SEO F**king What - Get Found on Google and make money from your website with practical SEO tips

I'm going to say something that's going to piss off anyone currently building their entire SEO career on AI prompts: if you've never done the boring stuff manually, you can't tell when the AI is lying to you. There. I said it.

Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm talking about the thing that's actually keeping me up at night — not a Google update, not a dodgy agency tactic, but a slow-motion skills crisis the SEO industry is bringing entirely on itself.

It started with a LinkedIn post from the brilliant Jo Furnival at Sitebulb, about junior SEOs feeling like they're falling behind because they're not building elaborate AI workflows. She's right that the boring work still wins. But it got me thinking about something bigger: a whole generation of SEOs and copywriters are being handed AI tools before they've ever learned how any of this actually works — and that's a problem for all of us, not just them.

Here's what I'm covering:

• Why you can't judge whether an AI's SEO advice is right or catastrophically wrong until you've done the work yourself
• The difference between operating a tool and having actual judgment — and why only one of those survives contact with a messy real website
• Why the same skills gap is opening up in copywriting, not just SEO
• Where the "it's just a calculator" argument for AI falls apart if you don't understand the maths
• What happens to the industry in three years' time when a whole generation skips the learning stage
• Four practical things to do right now if you're early in your career (or managing someone who is)

And yes, there's homework. Not the "might get round to it one day" kind — the pick-one-thing-and-learn-it-properly-this-week kind. I walk you through exactly what to do in the episode.

If you're managing a junior SEO, or you are one, and you've been handed a stack of AI tools with no actual training — send them this. It might be the thing that stops a very expensive skills gap from becoming their problem in three years' time.

Get found. Make money. And for the love of all that is holy, learn the fucking basics before you let the AI do the thinking for you.

Links mentioned:

Non-Wanky SEO Toolkit (free for now, usually £200): https://nonwankyseo.com

Sitebulb (Jo Furnival's website crawler): https://sitebulb.com

Follow Nikki:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

Mentioned in this episode:

ICN Network

That free SEO audit is not free. It's a sales pitch with a spreadsheet on top. It took them 20 minutes, and it's about to cost you a whole lot more. There. I said it.

Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm pulling apart one of the sneakiest tricks in the industry — the "free SEO audit" that lands in your inbox looking like a favour and is actually a lead-generation funnel with your URL on the cover. Most of them aren't audits at all. They're crawl reports with branding on top, engineered to scare you into signing a contract before you've had time to think.

Here's what I'm covering: — Why most "free SEO audits" are lead-gen tools in disguise, not audits — How a 10-minute crawl gets dressed up in red and orange to look like a catastrophe — Why every website "fails" a crawl — and why that's completely normal — The manufactured urgency trick, and why an agency that's never spoken to you can't possibly know if Google is penalising you — What a genuine free audit actually contains: full disclosure, what's working, prioritised fixes and zero panic — The three questions to run every free audit through before you take it seriously — Why the free audit is their best foot forward, and what that tells you about the work you'd pay for

I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind.

If you know someone sitting on a scary-looking "free audit" PDF, wondering whether to panic and sign, send them this. It might save them thousands.

Get found. Make money. Stop stressing. And stop falling for a sales pitch dressed up as a service.

Links mentioned: Non-Wanky SEO Course: https://nonwankyseo.com

Related listening — Episode 9 (the agency red flags you should be running from) and Episode 15 (the paid audit that cost a client thousands and still missed the basics)

Follow Nikki:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

You've spent hours optimising your website for phrases that literally nobody types into Google. And I can prove it. There. I said it.

Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm tackling the single most expensive assumption you're making about your own business: that you know what your customers search for. You almost certainly don't — and that gap between how you describe your business and how your customers actually find you is exactly where your leads are disappearing.

Here's what I'm covering: — Why the keyword list you'd write off the top of your head is almost completely useless — The difference between industry language and how customers actually search (problems, questions, and panic) — Why you're too close to your own business to see it the way a stranger does — it's proximity, not stupidity — Why answering early, "beginning of the journey" questions is uncontested territory while everyone else fights over the expensive decision phrases — How to stop being precious about phrases that don't "perfectly describe" your services — Free ways to find what people really type: Google autocomplete, People Also Ask, and related searches

I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind. It takes 20 minutes, costs nothing, and will make you swear a bit.

If you know someone obsessing over ranking for their fancy industry job title and wondering why the enquiries aren't coming, send them this. It might save them six months of guessing.

Get found. Make money. Stop stressing. Start giving a shit about your readers.

