Benas Leonavicius
Freelance SEO Consultant & Agency Builder
Website | LinkedIn | Substack

Benas Leonavicius has spent 10 years in the SEO trenches—from working with large e-commerce sites to navigating the bureaucratic nightmare of enterprise SaaS SEO. Now he's building an agency focused on keynote speakers, authors, and coaches, where basic SEO fundamentals deliver outsized results.

In this conversation, we dive deep into:

• Why AI search optimization is the new frontier (and why tracking is nearly impossible)
• How to actually appear in ChatGPT and AI overviews
• The shift from website-centric to entity-centric SEO
• Why SaaS companies are terrible clients for freelance SEO scalability
• The #1 thing keynote speakers get wrong (hint: they don't mention their keywords)
• Whether new people should enter SEO in 2025

If you're a freelancer trying to scale, a speaker trying to get found, or anyone wondering how AI is changing search—this episode is for you.

• The biggest challenge with AI search: tracking is nearly impossible
• How ChatGPT and Perplexity source their answers (training data + tiered Google searches)
• Why speaker bureaus and listicles dominate AI search results for keynote speakers
• The 25% consistency problem: AI gives different answers to different users
• Backlinks, PR, mentions, and social media as the foundation of AI visibility
• How to reverse-engineer AI sources by simply asking ChatGPT what it referenced

• Why SaaS companies limit freelancer scalability (1-2 clients max per month)
• The JIRA ticket trap: submitting tickets just to edit meta descriptions
• Managing multiple stakeholders with competing priorities
• How product changes constantly disrupt long-term SEO strategy
• Why Benas stopped taking SaaS clients despite their lucrative budgets

• Why 90% of speakers have zero SEO optimization
• The differentiation trap: avoiding keywords to sound unique
• The highest ROI fix: adding proper meta titles with target keywords
• Why speakers already have strong websites—they just don't know it
• Talk Thrive Agency: Benas's keynote speaker SEO service

• Why Benas focuses on on-page content optimization
• Link building feels "solved" and basic in 2025
• Technical SEO's limitations for most businesses
• Finding the middle ground between all three domains

• ChatGPT as "your most popular but least trained customer support rep" (Matt Brooks, SEOteric)
• Why Benas doesn't jump on new AI tools immediately
• Using AI as a brainstorming and first draft tool, not a final solution
• The hallucination and authenticity problem with over-reliance

• How LLMs use training databases and tiered search results
• Getting third-party content ranked, even when it's not on your site
• Why digital visibility is shifting from website-centric to entity-centric
• Direct traffic increasing as people find brands through AI, not clicks
• Impressions mattering more than clicks (the Instagram-ification of search)

• Why...

In this episode, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Jeremy Yang, founder of Digital Goliath, to explore the often-siloed world of paid advertising and how it intersects with SEO. Managing over $450,000 in monthly ad spend, Jeremy Yang shares brutal truths about Google Ads setup mistakes, the death of exact match keywords, and why most businesses fail at Meta advertising before they even start.

From offshore Google support nightmares to the "bullets in the chamber" framework for platform selection, this conversation reveals what seven years of hands-on PPC experience teaches you about digital marketing that no certification ever will.

Jeremy Yang
Founder, Digital Goliath
Website | LinkedIn

Jeremy founded Digital Goliath seven years ago and currently manages about $450,000 per month in ad spend across Google Ads and Meta platforms. Based in Sydney, Australia, he works with small to mid-sized businesses and white labels for larger agencies, specializing in high-accountability, hands-on campaign management.

• Why paid ads and SEO teams rarely communicate
• Operational intensity differences between channels
• Knowledge-sharing culture in PPC vs. SEO communities
• Why Google gives advertisers more data than SEOs get

• The fox guarding the henhouse: letting Google set up your campaigns
• Offshore vs. onshore Google support experiences
• Most common setup errors (cramming everything into one campaign)
• Why following scripts doesn't work in modern PPC

• How Google Ads has shifted to theme-based campaigns
• Everything is "broad-ish" now regardless of match type settings
• Competitor brands sneaking into your keyword auctions
• Performance Max and the return of negative lists
• ROAS-based campaign structuring for e-commerce

• Why display should only be used for remarketing
• The spammy site problem and how to exclude them
• Diminishing returns on display, YouTube, and discovery feeds
• Strategic use of minimal display budgets ($10-20) for brand presence

• "How many bullets you got in the chamber?" - the content asset question
• Meta is about burnout: why you need consistent creative production
• When to go 80% Google, 20% Bing (service businesses without video)
• When Meta makes sense (businesses with UGC and video capabilities)
• Real-world example: Bubble.com Casting (children's modeling agency)

• High-CPC industries: $200/click for tow trucks, $150/click for credit cards
• Why $30/click for lawyers isn't unusual
• Budget requirements for competitive industries
• When to rely on Performance Max vs. traditional search campaigns

• If you run out of ad budget, your campaign's over
• SEO builds appreciable assets that compound over time
• The upscale effect vs. the burn rate of paid ads
• Working with ads teams to target expensive keywords organically
• Client filtering: not every client is worth acquiring

• ChatGPT ads platform: $60-80 CPMs for businesses spending $1M+
• The "charge and forget" model vs. nuanced ad platforms
• AI overview impact: 25-40% traffic loss for publisher sites
• The mea...

Summary

In this episode of the Unscripted SEO podcast, Keith Breseé and Cauveé, the inspiration engineer, delve into the intricacies of content marketing. They discuss the importance of platforms like Substack and Beehive for community building, the necessity of finding one's niche, and the long-term strategies required for effective content creation. The conversation also covers the significance of understanding market gaps, leveraging influencer marketing, and the role of paid advertising. Additionally, they emphasize the importance of crafting effective hooks, storytelling, and utilizing AI tools for content creation. The episode concludes with insights on building relationships and the long game in personal branding.

Takeaways

• Substack is a powerful tool for building a community.
• Decide whether to follow trends or focus on your passion.
• Always provide value in your content to generate leads.
• Content creation is a long-term commitment.
• Reverse engineer your content strategy from your goals.
• Understand your market and conduct competitor analysis.
• Influencer marketing can significantly boost visibility.
• Paid advertising can help in gaining traction.
• Mastering hooks and storytelling is crucial for engagement.
• Building relationships is key to long-term success.