Nick Swan

Building SEO tools at podcasting at @britstrapped.

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

Isabel got to ring the end of treatment bell today. Quite an emotional morning! @bloodwise_uk @CLIC_Sargent @LPTrustUK @GraceKellyTrust Massive thanks to all the doctors, nurses and charities that have helped our family through this.

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

@aleyda ps we're just testing a brand signals graph on our @seo_testing dashboard made up of brand clicks from GSC and direct traffic from GA

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

The new SEOFOMO State of AI Search survey (h/t @aleyda) in 3 numbers:

→ 69% of teams now have AI search budget (38% last year)
→ 92% are tracking AI visibility
→ but 81% attribute ≤5% of revenue to it - or can't measure it at all

We've bought the dashboards before solving the measurement.

Telling detail: the top tools people lean on are Search Console, Semrush, Ahrefs and GA4 - the familiar SEO stack, not the new wave of AI visibility trackers. And the only two that can connect visibility to actual outcomes are GSC and GA4: your own first-party data.

You can't attribute AI search cleanly (no referrers, no rankings, no repeatable results). But you can watch branded searches and direct traffic climb together. That's the lagging indicator AI search leaves when it's actually working.

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

Read the full survey results here: https://t.co/zQwckHfFuy

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

@robwalling But you can build a project, and then test to see if there is demand to build a business around it after

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

AI Visibility is a Vanity Metric, here's how to tell your boss - by @wilreynolds https://t.co/SyreFcKbdb

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

@iammarcthomas Yeah definitely a tough crowd, but if you're building something that solves your problem, at least the tool/SaaS/software is making your life easier.

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

@iammarcthomas Scratch your own itch

[Google Search Central @googlesearchc]

Today we released the August 2026 spam update. We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://t.co/O9HQqBPAwY

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

@jitbit Hopefully! :)

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

I really dislike people talking about past team members with such little regard.
Yes - times are changing, but you can be kinder with your language.

[Alex Turnbull @iamAlexTurnbull]

I fired my 3 person $180K SEO team in 2024 and replaced them with 1 person + AI at 40k

same output, 78% cheaper.

that experiment is the content team now. a year in: 158 posts shipped, organic clicks up 12x, search impressions up 78x (8K → 647K a month), organic search sessions up 14x. buying those clicks as Google Ads would run $11–18K a week.

most content teams are an expensive middle layer. hire for output, not org charts.

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

@koorankka @jonathan_wilke @codeanand @jessethanley @supastarter @Bento Jesse has done lots of podcast interviews - look him up on https://t.co/OYyCxG6fqe and go through back catalogue

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

@suganthan There are always people who will take the piss. I live by the 5% rule - assume 5% of people are assholes. When people annoy you - it’s easy to pass them off as part of the 5% and move on.

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

ps we've got a tool in SEOTesting to help with this: https://t.co/XsKdxYP05r

And of course, once you've made some changes - set up an SEO test!

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

It's interesting that Google is taking the time to improve its own documentation by removing or improving vague language and sentence structure. Good for users and LLMs! https://t.co/vZ3KaLp88C

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

Back from a long weekend camping on Exmoor with Sophie and the kids. The girls have got so many football trials and training sessions over the summer we can’t do a long holiday so fitting in short escapes where we can. 3 days without devices did everyone the world of good!

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

Here it is: https://t.co/yw3XY6SoIw

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

Pretty cool SEO/GEO tender for the Imperial War Museum! Est. value £175K

Imperial War Museums seeks a supplier for ongoing consultancy in SEO, GEO, and AI search visibility to enhance online discoverability and audience engagement across its digital platforms.

Link to the tender below...

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

@JoshuaHarm3ning @lilyraynyc Do impressions spike on the days the average position drops?

[kepano @kepano]

@alvindrakes_ there doesn't have to be an end goal

you can just make useful things for people who want to use them, and live a happy life

[Nick Swan @nickswan]

@tanvirraj @jessethanley @Bento Yeah 100% agree with this.