The Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast

Julia Bocchese has spent nearly nine years helping small businesses in the creative and holistic space get found online — not through paid ads or social media grind, but through SEO, Pinterest strategy, and now AI search optimization. She also teaches SEO at the college level, which gives her a rare ability to break down the technical into the practical. In this conversation, Julia unpacks why Pinterest is one of the most underused traffic channels for small businesses, how to think about AI as a discovery platform, and what she actually looks at when a client hands her a site to fix.

About Julia Bocchese

Julia is the founder of Julia Renee Consulting, a Philadelphia-based consultancy serving creative and holistic small businesses — interior designers, photographers, midwives, therapists, and more. She offers SEO services, Pinterest strategy and management, blog and content optimization, and AI search (AEO) services. She also teaches SEO at the college level — without textbooks, because anything printed a year ago is already out of date.

What We Cover

Pinterest as a search engine: Why Julia treats Pinterest with the same keyword discipline as Google — and why most businesses are leaving long-lived traffic on the table by ignoring it.

The longevity advantage: Julia has clients with pins from 2009 that still drive traffic. The math on why Pinterest content compounds while social posts expire.

Unexpected Pinterest niches: A niche Olympic swim training company with zero Pinterest competition. A Swiss boarding school. Luxury yachts. Why the "I'm not visual enough" objection almost never holds.

Video pins done right: Audio is muted by default. Talking-head videos underperform. What actually works — and how it differs completely from Instagram.

The Pinterest-Google double dip: Julia regularly sees Pinterest boards and individual pins ranking in Google SERPs for the same keywords her clients are chasing organically.

AI search optimization: Why the most important information needs to live at the top of the page, and why distributing FAQs throughout service pages outperforms a single standalone FAQ page.

Link building for solopreneurs: How Julia helps small businesses find local placements that do double duty — links and direct audience exposure in one.

Reporting without owning revenue: Why Julia reports on traffic quality and impressions rather than conversions she can't control.

The biggest SEO trap right now: Writing for bots instead of the humans who are actually going to pay you.

On-page quick wins: Julia's five-point checklist when she takes on a new site — including the location-in-the-footer problem she sees on almost every local business site.

Conversation Highlights

On why she teaches without textbooks:

"I don't give my students textbooks. Anything printed a year ago is already out of date in SEO. The syllabus changes throughout the semester as new findings come out — the class can look totally different from one year to the next."

On why Pinterest belongs in your strategy:

"People aren't going to Pinterest to follow people. They're searching for information. That's why I focus on it alon...

What if the biggest SEO opportunity for most businesses isn't a new tool, a new tactic, or a new algorithm hack — it's simply showing up consistently and claiming your authority?

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Jason Wade, founder of Ninja AI and an expert in AI visibility architecture, GEO, and AEO. They go deep on what it actually means to engineer your entity, why most SEOs are still running 2015 playbooks, and why one podcast episode can outperform a year of blogging.

 Here's Jason's recap of this Unscripted SEO episode

What We Cover in This Episode

What 'AI visibility' means and why GEO/AEO is really just visibility engineering

Entity optimization: how AI systems recognize authority — and how you train them

The content multiplication math: one podcast → 50 assets

Why most businesses have never actually said what they do on their website

How Google's core algorithm updates have punished hacking and rewarded authenticity

The Office Space test: 'What would you say you do here?' — applied to your homepage

Why Reddit and podcasts rank instantly compared to traditional SEO timelines

E-E-A-T in practice: showing up, speaking up, and having others verify it

 

Best Quotes from This Episode

“If a company can take that friction away and do the stuff they won't do — that's where the magic is.” — Jason Wade

“One podcast could become 50 assets. One podcast.” — Jason Wade

“You're training the system in the easiest way possible — by simply showing up.” — Jason Wade

“Your content gap analysis should be: what are all the competitors missing that you can provide?” — Jeremy Rivera

 

Resources & Links Mentioned

Guest: Jason Wade — 

  ninjaai.com | jasonwade.com | LinkedIn

  Services: AI Visibility | GEO | AEO | AI SEO Strategies

  Article: 25 Local SEO Tips — AI Upgrade

 

Host: Jeremy Rivera | SEO Arcade | Unscripted SEO Podcast

More from SEO Arcade: Podcast-Based Link Building Service | Entity Optimization with Jason Barnard

 

Like what you heard? Subscribe, leave a review, and share with an SEO who needs to hear this. And if you want to explore how podcast-based SEO services could multiply your content and backlinks — schedule a call at SEOArcade.com.

