Lauren Holliday

PBNs can boost rankings. But for how long? Only until Google catches you. And Google’s SpamBrain flags 40 billion spam pages. Every. Single. Day. Think your PBN is invisible? It’s not. Here’s the problem: PBNs aren’t authority. They’re an illusion of it. They violate Google’s spam policies. They strip away trust. They invite penalties. And when a penalty hits? Your traffic doesn’t dip. It disappears. Because SEO isn’t about link quantity. It’s about link quality. Real authority comes from: → Content people want to share → Links you earn, not buy → A reputation you protect, not gamble Shortcuts feel fast. But rebuilding from zero takes years. So before you buy that next PBN link, ask yourself: “Would I still want this link if Google didn’t count it?” If the answer is no… That’s your warning. ♻️ Share this with someone who’s one shady backlink away from disaster. #SEO #techSEO #SEOservices #SEOconsultant #B2BSEO #LocalBusibessGrowth #LocalBusinessMarketking

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Reminder to not get scammed by those too-good-to-be-true pagespeed optimization services on Fiverr. The Shopify subreddit had an interesting post over the weekend where someone who used to run that scam explained it. Real performance issues show up in your revenue, not PageSpeed Insights. Check Search Console's Core Web Vitals for actual data. If someone guarantees specific scores or claims they can fix everything in 24 hours, run.

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There’s a hidden $30k tax most ecomm brands pay for SEO. Here’s how it works and how to avoid paying it. It’s called the “figuring it out” tax. 6 months and $30k+ later, your SEO agency finally knows what works. You just paid for their education. This is called the "figuring it out" tax. Most ecomm brands pay it without realizing. Here's what it looks like: Your agency is:  🚫 Learning your industry on your dime  🚫 Testing random tactics to see what sticks  🚫 Doing long drawn out audits Meanwhile: $5k/month disappears. 6 months = $30k+ of throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping it sticks. The difference: Inexperienced: "Let's take months on technical audits and research, then complete these check box deliverables..." Experienced: "Here's what’s worked countless times. Let’s execute." Before hiring any SEO provider, ask: "Have you grown [my type of business before?]" If no: You're funding their education. If yes with proof: You're funding your future growth Stop paying the "figuring it out" tax.

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I had no idea so many SEO companies would hate my software AI Trust Signals… but they do...and not for the reasons I expected. Turns out, there are a lot of SEO companies doing bad work and not being honest with their clients. And when their clients finally ask hard questions, things get...well...interesting. Here’s a recent example (true story): A lady heard me speak, ran her website through AI Trust Signals, and her scores came back rough. She forwarded the results to her SEO company and asked for an explanation. Their response? “It’s a pile of $hit.” 💩 That was their technical analysis. (seriously, I'm not kidding) But it also triggered alarm bells for her. So she started digging. Eight weeks later, here’s what she uncovered: • GDPR violations • Her entire e-commerce section not visible to Google Shopping • Falsified SEO reporting • A laundry list of mistakes no competent agency should ever miss Her words to me: “You name it… it happened.” She fired the agency and is now fixing what was an extremely broken website. And the crazy part? I'm starting to see similar stories all the time now. When some SEO companies see a low score on AI Trust Signals, the default response isn’t curiosity… it’s defensiveness: “It’s trash.” “It’s wrong.” “Don’t trust it.” Anything to avoid accountability. Why? Because too many firms are still clinging to a world where everything revolves around ten blue links, “keywords,” and link-building spreadsheets. And that world is disappearing...fast. The day is coming when we’ll laugh at how we used to get information online. If you’re using an SEO company, don’t assume they’ve kept up. The shift from “rank me on Google” to “make AI recommend me” is rewriting the industry. Some agencies will adapt. Many won’t. Your job is to know the difference...before the market finds out for you. ----------- Your take? I'd love to hear your thoughts below. 👇

