NEW ORLEANS, LA – May 28, 2026 – PRESSADVANTAGE –
Will Scott, CEO and co-founder of AI SEO agency Search Influence, will lead a pre-conference Mastermind session and present on the main stage at SMX Advanced 2026, taking place June 3–5 at the Westin Boston Seaport District in Boston, Massachusetts. The conference is produced by Search Engine Land and draws senior practitioners, agency leaders, and in-house marketing teams from across the search industry.
Scott will lead a Mastermind session on Wednesday, June 3, titled “Using Cursor and Claude Code for Actual SEO/GEO Work.” Mastermind sessions at SMX Advanced are limited to ten participants per table, giving attendees direct access to session leaders for substantive, tactical conversation. The format is designed for practitioners who want to go deeper on a specific topic than a traditional conference session allows.
On Thursday, June 4, at 3:15 PM ET, Scott will deliver a 30-minute main stage presentation titled “Less Busywork, More GEO: Agentic Tools in Action.” The session addresses a friction point familiar to anyone who has tried to operationalize GEO: the foundational work (entity research, content audits, schema markup, and citation tracking) is necessary but slow. Scott will pair a practical GEO framework with live demos of agentic tools, including Claude and custom automation workflows, that compress weeks of implementation into days. Attendees will leave with deployable workflows for operationalizing GEO with agents, moving from strategy to execution quickly, and maintaining quality and brand safety as work scales.
“Nobody’s still arguing whether AI belongs in search workflows. That debate’s over,” said Scott. “The real question is which tasks to hand it, where it breaks, and how you stay accountable when a model writes half your output. That’s what I’m getting into in Boston.”
Scott’s selection for SMX Advanced follows an SMX Master Class on Generative Engine Optimization he led earlier in 2026, currently available on demand through Search Engine Land. The Master Class covered the strategy and principles behind GEO; his June sessions extend that work into the tooling and workflow layer, specifically, how developer-grade environments like Cursor and Claude Code are being applied to SEO and GEO tasks in agency and in-house settings.
Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, is the practice of optimizing digital content for visibility and citations across AI-powered search surfaces, including Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and similar platforms. As AI-generated responses become a standard part of how users encounter information online, GEO has emerged as a distinct and growing area of strategic focus for search marketing practitioners and the organizations they serve.
Scott has been active in the search marketing industry since the mid-1990s and is credited with coining the term “barnacle SEO” in 2008, a concept that remains part of the industry’s working vocabulary. He co-founded Search Influence in 2006 with Angie Scott and has led the agency through its growth into a nationally recognized firm specializing in SEO, GEO, and paid digital advertising for higher education, healthcare, and hospitality clients.
The SMX Advanced 2026 agenda is programmed by Search Engine Land and a hand-selected committee of subject-matter experts. The conference is held annually and is among the most established events in the search marketing industry.
More information about the SMX Advanced agenda, including Will Scott’s sessions, is available at searchengineland.com/smx/advanced. Additional information about Search Influence is available at searchinfluence.com.
About Search Influence
Search Influence is a woman-owned, ROI-focused digital marketing agency that helps institutions drive prospects into and through the recruitment funnel with analytics-backed strategies, including organic and AI SEO and paid digital advertising. Founded in 2006, Search Influence’s core purpose is to optimize potential. The agency collaborates with well-regarded brands and institutions both nationally and locally in New Orleans. Clients include the Tulane School of Professional Advancement, Tufts University College, Associated Hearing Professionals, New Orleans & Company, and Audubon Nature Institute.
###
For more information about Search Influence, contact the company here:
Search Influence
Angie Scott
(504) 208-3900
info@searchinfluence.com
1423 Pine St New Orleans, LA 70118
