This podcast exists because you deserve better than the SEO bollocks currently being sold to you.
Every week, I'll give you 10-15 minutes of straight talk about SEO. Practical advice that actually works for B2B websites trying to get found on Google/search and make money. The kind of stuff that's been proven over years, not dreamed up last Tuesday by some LinkedIn tosspot.
Real SEO from someone who's been doing this since dial-up was considered fast. I'll tell you what works, what's complete nonsense, and which tactics will get your website buried faster than you can say "guaranteed first page rankings."
I'm calling out the bullshitters. The agencies promising the world and delivering fuck all. The LinkedIn gooroos flogging courses about things that don't actually exist. The AI SEO "hacks" destroying perfectly good websites. The expensive tools you don't need. The "experts" who learned SEO from a YouTube video three months ago. If someone's talking bollocks about SEO, you'll hear about it here.
More importantly, I'm telling you what to do instead. Every rant comes with actual, practical steps you can take. Real actions that get results, not theory that sounds clever but does bugger all for your rankings. "Do this, then do that, and you'll see movement." That's it. That's the format.
You're running a B2B business or managing a B2B website. You've probably been burned by an SEO agency before. Maybe they took your money and delivered a fancy report full of words that meant absolutely nothing. Or they promised first page rankings and disappeared after six months of bugger all results.
You're sick of reading blog posts that say nothing in 2000 words. You're tired of SEO "tips" that are either blindingly obvious or completely bizarre. You want someone to cut through the crap and tell you what actually matters for your business, not what works for some massive ecommerce site with a budget the size of a small country.
You don't need a PhD in technical SEO. You need to know what's worth your time and what's complete bollocks. You need to know which tactics will actually bring in leads and which ones are just expensive ways to make yourself feel busy. That's what I'm here for.
This isn't some sanitised, corporate-approved SEO podcast where everyone's lovely and we pretend all tactics are equally valid. They're not. Some are brilliant. Most are pointless. And some will actively fuck up your website while the "expert" who recommended them is off selling the same dodgy advice to the next poor sod.
I swear. A lot. If that bothers you, there are plenty of other podcasts out there with hosts who never offend anyone. Go find them. They're very nice. They're also very boring.
This also isn't a podcast that assumes you're stupid. You're not. You're just busy running a business and don't have time to decode the latest algorithm update or work out which SEO tactic is legitimate and which one's complete fantasy.
Fifteen minutes. One topic. I'll tell you what's pissing me off this week in the SEO industry, why it matters to your website, and what you should actually do about it. Then I'm done. You can get back to running your business.
New episodes drop weekly, because the SEO industry creates fresh bullshit faster than I can rant about it. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next time some gooroo invents a new problem to sell you the solution to.
Welcome to SEO F**king What? Let's fix your website.
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WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or AI: Which Is Best for SEO?...
Épisode 49
dimanche 8 novembre 2026 • Durée 11:29
WordPress or Wix, Squarespace or some AI site builder. Which one's best for SEO? I've worked on all of them, and I'm about to ruin the argument for everyone.
Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm ending the fight that kicks off every time someone tells you to bin your website. Last week it was the PHP panic and the hustle bros telling you to move off WordPress. This week it's the follow-up, and the answer is simple: no platform is best for SEO, and none of them is bad for it either. The fundamentals are the same on all of them. What changes is where things live.
Here's what I'm covering:
— Why WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, Magento and Drupal all need the same SEO basics
— What "SEO-friendly" actually means (the site can be optimised, not that anyone's bothered)
— Why "you can't do SEO on Wix" and "Squarespace is crap for SEO" are bollocks
— The two flavours of AI-built website, and why one of them means your SEO has no way in
— Why so much of SEO is detective work: finding where the title, the redirects and the "don't index" setting are hiding
— Why moving platform isn't free, even when it looks like it, and why I'd usually tell you to stay put
— The bit everyone skips: who's actually looking after your website
I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind: log in and find where your meta titles, H1s and redirects live, then write down who looks after your website, who updates it, who keeps it secure and who you call when it breaks.
