Garrett Sussman: Dude, ah this dude is dangerous, dangerous. I start talking to Ross Simmonds before I even record a podcast and like 45 minutes later like oh yeah we have to record a podcast – Inside Seo Week! I’m Garrett Sussman; today I’m joined by none other than Ross Simmonds – he is the founder and CEO of Foundation. He’s also got this incredible, like, jumping into SaaS when it comes to social sharing and creating content called distribution.ai. Really cool tool. I’m excited to dive in because he’s going to be speaking at SEO Week. What’s going on, Ross? How you doing, man? 

Ross Simmonds: What’s going on, Garrett? I’m doing well. Super excited to be coming back to SEO Week. Thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me on. Let’s dive in. Let’s jam. 

Garrett: Well, there’s so much to talk about. So like start at the top, start at the top. Paradigms are shifting. Worlds are colliding. AI search. What’s top of mind for you right now in AI search? 

Ross: Top of mind right now for me is the shift. The shift in the SERP every single day. There’s a lot of moving parts. And we’re seeing Google just recently surpass Reddit. We’re seeing the rise of LinkedIn even more frequently with B2B. We’re seeing so many changes with local search, with Yelp showing up in like 62% of localized searches. And that’s not even my world. But like I’m always just monitoring the data. And what I’m seeing that I love is I’m kind of being proven right from things that I was saying back in 2018 when I was telling everyone that we should be on Yelp, Facebook, Reddit, Quora, LinkedIn, Reddit, all these platforms and SEOs were saying, oh, this isn’t real SEO. Like, let’s stick to the onsite optimization stuff. So that’s kind of cool. 

But monitoring those shifts has been very fascinating to me. And I think there’s going to continue to be shifts, but it’s becoming more and more obvious, I believe, around what users want and how the LLMs, especially like Google AI mode, etc., are, like, understanding and interpreting what consumers want and trust and then giving them back to them. 

Now, here’s the thing. Marketers pick up on something like Reddit and then they spam it to death and they start creating a whole bunch of AI systems where every time someone puts up a post in a certain-they find a subtle way to plug their tool and they’re using a script and Claude to write it. And marketers ruin a good thing. And I’m a marketer, but I’m a Redditor first. And that sucks. So we’re going through this like wild time where it’s kind of like, I wish marketers had to take a Hippocratic oath. But at the same time, there’s so much opportunity for marketers on these platforms and on these channels. So long answer to a short question, but essentially monitoring the trends and staying up on it is just fun. This is a fun time to be in discovery. 

Garrett: Dude, I love it. I am with you 100%. And it’s got to be like as the king of distribution, that’s been your messaging for so long. Like it’s got to be so validating. And to your point about completely destroying every strategy or tactic, it’s like that is SEO. It’s all cat and mouse. It’s like come up with one thing, subvert here. Until it doesn’t work anymore, go somewhere else. So the next, like, 12 months, what do you think SEO is even going to look like? Like what direction do you think we’re going in? 

Ross: I think there’s going to be two camps. I think there’s going to be one camp of SEOs who do the same thing that they were doing last year and they’ll keep doing it. And then I think there’s going to be a camp that fully evolves from thinking of SEO as a singular onsite thing and starts to go into offsite. And I know offsite has always been a part of SEO, but it’s becoming more and more important. And you’re starting to have an influence on brand. You’re having an influence now on PR. You’re having an influence on social. You’re getting into rooms that SEO traditionally didn’t. And I think that there is a world where we’re going to have those two camps. 

We’re going to have a camp that hangs on to the traditional role, the traditional seats that we sat in as SEOs and marketers. And then we’re going to have another group. And this group is what I believe is going to lead the way as it relates to discovery in the new age. They’re going to recognize that search doesn’t just happen on Big G, on Google. It happens on YouTube. Search also happens if you’re a consumer on Instagram. It also happens on TikTok, and that people are going to these platforms and they’re asking questions or looking for things. Millions of dollars every minute is transacted upon via search on TikTok. But for some reason, marketers continue in the SEO world to ignore it like it’s this thing that doesn’t exist. What I believe the future holds is more SEOs who think holistically instead of singularly. And the ones who think holistically will absolutely dominate and win in their markets.  

