I'm SEO Fucking Tired...
Fed up with watching charlatans and self-proclaimed “AI SEO gurus” rake in cash and followers by selling absolute bollocks? Yeah, me too.
This is SEO Fu*king What. I'm Nikki, and I help business owners like you to get found in search and make money from your website
In this no-bullshit episode, I’m explaining:
- Why the “SEO is dead” crowd keeps shouting the loudest
- The real reason AI content farms never win long-term
- How to spot the red flags (and the actual strategies that still work)
If you care about sustainable SEO that actually ranks, this
one’s for you.
This episode is all about the total dickheads who are offering terrible advice that could fuck up your website and its SEO.
You'll learn a lot from it.
But you'll get even better results from your SEO by having me in your corner - https://nikki-pilkington.com/seo-training/
Want to check out more episodes? https://seofuckingwhatpodcast.co.uk/
Transcript
I'm fucking tired. Tired of watching dickhead
Speaker:shysters win while the rest of us fight for SEO. Best
Speaker:practice. If you're exhausted too good,
Speaker:that means you're doing it right.
Speaker:This is SEO. Fucking what? I'm Nicky and I've been doing SEO
Speaker:for over 30 years. Back when we called it promoting
Speaker:websites. I help small business owners and marketing
Speaker:directors get found on Google and make money from their websites.
Speaker:And today? Today I'm not ranting about a specific
Speaker:tactic or calling out one particular dickhead. Today I'm
Speaker:telling you why I'm tired, why you're probably
Speaker:tired too, and why that exhaustion might be the only
Speaker:thing keeping this fucking industry from turning into
Speaker:a complete dumpster fire.
Speaker:See, this is a thing that I usually don't say out loud. I'm
Speaker:knackered. Properly, bone deep tired.
Speaker:And it's not from doing SEO work. I love the work.
Speaker:It's from fighting the same battles over and over again
Speaker:and watching absolute charlatans, shysters and
Speaker:dickheads get bigger platforms, more followers
Speaker:and more money than people actually doing this
Speaker:properly. Every single week I see
Speaker:the same old bollocks repackaged as something new.
Speaker:Black hat tactics from 2010 being sold
Speaker:as AI powered growth hacks. Link
Speaker:schemes that got people penalized a decade ago, now
Speaker:called strategic link building opportunities.
Speaker:Keyword stuffing dressed up as semantic optimization.
Speaker:It's the same shit, different bucket.
Speaker:And the worst part, it fucking works.
Speaker:Not the tactics, those will still fuck your website up. But the
Speaker:marketing works. The loudest voice wins.
Speaker:The person promising rankings in 30 days gets the
Speaker:client. While those of us saying this takes time and
Speaker:consistent effort sound like we're trying to upsell someone on
Speaker:premium services they don't need. I'm
Speaker:tired of being the person who has to explain why the cheap,
Speaker:quick solution will cost you 10 times more in six
Speaker:months when Google catches up with you. I'm
Speaker:tired of cleaning up after these assholes.
Speaker:I'm tired of watching business owners get burned, lose
Speaker:trust in SEO entirely, and then struggle to compete because they're
Speaker:scared to try again. And do you know
Speaker:what really fucks me off? The AI
Speaker:guru crowd. You know, the ones they've
Speaker:been declaring SEO is dead for the past two years
Speaker:while simultaneously selling courses on SEO,
Speaker:offering SEO services, optimizing their own content to rank
Speaker:on Google. The sheer fucking audacity of it.
Speaker:Search is changing, they say, while their
Speaker:posts and their websites are optimized to fuck.
Speaker:Traditional SEO doesn't work anymore, they say
Speaker:from their perfectly chunked blog posts that rank for their Target
Speaker:terms. They're like people selling fire extinguishers
Speaker:while running round setting fires and then claiming fire
Speaker:safety is outdated.
Speaker:Let me give you some examples of the stuff that's currently making me want to
Speaker:throw my laptop out of the fucking window. First
Speaker:of all, the AI will do your SEO for you mob. These
Speaker:dickheads are selling tools that pump out hundreds of AI
Speaker:generated blog posts with zero strategy, zero
Speaker:understanding of search intent, and zero chance of actually helping your business.