If someone you know is about to move their site because it's "better for SEO", send them this first.
Get found. Make money. And don't give up WordPress just because some arsehole on LinkedIn tells you to.
It Was a PHP Problem, Not a WordPress Problem, FFS!
Épisode 48
dimanche 1 novembre 2026 • Durée 12:58
So a week or so ago, a bug in PHP took websites offline all over the world. Within minutes, some LinkedIn wanker was telling you to bin your WordPress site. Sit down. We need to talk.
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 PHP mess, the WordPress panic, and why the people shouting loudest on social media are so often the last people you should be listening to. This was a PHP problem, not a WordPress problem, and for most small businesses on decent hosting it was fixed on the server while you slept. Moving your site to a different CMS would have fixed precisely fuck all.
Here's what I'm covering:
— What actually happened with PHP2Shell, and why your host probably sorted it without you lifting a finger
— Why PHP lives on the server and your CMS sits on top of it, so this was never a WordPress problem
— The "WordPress is dead, comment 'website' for the link" posts, and everything they conveniently left out
— Why your comment is their metric and your panic is their sales funnel
— Why none of this is new: same shite, different decade
— Five checks for the next panic, including the "who benefits" test and whether they named everything that got hit
— Why sometimes the right response is "noted, checked, we're fine"
— A few heartfelt wishes for the hustle bros. Lego is involved.
I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind: get your host to confirm in writing that you're patched, write down who you'd call if your website broke tomorrow, and mute one panic merchant.
If a mate sent you one of those "move off WordPress now" posts, send them this episode instead.
Get found. Make money. And the next time LinkedIn tells you something's dead, ask them what they're selling.
Some SEO Advice For Whoever Runs Your Website - "Admin" Is Hiding Your Expertise from Google
Épisode 47
dimanche 25 octobre 2026 • Durée 12:23
Who wrote the last blog post on your website? If the page says admin, Google's asking the same fucking question. So are your customers.
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 who wrote your website. AI has made faking an expert so easy that being a real one is now one of the best advantages you've got, and most of you are throwing it away by publishing everything as "admin". You've got the qualifications, the scars and the client stories, and the page that's meant to prove it is signed by a WordPress username. That's bollocks, and it's fixable in an afternoon.
Here's what I'm covering:
— Why "posted by admin", "posted by team" or no name at all throws away years of expertise you actually earned
— Sports Illustrated's made-up writers, CNET Money Staff, and why a faceless byline protects nobody
— The honest bit: an author bio isn't a ranking factor on its own, so why bother? Because it makes your expertise checkable by Google, by AI tools and by the person deciding whether to ring you
— How Google joins the dots between you on your site, on LinkedIn, in the trade press and on that conference stage, and why that's the one thing AI can't fake
— The dickheads inventing authors on purpose, and why a fake "medically reviewed by" is a liability, not a shortcut
— How an "admin" username on WordPress can hand anyone who wants to break into your site half your login
— The fix, step by step: real names, proper author pages, links that go both ways, Person schema with sameAs, honest reviewers, and existing somewhere other than your own website
I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind: five steps, starting with counting how many of your posts were written by "admin".
If this is useful, send it to whoever runs your website. Especially if their name is Admin.
Why Your Website Isn't On Google (And Whose Job It Was)
Saison 1 · Épisode 46
dimanche 18 octobre 2026 • Durée 13:22
Your web designer said your new site was SEO-friendly. It probably is. That's not the same as anyone finding it, and nobody told you.
Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm drawing a line that most web design proposals never draw. "SEO-friendly" means your site won't get in Google's way. "Search engine optimised" means somebody has made the decisions that get it found. They are absolutely fucking not the same thing, and the gap between them, where nobody agreed whose job it is, is the stuff that's keeping you off page one. This one is fairer to designers than my episode six, because most of them aren't conning anyone. I'm going to tell you where the design job stops, where the SEO job starts, and who's left holding the bit in the middle.
