The SEO Tools You're Not Using — And Why That's Killing Your Rankings

0:00This podcast is an ICN Network podcast powered by PODNO's podcasting, bridging the gap between professional agency standard podcasts and DIY creators. To find out more about the indie creator network, go to podnos.co.uk, click on contact, asking us to tell you all about the ICN. Who is struggling with this podcast? But I think I've figured out what I really want to do, and it starts with helping you to help yourself. So let's fucking go. This is SEO Buckingworth. I'm Nicky and I've been doing SEO for over 30 years, before it was even called SEO. I help people like you make money from your website by getting found on search. But today, I need to be honest with you about something. It's been struggling to find my feet with this podcast. When I started, I came in hot, all ranty, all sweary, really furious about the bollocks in this industry. And look, I am still angry. The way small business owners get treated

1:04by dodgy SEO agencies and LinkedIn course fluggers makes my fucking blood boil. But there's only so much sustained rage one woman can maintain. And after a chat with my brilliant podcast producer, Neil shout out to Neil. He's amazing. I realized I'd lost sight of why I actually started this. Wasn't to make a name for myself. It wasn't to be the sweary one on Spotify. It was to help website owners like you to help yourself. So whether you decide to do your SEO yourself or pay someone to do it, I want to educate you. I want to give you the knowledge to either crack on or to spot when someone's talking absolute shite. So we're kind of starting again. Still sweary. That's not going anywhere. Sorry, not sorry. Still angry about a lot of things. But focused more on what you can do to help your website right now. And that brings me to what we're doing today. This episode is the first in a series that's loosely based on my non-wanky SEO course.

2:13We're going to walk through your SEO step by step. But I need to be blunt with you right now. This only works if you actually do the thing I tell you to. Listening is lovely. Thank you. Thinking about it is nice. But without the doing, you're wasting my time and yours. And I don't say that to be a twat. I say it because I genuinely want you to get results. So today we're talking about the tools that will help you understand what's happening with your website. The tools that most people I speak to either don't have, or, and this is the common fucking denominator, they've got them set up and they never look at them. And seriously, I can't tell you how many times I've done an SEO one to one and asked someone to share their Google search console. I only define they haven't logged in for 18 months. So like having a sat nav but refusing to look at it and then wondering why you keep getting lost. So, three tools, all free, all essential.

3:19Websites made simple. The place where website designers finally stop winging it and start running a business that actually works. If you're a web designer who's constantly busy but still wondering why your business feels harder than it should, you're not alone. So many talented designers feel lost in the admin. The client boundaries, the pricing bubble, the, is this layout even good, spiral? And then they blame themselves for not having it all figured out. Or that ends here with us. I'm Holly Christie. I'm an experienced website designer, mentor and founder of two successful website businesses. And around here we talk honestly about what's really holding your design business back and how to fix it in a way that's doable, sustainable, and actually you. Every episode gives you something practical you can use straight away. Whether that's tightening your process, leveling up your design skills, handling tricky clients, or finally feeling confident about the business side of things. If you love designing websites but you're ready for the

4:19business to feel lighter, smoother and way more successful, you're in the right place. This is website's made simple. Let's make your business feel as good as your designs. Tour number one, an analytics platform. You need to know who's coming to your website. You need to know where they're coming from and what they're doing when they get there. And I know, your hosting company probably gives you stacks. Wix has built in analytics, Squarespace shows you numbers, and that's fine for a quick glance. But honestly, get the external analytics too. First of all, they're more detailed. Your hosting stats might tell you someone visited. Good analytics will tell you where they came from, how long they stayed, what pages they looked at, and if set up properly, whether they did anything useful, like filling in a form. Secondly, they integrate with other tools. If you want to connect your analytics to an SEO tool,

5:22or build a proper dashboard in Lucas Studio, you need external analytics. And thirdly, and this is kind of the big one, you as much as you can own the data. If you move hosting providers, change platforms, whatever, your analytics history goes with you. Google analytics is the obvious choice. It's free. It's powerful. And most SEO tools play nicely with it. I know it's got a learning curve, and since they changed to GA4, it's been a bit of a binfire, but you don't need to understand every single report to get value from it. If you hate Google, or want something simpler, I personally love clicky analytics. It's paid, but it's dead easy to use, and it shows you what's happening in real time. My affiliate link is in the show notes if you want to check it out. But just pick one and install it today before you do anything else. Tool number two, Google search console.

