Senior SEO judgement for decisions that matter
SEO is changing. Most advice isn’t.
I have worked in digital marketing and SEO for more than 25 years. I help businesses, in-house teams and agencies make better decisions across conventional SEO and AI-driven search. Not with hype, recycled playbooks or vanity metrics. With experience, honest challenge and a realistic view of what search can and cannot do.
I work as an independent senior SEO consultant and strategic sounding board. The job is not to create more activity. It is to establish what is getting in the way, what deserves attention and what the business can safely ignore.
Need a clearer view of what to do next?
Tell me what you are trying to resolve. If I can help, I’ll say so. If SEO is not the right next investment, I’ll say that too.
Request a free callWhy people bring me in
Usually because too much activity is producing too little clarity.
Plenty of activity, no convincing direction
The team is busy and the reports keep arriving, but nobody is confident that the priorities reflect what the business actually needs.
An important decision needs challenging
A strategy, migration, investment or agency recommendation needs an experienced second opinion before the expensive work begins.
Search has become harder to explain
Leadership wants certainty, AI has made the conversation noisier and the team needs a defensible view of what is changing and what is not.
Find the right kind of SEO support
The service should fit the problem. These are the most common starting points; the individual pages explain the scope, process and fit in detail.
We need clearer SEO priorities
Senior strategic advice when activity, reporting and commercial outcomes have drifted apart.
We need an experienced challenge
A senior external view for in-house teams and agencies that need to test assumptions, decisions or direction.
Something technical is holding the site back
Diagnosis and prioritisation for crawling, indexation, rendering, architecture, migration and performance problems.
We need to understand our AI-search visibility
Establish how AI systems understand and represent the business, where the evidence is weak and what is worth improving.
We are working across German-speaking markets
Search strategy for UK businesses entering DACH markets and German-speaking businesses navigating UK search.
We need continued senior direction
Ongoing guidance, prioritisation and implementation support shaped around the organisation rather than a standard retainer.
Not sure what kind of SEO help you need?
Tell me what the website or business needs to achieve and what is currently getting in the way. I’ll give you an honest view of the most proportionate next step.
Request a free callWhy “Grumpy Old SEO”?
Because I am old enough to remember search before Google, and grumpy enough to be unimpressed by how much of this industry still runs on over-promising, vague forecasts and dashboards pretending to be strategy.
The name is tongue-in-cheek. The stance is not.
Clients are often sold certainty where none exists. In-house teams are left trying to explain outcomes nobody can fully control. Agencies are pushed to promise more than they should. My work exists to replace that noise with honest advice, grounded experience and strategies that survive contact with reality.
How I work
Start with the decision
Before recommending an audit, strategy or ongoing support, establish what the business is trying to decide and why search matters to it.
Challenge the convenient answer
Inherited plans, tool-generated priorities and fashionable claims are tested rather than accepted because they look authoritative.
Make the work proportionate
Sometimes the answer is a substantial project. Sometimes it is a focused correction. Occasionally, SEO is not the next sensible investment.
Recent articles and thoughts
Notes and arguments about SEO, AI-driven discovery and the occasional industry habit that deserves a closer look.
- The Pyrrhic Victory of GEO
GEO deserves serious attention. Treating it as a replacement for SEO is another matter. The technical foundations, useful content, evidence and market understanding businesses neglect may be the same things their AI visibility needs. - Don’t Fall for the Reddit Mania
Reddit appears frequently in AI-generated answers. That does not mean every business suddenly needs a Reddit strategy. Here… - UK Exports to DACH: £93bn and Still Losing Ground
UK exports to Germany, Austria and Switzerland reached £93.2bn in 2025. The opportunity is substantial—but Britain’s market share has fallen.
Have a situation you are trying to untangle?
Request a free initial call. No elaborate sales process and no assumption that the answer must be an SEO engagement.
Request a free call