Matt St. Peter, Director of Web and SEO at Wrike, joins the show to unpack how search and discovery have fundamentally changed. From managing SEO for car dealerships in 2010 to leading enterprise web strategy today, Matt shares how AI search, AEO, and brand sentiment are reshaping the buyer journey.
In this episode, Matt breaks down why clicks matter less than they used to, how Rike thinks about complex B2B buyer pain points, and what separates a content strategy that compounds from one that just produces volume. He also shares lessons from a major CMS migration at Lattice, experimentation lessons from scaling traffic at Bitly, and how to align brand, SEO, and growth teams around a single source of truth.
Topics covered include AI Overviews and direct traffic growth, content systems versus content volume, e-commerce lessons for B2B SaaS, off-page signals like sentiment and citations, and what the best web and SEO teams will prioritize over the next year.
Whether you lead a web team, work in SEO, or are building a content strategy for the AI search era, this conversation offers practical frameworks for adapting your approach.
Takeaways:
- Direct traffic is rising as AI answers and forums shape discovery first.
- Volume in content production no longer drives meaningful SEO results.
- Pillar and supporting content systems compound value better than isolated articles.
- CMS migrations fail when treated as technical, not team-driven, projects.
- E-commerce intent discipline is now critical for B2B SaaS buyer journeys.
- Sentiment and citations are becoming core off-page SEO metrics.
- Experimentation skills transfer across industries when traffic intent shifts.
- Aligning brand, SEO, and growth teams starts with the buyer's real need.