Garrett: I love it because it really is so many different channels, so many fractures. They’re all interconnected. The way that we search is different. They’re all different algorithms, it makes our job so complex. What are the problems or the questions that you find yourself really most focused on right now because of all this stuff? 

Ross: Yeah, I think it’s picking the channels that are ripe for opportunity. And for us, because at Foundation, we focus on B2B brands, it’s kind of easy for us to stay in our lane of channels that B2B decision makers make. So as much as I’m intrigued and would love to just like geek out in my spare time to understand what search on TikTok is like, what search on Instagram is like, to even go through a mental model of like, is there any other platforms that I’m missing? Like is it discovery on Snapchat, I think I have to stay in my lane of where B2B brands are and become and empower my team to have the tools and the resources to be excellent there. So when it comes to YouTube, we need to understand search and discovery on YouTube, when it comes to Google, when it comes to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, even Reddit, because Reddit influences Google. We need to ensure that our audience, our team is equipped with the information they need to be able to optimize for these different platforms. 

Garrett: I think it’s really interesting. It’s really hard to do with so many new things coming up to stay focused. So I commend you. 

Ross: It is tough. It’s impossible. When you’re early in your career, I think like one of the, one of the beauties is that everything is out there for you to learn. You have the beauty of just like learning all of the things and like, there’s no limit really in terms of timeline. And we right now as an industry, I believe are in one of the coolest times. And I think for a lot of us try to just find time to just put in the headphones, consume the patents, read content, read materials from some of the top minds in the world, go to events like SEO Week and from people who have made the time to do it and then apply that to your business, to your career and to your own future. It’s an amazing time. It’s a cool time. And I think people are going to look back at right now and say, those were the good old days. Like look at what we were able to come out of. It’s a, it’s cool time. 

Garrett: I love it. Can you expand on that? Like your core wheelhouse has always been distribution, but you’re a tinkerer, you’re an experimenter. How does that show up? And I love that you mentioned mental models. How’s it show up in your thinking? 

Ross: Yeah, I’m a big experimenter. So like when I was a kid, I always was running experiments, trying to figure out how in Nova Scotia, worms were around in the summer and also survived our winters, but we had all kinds of snow. So I put worms in the freezer and my mom and dad would get mad at me saying like, what in the world are you doing? But like, I would run experiments all the time. And for me, the reason why I tinker and experiment so much is just because I love the idea of, like, unlocking new insights about the world. Like to me, the beauty of life is discovery and learning. And every day in this industry, you have an opportunity to learn a little bit more about the algorithms that influence buyers, a little bit more about the consumers who you’re trying to connect with, the people in the space who are providing resources and information. And now with AI, you have the ability to kind of build things. So to me, I just love the idea of experimenting, learning new things, and kind of just going down this path of, like, exploration. Every time I log into the keyboard every day, like let’s learn something new. 

Garrett: It’s funny. And it’s funny because we’re so – in the SEO industry, we were always historically looking for these blanket recommendations of strategies and tactics that work for everybody. And that’s just not how it is anymore. How, like, what experiments would you recommend for B2Bs to start trying themselves in AI search that you think are really compelling? 

Ross: I think one of the, so I’m also a big believer in risk assessment. So there’s low risk, high risk experiments. From a low risk experiment that you can do, I would look at the way that my site is structured and just, like, throw up a LLMS.txt file. It might cause no harm. It’ll cause no harm to do that. You can go to Claude, ChatGPT or someone, ask it to do it. Yes, there’s some things that say it does absolutely nothing. There’s some things that say it can do something. Test it. Low risk experiment. What’s the harm? Let’s give it a go. Let’s see what happens. 

Then there’s more high risk things like, hey, let’s go and create a subreddit and start to seed content into that subreddit that are rooted in high intent queries associated with our brand that might speak to competitors, to alternatives. And let’s try to stir up a conversation on this branded subreddit. It’s high risk because it takes time and energy. It’s high risk because you’re going on to the channel that’s going to tell you where to go and how to get there very quickly. That becomes a riskier experiment. 

