What Most Founders Get Wrong About SEO and How to Fix It (ft. Pat Ahern)

What if your biggest growth lever isn’t paid ads… but a long-term asset compounding quietly in the background?

In this episode, Himnish Jindal sits down with Pat Ahern, Managing Partner at Intergrowth, to break down the real mechanics behind sustainable digital growth. Pat shares the inside story of building Intergrowth around the freelance economy, demystifies the true ROI of SEO, and explains why attribution is harder than ever in today’s fragmented marketing landscape.

You’ll hear how Pat approaches SEO not as a tactic, but as an operating system for long-term acquisition, and how AI is reshaping everything from content ideation to execution. He also opens up about the misconceptions he sees every day, the client wins that validated Intergrowth’s model, and why businesses chasing shortcuts always end up paying more in the long run.

We dive into:
• Why SEO actually works… and why most companies don’t stick with it long enough
• The biggest misconceptions around SEO (and how to avoid getting burned)
• How the freelance economy became Intergrowth’s competitive advantage (and how you can make it yours too)
• The increasingly messy reality of marketing attribution
• The right way to integrate AI into your marketing workflows
• What separates sustainable content strategies from vanity output
• Why “starting small and iterating” beats chasing perfect plans every time

If you’re a founder, CEO, or marketer, this conversation gives you a deep dive at what it really takes to grow a business through search, content, and smart AI adoption.

#podcast #seo #agency #businessgrowth #marketingagency #intergrowth #makingmartech #himnishjindal #patahern