(This is the 12/08/2025 issue of my newsletter – subscribe here)
Hey hey!
I know, it’s Tuesday again – I’m as shocked as you. I used to laugh at my mum when she said time went by quicker as you got older, but (as with most things) she was of course right. Just don’t tell her, OK? I’ll never hear the end of it…
In SEO-land, Google’s announced they’re shoving ads into AI Mode (because of course they are), AI Overviews are now appearing within other AI Overviews in some never-ending digital ouroboros of search results, and SERP volatility has been doing the digital equivalent of a washing machine on spin cycle for about six weeks now (more on that in a mo).
Meanwhile, I’m still getting way too many messages from business owners convinced that posting their links on Reddit will magically fix their SEO problems. (It won’t).
What you’ll find inside
1 | Thoughts: Why am I still being asked about paid backlinks when buying links is such a terrible long-term strategy?
2 | Blog post: Why “Reddit marketing” is just the latest shiny object distracting you from proper SEO
3 | Free tip: A dead simple 5-minute internal linking trick that’ll boost traffic to pages you’ve already written
4 | Blog post: SERP volatility explained – what it is and when you actually need to worry about it
Let’s dig in, shall we?
The link buying obsession needs to stop
I swear, if I get one more email offering to sell me “high DA links” or one more potential client insisting that a “backlink strategy” is the most important thing for their SEO, I might actually quit SEO forever and go work in Seville picking oranges, as I keep threatening to do.
There are two separate things that piss me off here. First, my inbox is stuffed with people flogging links every fucking day. “Premium guest posts on high authority sites!” “Guaranteed DA 70+ backlinks!” “Package deals for bulk link purchases!” It’s exhausting, it’s annoying, and I have a feeling it’s never going to stop..
But what’s even worse are the potential clients who rock up convinced that buying links is the holy grail of SEO. “What’s your backlink strategy?” they ask, expecting me to whip out some master plan for acquiring hundreds of paid links per month, while their on-page seo is non-existent and could help them no end. When I explain that I don’t buy links and that earning genuine coverage is what actually works, you can practically hear the disappointment through the screen.
Buying links is a terrible long-term strategy. Sure, it might work for a while. Your rankings might improve, traffic might increase, everything looks rosy. But as my unsuspecting brain-twin Mark posted on LinkedIn recently, “It works until it doesn’t.” And when Google cottons on to your paid link scheme (and they will), the whole thing comes crashing down.
I’ve seen this film before. Remember when private blog networks were the big thing? Worked brilliantly until Google nuked them overnight. What about those article directories everyone was obsessed with? Same story. Every dodgy shortcut eventually becomes a dead end.
The businesses getting decent backlinks aren’t paying for placement – they’re earning coverage from The Guardian, The Telegraph, Forbes, and other quality publications because they’ve got something genuinely worth writing about. That’s the foundation that survives algorithm updates and keeps working year after year.
As I mentioned in my newsletter a few weeks back, Roger Montti’s piece perfectly captured what some of us have been saying for ages – links aren’t the magic bullet they once were. Yet here we are, still getting bombarded with link buying schemes and clients who think “robust link building campaigns” are the answer to everything.
Reddit marketing” won’t save your SEO
Ever since Reddit started dominating Google search results, every business owner with a laptop thinks they’ve discovered the latest cheat code. LinkedIn’s swarming with people offering “Reddit marketing” services as if it’s some awesome new ingredient you can just ‘drop in’ to your SEO mixing bowl.
Reddit links are still nofollow, Reddit users hate blatant promotion, and getting mentioned on Reddit doesn’t improve where your actual website ranks in Google. Plus, going on Reddit to promote your business without thinking it through properly is basically entering the gladiators’ colosseum with one of those foam swords you used to win at the fair.
At least know what you’re letting yourself in for…
Your free SEO tip
Open Google Analytics or Google Search Console, find your top 5 performing blog posts, then add 2-3 internal links in each one pointing to other relevant pages on your site (remember, no wanky anchor text such as ‘click here’ or ‘look at this‘). Most people write brilliant content then forget to link it to anything else. Takes 5 minutes, costs nothing, gives your other pages a bit of a boost.
SERP volatility – should you be worried?
SERP volatility (basically how much your rankings move around) has been particularly jumpy for the past six weeks, and it’s got some people in a bit of a tizz. Volatility is often high when Google is in the middle of (pr about to start) a new Core Update, but sometimes it’s completely normal and nothing to worry about.
This post explains what volatility is, when it’s normal versus when you should be concerned, and how to stop obsessing over daily ranking changes that are just part of how search engines work.
What am I working on?
It’s been busy busy busy recently (for which I’m very very grateful – August isn’t always a bundle of laughs in freelance SEO).
I’m sorting post-migration redirects for a website that didn’t come to me before they changed their entire site structure – which is always a “fun” challenge and a good reminder to talk to your SEO person BEFORE you rebuild everything, not after.
I’ve also had a couple of brilliant SEO 1:1s (prices are going up in September, just saying), that I’m hoping to be able to talk about properly soon once we see some results.
Plus I’m knee-deep in content marketing and SEO services for a health and beauty company that most people have heard of (sorry, NDA in place), focusing specifically on menopause content. It’s fascinating work and exactly the kind of project where proper SEO strategy makes a massive difference to reaching the right audience. Plus, I get to say I’m a fractional something now…
Need help with any of the above? You know where to find me.
That’s it for now,
Always non-wanky
Nx
P.S. Give that internal linking tip a try and let me know how you get on – it’s amazing how much traffic you can redirect to underperforming pages just by linking to them from your popular content. Sometimes the simplest tactics are the most effective ones
