1234: Melanie Zaelich: Your SEO Is Working. But Is Search Changing?

Today with Melanie Zaelich:

You invested in your website. You took SEO seriously. You may even have professionals managing your SEO and Google PPC, and people regularly tell you, “I found you online.”

That’s good. Keep doing it.

But the way potential clients search is changing, and strong SEO is no longer the whole conversation.

In this episode of A Well-Designed Business®, LuAnn Nigara sits down with interior designer, branding strategist, and SEO educator Melanie Zaelich to unpack SEO, AEO, GEO, and what AI-driven search means for interior designers and other established business owners.

Melanie explains why SEO remains the essential foundation, while Answer Engine Optimization and Generative Engine Optimization add new considerations for how your website communicates your expertise. It is no longer enough to think only about whether Google can find your website and understand what services you offer. As consumers increasingly use AI to ask questions, solve problems, and find businesses, your online content also needs to answer the questions they are asking and demonstrate what your company genuinely knows.

Melanie and LuAnn discuss how customer search behavior is changing, why asking ChatGPT about your own company is not the same as testing whether a potential client can discover you, and how years of experience, proprietary processes, frequently asked questions, and professional judgment can become valuable online content.

They also explore the connection between AI search and intellectual property, including why businesses should clearly identify and establish the processes, systems, and expertise they want to be known for.

The baseline for being found online is evolving.

If you were the business owner who understood early that having a website wasn't enough, and later understood that investing in SEO mattered, this episode asks an important question: Are you still paying attention to what comes next?

More About Melanie Zaelich:

Melanie Zaelich is an award-winning interior designer, branding strategist, and SEO educator with more than 30 years of experience in advertising, branding, and marketing. From big agencies to her own interior design business. She is the founder of Happy Place Interiors, The Designer’s Blueprint, and Modern Search Studio, and creator of the Modern Search Factors™ Framework. After using SEO to grow her own interior design business, Melanie began teaching creative entrepreneurs how to become more visible, credible, and