Here's what I'm covering:
— What "SEO-friendly" actually means on a web design proposal, and why it's a capability, not a result
— The kitchen fitter who isn't cooking your dinner, and why an SEO-friendly site with no optimisation is a gorgeous kitchen with fuck all in the fridge
— What your web designer owns: the build, sensible URLs, switching off the noindex setting at launch, the redirect map, a real sitemap, and whose name your Search Console, Analytics and domain are in
— What your SEO owns: keyword research, which page targets which search, meta titles and H1s, the content plan, links, and months of watching and fixing
— The bit in the middle that nobody owns, and why "who writes the meta titles?" is the question that gives it away
— Seven questions to get answered in writing before anyone opens Figma, plus why a designer who says "you'll need someone else for the SEO" is worth their weight in gold
I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind: four checks, starting with whether your site is quietly telling Google to go away.
If you build websites, there's something in here for you too: the SEO Build Pack for Web Designers, £35, one payment.
The SEO Contract You Never Read
Saison 1 · Épisode 45
dimanche 11 octobre 2026 • Durée 12:37
You've got a signed SEO contract you've never read, and somewhere in it is the reason you can't leave. Let's go and find it.
Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm going through the document, not the sales pitch. I've already done an episode on the red flags to spot before you hire an SEO agency. This one's for everyone who already has, and signed a contract they skimmed at best, on the strength of a conversation and a proposal deck that were both a lot friendlier than the paperwork.
Contracts aren't inherently a stitch-up, and a decent one protects both of you. What I've got a problem with is a very specific set of clauses that exist to make it hard for you to leave when the work isn't working.
Here's what I'm covering:
— How a notice period and an auto-renewal turn a 12-month term into 15 months, or another full year of something you'd already decided to stop
— My honest position on minimum terms: when three to six months is fair, and when 12 months is about churn
— Why a schedule of work full of adjectives can't be enforced
— Who owns your content, your links and your accounts when you leave, and why you want to see the word "assign", not "licence"
— Exclusivity, non-disparagement, and the clause that blames you for not implementing their recommendations
— The handover clause most contracts don't have at all
— The two-document test: put the proposal next to the contract and see how much of what you were sold you can actually hold anyone to
I also give you five bits of homework, including the one date that needs to go in your calendar today and a one-line email to send this week.
I'm not a solicitor and this isn't legal advice. If there's serious money involved, get a proper commercial solicitor to look at it.
If you know someone who's about to sign an SEO contract, send them this. 15 minutes now beats a year of regret.
Negative SEO Is Mostly a Con. Here's What Actually Hurts You
Saison 1 · Épisode 44
dimanche 4 octobre 2026 • Durée 12:27
Somebody is going to tell you your competitor is attacking your SEO, and then offer to protect you for a monthly fee. That's the con. But there are real attacks, and they're not the ones being sold to you.
Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm taking apart negative SEO: the idea that someone else can deliberately damage your rankings. It's one of the most effective fear sales in this industry because it does two things at once. It explains away a drop that might be your agency's fault, and it justifies a new line on an invoice. I'm going to tell you what's mostly rubbish, and then I'm going to tell you what's real, because there are ways someone can do you harm, and no one's selling protection for those. Funny that.
Here's what I'm covering:
— Why dumping thousands of dodgy links on a competitor used to work, and why it doesn't now (Google moved from punishing the site to ignoring the rubbish around 2016)
— The disavow tool: the one situation it genuinely belongs in, and why the monthly "backlink monitoring" line on your invoice is probably protecting you from nothing
— Why "a competitor attacked you" is such a convenient explanation for someone whose work you're questioning, and the three questions to ask before you accept it
— The real threats nobody sells protection for, starting with the fact that anyone can suggest an edit to your Google Business Profile, including that you're permanently closed
— Hacked sites, fake copyright complaints that get your pages removed from Google, review bombing, and the ex-agency that still holds your logins
— Four free checks you can do this week, plus my favourite kind of homework: cancelling something
I also give you a proper piece of homework. Four checks, all free, and one thing to cancel. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind, including a 10-second look in Search Console that tells you whether anybody has penalised you.
