If you are an event planner or program chair looking to book an SEO speaker for a corporate conference, trade association event, or professional development program, this page covers what you need to know: who I am, what I cover, how I work with organizers, and what the booking process looks like.

Who I Am

I am Terry Samuels, a digital marketing practitioner based in Tempe, Arizona. I have been doing this professionally for over 14 years — running campaigns, building schema systems, auditing sites, and teaching. I served in the US Navy before moving into this industry. I run Salterra Digital Services, a full-service digital agency. I teach advanced SEO through SEO University in live six-week cohorts. I co-host the SEOST conference in Chandler, AZ with Clint Butler.

I am not a keynote celebrity who speaks on digital marketing because it is adjacent to business strategy. I am a working practitioner who speaks because I have something specific and useful to share about how search actually works — and because translating complex technical material for non-technical audiences is something I have spent a lot of time getting good at.

What I Speak On

My deepest expertise is schema markup and structured data, which has become increasingly important as AI search engines rely on structured signals to generate answers. Beyond that, my topic range for event engagements includes:

  • Search strategy and how AI search is changing it
  • Technical SEO for non-technical audiences
  • Local and regional search for businesses competing in specific geographies
  • Content strategy and topical authority
  • How to evaluate and manage an SEO vendor relationship
  • Digital marketing strategy for mixed business audiences

I tailor every engagement to the specific audience. A room of in-house digital marketers gets different content framing than a room of regional business owners, even when the underlying topic is the same.

Format Options

Conference keynote (30–60 minutes): A focused, original talk built around a single clear argument or insight. I write new content for each major engagement. I do not recycle keynotes.

Breakout session: Tighter scope, smaller room, more technical depth. Good for conference audiences that have already heard the high-level keynote and want to go deeper on a specific area.

Workshop (half-day or full-day): Hands-on and interactive. Attendees work through real material on their own sites or projects. See the SEO masterclass, schema markup workshop, and technical SEO workshop pages for format details.

Panel participation: I work well in panel formats and answer questions directly. I do not hedge to avoid controversy on topics where there is actually a clear answer.

Executive briefing: A focused one- to two-hour session with a leadership team. Strategic framing, not technical mechanics. Built around what decisions leadership actually needs to make.

Corporate Events

Corporate bookings typically fall into a few categories: company-wide conferences or offsites where digital marketing is on the agenda, department training programs for marketing or sales teams, and executive education sessions. I adapt to all of these. For training programs with multiple sessions, I can structure a curriculum rather than a one-off talk.

Association Events

Industry trade associations often have mixed-expertise audiences: some members are digital marketing sophisticates; others are in the room because the program looked interesting. I am comfortable calibrating a session for that range, and I have experience with healthcare, real estate, professional services, and technology industry associations specifically.

What Organizers Should Know

I take preparation seriously. I will ask about your audience before I build the presentation: who they are, what they already know, what they are trying to accomplish, and what you want them to take away from the session. The talk I give to a trade association of healthcare marketers should not be the same talk I give to a technology company’s all-hands meeting, even if both are nominally about SEO.

I provide a talk abstract, bio, and headshot with enough lead time for your promotional materials. I arrive early, I stick to the clock, and I do not use my time on stage to sell my services. Those are things that matter to event planners and they matter to me too.

Strategy consulting runs at $500/hour if an organization wants a more focused advisory session as a complement to or alternative to a speaking engagement. Website audits start at $1,500.

Geography

I am based in Tempe, Arizona, which means Phoenix metro events are local for me. For national events, I travel to speak on topics I am confident will genuinely serve the audience. I am not chasing speaking gigs for the stage time — I want the engagement to be worth it for your attendees.

For the full overview of speaking topics and how to start the booking conversation, visit the SEO speaker page.