Links mentioned: Non-Wanky SEO Courses: https://nonwankyseo.com Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator: https://ahrefs.com/keyword-generator Also Asked: https://alsoasked.com/?via=nikki-pilkington (aff link) Google's People Also Ask: Just search for anything on Google and look for the expandable questions

Follow Nikki: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

Mentioned in this episode:

ICN Network

You're paying for SEO and not getting the results you want. Before you sack your SEO — ask yourself: are you the problem?

Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington and in this episode of SEO Fucking What podcast I'm flipping the usual script. Instead of calling out dodgy agencies and cowboy SEOs, I'm looking at the other side of the relationship: the client. Because sometimes good SEO work goes completely to waste, and it's got nothing to do with the person doing the work.

I'll walk you through the seven habits that make you a dream SEO client — from telling your SEO what your business actually does, to giving real feedback instead of "looks good, thanks," to the single most important one: telling your SEO every single time anyone touches your website. She finishes with one concrete piece of homework you can do this week to immediately improve results.

Whether you already work with an SEO or you're about to hire one, this is the stuff nobody tells you — and fixing it costs you nothing.

Want to understand the SEO side yourself so you can spot when you're being fobbed off? The Non-Wanky SEO course is at nonwankyseo.com .

Follow SEO Fucking What wherever you're listening so you don't miss the next episode.

And if you know a business owner frustrated that their SEO isn't working — send them this one.

Links mentioned

Non-Wanky On-Page SEO course

Mentioned in this episode:

ICN Network

SEO has been declared dead at least fifteen times since 1995. Fifteen. And it's still here.

In this episode I'm going back to the very beginning - 1993, 670 websites, celebrity names stuffed into meta keywords by people who genuinely believed all traffic is good traffic, the whole sorry mess - and walking you through every major "SEO is dead" moment in history, who caused it, who got destroyed by it, and what actually survived.

Because if you understand the pattern, you stop panicking every time a LinkedIn guru announces the next thing that's going to kill search.

Spoiler: it won't. It never does.

Where SEO started - and how quickly people started gaming it. White text on white backgrounds. Doorway pages. Keyword stuffing so aggressive it'd make your eyes water.

Google's arrival in 1998 and the first proper "SEO is dead" panic - and how the industry responded by inventing link farms and article spinning. Same instinct, worse content.

The Florida Update in 2003 - like a smaller scale Panda and Penguin, but no less devastating for the businesses it wiped out overnight.

Panda (2011), Penguin (2012), Hummingbird (2013), Mobilegeddon (2015), and E-A-T - each one prompted a fresh round of death announcements, each one turned out to be wrong.

The AI content flood of 2022 onwards, and why pumping out AI slop was always going to end the same way as every other shortcut before it.

The actual search market share data from Q4 2025 via SparkToro: Google at 73.7%, ChatGPT at 2.86%. Yes, 2.86%. Let that sink in next time someone tells you to abandon your Google strategy.

And three things that have worked since 1998, survived every update, and will still be working long after the next death announcement hits your feed.

How to use LinkedIn Articles for SEO

Non-Wanky On-Page SEO course

If this episode made you roll your eyes at the next "SEO is dead" LinkedIn post - good. That was the point. Make sure you click follow or subscribe in whatever platform you enjoy this in, to ensure you never miss another one.

Mentioned in this episode:

ICN Network

Hi, I’m Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of “SEO F**king What” I focus on the harsh reality many business owners face: pouring hours into writing blog posts only to see:

• No results
• No traffic
• No engagement

A talk about solid SEO foundations, not just good writing, to ensure blog content gets found and drives results. Some common mistakes include; clever but unsearchable titles, missing metadata, weak or absent internal links, and lack of clear calls to action—that hold back otherwise strong content from ranking on Google.

You'll get a practical, no-nonsense SEO checklist to transform your blog post process, boost visibility, and finally see your efforts pay off.

📍REMEMBER:

• Ditch clever titles for clear, searchable ones
• Don’t skip the basics—metadata matters
• Structure and internal links are your secret weapon

Follow Me:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

Hi, I’m Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of “SEO F**king What” (the third and final part of the AI Website series) I pull back the curtain on why so many AI-built websites may look perfect on the surface yet fail spectacularly when it comes to SEO.

Drawing on 30 years of search experience and a recent audit of five B2B AI-generated sites, I explore the hidden problems lurking in headings, meta titles, robots.txt, sitemaps, schema, site performance, and trust signals—issues that even non-AI sites can suffer from if you don’t know to look!

