Another fortnight, another Google update, another pile of SEO ‘gurus’ losing their minds on Twitter.
Welcome to your monthly dose of SEO news without the wank. No jargon, no panic-inducing predictions about the death of SEO, and definitely no claims about having a ‘special relationship’ with Google (unless watching their YouTube videos counts as dating now).
Pour yourself something festive, get comfortable, and let’s dive into what’s actually been happening in search recently. Spoiler alert: Google’s still Google, people are still peddling SEO untruths, and yes, I’m still banging on about the non-wanky SEO course.
Let’s get into it, shall we?
Google’s November Core Update – Finally Finished Faffing Around
Google’s done playing with their latest core update – after 24 days of making SEOs nervous (November 11th to December 5th), they’ve finally finished tinkering with the algorithm.
And their big announcement? They want “more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.”
Translation: “Stop writing rubbish just to rank, you muppets!”
Want to know if you were hit? Look at your traffic patterns from November 11th onwards. But remember – if you’re a B2B Services website owner, you’re unlikely to have been affected.
Seen your traffic drop and not sure if it’s because of the update? Drop me a line if you want me to take a look. Call it my Christmas present to you (personally I’d prefer socks, but you do you, boo).
Have you ever noticed how most WordPress websites come with more bloat than a Christmas dinner? Page builders such as Divi, Elementor, and WP Bakery might be popular, but they make my skin crawl faster than a dodgy backlink scheme.
Enter Louise ☪ Little Nerd ☪ Foster , witchy website designer extraordinaire, who promised me a builder-free zone. Combined with Thomas Pawley ‘s eye-popping brand design (he’s still recovering from my colour choices) and Katie Needle ‘s stunning photos (what do you mean mannequins have nothing to do with SEO?), we’ve created something special.
The result? A lean, mean, SEO-friendly machine of a website. No bloat, no fuss, just pure WordPress goodness. Check it out at https://nikki-pilkington.com – and yes, there might be a cheeky special offer hiding on the 1:1 training page.
SEO Myths – Busting Bullshit One Post At A Time
I’ve been having fun over on social media taking down some of the biggest SEO myths that refuse to die. You know, those “rules” that you hear everywhere but no-one knows who made them in the first place? Or those little bits of advice that seem to have woven themselves into SEO folklore with no rhyme or reason.
Like the one about every piece of content needing to be 2000 words long (it doesn’t), or that your homepage should be stuffed with every keyword you’ve ever dreamed of ranking for (also nonsense, unless you want your website to read like a keyword generator having a breakdown).
Coming up in the next few weeks, I’ll be tackling more myths that make me want to throw my laptop out the window, including:
- E-commerce SEO: “Just copy the manufacturer’s description – everyone’s selling the same thing anyway!” Listen, if you want your product pages to be as unique as the 500 identical mannequins I posed with for my website pictures, sure. But don’t come crying to me when you’re competing with 500 listings saying the exact same thing as you.
- Image SEO: “Nobody looks at alt text, just stuff it with keywords!” Awesome, let’s make our websites completely useless for visually impaired visitors AND annoy Google at the same time. Two birds, one terrible stone. Watch me explain why this needs to die.
- Analytics: “More traffic always means better SEO!” Tell that to the website getting 10,000 visitors looking for Taylor Swift’s cat’s name when they’re trying to sell accounting software. Coming soon: why quality beats quantity every single time.
Follow along on LinkedIn, BlueSky, and Instagram if you want to learn, agree, or fight 😉
And, finally…
Remember how I said I’d be banging on about the non-wanky SEO course? Well, here comes the bang.
I opened up 35 places for the January intake of the new Membership Tier, and there are just 3 left. You get immediate access on January 1st 2025, and you don’t pay a penny until January 13th. That’s 12 whole days to dive in and see if my no-bullshit approach to SEO works for you. And THEN it’s just £75 a month – I don’t think I can make you a better offer than that!
Want to make 2025 the year you finally get your SEO sorted? The year you stop getting confused by technical jargon and start getting found by clients you actually want to work with? Here’s where you find out more. But move fast – those last 3 spots won’t hang around forever.
Until next time, stay non-wanky,
Nikki
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