🚀 SEO IRL Day 1: Mind-Blowing Insights from Top Experts

Hello, my friend!

I’m writing this newsletter late Thursday evening, fresh from Day 1 of the biggest SEO conference in Canada — SEO IRL! 🇨🇦

And guess what? You’re among the first to get the exclusive insights from some of the smartest minds in the SEO world. 🤩 

Excited? 😄

You should be — it’s been an incredible day full of learning, networking, and finally meeting amazing SEO folks I’ve known online for years (meeting them in person felt surreal!).

💡 Marie Haynes — Google’s new AI Search Engine will radically change our lives

Marie kicked off the conference with a jaw-dropping talk about the current state of AI — from Gemini 3 to AI agents that will soon be talking to each other to process our requests. 🤯

She shared that Google never really wanted to be a search engine.

Instead, its real goal is to become your personal assistant — helping you find, use, and interact with data. That’s why we now see fewer links and more interactive results that don’t even require visiting a website.

Marie also mentioned something called “whitecoding” — saying everyone should try it to understand how AI works.

In simple words, whitecoding means using AI to write code through natural language prompts. So instead of typing every line yourself, you describe what you want, and AI generates it for you.

🔍 Brie Moreau - From PageRank to AI: Reverse Engineering Google’s Algorithm with Data Science for SEO

Brie, an SEO from Australia and the CEO of White Light Digital Marketing, shared something mind-blowing — his team built their own search engine to figure out what high-quality backlinks actually look like.

After analyzing thousands of websites, they found that two things make a backlink truly valuable:

1. It comes from a page that ranks for keywords related to your niche (topical authority).

2. It’s from a page that gets real traffic and links to your site naturally.

Their team used this data to rank a casino site #1 for “online casino” in just 10 months. Crazy, right? 🎰

Steve Toth — Truth, Not Traffic: How to win in LLMs

If you’re in Canada’s SEO world, you probably know Steve Toth!

He’s the founder of Notebook SEO and the mastermind behind SEO IRL itself. 🙌

Steve’s main message hit hard:
➡️ “Stop tracking AI citations — start tracking truth.”

What he means is that instead of obsessing over AI mentions that change daily, SEOs should measure how credible and accurate their content is across the web.

If your brand becomes known as a trusted source of truth, you’ll stand out in AI search results and LLMs.

That means keeping your info accurate, updated, and featured on authoritative sites. ✅

⚙️ JC Chouinard — From SERPs to AI Search: Which SEO Principles Will Stand?

JC, Senior SEO Strategist at Tripadvisor, surprised everyone by saying:

And I couldn’t agree more!

The basics still work — keyword research, technical SEO, helpful content, and strong internal linking.

Why abandon what’s already working? 😉

Some of his standout quotes were pure gold:

✨ “SEO isn’t a place for poetry.” — You don’t need 50k-word skyscraper posts anymore.
✨ “Improving CTR means taking more space on SERP.” — Be visible, get clicks!
✨ “I built 5 AI sites: big spikes, big drops. Your brand is all that matters.”

Couldn’t have said it better.

Branding and SEO are now inseparable. I’ve talked about it in detail in my AI SEO Trends post. 💪

🧠 Ted Kubaitis — How to Hit a Moving Target. SEO is Changing

Ted Kubaitis is the Founder and CEO of SEO Tool Lab from Seattle.

He’s been doing SEO for the past 20 years and literally has seen it all!

Ted was definitely one of the most memorable speakers thanks to his charisma and clarity in every word.

Ted’s presentation was just 4 slides, but every sentence deserves a quote.

Here are some gems:

“You can rank #1 with Schema.org + a title tag.” 👉 (He means optimizing new sites for low-to-medium competition keywords.)

“If you push one Google algorithm too far, you’ll stop seeing results. Look at what you’ve been ignoring — that’s where growth is.”

“There’s no bad SEO. Just incomplete SEO.”

“In the AI age, don’t just track rankings — track how far your page is from the top.”

That last one blew my mind! 🤯

With so many SERP features, being “#3” or “#4” doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is how close you are to the top of the fold.

I hope you found these insights valuable — because they really are! 🙌

But remember: learning without action means nothing.

So take at least one thing from these experts and apply it this week! 🚀

💰 September 2025 Affiliate Report is Out!

I’m thrilled to share that September was my best-performing month yet — I earned $8,102.18 from affiliate sales and sponsorships! 🎉

You can read the full report (and see all the numbers) here 👇

You can unlock everything, my full content library, all Premium posts (past and future!) for just a one-time payment of $7.💸 

No more monthly fees!

Yep, that’s lifetime access for just $7. Forever. 📚

For the Premium members: 👋

Here’s what’s new in the content library:

• September 2025 Affiliate report: $8,102.18 in affiliate and sponsorships.

• $20k+ from my website in 8 months —here’s how: It’s my 2,000-word case study, where I share everything that helped me grow & monetize my site.

• Google hit my site … then I doubled my traffic, where I show the impact of the Google Core Update on various websites (including mine), and highlight common characteristics of the top-performing sites.

• $12,000+ from my website in 5 months: I’m sharing my top-performing affiliate programs and landing pages that generate the most revenue.

• Optimize like a Pro: Here's what I do: I use these 9 content optimization strategies to rank on page one.

• My approach to affiliate marketing: Mistakes, learnings & new strategy

• How I ranked #8 on Google in just 6 days: The SEO strategy that got me on Google in a few days.

Want in?

You can become a Premium member for just $7 one-time payment. You’ll get behind-the-scenes tips, real strategies I use to grow my site, and answers to your questions. 🧠💡

Have a great weekend!

Victoria

P.S. You can review all previous monthly recaps here.