Ethan Lazuk, SEO Strategist

Independent SEO Consultant Based in Orlando, Florida

Welcome to my personal website, blog, and SEO playground, as well as the professional home of Ethan Lazuk Consulting, LLC, an independent SEO company.

Here you’ll find articles, videos, and case studies about modern SEO and AI topics, particularly user-first approaches — such as how to create helpful and people-first content that aligns with buyer’s journeys and meets business goals — as well as the history of SEO and its future in light of machine learning-driven ranking systems and generative AI-based answers.

On the business side, you’ll find my SEO services. As an independent consultant, I offer custom audits and holistic strategies to help companies of all sizes increase their brand awareness, “qualified” organic traffic, and conversions from Google Search and other search engines and AI answer engines.

---

Take a video tour of my site!

See the areas of my website through a guided tour.

Search for what you need

Type in a topic or service of interest to search for related content on my website.

Because this website is partly an “SEO playground” where I test new theories, tactics, and skills, I am constantly adjusting the look and feel. 😉

 My SEO services

What makes me different as an SEO provider is the breadth of expertise I offer and the people-first philosophy behind my approach.

In concrete terms for your business, this can mean a more thorough and honest opportunity audit, forward-thinking and modern strategy, and efficient use of your marketing budget.

Specialized SEO strategies

I started an independent SEO company along with my lovely wife, Dania Lazuk, in January of 2024 after working 8+ years at digital marketing agencies. My goal was to offer SEO services how I felt worked best for Google Search today.

To that end, I specialize in holistic SEO strategies that are custom to each client’s business goals and informed by the latest knowledge.

I focus not only on organic website traffic and keyword rankings but the entire user journey and brand presence, including social media, video, and third-party website content, with a larger goal of maximizing your conversions overall.

I have broad experience helping businesses across the world of all sizes and service lines, from ecommerce and D2C to B2B and SaaS, as well as blue-collar and YMYL service providers covering home, health, beauty, medical, pets, real estate, automotive, finance, and beyond.

Why you can trust me

First and foremost, I’m an advocate for ethical and user-first SEO tactics that produce high-quality content for sustainable results.

I speak out publicly against what I consider “SEO spam” and deceitful business practices, and a big motivation for starting my own consulting company was to deliver for clients the type of well-informed and strategic SEO work I felt they deserved.

I’m also driven by results over profit, and I’ve even helped businesses find different service providers that were abetter match for their goals.

You can visit my main company page to watch a video about the story and philosophy behind my consulting services.

How I stay current with SEO knowledge

If you search on Google for “weekly SEO news,” you’ll often see my website’s Hamsterdam page in the first page of results. This was from when I last checked on April 8th:

I devote time every day to monitoring SEO news and industry developments as well as growing my skills and knowledge of search engines, AI, and marketing.

Even as a senior SEO and manager working in agency settings previously, I was focused on tactical work every day, both creating and implementing strategies.

Where the theory and practice meet is where I enjoy living. 😉

About my core services

I believe SEO has timeless fundamentals, which serve as the basis for my core SEO services, including technical website foundations, helpful content, and authority building.

At the same time, how those fundamentals get applied must evolve with the times.

Innovations in semantic search and AI technologies and SEO resources create new opportunities for organic visibility — these can stem from Google’s helpful content, reviews, and page experience-related ranking signals (driven by machine learning) to its more targeted Discover and People also view results and AI overviews (SGE).

SEO must also account for alternative search engines with AI summaries, like Microsoft Copilot with Bing or Perplexity, as well as generative AI chat interfaces with web citations, such as Gemini or ChatGPT.

In such an environment, generic “paint-by-numbers” SEO strategies or checklist will fall short, as will low-effort AI-based content generation.

To succeed at SEO today takes a holistic strategy that includes brand building and a deep understanding of your audience’s buyer’s journey and resources to create quality content they’ll find trustworthy and helpful along the way. That’s what I focus on.

