SEO and AI Search Consultant in Vancouver
Most SEO consultants describe a workflow. A programmer builds the software that runs it, which is a different offer entirely. Ivan Sp builds programmatic SEO systems and custom AI agents for companies across Canada and the United States. Technical SEO work since 2005, combined with software development, produces search systems that keep running without a full marketing team behind them.
Most SEO consultants write recommendations. I write recommendations and then build the software that carries them out: content pipelines in PHP and Python, reporting pipelines in BigQuery, and crawl scoring through the OpenAI API. That combination has taken one client from 10 to 2,380 daily search queries without a single purchased backlink.
Services
Programmatic SEODatabase-driven page systems in PHP, MySQL, and the OpenAI API, with schema and internal links built in.
AI AgentsCustom agents for keyword research, content briefs, rank monitoring, and internal link discovery.
AI Search OptimizationContent structured so Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity can cite it accurately.
Technical SEOIndexation, crawling, canonicals, schema, and log files, diagnosed from real data.
Content StrategyTopical maps, content briefs, gap analysis, and refresh audits matched to search intent.
On-Page SEOTitle tags, meta descriptions, headings, anchor text, and alt text written to a rule set.
Local SEOGoogle Business Profile, citations, reviews, and multi-location pages for local search.
Conversion OptimizationA/B tests, heatmaps, usability tests, and trust audits that turn visits into enquiries.
AnalyticsGA4 and Google Tag Manager setups, funnel tracking, and reporting tied to real questions.
AuthorityBacklink audits, disavow files, and digital PR, with no purchased links.
PlatformsSEO on WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix.
IndustriesSaaS, e-commerce, dental, home services, mortgage, and car dealership SEO.Programmatic SEO, AI Agents, and AI Search Optimization
Three service lines make up the practice, and each one feeds the other two. Programmatic systems create the pages, AI agents run the research and monitoring behind them, and AI search work makes the resulting content citable by Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.
Programmatic SEO Systems That Generate Pages at Scale
I build database-driven content systems that generate hundreds of optimized pages with correct schema markup, internal links, and metadata already in place. One SaaS client grew from 10 to 2,380 daily search queries through a programmatic system, with no link buying involved. The build stack is PHP, MySQL, and the OpenAI API, connected to the client’s existing CMS. Every system includes rules governing which page elements must stay genuinely unique at scale, because templated pages that differ only by a swapped city name read as duplicate content to Google.
You can read more about how programmatic SEO systems generate pages at scale and what the build process involves.
Custom AI Agents for Keyword Research, Content Briefs, and Rank Monitoring
I write AI agents that perform marketing work on a schedule instead of on request. Current builds include keyword research pipelines, content brief generators, rank monitoring bots, internal link discovery tools, and content gap automation. Each agent runs against live data through the Google Search Console API and BigQuery, so the output reflects the site as it is today rather than a snapshot from an export. A single site crawl scores every page for NLP friendliness, helpfulness, originality, legal risk, and spam signals, then exports the whole set to Excel.
The agent library is described in full on the page covering custom AI agents for marketing automation.
Content Built for Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity
AI answer engines select content differently than Google’s classic ranking systems do. I structure pages so individual passages can be lifted and cited: named entities instead of pronouns, subject-verb-object sentences, and a direct answer placed in the first two sentences under every heading. Each client also receives a business profile page written specifically so ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI describe the business accurately rather than guessing from fragments. Entity naming gets standardized across the website, its structured data, and its Google Business Profile at the same time.
Full detail sits on the page explaining AI search optimization for answer engines.
