The Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast

Tom Malesic started EZMarketing thirty-five seconds after quitting a boss who refused a client he disagreed with — and he has spent the twenty-nine years since building the opposite kind of company. In his second turn on the Unscripted SEO Podcast he makes the case that core values are your culture, not a poster: why his book is a large volume of small customers so his top five could leave tomorrow without a single layoff, why the customer who yells at your team has to go, and how an EOS cadence keeps a fully remote team accountable across three countries.
He also gets practical: training a per-client AI agent on Hats.ai so the machine knows the client’s voice better than any single team member, the CIPA and ADA compliance demand letters now landing in small-business inboxes, and the unglamorous truth that most marketing budgets are wasted on leads nobody calls back.
In this episode
The 1996 origin story — how one boss’s refusal handed Tom his first customer
Why core values ARE your culture, and the “I gotta cover my ass” hire who proved it
“The tail can’t wag the dog” — surviving the loss of your top five clients
Firing the customer who made an employee cry, and coaching customers like you coach staff
How one toxic employee wrecks a culture — and your Glassdoor
Running fully remote on EOS, with an 11,000 sq ft office holding four people
One trained AI agent per client across ~70 models
CIPA and ADA compliance demand letters — landing right now
Be open to being lucky, and never be the smartest person in the room
Read the full recap: The Tail Can’t Wag the Dog
Tom’s first interview: The Website Is the Center of Everything

Alyssa Evans started school as an art major and finished with a science degree — and that creative-plus-analytical split is exactly how she runs Grow Your Strategy. In this episode she makes the case that the funnel is the wrong mental model entirely, and that what replaces it is a content ladder.

Alyssa is a growth strategist working mostly with fintech, real estate tech, and SaaS companies — including investors raising money for syndications and adjacent plays like storage units and ATM investing. Her first month with any client is spent auditing rather than executing, because until you know a founder's archetype and comfort level, you're guessing. She's blunt about what's failing right now: the last eight months of her work have included cleaning up websites wrecked by auto-generated content.

In this episode

Why the first month of any engagement should be auditing, not acting — and how client archetypes change the plan

The content ladder — showing up at the most basic question in your niche and every rung of complexity above it

Auto-blogging is a liability: what Alyssa is seeing as she repairs AI-content damage

Why LLMs favor content updated in the last three months — and what that means for your archive

Cross-team collaboration as a speed advantage — what product and sales know that marketing doesn't

Building feedback loops that don't backfire — where Slack and Reddit communities burn brands, and what works instead

Community as its own marketing channel — word of mouth 2.0, and "growing in public"

Why link building is becoming networking — non-competitor partnerships, cross-promotion, and podcasts as an authority engine

Chapters

[MM:SS] — Meet Alyssa Evans: continuous improvement as a operating principle

[MM:SS] — From art major to growth strategist

[MM:SS] — The power of cross-team collaboration

[MM:SS] — First-month friction: auditing before acting

[MM:SS] — Finding the niche: fintech, real estate tech & SaaS

[MM:SS] — SaaS's moving target: the release/marketing/satisfaction cycle

[MM:SS] — Customer feedback loops that actually work

[MM:SS] — Community as a marketing channel

[MM:SS] — AI, GEO, and the content ladder

[MM:SS] — Top of funnel is dead; go deeper

[MM:SS] — Link building in the age of AI

[MM:SS] — Where to find Alyssa

Notable quotes

"You need to make sure that you're found at that base level and working their way up — think of it as a content ladder."
— Alyssa Evans"If you really start to talk to your customer like they're building the product with you, you will just be much more successful."
— Alyssa Evans"Everyone will have an opinion, and they are valid in their world — but you have to stand your ground, and then the data will come later."
— Alyssa Evans

Resources & links

Grow Your Strategy — Alyssa's strategy and content company

Alyssa Evans on LinkedIn · @growyourstrategy on Instagram

On repairing AI-generated content damage — human-certified, expert-sourced content

On earning authority off-site — the

Alex Zweydoff came up in the property management industry before founding ClearLead Digital, an agency that niched down to do SEO right for property managers — measuring success in doors added, not vanity metrics. We get into why you target owner-intent keywords instead of tenant traffic, how hyperlocal city and sub-community pages win the highest-intent owners, speed-to-lead, and why property managers who don’t adapt to AI search now could vanish in 12–24 months. Alex also breaks down custom client dashboards and the local-SEO plays most PM agencies get wrong. More interviews + free SEO SOPs at Unscripted SEO.

Zozimus EVP David Wilson — an SEO since the AltaVista days — joins Jeremy Rivera on The Unscripted SEO Podcast to argue that "search engine optimization" is now search everywhere optimization: findability across social, LLMs, and Google, not rankings for their own sake. He breaks down the expected-CTR model that turns raw Google Search Console data into the traffic clients are leaving on the table, the internal-linking tactic that still works after a decade, digital PR and brand as the new link building as AI erodes unbranded search, and a Gemini + ChatGPT + Claude → NotebookLM method for tearing down a competitor's SEO weak points. Plus: building a defensible moat, faceless brands vs. putting a face forward, and why the About page is now an AI asset — more from David at Zozimus.

Sonia Urquilla (SEO by Sonia) turns SEO into something the average coach or consultant can actually use. Jeremy met her on TikTok, and in this episode she shares the framework she calls “brand optimization” — getting found and mentioned everywhere your audience searches, not just ranking a website.

It’s personal for her: she watched her dad’s local shop close for lack of visibility — no Google Business Profile, no website — and now helps female founders and service providers avoid that same fate.

What you’ll learn:

What “brand optimization” means — and why SEO now spills into PR, Reddit, podcasts, citations & local events

How one client’s masterclass went from ~100 attendees to 1,000+ by combining a press release, ads, email & Reddit

The local “goldmine” online service providers ignore — and how sponsoring local charities/events (via Zip Local) earns links, trust & leads

Why AI has leveled the playing field — and why fear-mongering keeps small businesses from using it

The follow-up gap: ~80% of local businesses never reply to a message (and how to fix it)

How to vet an SEO: do they actually do their own SEO?

Jeremy’s open-source tool pick: OpenSEO (GSC + backlink data, an MCP, ~$10–20/mo)

Watch the video: youtube.com/watch?v=M1fdsssDiw8

Connect with Sonia: Website: seobysonia.com (grab a free video website audit) · LinkedIn: Sonia Urquilla · TikTok & Instagram: @seobysonia

More interviews at unscriptedseo.com — browse the topical hubs for past guests like Rand Fishkin & Grant Simmons. Plus the keyword-research tool at SEO Arcade