Garrett Sussman: Oh, boy. Okay. SEO Week is coming. And yep, surprise, Noah Learner is going to be there. Now, if you don’t know Noah, you got to know Noah. I mean, if you are in an SEO community, you should be in the SEO community where he is the founder. He’s also the Director of Innovation at Sterling Sky. The man builds tools. He builds SEO tools. He builds communities. He builds connections between people. He’s the nicest guy online. Noah, what is going on? Thanks for joining me today. What’s up? 

Noah Learner: Garrett, it’s so great to be with you. I love what you just said with the exception of one thing. You might be the nicest guy online. 

Garrett: Stop, stop, stop. I’m not giving you COVID or anything – throwback. I met, I met, I’m throwing you under the bus. I met Noah in person at MozCon, the first person to give me just the biggest hello. We met at a pub and just, I’ve always we’ve known each other before that but ever since then I’ve just always felt like such a connection, like, you just you vibe with everyone man um I’m so excited that you’re coming to SEO Week but let’s dive into it. AI search is the topic – like, you can’t avoid it, what’s top of mind for you in the world of AI search right now? 

Noah: Man, I think the biggest thing that I’m thinking a lot about is the concept of the query fanout. And what I mean by that is thinking about content through the lens of how do we meet user intent? And user intent is multifaceted and people can be asking specific questions, but what they’re really asking is probably somewhere in the fanout. 

So recently, I’ve been working a lot with Mike King’s Qforia, GitHub repo, and expanding it considerably. So that instead of coming back with like 10 to 15 searches or 20 to 25 searches in that first round, running it recursively to build this huge set of ideas that might be like one to 5,000 different concepts that are around that entire topic universe. So that’s what’s been top of mind for me in conjunction with, like, building a ton of tools for the SEO community where I’ve had to leverage a lot of the same technologies that Google’s using in order to incorporate search inside of our own internal app. And it’s given me opportunities to work with like RAG, which is really, you know, which is just amazing. And it’s helped me learn a lot about what it takes to actually build a search engine. And so that’s been something that I’ve been working crazy diligently on over the past two or three months. 

Garrett: It’s so fascinating. I’m with you. I love what you are building. And I’m obsessed with Query Fanout as well because it’s this nuance that is an element of SEO that really changes strategy. Whether you’re in the camp of SEO is the same or the camp of SEO is different, the fact that we have to address all of these potential related searches and not just what the actual direct query is makes our jobs so much more exciting, but also so much more complex. Based on that and just kind of how you’ve been thinking about it, what direction do you think SEO is heading, like, this year? What do you anticipate? 

Noah: I don’t know. And I don’t know because I don’t know how the SERP is going to change. And that’s going to drive all of our behavior, right? Like, all the stuff that we test around is around, is going to be based on the structure and the shape of the SERP. And it keeps evolving. And the pace of that evolvement or evolution is like really dependent on what kinds of features Google’s going to be dropping and at what speed. Like, how much agentic shopping is going to be available? We don’t know. How much personalization is going to be available for everybody? What’s the pace of that rollout? Google talked at last year’s IO about rolling stuff out by the summer, but that personalization stuff was kicked back by an extra six months or so. 

So that’s kind of the the thing that I’m thinking about from a local perspective, the thing that we as an agency at Sterling Sky are thinking a ton about and focusing on and looking at and analyzing and testing is the shape of,  of local AI packs. And will Google continue to give us a website link? Will they give us a phone call link? Do you have to do a local service ad in order to get a phone call link? You know, these are the things that are impacting our clients in a huge way. 

Garrett: And I’m glad you brought that up because I am curious about, like, the problems or questions that, like, you’re most focused on in your work. And I see that firsthand, like everyone experiences on local when you are searching on your phone for anything, you’re seeing AI insert itself, you know, whether it’s an AI Overview or even within, like, Google business profile. So can you kind of elaborate on what are those specific local questions or problems that you’re trying to address for your clients or just for the community? 