Measured Results Across E-commerce, SaaS, Dental, and Mortgage Clients
All figures below come from real client engagements. Client names stay confidential, and every number is verifiable inside Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console.
| Industry | Result | How it happened |
|---|---|---|
| SaaS and software | 10 to 2,380 daily queries | Programmatic SEO and AI content systems, with no purchased backlinks. |
| E-commerce | 2x organic traffic in 90 days | Technical fixes, content gap work, and on-page optimization. |
| Dental practices | First position locally | On-page SEO and local optimization across multiple dental clients, with no link buying. |
| Mortgage brokerage | Page one within months | A brand-new website reached page-one rankings for competitive terms after launch. |
Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console measure and verify every campaign result. Google Tag Manager and A/B testing track conversion changes separately from ranking changes.
Working With a Consultant Compared to Hiring an Agency
Agencies serve a real purpose, and some businesses genuinely need one. An agency is the better choice when you need several specialties under one roof, or high-volume content production beyond what one person can produce. For businesses that need senior judgment applied directly to their site, a consultant usually fits better. The differences that matter most:
| Factor | Working with Ivan Sp | Typical agency model |
|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | The person who built the strategy also executes it. | A senior strategist sells the account, and junior staff usually handle daily work. |
| Attention | Experience since 2005, applied to your site by the person who did the audit. | Account managers carry several clients at once. |
| Tooling | Tools and automation built for your specific business. | Off-the-shelf packages applied consistently across clients. |
| Follow-through | Involvement continues through implementation. | Strategy is often delivered as a report for someone else to apply. |
Platforms and Industries Ivan Sp Works In
Implementation is supported directly on four content management systems:
- WordPress, including custom PHP work, Yoast configuration, and custom post types
- Shopify, including product schema and category page structure
- Squarespace, within the platform’s SEO constraints
- Wix, within the platform’s SEO constraints
Sites on other platforms receive the same work as a documented set of instructions for an internal developer to apply.
Client work spans more than 20 industries. SEO fundamentals stay consistent across all of them, but competitive dynamics, search intent, and content strategy differ sharply by sector. The industries with the deepest engagement history are e-commerce, SaaS and software, dental practices, mortgage brokers, car dealerships, home renovation, property management, alarm systems, storage companies, and financial services.
About Ivan Sp, SEO Consultant in Vancouver
I graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2004 with a degree in Computer Science and have worked in SEO since then. That work covers more than 100 websites across more than 20 industries since 2005, from a base in Vancouver, British Columbia.
A programming background is the difference in how the work gets done. I automate tasks that most consultants perform by hand: keyword data collection, content generation at scale, internal link discovery, log file analysis, and custom reporting. The languages and platforms behind that automation are PHP, MySQL, Python, BigQuery, the OpenAI API, and Google’s own APIs.
- Education
- University of British Columbia, Computer Science, 2004
- Certifications
- Google Analytics 4 Certified. Google Ads Search, Display, and Measurement Certified. SEMrush Technical SEO Certified. SEMrush Keyword Research Certified. HubSpot SEO II Certified.
- Location
- Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Clients across Canada and the United States.
- Communities
- IMG community member. Webmaster World Forums contributor.
Links do make a difference, but if we have to participate in the link building rat race, that usually means we haven’t done enough on-page SEO. Most of the time Google is showing us its cards. The most important information we need to rank for a keyword is already visible in the SERPs.
What This Practice Is
- Who
- Ivan Sp, an SEO and AI search consultant.
- Where
- Vancouver, British Columbia, serving Canada and the United States remotely.
- The three pillars
- Programmatic SEO systems, custom AI agents, and content built for AI search.
- The technical basis
- PHP, MySQL, Python, BigQuery, the OpenAI API, and Google APIs.
- Why that matters
- Systems get built rather than described, and they run after the engagement ends.
- Experience
- Since 2005, more than one hundred websites, more than twenty industries.
- Engagement types
- Fixed-price packages, project work, and fractional retainers.
- What is never promised
- A ranking, a traffic figure, or an AI citation.
- What was never used
- A purchased link, on any documented result.
Where the Standard Consultant Offer Breaks Down
How many recommendations from your last audit actually shipped?
- The usual advice
- Hire an SEO to advise, then find a developer to implement whatever the advice turns out to require.
