SEO Manager and GEO & AEO Growth Specialist Tom Grass has over a decade of search experience, helping Fortune 100 companies not only get seen in search, but acquire more qualified leads. He’s also one of the smartest guys we know, and don’t even think about trying to beat him at trivia. We asked Tom some of the most common questions we see about SEO and how AI is changing the industry.
You’ve been in SEO for over a decade now. How has the field changed since you started?
It’s almost unrecognizable. When I started at Zappos back in 2010, SEO was pretty straightforward: optimize your tags, get some links, write keyword-focused content. It worked, but it was fairly tactical. Now we’re dealing with Core Web Vitals, E-E-A-T signals, user intent mapping, and optimizing for AI platforms that synthesize content rather than just ranking it.
SEO has matured into genuine strategy. It touches content, UX, analytics, even product development. The complexity can be frustrating, but I find it more rewarding now. The work has a real impact on business outcomes, not just rankings for their own sake.
What’s one thing most businesses get wrong about SEO?
They think of it as a project with a finish line. I see this constantly. A company invests in a big website redesign or a three-month content push, then they’re surprised when things start declining six months later.
Your competitors are constantly improving. Google updates its algorithms regularly. User behavior evolves. If you’re not continuously investing and optimizing, you’re moving backward. The businesses that treat SEO like any other critical business function, something that needs consistent attention and refinement, those are the ones that win long-term.
Everyone’s talking about ChatGPT and AI search. How is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) different from traditional SEO?
This is what’s keeping me engaged in SEO after all these years. Traditional SEO is about getting your page to rank so users click through to your site. GEO is about getting AI systems to cite and surface your content when they generate responses. Completely different game.
These AI platforms aren’t just crawling and ranking anymore. They’re reading, understanding, synthesizing information. So we’re optimizing differently: semantic relationships, entity optimization, structured data that helps AI systems understand context and authority. Less about keywords, more about being a trustworthy source that AI can confidently reference.
I worked with a Fortune 100 client recently where we achieved a 180% increase in AI visibility through semantic optimization and structured data implementation. What was fascinating was seeing how the same content performed differently across traditional search versus AI platforms. We’re in a transition period, and you need strategies for both. The businesses adapting now are going to have a significant advantage.
What’s a recent SEO win you’re particularly proud of?
I helped a B2B client achieve a 40% improvement in lead generation. They were focused on keyword rankings, which is natural. It’s what everyone tracks. But rankings don’t directly pay the bills.
We took a step back and mapped their actual buyer journey, then created content optimized for each stage. We also brought their sales team into the conversation, which was crucial. They knew the real questions prospects were asking, the objections they were hearing, the language that resonated. We optimized for those insights, not just what the keyword tools told us.
CTR improved by 30%, but the quality of leads got better too. That’s what I love about SEO when it’s done right. It’s not just about traffic, it’s about connecting the right people with the right information at the right time.
You managed content teams at Zappos for years before moving into agency SEO. How does that experience influence your approach?
It gave me a healthy respect for what it actually takes to execute SEO recommendations. I’ve been on the other side of those massive audit documents that basically say “rebuild everything” without any consideration for resources, budget, or organizational realities.
At Zappos, we maintained a 99.9% SLA while managing content at scale. I learned how to build processes that work for real teams with real constraints. Now when I develop strategies for clients, I’m always thinking about implementation: what’s achievable given their resources, how this fits into their workflow, who needs to be involved for buy-in.
The best strategy in the world is worthless if it sits in a document and never gets executed. My time managing teams taught me to build recommendations that are both strategically sound and actually implementable. That balance is harder than people think.
What advice would you give to a business owner who’s overwhelmed by all the changes in search?
Start with the fundamentals. Make sure your site is fast and mobile-friendly. Create genuinely helpful content for your target audience. Build topical authority in your niche. These things don’t change even when tactics do.
The landscape evolves constantly: algorithm updates, new platforms, shifting ranking factors. But if you’re consistently providing value to users and staying informed about major shifts, you’ll be fine. You don’t need to chase every trend or panic about every update.
And look, if it’s keeping you up at night or taking attention away from running your business, bring in someone who specializes in this. You don’t need to become an SEO expert. You need to partner with someone who can translate all this complexity into a clear strategy that drives results for your business.
How should businesses actually measure SEO success? Everyone talks about rankings, but you mentioned earlier that rankings don’t pay the bills.
Rankings are easy to track and they feel concrete. You were #7, now you’re #3. That feels like progress. And sometimes it is. But I’ve seen too many businesses celebrate ranking wins while their actual revenue from organic search stays flat or even declines.
What you measure depends on your business model and goals. For e-commerce clients, I’m looking at organic revenue, conversion rates, and average order value from organic traffic. For B2B clients, it’s qualified leads, pipeline contribution, and ultimately closed deals that originated from organic search. For content publishers, it might be engaged sessions, time on site, and ad revenue from organic visitors.
The key is connecting SEO metrics to business outcomes. I always work backward from what success looks like for the business, then figure out which SEO metrics actually correlate with that success. Sometimes rankings matter a lot. Sometimes they barely matter at all.
I had a client once who was ranking #1 for their main keyword but getting crushed by competitors who ranked #3 and #4. Why? Those competitors had better optimized their titles and descriptions for click-through, and their landing pages converted better. My client was winning the ranking game but losing the revenue game.
Now I focus on the full funnel: visibility (are we showing up?), engagement (are people clicking and staying?), and conversion (are they taking the action we want?). That gives you a much more complete picture than just tracking keyword positions. If your rankings are up but your revenue from organic is down, you’re optimizing for the wrong thing.
