to 10 years in North America across in-house, small agency, niche agency, big agency, enterprise and digital marketing manager roles.
• The early consulting moves that mattered: reaching out to people, putting information out there, sharing on social platforms, volunteering to help, and being part of a community that still sends business years later.
• Emanuel’s go-to approach to networking: being present online, accepting the “influencers paradigm,” and why nothing beats real-life events, conferences and in-person conversations with speakers, attendees and organizers.
• How introverts can still speak, write, appear on podcasts, host shows and webinars when they are in the right environment and on topics where they have real experience.
• LinkedIn as “at least as toxic as Instagram,” why Emanuel still uses it daily, and how different audiences might actually live on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp or other platforms outside North America.
• Why WhatsApp is an “integrative part” of his approach, especially in places like Eastern Europe, and how Meta lead generation, messaging and the rise of Meta’s AI could change advertising and conversations over the next 6–12 months.
• How Emanuel structures consulting around education and trust, explaining the difference between organic and paid, aligning on KPIs, and staying transparent when algorithms change or tools stop reporting key data.
• Turning a network into paid work: regularly sharing relevant articles,...

Retail has been in the family, from a lighting store in Dallas, Texas, to Birmingham, Alabama, to fashion retail brands in New York. On Performance SEO Unpacked, Ruchi Pardal and Scott Lux connect that soft spot for retail with digital, agency work, and e-commerce in a world where everything’s changing every day and feels completely upside down right now.

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They walk through the shift from chasing impressions, traffic, and easy, accountable metrics to chasing outcomes and customer behavior. Instead of a simple math exercise around traffic, conversion, average order value, and units per transaction, the conversation keeps going back to product, sell-through, and whether the audience can really support that growth.

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The discussion stays on fundamentals and foundation: a clear brand definition, a content strategy that ladders up to that, end-to-end customer journeys, and platform-based, behavior-based KPIs. TikTok, Instagram, specialty retail, wholesale, physical retail, email, SMS, agents, assisted shopping, AI, and content all tie back to new customers, retention, frequency, revenue, and the health of the business.

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Scott Lux is the EVP of technology and e-commerce for Esprit, with experience across fashion retail brands in New York ranging from Diesel, John Varvatos, Intermix under the Gap umbrella, Alice and Olivia, Theory, and Esprit. He started his career on the agency side at a small digital agency in Seattle, Washington called Za, which ultimately became part of VML, cutting his teeth in the digital world on creative, user experience, data, analytics, and marketing. Scott has also been an adjunct professor at FIT in the SUNY system in New York and at Columbia Business School on the Upper West Side.

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• Retail in the family, lighting stores in Dallas, Texas and Birmingham, Alabama, a soft spot for retail, and how agency world, creative, user experience, data, analytics, and marketing shaped Scott’s digital point of view.
• How brands ended up with a simple math exercise around traffic, conversion, average order value, units per transaction, and paid media, chasing 40 or 50% online revenue without really focusing on customer or whether that growth was realistic.
• Why “stop chasing impressions, start chasing outcomes” means reconnecting product, selling, and customer, and re-looking at conversion and traffic across TikTok, Instagram, .com, physical retail, specialty retail, and wholesale.
• Rethinking attribution models: mapping an end-to-end journey, knowing the profile or persona, setting platform-based and behavior-based KPIs, and defining touch points, milestones, and behaviors like email signup, visiting specialty retail partners, or walking into a physical store.
• Getting fundamentals and foundation correct: top line revenue targets, profitability, product goals, sell through, key categories, where you placed your bets in product, and tracking turn and sell through week by week to understand the health of the business.
• Metrics that actually help in a fragmented user journey: new customers, customer acquisition, channels, recency and frequency, preventing churn, membership or loyalty, and smaller signals like saves, comments, forwards, email, SMS, and purchase behavior.
• Content performance in the age of zero clicks, AI answers, and chat: comments, saving a TikTok video, forwarding it, scrolling and watching, brand performance, brand lift, and how content across TikTok, Instagram, email, site, and even...

Performance SEO Unpacked brings together host Ruchi Pardal and Fred Shramovich, who has been in the SEO industry for over 15 years and now manages four different retail brands across fast-moving apparel and lingerie. The conversation starts with how people find and choose stores today when AI assistants are creeping into the buyer journey and long, very specific local questions are becoming normal. Instead of simple “near me” searches, Fred is tracking prompts like “long black dress at a boutique” or gifts under a certain price and watching how AI answers those.

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Fred shares how a lean team, strong partners, and flexible third-party store pages let him move fast with local content, Google My Business, reviews, and store-level information. He spends a lot of time in Google Search Console, social media comments, and reviews to understand what people actually ask, from busy moms to price-point holiday gifting. The episode walks through ongoing testing, collaboration with merchandise and website teams, Reddit and social listening, and deeper, more specific reviews as signals to stay visible in an AI first, locally focused journey.

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Fred Shramovich has been in the SEO industry for over 15 years, with experience on both the agency side and the enterprise side. He is currently managing four different retail brands, including a mix of apparel and a lingerie brand, and works with a very lean team supported by a local SEO provider that builds and manages store pages. Outside the office, Fred sells car detailing products and helps small businesses maneuver the SEO journey with large focused content strategies. He is also blessed with a family with two kids and a wife.

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• How AI assistance is changing local behavior from “pizza restaurant near me” to very, very long questions about specific products, brands, hours, distance, and competitors.
• Why Fred tracks prompts with tools dedicated to the AI space and constantly tests different content formats for categories like bras, dresses, sweaters, and jeans across multiple stores.
• How deeper research in Google Search Console, reviews, and social media comments reveals frequently asked questions that are not being answered yet on Google My Business posts, local pages, or site content.
• Using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube comments and even competitor social channels to spot concerns and themes, then answering those better and treating improvements like “little grains of sand in an hourglass.”
• Navigating multi-attribute local journeys where people ask for a red mini dress for a hundred dollars or gifts under $50, and coordinating with merchandise and website teams instead of going rogue.
• Why Fred still treats Google My Business, citations, and Apple’s business center as important, but pushes harder into sentiment, review depth, and specific details like services installed or products purchased.
• How review management systems, daily monitoring, and habitual negative sentiment at a single location can trigger real store-level fixes and brand-level learning.
• Personalizing local content for different markets like Florida versus New York, using store pages, FAQs, and service content to reflect local nuance while AI and Google results keep getting smarter.
• The importance of regular meetings, open communication, and letting data show traffic, revenue, and year-over-year growth so teams trust experiments and remove blockers for local SEO.

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