The Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast

Jeremy Rivera sits down with Adrian Nikolov, founder of Haide Digital, for an unscripted conversation about what SEO becomes when AI stops being a threat and starts being the engine. "Haide" means "let's go" in Bulgarian — and Adrian's whole philosophy is built on it: publish, break stuff, read the data, feed it back, improve.

With 18 years in SEO and digital marketing, Adrian breaks down "Organic Growth Engineering" — his blend of SEO, GEO, and AI automation — and how his team builds self-healing topical authority systems that get smarter than the humans running them. Jeremy and Adrian go deep on why "just blogging" is dead, how to actually funnel cold traffic instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall, and why authority is the new PageRank.

They also get into the messy realities: prompt tracking as sticking your finger in the wind, why LLM referral traffic can look great and convert terribly, and how to reverse-engineer AI citations by just asking the model why it surfaced a source.

Whether you run an agency, a SaaS brand, or your own site, this one is about flipping the script — from fighting Google's black box to feeding the LLMs the answers they're begging for.

⏱️ In this episode:
• Why AI won't take SEO jobs — it makes SEOs the orchestrators
• Building your own tools and becoming the developer
• Self-healing topical authority systems explained
• Search Everywhere Optimization vs. blog-only strategy
• Top / mid / bottom of funnel — and building sticky content
• Signal interception (news-jacking) automation across social
• The truth about prompt tracking and LLM citation data
• Microsoft Clarity, sentiment analysis, and authority as the new PageRank
• How to get cited in AI (you may not even need links)
• Agentic shopping and training your "least trustworthy rep" (Claude, GPT, Gemini)

Connect with Adrian Nikolov:
Website: https://haide.digital/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-nikolov/
Newsletter: "Search Engineered" (on LinkedIn)

️ More from Unscripted SEO:
Explore the full archive of interviews at https://unscriptedseo.com

Like & subscribe if you caught this on YouTube — spread the signal.

#SEO #AISEO #GEO #SearchEverywhereOptimization #DigitalMarketing

Most founders become the bottleneck in their own business. Lloyd Thompson of Virtual DOO on the fractional "operator" who sits between you and your team — and gets you out of the day-to-day.

Jeremy Rivera talks with Lloyd Thompson, founder of Virtual DOO, about fractional operations for busy online business owners: what a Director of Operations actually does, when you need one, how to make operations measurable, a nuanced take on remote vs. return-to-office, and his fix for the AI era — the problem isn't the tools, it's the noise, so simplify.

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 – Intro: from corporate to Virtual DOO
8:06 – What a fractional operator actually does
12:47 – The return-to-office counter-take
16:41 – Operations ROI: what agencies miss
23:51 – The AI-tool trap: simplify the noise
29:20 – E-commerce operations at scale
33:01 – Where to find Lloyd

In this episode
• The "operator" who sits betw
• When to hire a DOO — and the first thing to take off the founder's plate
• Why operations must be made ads
• Remote vs. office: when face-to-face is actually worth the cost
• The tool trap: stop chasing channels

Connect with Lloyd Thompson
Website: https://virtualdoo.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin
Book: Nine Ways to Leave the Day-to-Day Operations (Amazon)

️ Unscripted Small Business
More episodes: https://unscriptedsmallbusiness.com
Host Jeremy Rivera: https://jeremyriveraseo.com/about/
Human Certified Content & The SEO Advisory

AI gets a "C+" in everything — but the last 20% is still the human job. Mike Montague (Avenue9) on marketing the Iron Man way: augment yourself, don't automate slop.

Jeremy Rivera sits down with Mike Montague — founder of Avenue9 and host of the Human First AI Marketing Podcast (100k+ subscribers) — for a candid talk on using AI to distill your real story instead of manufacturing more noise. They get into why organic traffic is cratering, how to make your online reputation mirror your real-life work, and why "old-school" moves like direct mail are quietly winning again.

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 – Iron Man, not Terminator: human-first AI
2:10 – Why AI only gets a "C+" (and the human 20%)
4:20 – "Claude Hopping" & the slop problem
7:15 – Making boring niches interesting again
11:00 – One winner, or old-school branding
16:40 – Reputation that mirrors real life
23:00 – "Degenerative engineering": distill, don't generate
26:40 – Direct mail as a superpower
31:40 – Entity optimization & the LLM middle
35:45 – Superintelligence & sci-fi futures
44:30 – What Mike actually does (Avenue9)

In this episode
• Why "just make more AI conte
• The one-winner vs. earn-your-reputation split in AI search
• Turning 100+ interviews intoake
• Jeremy's Raven Tools direct-mail test: 10 letters → 10 links
• Entity optimization as core

Connect with Mike Montague
Avenue9: https://avenue9.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin
Human First AI Marketing Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@Avenue9ai

️ Unscripted SEO Podcast
Website & more episodes: https
Host Jeremy Rivera: https://jeremyriveraseo.com/about/
Human-certified content for agedcontent.com/

#SEO #AImarketing #HumanFirstA

About the guest

Rob Bonham is an SEO with about two decades of experience spanning local, e-commerce, SaaS, and home-services clients. Today he advises several startups on SEO and works as a fractional SEO manager and director for a handful of agencies. You can reach him on LinkedIn.