6:22If you take one thing away from this episode, let it be this. If you do not have a Google search console account already, get one. No other tool will tell you more about how Google sees your website. Nothing else gives you an almost direct gaze into Google's mind. And I know, Google is not the only search engine. But right now, even with the rise of AI search, it's the one that matters most to most businesses. Now, the thing about search console is it takes a few days to start collecting data, and it doesn't do it retrospectively. So if you don't have Google search console, just do both of us a favor and sign up now. For you listen to another word. I'm serious. Pause this. Go to search.google.com slash search hyphen console. Get it set up. It'll take 10 minutes. Done it again. Now let me tell you what search console tells you. It shows you the search phrases people type into Google when your website appears in the results. Not keyword, not provided or secure search, like Google Analytics gives you

7:27and used to give you the actual phrases. It tells you how many times you showed up for those phrases, how many people clicked through roughly, and where you were ranking on average. It shows you which pages on your site are indexed by Google, and crucially, which ones aren't, and why. It alerts you when Google finds problems with your site, mobile issues, security problems, indexing errors. You can submit new pages to Google and directly and request their crawled. So when you publish that new blog post, you don't have to sit around waiting for Google to find it. The data in Google search console is gold. Absolutely fucking gold. And I see business owners every week who either never set it up or haven't looked at it in months. Don't be that person. Until number three is Microsoft clarity. And this one flew under the radar for ages. Microsoft launched it quietly a few years back, and most people ignored it because they were already using analytics. But clarity does something different. It shows you how people use your website, not just that they visited. It records

8:33user sessions so you can literally watch what people do on your site. Where they move their mouse, what they click on, how far they scroll. It creates heat maps that show you where people click the most. And it highlights problems like rage clicks. You know when you're on a really shit website, and you click the same button 15 times because it's not doing anything, clarity tracks that. It also shows you dead clicks where people click on something, expecting it to do something, and nothing happens. It's incredibly useful figuring out why people aren't converting. Maybe they're not scrolling far enough to see you call to action. Maybe they're clicking on something they think is a button, but isn't. Maybe your contact form is broken on a mobile. And you know what? It's completely free forever. With no limits on website size, it takes about five minutes to set up and it won't slow your site down. Install it. Check it every couple of weeks. You'll learn things about how people use your site that you'd never discover any other way.

9:34Oh, so quick thing. If you're enjoying this, but thinking, Nikki, I don't want to wait to week for the next podcast. I just want to know how to do all of this myself right now. I've got you. I developed a non-page SEO course that shows you exactly how to get your pages ranking without hiring an SEO. It's all the stuff I do for clients, broken down so that you can do it yourself. Video, audio, text, however you like to learn. It's £200, no upsells, just the course. If you want more, there's a bigger course. Have a look at nonwankysio.com. Right. Let's make this practical. Here's your homework. Let me natural homework. Remember what I said about doing the thing. Today, sign up for Google search console if you haven't already. Very far your site takes 10 minutes. Check you've got Google Analytics or another analytics platform properly installed. Sign up for Microsoft clarity and add the tracking code to your site. If you can't do this, message me. I'm easy to find. Then this week, log into search

10:35console once it's collecting data. Have a look around. Don't panic about what you see. We'll cover how to look at it properly in a future episode. Watch a couple of clarity session recordings. Just observe. Notice anything surprising. And then ongoing, I want you to set a reminder to check these tools at least once a month. Put it in your calendar. Make it non-negotiable. Because look, these tools are only useful if you actually fucking look at them. Data sit in unread is just noise. But data you actually review, that's how you make better decisions. That's your lot for this week. If this was helpful, make sure you're following SEO fucking whore in whatever app you're using to listen right now so you don't miss the next episode. Because next time, we're talking about keywords, key phrases and search intent. Because if you don't know what you're optimizing your site for, you won't know bloody way of knowing if it's working. And if you know another small business owner who's been winging it without proper tracking,

11:35send them this episode. They'll thank you for it eventually. Until next time, get found, make money, stop stressing and actually set up your fucking tools.