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After 15 years in corporate as an SEO, I’ve seen more SEOs fail from corporate politics than from Google updates. Agency folks especially struggle moving in-house because the game is different. My advice after all these years in enterprise SEO: - Take your PTO – I used to believe rankings would collapse if I stepped away. They do not. Burnout ruins judgment far faster than a week offline. - Document everything – Ideas, tests, dips/rises in traffic, even hallway conversations. A minor decision today can resurface months later as a major escalation. - Trust carefully – Collaboration is essential, but I learned not everyone who smiles in meetings is on my side. - Do not overstay – My biggest career growth came when I changed companies every 1-3 years. Staying too long rarely results in a promotion. - Respect cross-team partners – IT, analysts, engineers, and admins have saved me and my projects more times than I can count. They are allies, not support staff. - Detach emotionally – Leadership skepticism about SEO is rarely personal. It is a negotiation about resources and priorities, not a reflection of worth. - Listen first, talk later – In my early years I thought I had to prove I was the expert. Results earned credibility more than my words ever could. - Avoid gossip and SEO fights – I learned many many years ago that my time spent debating was wasting too much energy instead of influencing. Now I document my position and move on. - Guide through questions – Some of my biggest wins came when stakeholders work through to the solution themselves. Questions open doors. - Keep perspective – We are not saving lives. Most urgency is manufactured. SEO is a long game, and patience wins.

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How I've used this principle to build my companies: Got a bad customer review? ↳ See what caused that and fix it. Client canceled angrily? ↳ See what caused that and fix it. Ad campaign didn't work? ↳ See what caused that and fix it. Every setback is a data point. Some of them are useless, but many teach crucial lessons. Take nothing personally. Analyze, improve, and try again.

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Sometimes running SEO feels less like marketing… and more like being a doctor. Clients show up with symptoms: “Our traffic dropped.” “We lost rankings.” “Competitors are outranking us.” You run the diagnosis: - Algorithm updates. - Technical gaps. - Content signals weakening. You prescribe the treatment: - Content refresh. - Authority building. - Tech clean-up. But here’s the catch → what the client really wants is - “More leads & Faster.” That’s the tension every SEO director or agency owner lives with. SEO isn’t just about fixing symptoms — it’s about tying the cure back to business outcomes. If you’ve worked with clients in India, you’ve definitely heard this line: “Traffic kab badhega?” What’s the most repeated line you hear in every SEO review call? Would love to know, what that 1 statement or line you face in every client review call. #seo #seoagency #seoprofessional #googleupdate #googleranking #SERP #seoindia #digitalmarketing #seoreview

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Agencies often talk crap on other agencies and it's a pointless exercise but here's why I find it amusing Hiring is hard Running a company of 10 is hard Running a company of 40 is harder Most agency owners can never scale above either 40 heads or 40 clients because they don't replace themselves The reason I am at 450 clients and 500 employees is because processes (sops etc) simply outperform talented people who ignore checklists My interns beat anyone Thrasio hired for example, they with ultimate sophistication ignored commandment 1 of selling on Amazon. They let their top sellers go out of stock. Boutique agencies claim better talent allows them better results, often posting on social media like a solo fashion show Not only is this misleading but it's also their only claim they can make because they can't or haven't yet scaled their own company to merit a higher level argument But with that said, it's not me against you (other agencies), it's all of US vs Amazon There is simply no need to attack other agencies to gain ground, the ground is infinite and I get more client referrals when I help my competitors anyway Business is not a zero sum game, on the contrary it's an infinite value giving game This is why I give away everything Some of you will hate on me just because I am successful But most of you who learn something and apply it to your own business will grow And to the few who come back and say thank you for all the content? You're the reward that keeps me going

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Most agencies get addiction treatment SEO completely wrong. They target high-volume keywords that drive thousands of visitors. And their clients love seeing those traffic numbers go up. But here's what really happens → TRAFFIC rarely converts to ADMISSIONS. Why? Because they target broad addiction information keywords: → "Signs of alcoholism" → "Drug withdrawal symptoms" → "[Insert Celebrity Name} rehab" These searches come from people researching addiction. Not people seeking treatment. Real treatment seekers use different search terms: → "[City] rehab near me" → "Insurance coverage for rehab" → "Same day addiction treatment" Your traffic might drop 80% targeting these keywords. But your admissions will explode. Because you'll attract people ready for treatment → not just research. Quality beats quantity. Focus on INTENT over volume. Target searches from people who need help TODAY. That's how you build a sustainable treatment center.