- What holds up in practice
- The handover is where most technical SEO dies. A recommendation written by somebody who cannot build it becomes a ticket in a developer queue. Whoever prioritises that queue has no context on why it mattered.
Picture an audit recommending a templated internal linking change across four thousand generated pages. The recommendation is correct and clearly written.
The developer queue prioritises by business request rather than by search exposure. Eight months later the ticket is still open and the audit has been superseded.
Ivan Sp builds the thing rather than specifying it. Where a recommendation needs code, the code is part of the engagement rather than a handover.
A correct recommendation nobody implements is worth exactly nothing, and it is the most common outcome of technical SEO advice.
An audit whose findings sit in a developer queue for a year has cost you the audit fee and returned a document.
Four Things Commonly Assumed About SEO Consultants
Which of these have you run into before?
I meet these four assumptions on most first conversations.
| Commonly assumed | What actually holds |
|---|---|
| SEO advice and implementation are separate jobs. | Splitting them is where most technical recommendations stall. A consultant who can build reduces the handover to nothing. |
| Programmatic SEO means thin pages at volume. | Google’s policies target content produced without adding value. A page carrying real data is treated like any other page. |
| AI search needs entirely new content. | Most of the work is structural. Answer-first passages and explicit entity naming apply to pages that already exist. |
| A consultant costs more than an agency. | A consultant carries no offices, sales team, or project management layer. The models differ structurally rather than in tier. |
| Results require purchased links. | Every documented result on this site was earned without them, and that is stated openly on the results page. |
The recommendation that never ships is the most expensive line in any SEO budget. Removing the handover is what this practice is structured around.
A Worked Example: Advice Against Implementation
Consider one technical finding handled two ways. The comparison below is illustrative, written to show what the handover costs. No client engagement is described here.
| Stage | Advice only | Advice plus build |
|---|---|---|
| Finding identified | Week 2 | Week 2 |
| Specification written | Week 3 | Week 3 |
| Ticket raised with developers | Week 4 | Not required |
| Prioritised in the development queue | Unknown | Not required |
| Change live | Often never | Week 5 |
| Verified against Google’s behaviour | Not scheduled | Week 9 |
| Value delivered | A document | A working change |
I remove rows three and four. Those two rows are where most technical SEO findings stop permanently.
Advice without implementation is a recipe handed to somebody with no kitchen time. Everything written was correct and dinner never happened.
The final row is the whole argument. A document and a working change cost roughly the same and return very different things.
How an Engagement Works: Diagnose, Strategize, Build
Every engagement starts with a diagnosis, because a solution sold before the problem is understood is a guess. The three stages run in this order:
- Diagnose. I audit the website with Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and custom scripts. The audit identifies what actually limits rankings, whether that is a technical fault, a content gap, or a structural problem.
- Strategize. The audit becomes a prioritized action plan: high-impact fixes first, then content strategy, then programmatic scaling. You receive a roadmap your existing team can implement, or Ivan Sp implements it with you.
- Build. Where a system is needed, Ivan Sp builds it. The build work covers programmatic content pipelines, AI agents, schema automation, and internal linking tools, implemented directly in WordPress, through PHP, or inside your CMS.
How to Work Out Whether This Fits
I suggest establishing fit before anything else, since the wrong model wastes a quarter.
- Write down whether your problem is one discipline or several running at once.
- Check whether your last audit’s recommendations actually shipped.
- Ask whether the work needs somebody who can build rather than only specify.
- Establish whether your data could support generated pages, or whether it is too thin.
- Check your Search Console Page Indexing report for the size of the largest excluded group.
- Decide how much continuity risk a single practitioner represents for your business.
- Book a free thirty-minute call, which is diagnostic rather than a pitch.
- Grant read access to Search Console, so the assessment works on real data.
- Expect the recommendation after the data rather than during the call.
- Ask what this practice refuses to do, and check the answer is ready.