But what I would encourage folks to do is like lean into experiments. Like every year, I would say 20 to 30% of things that you do as a business, as an SEO should be risky and unknown and like a little bit out there. And then the rest can be steady state, low risk activities. But you need to take a few bets because what those bets give you is an advantage over everyone else. Like, if you’re able to find traction with a tactic, a strategy, and a technique that no one else has tapped into, one, move in silence like lasagna. Stop going on X and doing screenshots and saying, hey, I just tricked Google. Look at what I was able to do. Just chill. Just allow your revenue to go up. Allow your pipeline to go up. Stop bragging for a second. brag after the dip comes back and just like win, like go win. That would be my piece of advice. So I encourage folks to experiment. Experiment regularly. Find some small ones. Find some big ones. Make your bets. 

Garrett: I love that too because it’s like, everyone does have a different tolerance for risk, different timelines, different runways. And so it’s like, you know, really locking into what is potentially going to work with what you’re comfortable with. Like, obviously we both work with like enterprises and individual like SaaS startups or small businesses. Yeah. It’s a different conversation. But with AI search, to your point about like the LMS.txt, it’s like nobody knows definitively right now. People are saying things really confidently. And one day it’s Reddit on showing up as a citation source. The next day it’s LinkedIn. And it’s not necessarily definitively going to always be like that. 

Ross: Yeah, exactly. Same with, like, the world of YouTube. Like you can run some risks now with just like, okay, if you’re in this scrappy stage of a business, like I’m not talking publicly traded enterprise companies, but I’m probably running a test with AI generated videos of the founder who is talking about, like, glossary terms. So like think about glossary terms as an SEO strategy we used to talk about on site. You create a ton of glossary terms, high value, high quantity of content, defining relevant terms that are relevant to your audience. Top of funnel traffic would sort. Still does great for citations, by the way. But then let’s say you wanted to try something new. You take all of those definitions, but you created a YouTube series where your founder is talking about every single definition for like five to 10 minutes, all optimized around what is queries. And then you embed those YouTube videos directly in the landing pages that you already built. And it’s all done with Heygen and ElevenLabs. It’s an experiment. I wouldn’t do it if I’m publicly traded, but I would do it if I was a small scrappy startup trying to win. Like, let’s go test it out, see what happens. 

Garrett: And I’ll tell you, that’s the dangerous thing with SEO Week is like we get folks like you and me and all these different speakers and all these different attendees in a room and you start coming up with like really cool, fun ideas to experiment with. You were there last year. Tell me about your experience last year and real quick, tell me what you’re excited about for 2026. 

Ross: So the ideas that come out of SEO Week are game changing for businesses. Like I think the biggest thing that I’m looking forward to, I don’t go to a lot of events and think, I can’t wait to hear whatever the other speakers have to say. But when I go to SEO Week, the speakers deliver. Like the speakers actually bring ideas that they haven’t already shared before. They bring content and stories that are from the trenches. The concepts are just valuable. And I think for us, we go in with an open mind to be like, okay, what can we learn from the industry? But also when I’m speaking, I’m like, what can I give back to the industry in terms of value? How can I give the community as much value as they gave me? And every single time so far, SEO Week has delivered. 

Not to mention that the venue was insane. The people that come out are insane. Like it’s just an awesome energy vibe with maximum levels of insight coming from the speakers. So I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be a good time. And I already seen some of the names that are speaking and it’s like, the lineup is already hot. So I’m excited to see who else rolls into the mix, but I can’t wait. It’s going to be a great event. 

Garrett: I will never forget last year. Like I was up in the balcony at the Algorhythms Afterparty and I saw you and Crystal Carter just like dancing to Busta like, well, it’s like one of those moments, man. 

Ross: It was unreal. It was unreal. So topping Busta is going to be tough, but I’m sure that the iPullRank team can pull it off. If anybody can, you know, Michael do it. 

Garrett: Okay. So there you go. If you’ve never, if you’ve never heard Ross present and just had his ideas percolate and infect your brain, if you will, SEO Week, uh, 2026, April 27th to the 30th in New York City, get your tickets and hit this up. Oh, Ross, if someone wants to find you online, where’s the best way to get into, oh, you’re difficult. People find you everywhere. Where’s the best. 

Ross: You can find me on all the channels, but most importantly, I hope that you come out to SEO Week. We can say hello. That’d be the best thing that you can do. But if you can’t LinkedIn, X, all the platforms, but I’d rather see you at SEO Week. 

Garrett: There you go. We’ll see you. Thanks for us. Appreciate your time, man. 

Ross: Cheers. 

Garrett: Bye.