Traffic's Down? Don't Sack Your SEO Yet, FFS!
Saison 1 · Épisode 43
dimanche 27 septembre 2026 • Durée 12:12
Your traffic's down, you're about to have a furious phone call with your SEO, and there's a decent chance the drop has got nothing to do with them. Twenty minutes and you'll know which it is.
Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm walking you through exactly what to do when your traffic drops, before you pick up the phone to anyone. Because a lot of the time, traffic goes down for a reason that has nothing to do with anybody's SEO work, and somebody's about to get sacked over nothing. Sometimes it really is your SEO. Either way, you should know which one you're looking at before that conversation happens.
Here's what I'm covering:
— Why your search traffic is really three things multiplied together, and why only one of them is what most people mean by SEO
— The 20-minute diagnosis in Google Search Console, in the order that saves you time, starting with the single most useful thing in the whole episode
— Why you should ignore average position, and how to tell whether your loss is concentrated or spread
— Cliff or slope, the Manual Actions report, and where Google tells you whether an update rolled out that week
— The caveat (you'll just have to listen to find that out)
I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind. One sentence with the blanks filled in, and if you can write it, you'll walk into your next SEO conversation knowing more than the person who's meant to be explaining it to you.
If you know someone who's currently panicking at a graph, or about to sack their SEO over some August stats, send them this. It might save somebody's job.
Get found. Make money. Stop stressing. And check the calendar before you check the algorithm.
Chapters:
00:00 — Traffic's down. Is it your SEO?
Dead SEO Tactics, Dug Up and Resold as "AI Hacks", FFS
Saison 1 · Épisode 42
dimanche 20 septembre 2026 • Durée 13:45
Some of the SEO tactics being sold to you right now were killed off before the person selling them was even old enough to drive. Welcome to the graveyard.
Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm digging up the corpses. I've been doing this for over 30 years, which means I was there when half these tactics were brand new and worked beautifully. I watched them get abused, I watched Google shut them down one by one, and I've watched every single one of them come back: dug up about five years later, given a fresh label, and sold to small businesses who weren't around the first time. These aren't tactics that went out of fashion. They're recalled products, and someone's repainted the box and put them back on the shelf.
Here's what I'm covering:
— The keywords meta tag: Google said it didn't use it for ranking in 2009, and I'm still seeing invoices for "keyword tagging"
— Hidden text and keyword stuffing, and why a keyword density report is just keyword stuffing with a spreadsheet stapled on it
— Exact match domains, and why buying bestplumberleeds.co.uk stopped being a strategy in 2012
— Doorway pages and their brand-new AI face: why 400 "programmatic SEO" location pages for a fixed fee is the same tactic Google went after in 2015
— Spun content, the content farms Google flattened, and the 300 unedited AI blog posts a month that have replaced them
— Submitting your site to 5,000 search engines (there weren't even 50), and why "get submitted to the AI engines" is the same racket with a new letterhead
— The three questions that tell you whether the tactic on your quote is alive or dead, and you don't need to know any SEO to ask them
I also give you a proper piece of homework. Two jobs, and neither will cost you a penny. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind, including a quick view-source check that tells you whether somebody's already buried a corpse in your website.
Four Questions That Find Out If Your SEO Is Talking Boll*cks
Saison 1 · Épisode 41
dimanche 13 septembre 2026 • Durée 14:14
Every week there’s a fresh piece of SEO panic tell-off warning you that you’ll disappear from Google unless you pay for a fix. They make new nonsense faster than I can record episodes, and keeping up with it isn't your job—running your business is. So let’s fix that!
Hi, I’m Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I’m not just debunking one myth. I’m handing you a simple four-question toolkit to debunk all of them—no technical background required. Think of it like taking your car to a garage: you don’t need to know how the engine works to ask three sharp questions and know if you’re being taken for a ride.
Here’s what I’m covering:
Why SEO panic-marketing travels so fast, and why trying to keep track of every rumor is a waste of your time
Question 1: Did Google actually say this on a public channel, or did someone say that Google said it on LinkedIn?