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SEO Pro Tip: Make your content cite-ready. Add dates, numbers, definitions, and primary sources. Create a section that answers “what changed” and “what to do next.” That is the part that earns references.

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Mike King's latest deep dive sparked some big-picture thinking about where our industry is heading. Here's what I'm seeing between the lines: We're witnessing the death of traditional SEO (This has been over-said, I know) The shift isn't just algorithmic, it's ontological. We're moving from optimizing for static rankings to what I'm calling "cognitive visibility management." The question is no longer "How do I rank #1?" but "How do I become part of the AI's reasoning process?" Semantic architecture is replacing keyword strategy The future belongs to those who understand vector spaces, not just search volumes. Content needs to exist within multidimensional meaning structures where mathematical relationships between concepts determine visibility. This means moving from isolated page optimization to interconnected content ecosystems that support reasoning across multiple user journeys and query variations. From content creation to reasoning contribution Tomorrow's SEO content isn't about pages that rank. It involves creating logical building blocks that enable AI systems to think through problems. We're becoming logic architects, building knowledge structures that can be synthesized, compared, and combined across different reasoning chains. The question shifts from "What keywords should I target?" to "What logical steps does this content support in the machine's thinking process?" Measurement is becoming inference-based Traditional analytics are obsolete when AI-generated answers fail to drive clicks. Success metrics are evolving from traffic and rankings to "cognitive influence", measuring how often your content shapes AI responses, even when users never see it directly. Personalization kills universal optimization Every query will soon generate personalized, synthesized responses. This creates a fundamental challenge: optimizing for countless individual experiences rather than one shared reality. Future success requires persona-based strategies that maximize visibility across different user archetypes. The technical bar is rising fast The complexity gap between basic SEO and effective optimization is widening. Future practitioners need data science skills: vector embeddings, ML model understanding, behavioral analysis, and simulation systems. Those who can't make this technical leap will find themselves optimizing for a version of search that no longer exists. The big shift: From user attention to machine attention Instead of competing for eyeballs, we're competing to become indispensable to machine reasoning. The most successful organizations will create content that AI systems cannot effectively respond to queries without referencing. The transition period we're in represents the last opportunity to build these new capabilities before this paradigm fully establishes itself. What's your take? Are we ready for SEO to become this technical, or are we about to see a massive industry shakeout?

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🚀 304 vs 200 Response Times: The Crawl Budget Hack You're Missing Recently implemented Cache-Control headers for a site with over 150M URLs - returning 304 when content unchanged, 200 when modified. The efficiency gains are pretty nice. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀:  • 304 responses: 226.8ms average  • 200 responses: 285.6ms average  • 𝟯𝟬𝟰𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝟭.𝟮𝟲𝘅 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 (20.6% time savings) For large sites, this is critical because every slight reduction of response time leads to more effective crawling. 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁: If Googlebot crawls 12M pages/week with 200s → switching to 304s = 𝟭𝟱.𝟭𝗠 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀 (+3.1M additional pages, 26% increase) 𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: Proper Cache-Control implementation = more crawl budget for pages that actually need attention. If you're not serving 304s for unchanged content, you're missing crawl efficiency gains. However, excessive 304s may signal a content freshness problem. Find the balance ✨ #seo #technicalseo #crawlbudget #caching

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Booking yourself on podcasts before you even have one is like running ads to a website that doesn’t exist yet. Here’s what to do first: 1️⃣ Owned/Semi-owned Media (Podcast, Email, YT) 2️⃣ Lead Magnet or Lead Quiz for Your Target Market 3️⃣ Webinar / Call Funnel Do this before you start doing PR. Because getting people hyped without a place for them to go? That’s a big ole' waste of everybody's time.

