Garrett Sussman: Inside SEO Week, you know you’re excited. I can’t wait. Okay. So I, let me tell you privilege here because I get to work with this guy every day. I used to call him the Flying Dinosaur. I don’t even know why. Now I want to call him the Boomerang because he was at iPullRank and then he did better, amazing things. And then we got to get him to come back. And now, uh, every day I talk to this dude, Zach Chahalis. He is the Senior Director of SEO and Data Analytics at iPullRank. He has been all over the place. We’re talking 15 years of experience in SEO, whether it’s working with local, with real estate, with cars, with GameStop, you name it, the dude has had his finger on it. A little bit of structured data here, a little log file analysis there. Okay, I’ve talked too much, Zach. What is going on, man?

Zach Chahalis: Well, I’m excited to be here. I’m really looking forward to SEO Week this year. It was a fun time last year. So I’m excited to see how we step it up this year. 

Garrett: Dude, and you’re going to be on the stage and you did an amazing webinar with SiteBulb. You’ve done Barbados SEO. When you talk, it’s always just excellent feedback of insights and storytelling. And I can’t wait, but I want to dive right into it. AI search, man, what’s top of mind for you right now in our industry and what’s going on with all of these different AI search platforms? 

Zach: Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot going on from the AI search perspective. And I think it’s actually made me excited about doing this career again. Maybe a couple years ago, it wasn’t as much for me as it used to be. But just the constant change and evolution and seeing the different ways that it can evolve and move forward has given me a big spark over the last couple of years and reignited my love for this area of marketing. 

From the AI search perspective, though, I’m really fascinated to see how a couple of these things evolve. I think seeing how AI mode progresses forward is going to be a big thing as we’re rolling out ads, as we’re seeing the progression of that and how Google does from a revenue standpoint. ChatGPT is experimenting with ads as well. There’s a whole different aspect around the e-commerce and the agentic component that factors in there. But I think the thing that’s fascinating me is no one still is capitalizing on the tooling that’s needed to really identify how to work in this space. So, you know, not to maybe spoil the fun, but like we’re building some cool tools here at iPullRank that help us actually dig into the things that make a difference in this space, and I’m just seeing so many platforms that just are not really moving that direction right now. There’s a ton of great visibility platforms like Profound that’s out there. But in terms of the actual optimization for it, a lot of the tools aren’t really playing that game right now. Maybe, hopefully they will, but also to be fair, they’ve been stuck in the old school way of looking at SEO for 10 years, too. So it’ll be interesting to see how they evolve, but at the same time, I’m having a ton of fun building the things to help me see in that space better. 

Garrett: I’m totally with you, too, because it’s like whether we’re talking clients or talking in the industry, there’s two sides to the tooling. There’s one of what are the tools that help us strategically and then there’s what are the tools that are helping us report on things. And especially working with Fortune 500s it’s like, everyone’s question is how do you show the ROI of this really messy, dirty, tricky state that we’re in?

Zach: Yeah, it’s interesting because I talked with some of them too that they just think of AI search, pick your platform of choice, as a black box. And they don’t know even really how to begin the measure, to look at, to optimize for. And it’s fun for me to try and diagnose that, like being able to break that down, optimize it, test and learn things, see what works, see actual cases where, you know, visibility has grown, traffic has grown, and offset the whole, hey, traffic’s, you know, never coming back type thing, site by site basis. But it’s really fun to be able to dig into that world now where, like I said, I was kind of getting a little stale on the old school way of SEO. 

Garrett: I agree. And especially with the nature of AI search, it’s like we so desperately want these general best practices that work for everybody in every situation. Now it’s so much industry, business, brand, website. It’s so specific. What direction, I guess my question for you is, do you think SEO is heading this year? What do you think the rest of the year is going to look like for our industry? 