Question 2: Has anyone tested it with real data and control groups, or are you looking at an unlabelled screenshot of a line going up?
Question 3: The 4-minute sanity check using the top five search results for your actual money keywords
Question 4: Following the money to see who profits from you getting your credit card out
Putting the four questions to work on three huge claims: the £3,000 site speed audit, the mandatory 2,000-word page length, and the "blog twice a week" rule
What going from "fine to fast" actually does for site speed, and why paying big money for decimal points is nonsense
Why posting frequency fails all four questions, and why dead-looking sites are sitting at position one
I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not a "might look at that next month" job, but a 20-minute exercise you can do this week that could take a fair chunk off your monthly agency invoice.
If you know someone about to sign an expensive SEO retainer, or someone who’s being quoted thousands for a fix based on pure industry hype, send them this. It might save them a few bob.
Seems Nobody Can Tell You What EEAT Actually Is. So I Will.
Saison 1 · Épisode 40
dimanche 6 septembre 2026 • Durée 13:39
Every SEO on LinkedIn is banging on about E-E-A-T. Almost none of them can tell you what it actually means. So let’s fix that.
Hi, I’m Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I’m taking apart two things you’ve been told matter enormously by people who, if you push them, probably couldn’t tell you where either one came from. E-E-A-T and helpful content. One is a description of what good looks like, written for contractors who can’t touch your rankings. The other stopped existing as a separate thing in March 2024. Neither of them is a score, and nobody can sell you one.
Here’s what I’m covering:
— What the four letters actually stand for, and where the extra E came from in December 2022
— The 180-page free PDF that E-E-A-T lives in, who Google gives it to, and why those people are mystery shoppers rather than traffic wardens
— Why there is no E-E-A-T score sitting in a database marking your website out of 10 — and why it still matters anyway
— Why trust is the one that counts, and how you can have all the expertise in the world and still be worth very little
— YMYL, why a page about chemotherapy is held to a stricter standard than a page about scented candles, and where a small B2B business actually sits
— What happened to the helpful content update, and why anyone offering to recover you from one is selling you a thing that no longer exists
— The three questions Google published for free — who, how and why — and the one that catches everybody out
— Why the E-E-A-T audit grift works so well, and why a headshot and a byline is not expertise
I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind. Three pages, three questions.
If you've just had a new website built, or you build them, send this to your web designer. They'll either thank you or get very defensive, and both tell you something.
Get found. Make money. And go and check that fucking noindex tag.
Get found. Make money. Stop stressing. And go and find out when your notice period ends.
Chapters:
00:00 — Why Your SEO Contract Matters
01:13 — Notice Periods And What You Get
03:35 — Who Owns The Work When You Leave
06:35 — The Two-Document Test And Homework
Links mentioned:
Non-Wanky SEO Courses (the On-Page SEO Toolkit is free): https://nonwankyseo.com
Episode 2, on who actually owns your SEO and your accounts: https://seofuckingwhatpodcast.co.uk/episode/your-seo-sht-who-actually-owns-it
Episode 23, on why I don't want you buying links: https://seofuckingwhatpodcast.co.uk/episode/stop-buying-backlinks-ffs
The red flags episode, for spotting a dodgy agency before you hire them: [ADD EPISODE URL]
What you're actually paying your SEO for (Ep 9, if that's the one she means by "I've covered this before"): https://seofuckingwhatpodcast.co.uk/episode/what-the-fk-your-seo-is-actually-charging-you-for-and-why-its-a-scam
Google's own advice on hiring an SEO ("No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google"): https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo
UK government guidance on who owns copyright in work you commission: https://www.gov.uk/ownership-of-copyright-works
If you know someone who’s been quoted two grand for an E-E-A-T audit, or who’s been told that adding author schema will conjure expertise out of nowhere, send them this. It might save them an invoice.
Get found. Make money. Stop stressing. Stop paying for a score that doesn’t exist.
Links mentioned:
Non-Wanky SEO Courses — the On-Page SEO Toolkit is completely free right now: https://nonwankyseo.com
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