Noah: Oh, well, it’s a great question, but it’s almost not quite perfect for me. From the perspective of, like, in our agency, Joy is testing all of that kind of stuff, like the strategy around local way more than I am. I’m building the tools that I can’t really talk about that help her see that stuff. You know what I mean? There’s a lot of internal stuff that I work on and just people getting to know me. My role is Director of Innovation, but really what that means is I build tools that help our clients make more money, that help us make more money, that help us see stuff that we couldn’t see before. I wrangle with a lot of different APIs to kind of build stuff that helps us see things or work faster or just be way more efficient. So as SERPs change, I’m changing our tooling to help us see things and compete in ways that we couldn’t before. 

Garrett: And I love it. And that’s why it’s so important that folks like you are at SEO Week and why you’ll be talking on Day One at the Science of SEO is like beyond the actual work that we’re doing for our clients or for our businesses and brands, how are you thinking about building tools? Because that is like your core wheelhouse. How does your philosophy for tool building, how is that evolving, especially between A) the fact that SEO is evolving, but also the tools to build the tools are evolving? 

Noah: Yeah, totally. Well, there’s a couple core things. Anytime I build anything, it has to be cheap. Like that’s the core thing is it’s got to be cheap to own. It’s got to be fast and it’s got to be easy to maintain. Those are the three core requirements. And in terms of tooling, it’s changed a lot over the past year and a half, for me in particular. A year and a half ago, all the stuff that I was building had like Google Sheets interfaces, were very low tech so that it was really fast and easy to spin stuff up. But with the advent of like Claude Code, it’s enabled me to build everything inside of our own internal applications. And those are like Vue, which is like React, but built by someone else. It’s a JavaScript framework. So I built like our application inside of a Vue-based application and just quickly building up different tools, whether it’s like a tool to optimize content for entities, or it’s a tool that can turn an interview into an article, or it’s a tool that allows us to see the Query Fanout at multiple levels deep. You know, like, and all of these tools, not all, but a lot of them, we can spin up relatively quickly. Like I could take Mike’s Repo and modify it and turn it into a tool that we can experiment with in a day. And I did that last week. And that’s the craziest thing of all of this is that the pace of innovation for someone like me is really fast. And the iterations that one needs to kind of, like, work through an entire problem domain, you can do all of that in a couple days where it used to take a quarter or many weeks to kind of work through. 

It’s wild. I mean, it’s super wild. And a year and a half ago, I spoke at Tech SEO Connect. And at that point, I felt like I was a year behind everybody. And I feel like it’s not like I’m ahead, but that I’ve caught up. You know, like I’m not exactly, I’m not caught up with Mike, but I’m not caught up with Dan, but I’ve definitely, like, closed the gap a little bit, which is really great from a builder perspective. 

Garrett: Let me ask you this, because one of the challenges that is a crossover of what you’re doing and SEO is the way the AI or the way the LLMs work and how they’re probabilistic. How are you thinking about data when you’re building your tools? Because that’s such a really hard challenge. 

Noah: Yeah. In terms of data, I think whenever I’m building a tool, I always think about the data model first, and that’s actually one of the hardest things to get right when you’re building with AI. And if you’re not careful, it’s the kind of thing that AI will destroy unless you document it perfectly. And so the first thing that I do, and this is like a great hint for anybody working with AI, is to create a markdown file called data model. And anytime that anything happens in the application that involves data, you always have to have the AI reference the data model, read it. And if it’s going to change the data model, it’s got to change that file as well so that we know that like one function isn’t going to modify it and ruin it for another function, which if you don’t have a document like that is, is brutal. 

But in general, what you’re, what you’re asking is like how do I think about data? I think of it like, I think about, I don’t know that I’m necessarily thinking about it. I think of it as just something that gets pushed through a workflow. And actually that was the coolest thing in the past year and a half, because I had like, I think everybody at one stage or another has like a crazy mental block for that, that almost feels imposter syndrome-y, like, can I do this? Am I smart enough to work with AI? Am I ever going to make a dent in all of this stuff? I sat through a webinar with AirOps and they basically had this workflow that they mapped out. And it was like, how to start with a concept, how to turn it into a brief, how to turn that into an article, 17 steps or whatever. And I looked at this thing, and I was like, this reminds me of Zapier. This reminds me of a data pipeline. And I had this moment where I was like, Noah, you’ve been building data pipelines for two years. Like, you know this, you know how to execute on this. And so it’s really just inputs and outputs. You know, it’s like stuff coming into a system, being transformed in one way or another to get into the desired shape and then export it so that it’s useful by somebody somewhere, you know? Like that’s generally how I think about it. Excuse the runoff but– 

