Guides

The definitive guides

Long-form, citation-ready, dated. Written for buyers, indexed for assistants.

Definition

Programmatic SEO, explained without the jargon

Why programmatic SEO is the only viable way to dominate long-tail intent at city, service, and intent granularity.

9 min read →
Definition

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) without the buzzwords

AEO is the discipline of being the citation that AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude) reach for when answering a query.

8 min read →
How-to

Keyword research in 2026 — the cluster-first method

Stop researching individual keywords. Research clusters of intent, then build the entity registry that satisfies them.

10 min read →
How-to

How to write content that AI assistants will cite

Citation-ready content has a structural fingerprint. Reproduce the fingerprint and you become the source.

7 min read →
Cost analysis

How much does SEO actually cost in 2026?

Straight numbers: setup fees, monthly retainers, agency vs in-house, and what each tier actually delivers.

8 min read →
Playbook

Technical SEO playbook for 2026

Crawl budget, rendering paths, and the schema mix that survives the next core update.

11 min read →
How-to

How to fix Core Web Vitals in 2026

LCP, INP, CLS — what each metric actually measures and the three engineering moves that fix 80% of failures.

9 min read →
Playbook

Link building in 2026 (without buying)

Editorial links, digital PR, broken-link reclamation, and the link patterns Google penalises in 2026.

12 min read →
Playbook

Content strategy for 2026: hub-and-spoke, citation-ready

Why hub-and-spoke beats topic clusters, and how to write spokes that AI models cite.

10 min read →
Playbook

Local SEO in 2026: GBP, citations, reviews

Google Business Profile is now 70% of local pack. The other 30% is structured citations and review velocity.

11 min read →
Playbook

Ecommerce SEO 2026: PDP depth, faceted nav, schema

Why most ecommerce SEO fails at the PDP, not the category page.

13 min read →
Playbook

International SEO: hreflang done right

x-default, return-tags, ccTLD vs subfolder, and the patterns that consistently break in Search Console.

10 min read →
Playbook

Schema markup deep-dive: which types matter in 2026

Twenty schema types ranked by ranking + CTR impact, with JSON-LD examples for each.

14 min read →
Definition

AI search optimisation: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews

How each AI surface picks its citations, and the three content patterns that get cited most.

12 min read →
How-to

Keyword research tools 2026: which to actually pay for

Ahrefs vs Semrush vs Sistrix vs Keywords Everywhere — and what each misses.

9 min read →
Playbook

YouTube SEO 2026: the channel-level signals that matter

Why per-video optimisation is overrated and channel-level signals (watch-time, session depth, topical authority) drive growth.

10 min read →
How-to

Image SEO in 2026: alt text, sitemaps, formats

Image SEO drives ~3% of organic traffic for most sites. For visual categories (recipes, products, design), it can be 20%+.

7 min read →
Playbook

Mobile SEO 2026: mobile-first index, Core Web Vitals, design patterns

Mobile-first indexing means mobile content IS the index. Desktop versions are now reference material.

8 min read →
Definition

Voice search in 2026: should you optimise for it?

Voice search peaked in 2019. Today it's 6% of queries. Optimise for conversational SEO instead.

6 min read →
Playbook

SaaS SEO playbook: alternatives, integrations, comparisons

Programmatic SEO is the SaaS growth engine. Alternatives, integrations, and comparison pages compound.

11 min read →
Playbook

B2B SEO 2026: bottom-funnel, decision-stage, dark social

B2B SEO is bottom-funnel-led. Decision-stage queries convert; awareness queries are a service line, not a profit centre.

10 min read →
Definition

Anatomy of a ranking page in 2026

The 12 on-page elements that consistently appear on top-3 ranking pages across 50 SERP audits.

9 min read →
How-to

How to track rankings honestly in 2026

Rank tracking tools disagree by 20–40%. Here's how to read the noise.

7 min read →
Playbook

Google Business Profile mastery

GBP categories, attributes, products, posts — the optimisation order that moves the local pack fastest.

9 min read →
How-to

How to test structured data in 2026

Validator, Rich Results Test, GSC Enhancements — which tool to trust when they disagree.

6 min read →
How-to

How to do competitor SEO analysis (without copying)

Competitor analysis tells you what's working in your space. Copy-paste of structure or content is malpractice.

8 min read →
How-to

Google Search Console mastery in 2026

GSC is the only first-party SEO data source. Most teams use 10% of it.

10 min read →
How-to

Site migration without losing SEO

Migrations kill ~30% of organic traffic on average. Here's how to be in the 70% that recover.

11 min read →
Playbook

WordPress SEO 2026: plugins, performance, schema

WordPress powers 43% of the web. Most WP SEO failures are plugin choice + theme bloat.

9 min read →
Playbook

Shopify SEO 2026: the platform's quirks

Shopify ships with structural SEO problems. Here's the workarounds.

10 min read →
Playbook

Next.js SEO 2026: App Router, ISR, metadata

Next.js App Router is now the default. Here's the SEO patterns that work and the gotchas that don't.

10 min read →
Playbook

Headless CMS + SEO: the working patterns

Headless CMS architectures break SEO unless you build the SEO surface explicitly.

9 min read →
How-to

Page speed without mythology

What actually moves LCP, INP, CLS — and what's cargo-culted.

8 min read →
How-to

robots.txt and llms.txt in 2026

robots.txt for crawlers, llms.txt for AI ingestion — and why most sites get both wrong.

6 min read →
Playbook

Site architecture: the IA that ranks

Information architecture is SEO architecture. Get it wrong and no amount of content rescues you.

10 min read →