*I’m currently accepting new clients, so don’t hesitate to reach out!

Not sure what SEO services you need?

Get in touch with me for a free consultation. I’ll be happy to look into your brand’s opportunities for SEO and discuss what fits your budget and goals.

Or explore these core offerings for more details:

• Holistic SEO strategies
• Technical website audits
• Content strategies
• Authority building
• Local SEO
• Enterprise SEO
• Ecommerce SEO
• All services

---

 About me

I’m Ethan Lazuk — as you might have guessed 😉 — an independent SEO strategist and consultant based in Orlando, Florida.

I own Ethan Lazuk Consulting, LLC, along with my lovely wife of 12 years, Dania Lazuk. I’ve been working in digital marketing since 2015.

Outside of SEO life, I like to explore the outdoors, learn about social science and machine learning topics, and experience art and music, especially from the band TOOL.

I was born and raised in Montana, but as an adult I gravitated to city life. I’ve lived in multiple U.S. states and also spent time internationally, but Florida has been home for the last 10 years.

I met my wife, Dania, in 2011 at the University of Montana. She’d come from Saudi Arabia to study English, and I was an anthropology student learning Arabic. Funny how things work out!

I’m passionate about SEO in a way that makes it a daily focus for me.

Around 2019, I became a dedicated SEO strategist and dropped out of graduate school at Johns Hopkins to focus on getting better at it full time. That quest for SEO knowledge has been ongoing since, and lately AI has become a huge part of that focus.

I pride myself on putting my clients’ business goals and the needs of their users first.

I never use checklists or generic strategies nor take risks with old-school tricks or new-school spam tactics.

I also create a weekly recap called Hamsterdam, which covers SEO industry news and was inspired by my favorite TV series, The Wire.

In the few hours every day when I’m not thinking about or doing SEO, I enjoy spending time with Dania and walking our dog, Wuffiyah.

 My blog

I publish and update blog posts about SEO and AI on this website frequently, including case studies, tips for helpful content, plus other resources I think can help my clients or peers.

This website’s content has no agendas. You’ll find no affiliate links, monetized content, or AI-generated content. You will, however, get real opinions, personal experiences, and maybe hidden gems. 😉

On the whole, I try to have fun and experiment in my posts and then use those learnings and insights to inform client work (in a more formal sense).

 Weekly SEO news recaps

Hamsterdam is a passion project I started over 50 weeks ago, where I create weekly news recaps of SEO social posts, articles, and other content.

Each Hamsterdam recap has an introduction about a theme of the week plus a “This week in SEO history” section and music to enjoy while you read.

Spin-off projects!

Because one weekly article isn’t enough, we have two side projects from Hamsterdam!

• Hamsterdam History: where we analyze vintage SEO articles or case studies to see what modern lessons they hold.
• Hamsterdam Research: where we look at recent AI research papers and speculate on how they could impact SEO or search.

Check out the latest from Hamsterdam:

 Latest personal news (May ’24)

This month, I went to the library. Well, not only that, but I found some TOOL Fear Inoculum CDs there!

In addition to client work, I’ve also been helping artists and doing some other pro bono work. It’s been super rewarding.

I’m also keeping up with my goal to create three Hamsterdam articles weekly, including the news recap — we just hit the one-year anniversary of Hamsterdam — history articles, and AI research paper reviews.

The more I get exposed to the world of machine learning, the further down the rabbit hole I go. My recommendation is to check out the Machine Learning Street Talk channel on YouTube.

Speaking of YouTube, I added a couple of videos myself, including one about SEO and social media and another looking at Searchology 2009 for hints at Google I/0 2024. That should be some big news this month.

Cheers!

 Recent blog posts

I love to experiment with my blog, especially by publishing early versions of posts, monitoring user engagement and search performance, and then making adjustments.

Here are my latest new or updated posts:

Thanks for visiting my website. Happy optimizing! 🙂