In this episode, Jeremy Rivera chats with Tom Malesic, founder of EZ Marketing, to explore effective digital marketing strategies tailored specifically for small businesses. Tom shares his insights on website importance, local SEO tactics, content creation, and the impact of AI on marketing.Key Topics:

• The foundational role of a high-quality, trust-building website
• Authenticity through real photos versus stock images
• Developing unique brand voice and avoiding mimicry of competitors
• Local SEO techniques, including local service pages and Google Map Pack optimization
• The importance of personalized content and FAQs for voice search
• How AI is revolutionizing content creation, video generation, and website development
• Managing geographic targeting and scaling marketing efforts based on budget
• The significance of continuous photo and video updates for local ranking
• The shift from traditional link building to mentions and citations
• Future outlook: AI advancements and their influence on small business marketing

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.

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 She also teaches SEO at the college level — without textbooks, because anything printed a year ago is already out of date.

• 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.

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 '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

“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

• 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.