Whether you built your site with AI or not, this episode is packed with practical advice for anyone wanting to get found and make money online. Listen in to find out what’s really going wrong beneath the gloss and how you can fix it.

I cover these things, and more:

• Issues with homepage H1s
• Website SEO and sitemap issues
• Common schema issues on websites
• Identifying site publication issues
• Importance of a human SEO audit

Follow Nikki:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

Hi, I’m Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of “SEO F**king What”, I’m talking about one of the most common and most exhausting problems in SEO — and it’s not algorithm updates, and it’s not technical debt. It’s Dave.

Dave means well. That’s the thing. He just went to a two-day digital marketing conference in Birmingham, sat through a keynote about AI search, and now he’s forwarding you articles at 9:00 PM on a Tuesday with a subject line, “Have you seen this?” You have. You saw it six months ago.

Here’s what I’m covering:

• Who Dave is — and why he takes so many different forms in your business
• Why Dave usually gets it wrong, and why that’s not entirely his fault
• The problem with conference keynotes, cheap SEO tools, and LinkedIn engagement bait
• Why dismissing Dave outright is the worst possible strategy
• How to create a process for handling Dave that actually protects your SEO strategy
• When to take Dave seriously — because sometimes, he’s onto something

If you’ve got a Dave in your orbit right now — a sceptical stakeholder, a conflicting tool, a partner’s contact with strong opinions — send them this episode. It might save everyone a pointless meeting.

Get found. Make money. Stop stressing. Get yourself a Nikki, not a Dave.

Links mentioned:

Non-Wanky SEO Courses: https://nonwankyseo.com

Follow Nikki:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

Mentioned in this episode:

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Blogging Masterclass

"She didn't need a content strategy document. She needed to read her inbox."

Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm tackling one of the most common content problems I see — businesses that are constantly stuck on what to write next, when the answers have been sitting in their inbox, their reviews, and their sales call notes for years.

Here's what I'm covering:

• Why most businesses get their content strategy wrong from the very start
• Why your customers' questions are real search queries being typed into Google right now
• The content gold hiding in your reviews — yours AND your competitors'
• How to mine testimonials, sales call notes, and support emails for blog ideas that actually convert
• The case study of Claire: a financial planner who wrote 5 posts straight from her inbox, got three ranking on page one within two weeks, and now has one as her second-most visited page
• Why the language your clients use (not your industry jargon) is closer to what gets typed into Google than anything from a keyword tool
• How to brief a copywriter or SEO with something actually useful

I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind.

If you know someone staring at a blank screen trying to think of blog topics, send them this. The answers are already in their business.

Get found. Make money. Stop stressing. Start listening to the people already talking to you.

LINKS

Non-Wanky SEO Courses: https://nonwankyseo.com

FOLLOW NIKKI

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

Mentioned in this episode:

Join our blogging masterclass

Blogging Masterclass

Hi, I’m Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of “SEO F**king What”, this is Part Two of my AI Website series — and if you didn’t build your site with AI, don’t switch off. A lot of what I cover here applies to traditionally-built websites too.

I audited five AI-built B2B websites in April 2026. Proper audits — SE Ranking crawls, manual HTML review, page speed insights, schema testing, the lot. I went in expecting a horror show. What I found was much more interesting.

Here’s what I’m covering:

• Why AI-built websites look genuinely good — and what that means for small business owners who couldn’t previously afford proper design
• How AI handles mobile layouts correctly as standard (and why plenty of human-built sites still can’t say the same)
• Why the site structure and navigation of AI-built sites makes sense — and why yours might not anymore
• The forms, validation, and error handling that actually work (unlike that contact form you probably don’t know is broken)
• Why three of the five sites had genuinely thoughtful commercial pages — comparison pages, “is this right for you” pages, and decision-support content
• How AI approached schema markup — what it got right, and the teaser for what went wrong in Episode Three

I also give you a piece of homework. Not the vague “something to think about” kind. The go-and-check-it-this-week kind: look at your commercial pages and ask whether they’re actually helping someone make a decision.

If you’ve been dismissing AI websites out of hand, or if you’ve built one and been told it’s worthless, this episode is for you. And yes, Episode Three is where things get uncomfortable — but that’s next week.

Get found. Make money. Stop stressing. Start giving a shit about your readers.

Links mentioned:

Non-Wanky SEO Courses: https://nonwankyseo.com

Follow Nikki:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

Mentioned in this episode:

Join our blogging masterclass

Blogging Masterclass