Speaker:They're creating massive content farms that Google is
Speaker:increasingly ignoring while charging businesses thousands for the
Speaker:privilege of filling their websites with mediocre shite.
Speaker:And when those sites don't rank, when traffic doesn't materialize, it
Speaker:doesn't matter. The gurus have moved on to the next big thing.
Speaker:They're selling AI content optimization or AI
Speaker:powered link building or whatever the fuck else they can stick AI in
Speaker:front of to make it sound innovative.
Speaker:Secondly, the resurgence of old black hat tactics
Speaker:dressed up in new clothes private blog networks.
Speaker:Second, the resurgence of old black hat tactics dressed up in
Speaker:new clothes private blog networks are back, baby.
Speaker:Except now they're called niche edits or editorial placements
Speaker:or some other bollocks that makes them sound legitimate. It's still
Speaker:paying for links on dodgy websites. It still violates
Speaker:Google's guidelines. It will still fuck you over
Speaker:eventually. But the sales pitch works because they show
Speaker:you the short term wins. Look, we got this client from page
Speaker:five to page one in two weeks, okay? And where will
Speaker:they be in six months when Google works out what you've done?
Speaker:Nowhere. Or even worse, penalized.
Speaker:Third, the SEO is dead. Long live Geo Crowd
Speaker:Generative Engine Optimization. We've talked about this
Speaker:before, but it bears repeating if someone is selling
Speaker:you expertise in optimizing for something that barely
Speaker:exists. Yet while Google is still working out what the fuck it
Speaker:even wants to do with AI overviews, they're taking the piss.
Speaker:They're guessing best. They're applying existing
Speaker:SEO best practice and calling it something new.
Speaker:Worse, they're making shit up entirely.
Speaker:Now you might be thinking, but Nikki, why do you care? Let
Speaker:the charlatans be charlatans. Focus on your own clients. And
Speaker:believe me, I've tried that. But here's why I can't just
Speaker:ignore it. Because real businesses are
Speaker:getting hurt. I'm talking about the small business
Speaker:owner who spent five grand on an SEO agency promising
Speaker:first page ranking in 30 days only to watch their traffic
Speaker:disappear entirely when Google penalized their site.
Speaker:I'm talking about the marketing director who got sold a
Speaker:massive AI content project that produced 500 blog
Speaker:posts that nobody reads. And Google doesn't rank.
Speaker:These aren't faceless corporations with massive marketing budgets.
Speaker:They're people trying to compete, trying to get customers,
Speaker:sometimes just trying to keep their businesses alive. And they're
Speaker:being sold expensive bullshit by people who either don't
Speaker:know better or just don't fucking care. And then
Speaker:there's the bigger picture. Every time someone gets burned by
Speaker:dodgy SEO, they lose trust in all SEO. They
Speaker:think the whole industry is a scam. They stop investing in the stuff
Speaker:that actually works. Good content, proper technical SEO,
Speaker:genuine link building, decent user experience. They
Speaker:either give up entirely or they try to do it themselves, with no guidance,
Speaker:following advice from the same gurus who fucked them over in the
Speaker:first place. It's exhausting watching this
Speaker:cycle repeat. New business owner discovers SEO,
Speaker:gets excited, finds the loudest expert, follows their advice,
Speaker:gets burned, thinks all SEO is shit, including the good stuff,
Speaker:struggles to compete, tries to do it themselves, messes it up a little bit
Speaker:more, eventually tries again and hopefully finds someone
Speaker:decent this time, who has to handhold them throughout the whole
Speaker:fucking process. So
Speaker:why do I keep doing this? Why keep fighting when the
Speaker:charlatans have bigger platforms and better marketing? I'll
Speaker:tell you why in just a moment. So why do I keep banging this drum?
Speaker:Why keep calling out the bullshit when it feels like shouting into the
Speaker:void? Well, because someone has to.