Zach: So I’m going to go back to maybe what I was referencing before. I think that search as a whole, classic search as a whole, is at a large pivot point. Um, AI Mode is consistently getting pushed and things are evolving so at least as of the time we’re recording this now we’re seeing things happen where, like, if you click on more information in an AIO, for example, you get brought into the AI Mode experience and you no longer have the 10 blue links classic experience that’s going on there um you also have Google experimenting with adding in ads, both in AIOs and AI Mode. If revenue continues to work from ads in AI Mode for Google, we’re progressively going to go quicker and quicker in that direction, my honest opinion. But if it doesn’t work, then I think it’s going to take a little bit longer, but they’re going to keep experimenting with it until it does. Because right now it just seems like there’s a lack of wanting to support the publishers and the websites that are out there, the ones that benefit from the classic 10 blue links. But at the same time, I can understand Google’s business model of, yeah, of course we want to keep people on our own platform, but also let’s make ad revenue still work. 

So I think it’s going to be interesting to see how that evolves. I think it’s going to be interesting to see how the agentic component evolves of things. Having come from a space where agentic was heavily talked about and now working with multiple clients where they’re talking about the agentic component from an e-commerce standpoint, from a lead generation standpoint, that’s going to be very interesting to watch how that progresses forward. 

The piece I’m iffy on, but maybe my glass have full optimism of – I know, right – is I would like to maybe hopefully see some of these efforts around ads being integrated, ChatGPT, AI Mode, etc., into maybe better data that supports performance there – maybe specifically on the ChatGPT side. I’ve kind of lost a little faith in Google giving us that. But if ChatGPT is going to add in ads to it, I’m hoping that we get some type of reporting more explicitly around what’s happening within that platform from the user basis, from the prompting. We have a bit of that today, and I’ve seen like Profound do some cool things in terms of getting the prompts that folks are working with. But right now we don’t have the performance data. And it’s hard to be in a data-driven marketing perspective and have that. The other quick call I’ll say is I’m seeing a lot more conversation around ROI. And that’s a good thing to me. I’m quite excited about that. I think a lot of things historically have not been tied to that for many businesses. So right now, the way the economy is, the way that companies are looking to either cut costs or cut spend, they need to be justifying more and more of the things that they’re doing. And I’m having a lot more of those conversations with folks because that’s how we help justify get things done or implemented and help them see that return. 

Garrett: I am 100% with you. And both of those topics, I think the ads and the ROI are interrelated because if Google wants to generate more revenue in ads via AI Mode, then there’s an expectation that there’s an accountability that those ads are performing so you have to report on it, which then gives us like the, kind of, look under the hood of of how what’s happening in AI Mode and the other related analytics there.

Zach: Yeah I get concerned there because I’ve also, having done paid, seen the the evolution of like DSAs and the PMax campaigns and that type of thing where there’s a lot of lack of visibility. Man, I got folks you can talk to about that one all day long! But when I have like some of my best buds that have been in the paid space for decades talking about, like, yeah you’re better off running a billboard for a branding campaign at this point! So I don’t know, we’ll see, I hope that we can get some better visibility into data – that’s my again my fingers crossed – glass half full optimism side but I’ve been doing this long enough.

Garrett: I know I know I know. Okay, throw ads to the corner for a moment. For you in this moment in time, what are some of the problems or questions that, like, you’re most focused on in your work that you’re allowed to talk about? 

Zach: Yeah, and I guess I can only go so deep because I also want to spoil what folks are going to be talking about at SEO Week. But it’s reverse engineering the way that things are working in AI search and being able to dig deeper into the metrics and how we look at it from like a Relevance Engineering metrics perspective. The things that are actually making a difference in how your visibility grows or performs in these AI search platforms. So that’s been a lot of my day-to-day and working with my amazing team on trying to figure out what are those things that actually make a difference. That way we can help drive our clients forward and really make them truly visible and get them achieving the goals that they want within that space. So there’s a ton of fun that’s going on there for me. 

But also that ROI conversation, that’s fun for me. As a data person and analytics-type person, I think everything should be tied to some type of an ROI. So it’s fun to have more of those conversations now than a couple years ago where either you would have those conversations and no one would really listen to them or the data wasn’t as viable. I think the conversation’s gotten a lot more effective and gotten a lot more measurable to a point, but it’s made the conversation more fun and really helped to try and avoid the minutiae of what’s going on in a strategy, either from an SEO or Relevance Engineering perspective. 