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Your barely-noticed website can gain more traffic if your team truly understands why and how to effectively use SEO. Especially if your marketing team spends thousands of dollars annually contracting SEO and web design specialists, you should be showing up on the first page of Google or Bing search results. So why aren’t you ranking? Your SEO setup is not working for you. SEO feeds on accurate, current, and relevant information and it doesn't matter if you have an e-commerce website, a blog, or a service-based platform. If your content is outdated Your keywords are misaligned Your pages aren’t optimized for user intent Search engines will pass you by. Be honest, do you really understand what your SEO team is doing? #landingpages #SEO #visibility #corporatebrands #corporatebranding #digitalreputation #AshleighAnnMowatt

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Please stop calling newsletters "Substacks" -- The vast majority of blogs are created using WordPress software. No one calls their blog a "WordPress" for the very good reason that there are other ways to create and publish blogs. So if you've been gaslighted into calling someone's newsletter their "Substack' just because they use that platform, please stop. You're just doing PR for a company that manifestly doesn't deserve it. Why is that? You may not know that it was funded by Trump supporters and is run by people who have no problem helping right-wing extremists spread and monetize their bile. If you're thinking of starting a newsletter, by the way, there are many fine alternatives including Ghost (what I use), Buttondown, Beehiv, WordPress Medium and more. And please ask your friends who use Substack to look at the alternatives as well.

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We don’t talk about this enough: SEO is not one thing. It’s two distinct but deeply connected forces; on-page and off-page, and treating them like one blob is how good websites get outranked. Quick story: I audited an iGaming review site recently and while it had great content, tight structure, well-optimised metadata and a textbook on-page SEO, they were still being outranked by competitors with clunkier content. Why? Because they had almost no backlinks, no brand signals, no digital PR. No one was talking about them. No trust signals = lower authority. That’s off-page SEO failing them. In contrast, I once worked with a fintech brand that was everywhere online …. They were mentioned in Yahoo! Finance, Medium, Reddit, newsletters etc But their actual site was chaos: 📍 Confusing header hierarchy 📍 Thin and duplicate content 📍 Cannibalised keywords 📍 Broken internal links The result? Lots of clicks from off-page buzz, but high bounce rates and poor engagement. No clarity = no conversions. 👉🏽 Here’s the thing: Search engines reward both relevance and reputation. On-page earns clarity. Off-page earns credibility. If you’re doing one without the other, just know you’re stalling your growth. If you’re an SEO strategist, content marketer, or founder, ask yourself: Are we ranking well and earning links? Is our content architecture supporting the journey after someone clicks? Strong SEO isn’t just “good content” or “link building.” It’s a system. Every piece of it; technical, on-page, and off-page, has to pull its weight. I am eager to hear from others working in search, especially in competitive verticals like finance, health, or igaming; What’s been your biggest struggle balancing on-page and off-page SEO? 👇🏽Let’s talk shop in the comments.

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𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱. 𝗜𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁. It dies on the profile. Here’s what we see with clients over and over: Their posts get traction. Senior people click through. And then... nothing happens. No follow. No DM. No conversion. Because their profile tells the wrong story. 360Brew doesn’t just rank posts. It classifies people. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺 (𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀) 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆. Here’s the mistake that we see all the time: ❌ 🚀 2× SaaS Founder | B2B Growth | $XM ARR | Ex-[Logo] | Scaling Relentlessly | MBA | Let’s Talk The credentials are there but It’s also invisible. It tells the algorithm 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 about: - who you’re relevant to - what problem you solve - why someone should follow you Now compare it to this: ✅ Predictable pipeline for B2B businesses built on expertise | Operator-led Same person. Very different outcome. One profile signals credentials. The other signals usefulness. And in the current algorithm, usefulness wins. This is the part most people miss: If LinkedIn can’t quickly understand who you’re for, it can’t confidently distribute your content. So even good posts get buried. Not because they’re bad. But because the profile breaks the loop. 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘀𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗿.

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