Hey hey!

I’ve just finished a webinar with Holly Christie from Websites Made Simple (if you don’t know her, go check out her stuff at https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/ – she’s brilliant), and I’ve had the same realisation I have every single time I do one of these things.

The questions never change.

I mean, they evolve a bit. Five years ago nobody was asking about AI search. Ten years ago everyone was obsessed with keyword density. But strip away the trending topics and the current panic du jour, and underneath it all you’ll find the same recurring patterns. Most questions are just variations of:

“This used to work, now it’s stopped – what happened?”
“I’ve got no time to spend on this – what should I prioritise?”
“I don’t know where to start, I’ve read conflicting opinions, and I’m completely overwhelmed.”

But strip away the trending topics and the current panic du jour, and underneath it all you’ll find the same recurring patterns. Most questions are just variations of:

Every webinar. Every consultation. Almost every panicked email from a business owner who’s just realised their website exists but isn’t doing anything useful.

What you’ll find inside

1 | The actual questions from my recent webinar with Holly – see if yours made the list

2 | Why the same SEO questions keep coming up (and what that tells us about SEO strategy in 2025)

3 | Your free SEO tip: how to spend 2 hours a month on SEO and make every minute count

4 | Why my free SEO health check beats watching me answer other people’s questions

The questions we got this time

Before the webinar, we asked people what they wanted to know. Here’s a sample of what came through:

I’m a new mum and freelance business owner with max 2 hours a month for my website – what should I do?
I used to be top of Google 5 years ago, now the big companies offering free versions have taken over – can I fight back?
Google keeps replacing my meta descriptions with random sentences – what should I do?
Do I need a blog to rank for my services?
My web designer says they’ve “done the SEO” – does that mean I’m sorted?
Is SEO dead now AI search is taking over?
I’ve read Wix and Squarespace are bad for SEO and WordPress is best – is that true?
What are backlinks and do I really need them?

See what I mean? Same themes, different packaging.

Why the questions stay the same

Google’s changed a lot since it changed the way we promote websites. We’ve had countless algorithm updates, ranking shake-ups, and now we’re drowning in AI features – there’s always something to learn.

But the fundamental challenges haven’t really changed in over 20 years:

Small business owners are time-poor and don’t know what to prioritise.
SEO feels overwhelming when you’re trying to run an actual business.
What worked yesterday stops working today and nobody tells you why.
There’s a million conflicting opinions about what you “should” be doing.
The big companies with massive budgets make it harder for smaller businesses to compete.

The AI questions are just the latest version of “something’s changed and I don’t understand it.” Before AI search, it was voice search. Before that, it was mobile-first indexing. Before that, it was doorway pages.

The underlying anxiety is always the same: “Am I doing this wrong and wasting my time?”

What this tells us about SEO in 2025

If the questions haven’t really changed in over 20 years, maybe that tells us something important about SEO strategy.

The fundamentals still matter more than the latest shiny tactic.
Understanding what your customers are searching for is more important than gaming the algorithm.
Creating genuinely helpful content beats keyword-stuffed bollocks every time.
Technical basics (proper titles, decent page speed, mobile-friendly design) will always be crucial.

Yes, AI search is changing things. Yes, Google keeps messing about with search results. Yes, it’s harder for small businesses to compete than it was a decade ago.

But the core principle remains: if you help people find what they’re looking for and give them a good experience when they get there, you’ll do alright.

Your free SEO tip

Only have 2 hours a month for SEO? Here’s how to spend it without wasting a second.

For your first month, spend the first hour doing a simple content audit. Log into Google Search Console and check which pages are getting traffic and which aren’t. Look at your top 5 performing pages and your bottom 5. Don’t try to analyse everything – just get a sense of what’s working.

Then every month after that, spend your 2 hours improving your best-performing pages, one at a time. Not necessarily your homepage (unless that’s genuinely your top performer). Start with whichever page is already bringing you visitors and make it better. Add more detail, update outdated information, improve the call-to-action, add internal links to related pages and links TO this page from other pages

Don’t spread yourself thin trying to fix everything at once. One solid improvement to a page that’s already performing will give you better results than half-arsing ten different pages.

Stop guessing what’s wrong with your SEO

I didn’t get to answer all those webinar questions during the session (there’s only so much you can cover in an hour), but I’ll be answering them on LinkedIn and other social media over the next couple of weeks – so make sure you’re following me and ring my bell so you don’t miss a post.

But there’s something better than watching me answer other people’s questions: find out what’s specifically wrong with YOUR website.

My free B2B Website SEO Health Check gives you a comprehensive 29-page PDF covering 9 crucial areas of on-page SEO, plus 10 days of practical tips sent directly to your inbox. One email per day diving deep into each section, with quick wins you can implement immediately.

You’ll get a detailed scoring system showing exactly where your SEO is failing, which fixes will have the biggest impact, and a prioritised action plan so you know what to tackle first.

Stop wondering why Google’s not sending you customers.

Get your free healthcheck now.

What am I working on this week?

The usual SEO retainers are keeping me busy, lots of keeping up with AI Search changes (I’ll talk more about that next week), and finding new ways to help clients.

I’m also updating my SEO courses with new content about AI search and the latest Google changes. All existing members get these updates free because that’s how lifetime access works!.

Plus, I’m developing a new SEO community for people who can’t afford to hire a consultant but need more support than a course can provide. More details on that coming soon, but if you’re interested in being part of the beta group, drop me a message.

That’s it for now,

Always non-wanky

P.S. Seriously, try that content audit approach. You’d be amazed how many businesses waste time “fixing” pages that were never performing anyway, whilst ignoring the pages that are already bringing them traffic. Work smarter, not harder.