Speaker:Because if everyone who knows better just focuses on their
Speaker:own clients and ignores the noise, the noise wins.
Speaker:The tossers become the dominant voice, their advice
Speaker:becomes the standard. It'll be regurgitated
Speaker:by search engines, by blog posts, by other people, by
Speaker:AI, and then we're all fucked because
Speaker:Google's going to keep changing things to combat the bollock tactics,
Speaker:which makes everything harder for those of us doing it properly.
Speaker:And I keep going because I remember what it was like starting out
Speaker:in this industry when it was still figuring itself out,
Speaker:when we were all learning together, sharing what worked,
Speaker:calling out what didn't. Before it became this massive
Speaker:industry full of gurus and courses and tools that
Speaker:promise miracles. I keep going because every time
Speaker:I help a business owner understand why their previous agency's approach was
Speaker:bollocks, every time I show them what good SEO
Speaker:actually looks like, and every time I show them that their traffic has
Speaker:grown because we did things properly, that's worth it.
Speaker:That's the bit that isn't exhausting.
Speaker:And honestly, I keep going because I'm stubborn as fuck.
Speaker:These dickheads aren't going to win just because they're louder. They're not
Speaker:going to ruin an entire industry just because they've mastered
Speaker:LinkedIn engagement pods and know how to game the algorithm.
Speaker:So what do you actually do with this information? How do you protect
Speaker:yourself from the bullshit when you're trying to find good SEO help or
Speaker:work out which advice to follow? First of all,
Speaker:be immediately suspicious of anyone promising specific
Speaker:rankings or traffic numbers within a specific time frame.
Speaker:First page in 30 days is almost always bollocks.
Speaker:Good SEO takes time. If they're telling you
Speaker:otherwise, they're either lying or they're using tactics that could
Speaker:get you penalised. Secondly, if
Speaker:someone's main expertise is AI SEO or
Speaker:geo or whatever the latest buzzword is, ask them what they were
Speaker:doing two years ago. If they've pivoted from
Speaker:crypto or dropshipping or whatever else was trendy a couple of years
Speaker:ago, they're probably not who you want doing your SEO.
Speaker:Third of all, is that a thing? I don't know. Thirdly,
Speaker:look for the people talking about boring shit.
Speaker:Proper SEO is mostly boring. It's technical
Speaker:audits and content strategy and link building relationships and gradual
Speaker:improvements. It's testing and tracking and testing again.
Speaker:It's tweaking and reporting. If someone's advice
Speaker:sounds too exciting, too easy, too quick, it
Speaker:probably is. Fourthly,
Speaker:trust your exhaustion. If you're tired of fighting for best
Speaker:practice, if you're knackered from trying to do things properly while
Speaker:watching others take shortcuts, if you're frustrated that the right
Speaker:approach takes longer than the dodgy one, that exhaustion means you're
Speaker:probably on the right track. The easy path is usually the wrong one
Speaker:in SEO. And finally, find your
Speaker:people, the ones who are also tired. The ones
Speaker:also calling out the bollocks. The ones doing the boring, proper
Speaker:SEO work that gets results over months and not weeks. We
Speaker:might not have the biggest networks, we might not have the most interaction,
Speaker:but we're doing our best for our clients, not just
Speaker:selling you bollocks. I'm still tired.
Speaker:Recording this hasn't suddenly made me less knackered, but
Speaker:I feel a bit better having said it out loud. If you're tired too,
Speaker:you're not alone. And if you're tired because you're trying to do things properly
Speaker:while everyone around you is taking shortcoming cuts, that's a good
Speaker:sign. It means you give a shit. If this
Speaker:resonated with you, make sure you're following SEO. What?
Speaker:In whatever app you're listening in right now. And if you want to
Speaker:commiserate about the state of the industry or you need someone to
Speaker:tell you whether the advice you're getting is bollocks, find me via
Speaker:my website or on LinkedIn. So until
Speaker:next time, keep fighting the good fight. Fight even when you're
Speaker:knackered because me, someone has to.