Garrett: No I, no I, I, I’m with you and and it’s and i think it’s inspirational because I think you know we’re all on – to use the analogy of everybody’s climbing the mountain and we’re all in different parts of the mountain and to your point like you might have like a Mike or Dan Petrovic, you know, up up high, and you might be in the middle and I might be all the way down here and there might be people who are just, you know, at the beginning, like about to do it. But I feel like there’s this, there’s this interesting balance with AI tools where it’s like, on the one hand, you can do so much more than you’ve ever been able to do at a beginner’s level – like, the barrier to entry is so much lower, but at the same time, I think there is like that imposter syndrome, or at least the, you have to be wary of that. You don’t know what you don’t know. We were just talking about like Claude right before this, and why I’m not going to touch that because I know I can’t put the security mechanisms in place to let it run wild on my computer. 

And so I guess, before we close out, what piece of advice would you give to someone who might be, like, at my level or just getting started, of how to even approach building these tools using, you know, like Claude Code, for instance? 

Noah: Oh, yeah. I’ve led a whole bunch of code-alongs in the past two weeks where I have people in the room with me. And that seems to be immensely powerful for the other folks to like in terms of, like, self-empowerment where they have a friend. They sit with the friend. They watch the friend do stuff. The friend is telling them what’s going on. And I know like, I think the thing that, so I guess the advice is pair up with someone who knows what they’re doing and get that person to tell you how they’re thinking through the problem that they’re facing at every step along the way. Now, in terms of if you install Claude Code and you’re getting to work, like, do not be afraid of this thing. Like, tell it what to do. Anytime you’re confused, get it to speak. You know, explain it to me like I’m five in granular detail until you feel like you have enough information to make a decision. And then if we’re going down the rabbit hole into second order, really good advice. Don’t ever code with AI when you’re tired. 

Garrett: Oh, I feel like there’s some stories there. 

Noah: This is not a late night activity! This is like when you’re sharp and paying attention only, because late night, you know, you make really poor decisions and that’s when everything goes off the rails. And that’s happened. 

Garrett: I can’t wait to, like, spend time with you and chill with you and ask you, tell me though, like, what are you excited about? Like, what are you most excited about when it comes to April 27th to the 30th in New York, SEO Week? Lay it on me. 

Noah: I feel like this is going to be like the opportunity for me to learn. Like, I’m really excited to share, but I’m also really, really excited to learn. I feel like there’s going to be like the smartest people in our industry are all going to be in one place. And I just feel like it’s going to be an amazing opportunity to connect with so many smart folks. I think learning, you know, like learning from the audience, too, is going to be really amazing. I think there’s going to be just an amazing plethora of like enterprise folks there. And I’m really excited to learn about all the enterprise problems that people are having. And then, of course, just sharing what I know about local, you know, and just connecting with all my old friends. It’s going to be amazing. 

Garrett: There’s always such a great sort of, um, kind of feeling with the conversations last year. It was just like you felt – it’s what you’ve created digitally at the SEO community. It’s like just this feeling that you’re among people who get as excited as you do about learning about the industry, about the opportunities, especially with, like, AI search change and everything. Noah, it’s going to be awesome. If people want to find you online, obviously you have a couple of homes, but lay it on them. Where can they find you? 

Noah: LinkedIn, Noah Learner. I’ve got a red and blue check shirt and my dog Shadow is in my headshot. And I probably have a Boston Red Sox hat on and glasses. And then also theseocommunity.com. It is the, you know, it’s like the home of the kindest, smartest people in our industry. I think we just crossed 4,700 members today. So please join us. 

Garrett: So can confirm, it’s amazing. Come see Noah. If you want to reach out to him, find them online before SEO Week. Otherwise, walk right up to him and say hello because he will take your hand and hopefully he won’t give you COVID. I’m really excited to hang out with you. 

Noah: Yeah. I can’t wait. Yeah. 

Garrett: If you haven’t, get your ticket. SEO Week, end of April, 27th to the 30th, in New York. It’s going to be amazing. Garrett Sussman signing off. We’ll see you there.