How This Engagement Is Scoped
How Work Is Structured and Priced
- Fixed-price packages
- Published with the price and the hours stated, on the packages pages.
- Project work
- Quoted after a scoping call, since scope follows the diagnosis.
- Fractional retainer
- Available where ongoing capacity is genuinely needed.
- What always comes first
- A diagnosis, since a solution proposed before one is a guess.
- What is always written down
- The scope, including an explicit exclusion list.
- What is never included
- Paid advertising, website redesign, CMS migration, or purchased links.
- What is never promised
- A ranking, a traffic figure, or an AI citation.
- Who does the work
- Ivan Sp. There is no team, and this page says so deliberately.
Tools and Primary Sources
The references below are the standards this practice works against. Each opens in a new tab.
- Google Search Central documentation is the primary reference behind every technical recommendation made here.
- Google spam policies defines the boundary every programmatic build is designed to stay well inside.
- Google AI features documentation describes how AI surfaces draw on and attribute web content.
- Google Search Console is where every figure this practice reports can be verified by the client.
- Google guidance on hiring an SEO sets out what Google recommends asking any provider, including this one.
Check Your Own Starting Point
I suggest three checks worth running before any call with anyone.
- Open Search Console, then Indexing, then Pages, and read the largest excluded group by name.
- Compare your indexed page count against the number of pages you have published.
- Search Google for site: followed by your domain and read the first ten headlines.
- Note how many of those headlines differ from the titles you actually wrote.
A large excluded group is a technical problem rather than a competitive market. Rewritten headlines mean Google judged your titles unhelpful for the query.
Common Questions About SEO and AI Search Consulting
What is programmatic SEO?
Programmatic SEO is the practice of generating large numbers of search-optimized pages from a structured data source rather than writing each page by hand. A programmatic system pulls from a database, applies a page template, and produces pages with schema markup, internal links, and metadata already correct. The approach suits e-commerce catalogues, location pages, and comparison pages, where hundreds of pages follow the same shape but carry genuinely different data.
How is AI search optimization different from traditional SEO?
AI search optimization targets citation and recommendation, while traditional SEO targets ranking position. Answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews read fewer pages per site and extract individual passages rather than ranking whole documents. Content therefore needs explicit entity naming, subject-verb-object sentences, and answers placed directly under headings. Traditional ranking factors still apply underneath, so the two disciplines run together rather than replacing one another.
Do you work with clients outside Vancouver?
Yes. Ivan Sp works with clients across Canada and the United States, and engagements run remotely. Vancouver and British Columbia clients can meet in person when a project calls for it.
How much does SEO consulting cost?
Fixed-price SEO packages are published with full scope and hours listed for each tier. Consulting engagements, programmatic builds, and AI agent projects are quoted after a diagnosis, because scope depends entirely on the size of the site and the state of its current search performance. You can review the fixed-price SEO package tiers and inclusions before booking a call.
Do you buy backlinks?
No. Every result listed on this page came without purchased links. Authority work covers backlink audits, digital PR, press coverage, and citation building on directories and review platforms that AI systems cross-reference.
Which SEO tools does the work run on?
The core stack is Screaming Frog for crawling, Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 for performance data, Ahrefs and SEMrush for keyword and backlink research, Google Tag Manager for event tracking, and Bing Webmaster Tools for the secondary search engine. Custom scripts in Python and PHP handle log file analysis, content scoring, and reporting that off-the-shelf tools do not cover.
What makes this different from other SEO consultants?
Most consultants describe a workflow and hand the implementation to somebody else. This practice builds the software that runs the workflow, which removes the handover where most technical recommendations stall.
Book a Free 30-Minute Consultation
The first call is a free 30-minute consultation covering your current situation, with no pitch attached. You receive an honest assessment of what is holding the site back and what can realistically be done about it.
Book a free 30-minute consultation
- ivan@metricsrule.com
- linkedin.com/in/ivan-vancouver-seo
- Location
- Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada