Your Competitors - SEO Geniuses? No. You're Just Sh*t At The Basics!

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You're convinced your competitors are smashing it at SEO, but

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they're not. You're just making it really fucking easy for them

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by sabotaging yourself.

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This is SEO Fucking What. I'm Nicky, and here's the deal.

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I've been in SEO for over 30 years, before it was even called

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SEO. I help people like you make money from your website

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by getting found online. Today I want to talk about you

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business owners who obsess over what your competitors are doing.

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You stalk their websites, panic about their rankings, lose sleep over

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their blog posts, while your own website is held together with sticky

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tape and good intentions. Your competitors aren't beating you,

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you're handing them the win on a plate, and I'm going to show you

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exactly how you're doing it. Let me

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paint you a picture, because I guarantee this is going to sound familiar.

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Business owner comes to me and says, Nikki, our competitor is ranking above

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us for everything. What are they doing that we're not? So I

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look at the competitor's site and 9 times out of 10, it's

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nothing special. It's just competent.

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They've got the basics right. Decent page titles, clear service

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pages, a blog that targets keywords and search intent that people

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are looking for online. Their site loads in a reasonable time.

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Their Google Business Profile is filled in properly. And that's it.

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That's the big secret. And then I look at my potential client's

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site and it's a fucking disaster area. The

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homepage title says home. Half

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the service pages have about 40 words on them. The

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blog hasn't been updated since the coronation.

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Their Google Business Profile still list their old phone number.

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There are broken links everywhere. The contact form doesn't

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work on mobile. And they want to know what clever

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strategy their competitor is using. Mate, your competitor isn't

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using a clever strategy. They've just done the basics and you

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haven't. And that's the whole story. So let me walk you through the

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most common ways businesses absolutely sabotage their own

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SEO. And I want you to be honest with yourself here. Because I

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guarantee at least 3 of these apply to you.

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Number 1, your meta titles are useless. I've

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talked about this before, but it bears repeating because it's still the

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single most common SEO problem I see. Your homepage

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says home. Your About page says About. Your Services

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page says Services. Congratulations, you've told Google

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absolutely fuck all about what you do or where you do it. Your

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meta title is the first thing that Google reads.

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It's the thing that shows up in search results. If it just says Home

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followed by your company name, you're invisible. Your

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competitor who says Affordable Accounting Services in

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Ipswich flat fee tax returns, it's going to beat you

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every single time. And it's not because they're SEO

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geniuses, it's because they've told Google what the website is about

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and you haven't. Number 2, your service pages

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are thinner than an over-filtered influencer. I see

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this constantly. Business has 6 or 7 services and each

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one gets a page with maybe 50 words on it. We offer web

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design, contact us for a quote, and loads of lovely pictures. That's

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it. That's the whole page. Google looks at that and thinks, well, this

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clearly isn't a resource on web design or someone who

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has expertise on web design. And someone else has written 800

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words explaining their process, their pricing, what's included,

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frequently asked questions, examples of their work. Who do

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you think Google's going to rank? Your competitor isn't

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outspending you. They've just written more than 2 sentences about

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what they do. Number 3: You've got no internal

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links. Internal links are how Google finds its way around your

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site. They're also how Google understands which pages are most important

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and how topics relate to each other. If your pages are all

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isolated with no links in between them, then Google has to

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work harder to understand your site. And Google, like me,

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doesn't like working harder than it needs to. Your competitor's blog

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posts link to their service page. Their service page links to relevant

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case studies. Their case studies link back to the blog.

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Everything's connected. Your site? Google

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crawls your homepage, finds no links to your service pages because they're

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buried in a dropdown menu followed by another dropdown menu, and

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gives up. You've built a maze with no map. Number 4:

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Your Google Business Profile is a ghost town. If you're a

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local business and your Google Business Profile is either not claimed half-filled,

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or hasn't been touched since 2022, you're handing free

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visibility to every competitor who has bothered to fill in theirs

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properly. No photos, no posts, no responses

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to reviews, wrong opening hours, missing service

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descriptions. Your competitor doesn't need to be doing anything

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fancy. They've just filled in the form and you haven't. And

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Google rewards the businesses that give it complete, accurate,

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up-to-date information. Number 5: Your site is

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slower than a wet weekend. Pull your site up on your phone right now.

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Go on, do it now. How long does it take to load?

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If it's more than about 3 seconds, you've got a problem because

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your visitors are leaving before the page even appears. And

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Google knows this. Google measures this. And Google doesn't

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want to send people to sites that take forever to load. Your

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competitor's site loads in 2 seconds because they've got properly sized

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images, decent hosting, and a developer who gives a

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shit. Yours takes 8 seconds because someone uploaded a 15MB

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photo of the office and your hosting costs less than a Gregg's sausage roll.

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Your mobile experience is atrocious.

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More than half of all web traffic is mobile now. More

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than half. If your website looks like it was designed for a desktop

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monitor in 2014, and nobody's checked what it looks like on a

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phone, you're losing visitors by the shedload. If

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your buttons are too small to tap, you need a magnifying glass to read

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your text, you have images that hang off the edge of the screen,

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a contact form that's impossible to fill in with your thumbs— your

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competitors didn't hire some fancy mobile specialist, they

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just tested their site on a phone and fixed the obvious problems.

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You didn't test it. You assumed it was fine. It's not.

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You've got broken shit everywhere. Broken

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links, 404 errors, pages that redirect to the wrong place,

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images that don't load, contact forms that don't send, download

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links that go nowhere. Every broken element on your site is a

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signal to Google that nobody's looking after it. It's like having a

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shop with smashed windows and a crooked sign. Would you walk in?

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Would you trust that business? Google thinks the same way. Your

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competitor's site works. Everything clicks where it should. Pages

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load, forms send. That's not advanced SEO.

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That's basic website maintenance. And you're not doing it.

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And I get it. I understand why people focus on

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competitors instead of their own site. It's easier to look outward than

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inward. It's more comfortable to think, well, they must be doing something

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clever. Than it is to admit, I haven't done the

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basics. Nobody wants to hear that their website's a mess.

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It's like being told your house is untidy. You get defensive.

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But here's the good news. If the problem is that you haven't done the

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basics, the fix is doing the basics.

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You don't need a massive budget. You don't need to hire an expensive

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agency. You don't need some secret strategy. You just

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need to look at your own site with honest eyes and fix the obvious

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stuff. And that's actually a much better position to be in

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than thinking your competitor has some magic formula you can't

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replicate. Because you absolutely can replicate

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fill in your Google Business Profile or write more than 2

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sentences on your services page. So go do it. So how

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do you actually fix this? How do you stop obsessing over the

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competition and start sorting out your own shit? I've got a

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30-minute self-audit that'll show exactly where you're going wrong.

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And I'll share that with you right after this.

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Okay, here's your homework. And I'm serious.

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Really do this. Don't just listen and nod along and then

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carry on stalking your competitor's website. Put aside half an hour.

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Open your site and go through this lot. First of all, open every

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page and look at the browser tab. The text in the browser tab is

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your page title. If any of them say Home or

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About or Services or just your company name with nothing else,

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fix it. Every page title should describe what's on that

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page. Maybe a location if you're a local business.

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Affordable plumbing in Leeds. Emergency boiler services in

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Northampton. Not just services, not just home.

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Write it like you're trying to help someone understand what the page is

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about from one line of text, because that's exactly what

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Google's doing. Then check the words on your key pages.

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Open your main service pages. Highlight the text. If any

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page has fewer than 200 words, it's too thin. Google

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needs content to understand what your page is about. Your service

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pages need to explain what you do Who you do it for, where

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you do it, what's included, and ideally answer common

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questions. Aim for at least 400 words.