Stephan Bajaio — CEO and co-founder of Vibe Logic, former co-founder of Conductor, and ex-CMO — joins Jeremy Rivera on the Unscripted SEO Podcast for one of the most candid conversations we've had about why the SEO industry keeps losing the narrative about itself — and what practitioners can actually do about it.

Stephan built his career from the dot-com era through to co-founding one of the largest enterprise SEO platforms ever built. He's seen the industry from every angle — agency, platform, C-suite — and he doesn't pull punches about where we've gone wrong or how to fix it.

What We Cover in This Episode

Why the GEO / AIO naming debate is a symptom of a bigger identity problem — and why fixing it starts with SEOs, not executives

What SEO actually is when you strip away the jargon: connecting organizational wisdom to the audience that needs it

The lonely island problem — why even great SEOs fail when the content team, dev team, and CMO aren't aligned

How conflicting KPIs create internal friction and a practical approach to working with — not against — the people who control execution

Why the best keyword research is a conversation — Jeremy's concrete-wall installer example and how to build content from real expert interviews

Content value beyond organic traffic — why reporting only on organic is leaving most of the story untold

Vibe Logic's 'web presence intelligence' framework and the concept of being where decisions are formed, not just where they're made

Why passion is the one trait in great SEOs you simply cannot teach

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, host Jeremy Rivera sits down with Brandon Leibowitz, founder of SEO Optimizers — a full-service digital marketing agency based in Los Angeles. With nearly two decades of experience in SEO, paid ads, social media, and coaching, Brandon shares his grounded, practitioner-level take on the AI search landscape and what actually moves the needle.

 

Topics Covered

How AI-powered search surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot) are — and aren’t — changing SEO workflow

Why schema markup is the highest-leverage technical tactic for AI visibility

The difference between informational and transactional AI search behavior

A page-by-page schema architecture strategy for e-commerce and service sites

How to use competitor schema analysis as a gap-finding tactic

Why content + backlinks + technical SEO must all work together

 

Key Quotes

“The AI overview is just a featured snippet — just a new way to rebrand it for Google. The old tactics, the old strategies already worked.” — Brandon Leibowitz

 

“The more touch points you have and more places people find you, the more likely they are to want your product or service in the future.” — Brandon Leibowitz

 

Resources Mentioned

SEO Optimizers — Brandon’s agency

Free Gift + Classes from Brandon

Free Website SEO Analysis

Google Search Console

Ahrefs

Brandon on LinkedIn

Unscripted SEO Podcast

Jeremy Rivera – About

 

Connect With Brandon Leibowitz

Website: seooptimizers.com

Free Gift: seooptimizers.com/gift

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brandonleibowitz

 

About The Unscripted SEO Podcast

The Unscripted SEO Podcast is hosted by Jeremy Rivera, SEO consultant and founder of SEO Arcade. Each episode features candid, unscripted conversations with leading SEO practitioners, agency founders, and digital marketing veterans.

Greg Merrilees is the founder of Studio1 Design — a conversion-focused website agency that has designed for over 2,000 businesses worldwide, including Hollywood A-listers like Sylvester Stallone. He’s the author of Next Level Website Design and has been building websites since 2009.

In this episode, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Greg to tackle whether websites are still relevant, how to build for searcher intent, why copywriting beats design every time, and what the rise of AI vibe coding actually means for your brand.

Episode Highlights

Do you really need a website in 2025? Greg’s nuanced take on social media vs. owned assets

The cold / warm / hot traffic model and how to match your CTA to intent

Why Microsoft Clarity should be on every website (and how it compares to Hotjar)

Website design trends to avoid in 2026 — and what converts instead

How to find your unique positioning in a commoditized niche

Interactive lead magnets vs. PDF downloads — what actually converts today

The AI sameness problem: why vibe-coded websites all look the same

Key Resources Mentioned

Studio1 Design — Greg’s agency

Next Level Website Design (Book)

Free Resources — Custom GPT + book companion

Microsoft Clarity — Free heatmaps & session recording

Enterprise Fitness (macro calculator example)

Yoshua Law (case study)

Greg’s email: [email protected]

Connect with Jeremy Rivera

SEO Arcade — Podcast-based content marketing & link building

Studio1 Design Blog — Related Reading

Don’t Chase Website Design Trends in 2026

The Hidden Cost of Fancy Website Effects: Lost Conversions

How We Turned a Law Firm Redesign Into 60% More Conversions

How We Boosted a Fitness Business’ Bookings By 64%

AI Killed Your Website Strategy: Here’s What Works Now

How to Create a Personal Brand That Attracts Dream Clients