Hey hey!
I posted on LinkedIn this morning – a quick reassurance for anyone panicking about an automated email from Google. Five minutes of my time, probably zero direct business from it.
That’s fine. That’s pretty much the point.
(This is the 14/04/2026 issue of my newsletter – subscribe here)
Thirty-odd years of doing this has taught me that clients don’t appear from a single post, a single email, or a single clever resource. They appear when you’ve been consistently useful for long enough that your name comes to mind the moment they need help (or someone they know needs help). So I keep being useful (I hope!).
- This weekend the Google Search Console Errors Database went live – originally built for my Ascend SEO Mentoring for Copywriters programme, now free for everyone. 32 indexing errors, searchable, plain-English explanations, actual fixes. Go use it.
- I’ve also built an SEO Audit Errors Database – 142 errors across 15 categories, live and usable right now. Once the video explanations are in, some of it moves behind a paywall. For now, it’s all there.
People hire me after months, sometimes years, of reading my free content. They already know I know my shit before we’ve spoken. That’s not an accident – it’s what consistently giving useful things away does over time.
If someone’s telling you to gate everything behind an email signup or never give free advice – I’d push back, up to a point. Sharing knowledge as part of your marketing is very different from doing free work for people who should be paying you. A useful database, a helpful LinkedIn post, a newsletter that teaches something – that’s positioning. Three hours writing a free proposal or a “test” piece for someone who’s still “just exploring their options” – that’s not. Know the difference and you’ll be fine.
If either database is helpful, please share it, link to it, mention it somewhere. And if you’ve reached the point where you’d rather pay someone to sort your SEO than keep doing it yourself – you know where I am.
Worth your time this week
Here are some things you might like this week. One read, one listen, one subscribe.
Read: The always awesome Barry Adams has written something over on SEO for Google News that’s ostensibly about news publishers – but honestly, swap “news stories” for “blog posts” and it could be about half the B2B websites I’ve audited over the last few years. It’s about what happens when traffic becomes the only KPI that matters.
Listen: Brilliant women in SEO exist, they’re not hiding, and if your speaker line-up is 16 mainly white men, the question you need to be asking is whether anyone actually went looking. (The answer, of course, is no.) 9 minutes, worth a listen. (It’s me!)
Subscribe: Alice Rowan 🤓 runs Zero Bullshit Freelancing on Substack and it’s exactly what it sounds like. She writes about the parts of freelancing that most people are too polite to mention – client boundaries, inbound marketing, building something that doesn’t make you feel like shit every day. Not a motivational boss-babe quote to be found. If you’re freelancing, or thinking about it, go subscribe.
That’s it for this week – now go help someone out with some awesome free advice that takes you no more than 10 minutes.
Always non-wanky,
Nx
P.S. If you’re interested in the July cohort of Ascend SEO Mentoring for Copywriters, now is the time to talk to me – I’m opening the doors for early birds next week.