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Knock it out of the park, do 800. Not waffle,

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useful specific information that a potential customer would want

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to read. And then click every link on your site. I'm not

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joking, every single one. Click your menu links, links in

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your content, click buttons. If anything goes to a 404 page,

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an error, or somewhere it shouldn't, Note it down and fix it. Or if you

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can't face doing this manually, use a free tool like Screaming Frog.

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The free version lets you crawl up to 500 URLs and it'll

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find broken links for you in minutes. There's no excuse for broken

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links. None. Then load your site on your phone. Pull out

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your phone, load your homepage, navigate around, try to find your

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contact page, try to fill in your contact form, try to tap

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your phone number to call. If any of that is frustrating,

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confusing, or slow, or broken, that's

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what your customers are experiencing. Fix it.

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Run your site through Google's PageSpeed Insights. See what it says

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about your mobile performance. If your mobile score is below 50,

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you've got work to do. Now look at your Google Business Profile.

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Go to google.com/business and check your listing. Is

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every section filled in? Are your opening hours correct? Is your phone

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number right? Have you got recent photos on there? Have you responded

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to your reviews? If your profile is incomplete or outdated,

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sort it today. It's free. It takes an hour at the most.

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And for local businesses, it's often where your first leads will come from.

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Now go and look at your internal links. Pick any page on your site.

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Are there links within the text that point to other relevant pages?

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Do your blog posts link to your services pages? Do your services

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pages link to relevant blog posts? If every page is an

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island with no connections, you need to add

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internal links. This is going to help Google

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understand your site structure, and it helps visitors find the information

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they need. When you mention a service in a blog post, link

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to the service page. When your service page references a common

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question, link to the blog post that answers it. It's not

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complicated, it just needs to be done. Now search for yourself

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on Google. Open a private or incognito window and

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search for the things your customers might search for. Okay,

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not your business name, the actual problems you solve.

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SEO copywriter in the UK, tax accountant in

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Sheffield, how much does SEO cost? Are you showing

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up? If not, is your competitor, and if they are,

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look at what they've got that you haven't. I'll bet you a tenner

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it's better page titles, more content, properly filled in

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Google Business Profile. Not some secret tactic, just the

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basics. Stop looking over the fence.

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Look, I'm not saying never look at what your competitors are doing.

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Competitor research has its place, but if your own site is a

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mess, spending time analyzing someone else's strategy is

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often a complete waste of your energy. It's like worrying about

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what trainers your opponent is wearing when you haven't even put your own

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shoes on yet. Fix your own shit first. Get the

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basics right. And then, once your site is solid, once

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your pages are properly titled, your content is useful, your site

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works on a mobile, and your Google Business Profile is complete,

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then, and only then, can you start thinking about what

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more you could do to compete. But I promise you,

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for most small businesses, just doing the basics properly

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will catapult you past half of your competition because most

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of them haven't done them either. The bar is on the floor.

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You just need to step over it.

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So there you have it. Stop blaming your competitors. Stop

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assuming they've got some secret weapon because they haven't. They've just

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done the basics that you haven't got around to yet. That's where the wins

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are. Not in some competitor analysis tool, not in some

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guru's framework. The wins are in your own website, waiting

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for you to fix it. Do the 30-minute audit, be honest with

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yourself, fix the obvious stuff, and I guarantee you'll see more

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improvement than from any amount of competitor stalking. And

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if this helped, don't keep it to yourself. Make sure you're following

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SEO Fucking What in whichever app you're listening to right now. So you

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don't miss the next episode. Share this one with a business owner

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who's convinced their competitor's got some magic formula. Send it

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to anyone who spends more time looking at other people's websites than fixing

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their own. And if you want me to take a look at your site and

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tell you honestly where you're going wrong, find me on LinkedIn or head

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to nickyhifrompilkington.com. Until next time,

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get found, make money, and for fuck's sake, fix your

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own website before you worry about anyone else's.