When AI Eats the Middle: Rethinking Local SEO as the Buyer Journey Goes Conversational | Ep. 30

About this episode

The episode discusses the impact of AI on local SEO and the evolving buyer journey with insights from Fred Shramovich.

Performance SEO Unpacked brings together host Ruchi Pardal [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchipardal/] and Fred Shramovich [https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred-shramovich-b7a7674/], who has been in the SEO industry for over 15 years and now manages four different retail brands across fast-moving apparel and lingerie. The conversation starts with how people find and choose stores today when AI assistants are creeping into the buyer journey and long, very specific local questions are becoming normal. Instead of simple "near me" searches, Fred is tracking prompts like "long black dress at a boutique" or gifts under a certain price and watching how AI answers those. ㅤ Fred shares how a lean team, strong partners, and flexible third-party store pages let him move fast with local content, Google My Business, reviews, and store-level information. He spends a lot of time in Google Search Console, social media comments, and reviews to understand what people actually ask, from busy moms to price-point holiday gifting. The episode walks through ongoing testing, collaboration with merchandise and website teams, Reddit and social listening, and deeper, more specific reviews as signals to stay…

People in this episode

Host: Ruchi Pardal

Guest: Fred Shramovich

Topics covered

• Local SEO
• AI in buyer journey
• Retail brands
• Google My Business
• Social listening

Keywords

• local SEO
• AI assistants
• buyer journey
• Google Search Console
• retail brands

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: ResultFirst

More episodes of Performance SEO Unpacked

• Exploring the journey from clicks to conversion · May 21, 2026 · 37 min
• How to create content that connects, converts, and scales - Nuno Bamberg · April 30, 2026 · 23 min
• When Visibility Backfires: Managing Brand Sentiment in the AI Search Era · February 11, 2026 · 24 min
• From Layoffs to Leads: Building a Thriving SEO Consulting Practice Today | Ep. 32 · December 10, 2025 · 34 min
• From Vanity to Value: Rethinking Digital Performance Metrics in a GenAI World with Scott Lux | Ep. 31 · December 3, 2025 · 30 min
• Inside TechTarget's Massive SEO Cleanup: The Case Study You've Never Heard (with Jenny Waggenheim) | Ep. 29 · October 29, 2025 · 38 min