Garrett: It’s so relevant because I want to kind of almost have you expand on that because I know your core wheelhouse is around structure data, any type of data. And it is so tricky because we see all these giant correlation studies, we see lots of – some clients have it locked in where they know what they’re doing. A lot of clients, there’s also this let’s build together and fix this so we can actually report on what’s working. How does that all show up in your thinking in terms of SEO? 

Zach: Yeah. There’s so much that’s still unknown that we’re trying to test and work with folks on and help them understand. And every industry, every type of partner that we work with is different in what we need to be looking at for them. Whether we’re working with like a publisher, for example, or an e-com site or a lead generation site and the industry vertical that they’re in. So there’s no cookie cutter solution that’s out there. And that’s something that we’re having a lot of, maybe…I’m going to call fun, actually, like trying to figure out how things work in different arenas. Or like, for example, like a publisher-style client. If your content’s behind a paywall, how are you approaching that? How are you making sure the AI crawlers and the traditional classic crawlers are seeing your content? What’s the impact of JavaScript on the crawlability component? I personally, I love seeing a lot of the debates out there around things like chunkability. “Debate,” I’m going to be putting air quotes. But when we test it and we see it work, then we have that clearer information to help us be able to move forward. 

So, of course, I want to reveal all the Relevance Engineering metrics that we see making a difference. But, like, chunkability has been talked a lot about out there recently. And, you know, I think there’s a debate on the value of it, but I think folks are not necessarily looking at it from all of the angles. Yeah, maybe some folks are thinking about it holistically for does it impact classic search? Does it impact AI search? The answer is kind of yes. But there’s also an element of chunkability that folks are not thinking about from the user experience side, but probably should be talking about. Because if you’re making your content more digestible, that you’re very clear in the way that you’re phrasing things, leveraging semantic triples, for example. When you’re talking about clear-cut information and you’re having a clear statement and you’re using exact data points or tying back to exact topics and it’s not ambiguous, it matters. So it’s kind of fun to see the debate that’s going on in that particular space. But it’s also fun to try these things with different clients and partners, because one thing that works for some might not work for another. 

Garrett: I mean, it really is about an experimentation mindset. And to your point, it’s like everyone’s trying to figure out…I know, you know, historically, part of the genetics of our agency is this idea of there is this sweet spot where you’re creating content for your audience, but also for the search engines. and now the AI surfaces of like that question of like, to what extent can you accommodate both? Are there like different streams you need to go down to? To what extent can we leverage data? You know, especially when we’re talking e-com and there’s all these opportunities with data feeds that you potentially can tell different narratives. I guess that kind of leads into everything you’ve been discussing. 

Can you give us a tease? And I know I’m excited for your talk, but can you give us of what people can expect when they hear you speak at SEO Week? Like, what’s going to blow their mind? 

Zach: Yeah. So I think as of now, I’m working more in the ecosystems-day style. And that’s where I’m excited to be because when I think about Relevance Engineering, when I think about SEO, when I think about insert your alphabet soup choice for GEO, AEO, etc. Like it’s not one area that’s isolated and driving the performance of something. Everything needs to work together. You need to have the solid technical foundation. You need to have the omnimedia approach to how you think about your content strategy. It all needs to work together. That needs to help support how you grow the authority of your brand, of your business. 

What I’m going to be drilling into is kind of where all these things kind of tie together and effectively grow a holistic strategy and campaign behind it. Because if you’re only focused in one area, you’re only going to get so far. Like an Omnimedia content strategy is excellent and you really should be looking at that. But if you’re doing that and your site has technical crawlability issues, here’s the thing I think…the whole SEO versus GEO debate. And I know I’m opening a can of worms here. 

Garrett: Do it. 

Zach: I get why some folks are saying, hey, it’s the same. But at some point, you’re looking at things from a slightly different perspective to a point. When I think about something, for example, like JavaScript usage, the classic crawlers have gotten a lot better at understanding this. More so Google, some of the other ones are still struggling a little bit. But the AI search crawlers, if you’re trying to be included in the learning models, don’t understand at all. And you’re heavily focused on that point on just ensuring that maybe the RAG pipeline into classic search is helping you be visible. There’s just different nuances to how things should be approached. But in all honesty, they kind of benefit both sides. You can do both in a lot of instances. 

