If you are planning a business event in Mesa and want someone who can talk about SEO without turning it into a vendor pitch, I might be a good fit. I am Terry Samuels, a digital marketing practitioner based in Tempe, and I have been doing this work for over 14 years — not consulting from the sidelines, but running campaigns, building schema systems, and testing what actually moves rankings.

What Brings Me to Mesa Events

Mesa sits right in the heart of the East Valley business corridor, and the audiences I meet there tend to be practical. They run service businesses, manage marketing teams, or own companies that depend on local and regional search traffic. They do not want theory. They want to understand why their site is not showing up, what AI search is doing to their industry, and what they should actually do about it. That is the conversation I come prepared to have.

My home base is Tempe, so Mesa events are local for me. I am not flying in and flying out. I know the market, I know the competitive landscape across the Phoenix metro, and I can speak to local search dynamics with real specificity rather than generic national examples.

Topics I Cover for Mesa Audiences

Every engagement is different, but the areas where I add the most value are:

  • Local and regional SEO: How businesses in the Phoenix metro can compete for location-specific searches, including Google Business Profile strategy, local schema, and review signals.
  • Schema markup and structured data: This is my specialty. I explain what schema actually does, why it matters more than ever in AI-driven search, and how businesses can implement it without a developer on staff.
  • AI search and answer engines: What Google SGE, ChatGPT search, and Perplexity mean for organic traffic — and what content and technical changes help businesses stay visible.
  • Technical SEO fundamentals: Crawl budget, site speed, mobile indexing, and the issues that quietly kill rankings without anyone noticing.
  • Content strategy that aligns with search intent: Not keyword stuffing — understanding what searchers actually want at each stage and building content that serves it.

Format Options for Mesa Events

I adapt to whatever format serves your audience best.

Keynote (30–60 minutes): A high-level talk built around one clear thesis — usually something like how search is changing and what that means for businesses in your industry. Good for conference openers, chamber events, or trade association meetings.

Workshop (half-day or full-day): Hands-on and interactive. Attendees leave with a real understanding of what to audit, what to fix, and what to build. I bring exercises, live examples, and structured time for questions. See the technical SEO workshop and schema markup workshop formats for details.

Panel or breakout session: I am comfortable as a panelist or a breakout presenter at larger events. I answer direct questions well and do not give non-answers.

Lunch-and-learn or executive briefing: A tighter format for leadership teams or small professional groups who want a focused conversation about search strategy, not a general overview.

Who Books Me for Mesa Events

Most of my event bookings come from a handful of organizer types: local chambers of commerce, business associations, marketing-focused meetup groups, industry trade events, and corporate training programs. If your attendees have a financial stake in whether a business shows up in search — whether they are the owner, the marketing director, or the sales team — the content I deliver is relevant to them.

I do not tailor talks exclusively to marketing professionals. Some of my best-received sessions have been with audiences of general business owners who had never thought carefully about SEO before. I know how to calibrate the technical depth to the room.

What Makes This Different from a Vendor Talk

I run Salterra Digital Services, so yes, I have a business. But I have spoken at enough events to know that vendor pitches from the stage kill audience trust fast. I do not spend 45 minutes softening people up for a sales slide. I give away the real information, including things that your audience could go implement themselves. If they later decide they want help doing it, some of them will reach out. That is a better outcome for everyone than a talk that leaves people feeling sold to.

I also co-host SEOST, the SEO Spring Training conference in Chandler. Running a conference myself means I understand what event organizers need: someone who shows up prepared, respects the schedule, and gives the audience something worth their time.

Booking for a Mesa Event

If you are organizing an event in Mesa and want to talk through whether this is the right fit, the next step is a short discovery call. I will ask about your audience, your format, and what outcome you want attendees to walk away with. From there I can tell you honestly whether what I do matches what you need, and if it does, we can talk specifics.

For a broader look at how I approach speaking engagements across formats and industries, visit the SEO speaker overview page.