What we cover

Why the “agentic age” feels like the pre-Panda/Penguin wild west — and what that means for strategy

Why publishing AI content at volume backfires on user signals, rankings, and client trust

Measuring SEO in a post-attribution world where GSC and LLM data are unreliable

Link building reborn: unlinked mentions, third-party visibility, and partner links

Going independent: contracts, pricing, and filtering out tire-kickers

Episode highlights

Rob's throughline is that SEOs are now “stewards of the AI.” On the Unscripted SEO Podcast, he and Jeremy Rivera trace how AI has automated the low-level work — title tags, meta descriptions, on-page fixes — so the real job shifts to strategy and judgment. The freedom is real; so is the responsibility.

Which is why volume is not a strategy. Just because you can publish 100 city-specific pages for a concrete contractor doesn't mean you should. When the user signals aren't there, Google devalues the content — a reality Jeremy underscores with his own post on why Google Search Console data isn't reliable. Look like a hero for a few months, then watch the site dive.

In a post-attribution world, Rob argues you win by telling the right story with the data you do have — branded-search lift, conversion correlation, the “game of sums.” And he makes the case that link building is an easier sell than ever when reframed as footprint: unlinked mentions, third-party visibility, and legitimate partner and supplier links.

The back half gets practical. Rob and Jeremy Rivera dig into going independent — setting expectations to avoid scope creep, pricing with conviction (a higher price can itself signal quality), filtering tire-kickers with a small paid audit, and surviving enterprise red tape and net-60 terms.

Connect with Rob Bonham

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robbonham

(Rob points people to LinkedIn — he's “tied at the hip” with it — rather than a website.)

About the show

The Unscripted SEO Podcast is hosted by Jeremy Rivera and features candid, unscripted conversations with SEO practitioners, agency owners, and marketing leaders. New episodes drop weekly at unscriptedseo.com.

Patrick Stox's extensive background from developer to product manager at Ahrefs and now as a solo consultant.

The evolution and influence of product development within SEO tools, including infrastructure changes and visualization tools.

The competitive landscape of SEO tools, including the impact of industry giants like Ahrefs and emerging niche tools.

The role and growth of AI in SEO, including its current limitations and future potential.

Strategies for content creation leveraging AI, expert engagement, and unique data sources.

Perspectives on Google's infrastructure and the importance of understanding search system architecture.

The impact of industry conferences and community involvement for SEO professionals.

Career guidance on pathway choices: agency, in-house, freelancing.

The importance of transparency, contracts, and client communication in SEO consulting.

The evolving role of backlinks in SEO and AI's influence on ranking factors.

The shifting landscape of SEO communities and best practices for staying ahead.

Resources & Links:

Ahrefs

Ref's official site (linked via the brand name)

Claudia (for AI models)

Gemini (Google's AI project)

Tech SEO Connect Conference

SEO Community Slack (by Noah Learner)

Reddit SEO communities

LinkedIn Patrick Stox

PatrickStox.com (work in progress)

Connect with Patrick Stox:

LinkedIn

Website

Timestamps:

(Approximate as per transcript; exact timing may vary slightly)
00:00 - Introduction and guest background
00:49 - Patrick's career journey from developer to SEO professional
1:17 - Influence on Ahrefs product development
2:04 - Tools and features Patrick was involved in building
2:27 - Dream tool concepts and infrastructure projects
3:24 - AI capabilities and challenges in SEO tools
3:45 - Industry impact of Ahrefs' reputation
4:34 - Space for niche SEO tools and innovation
5:04 - Sharing space with AI-enabled tools and market dynamics
5:50 - Quality of AI data and challenges of DIY tools
6:42 - Building niche tools with AI and data integration
7:18 - Acceptance of beta and MVP culture in tech startup growth
8:15 - Lessons from Ahrefs' product rollout and iteration process
8:44 - Infrastructure challenges and data limitations in SEO tools
9:30 - Overview of Tech SEO Connect Conference
10:24 - Conference themes and activities, stress relief
11:21 - Future of content at scale and AI's role in content quality
12:17 - Unique workflows for creating valuable SEO content
14:01 - How to leverage unique data and market analysis in SEO projects
14:43 - Controversial ideas on SEO's future and influence of branding
15:00 - SEO and geograp...