Let’s talk site speed, for example. I still see people saying that, you know, you’re getting your core WebVitals score up there is going to be the thing that drives your ranking performance in classic search. We’ve maxed out long ago, years ago, any benefit that’s going to come from the site speed aspect in the rankings. But what folks are not talking about, some are, but maybe not everybody, is two sides of the coin. On the classic search realm, speed does matter in the sense of the Navboost signal. And if you’re not familiar with Navboost, for folks that are listening to this, it’s essentially Google taking their user experience data from CrUX and using it to evaluate, is your site a good experience? And it does factor in as a ranking factor system into how things show up in classic search. So site speed is not directly potentially impacting your rankings, but it could be indirectly doing that because if your site speed is so high that people are taking so long to load the page, they bounce, the negative signals get sent from that perspective with the Chrome user experience data has a downstream effect there. So it’s interesting to look at it from that side. 

But on the AI search optimization perspective, if you’re taking more than around two seconds for your content to load, and especially depending on if you’re leveraging JavaScript to render any of that, you’re not serving the full picture to those crawlers they’re either getting a partial picture and it’s going to look like a blurry tv set from the 80s/90s type of thing – or trying to load a picture in the 90s on the internet – um, or they’re seeing nothing at all and you kind of run into that perspective of like there’s just different nuances to how we need to look at some of these things now that I want to dig into and talk about and educate folks on. 

Garrett: I can’t wait. And it is controversial, but the proof is in the pudding. I mean, whether or not you think ChatGPT is a channel you should completely ignore right now because the volume isn’t that big, or you understand that it’s driving as much revenue as any other or potentially could tomorrow – understanding, you know, it’s like it’s trying to optimize for LinkedIn versus TikTok if you want to think in the social media. Like every surface has a very different ecosystem and structure and algorithm. Dude, obviously there’s so much I can always talk to you about. But you were at SEO Week last year. 

Zach: I was, yep. 

Garrett: Tell me about your experience last year and tell me like what you’re really excited about for this year. Get into it. 

Zach: Yeah. I’m going to caveat this with when I was at SEO Week last year, I did not work for iPullRank. I was invited to speak in an evening event hosted by Demandsphere. They did like a panel roundtable. And that was a fun time. I really enjoyed – that was actually one of the most fun SEO talks, conference-style talks that I’ve personally participated in. I got a bunch coming this year that I think are going to be very cool and kind of aligning with that. But what was exciting to me is the knowledge and all the information and all of the cool case studies and data points that people were bringing to SEO Week this year. And I’ve been to my fair number of conferences over the years. And I say this trying to eliminate bias, but SEO Week was one of the most fun, most valuable, most knowledgeable conferences that I’ve had the opportunity to go to. Again, I’m saying that from an outside perspective. So I’m beyond excited and honored to participate in it more this year, not because I did participate last year just in the side event. But I’m really excited to be a part of it. And I think folks are going to learn a lot around how things are evolving and changing and data and case studies that will help to really shed some light on maybe some of the black box aspects that they’ve been struggling with for the last year or two. 

Garrett: I’m so excited man, I mean 12 months, a lot has changed and so there’s a lot of new stuff. There’ll be some familiar faces, there’s a lot of new faces, I can’t – and I love our industry. It’s just like connecting, like, we, you know, it’s the first time we actually got to to meet in person and had a really nice lunch one day. So I can’t wait to spend time with you, thank you so much, I can’t wait to see you again.

For anyone who hasn’t already gotten tickets – April 27th to the 30th in New York City. It’s going to be amazing. Four days of nonstop SEO goodness. Zach, if someone wants to find you online, where’s the best way to get in touch? 

Zach: Yeah. On X, @ZachChahalis or on LinkedIn, just search for Zachary Chahalis. I’m there. Luckily, I don’t have to find a lot of people for my name in the internet, like some other folks do. So it’s not hard to find me. And then, of course, you’re going to find me at SEO Week in just a couple of weeks from now. So I’m looking forward to seeing folks there. 

Garrett: That’s wild. If you want to get in touch with Zach, you know, hit them up before then, but outside of that, thanks for joining me, Zach. This has been awesome. 

Zach: Thanks for having me. 

Garrett: Garrett Sussman. We’ll see you at SEO Week. Sign off.