Learning SEO and applying it

I’ve been learning SEO over several years, always been interested in how it works but never fully got stuck into practical project. That changed when I got the opportunity to work on an entity SEO project. I took the chance and threw myself into it, which led me down TONS of rabbit holes, from structured data and knowledge graphs to entity recognition and AI search. One project opened the door to a more than i could have expected. Needless to say i fixated, and that’s what brought me here today.

My freelance work focuses on the technical and strategic side of SEO, looking at what helps websites get seen, understood and trusted by search engines and AI platforms. This includes crawling and indexing, entity optimization, structured data, content strategy and how information is selected and presented in traditional search results and AI-generated answers.

There’s a HUGE difference between learning SEO and actually putting it into practice. For me, it’s about taking what I’ve learned and my findings, applying it to real websites, testing different approaches and measuring the results. Not everything works as expected, but that’s part of the process. Every project brings something new to learn and build on.

I have been learning through Rainmakers SEO, and wider industry research with hands-on work across real projects and my own experiments. I want to understand not just how SEO works in theory, but what actually happens when you put it into practice.

How I approach SEO

SEO is a continuous cycle of evidence, not a checklist of isolated tactics. Every project and piece of research follows the same seven stages, allowing me to investigate, implement, measure and refine decisions based on what the evidence actually shows.

1. Learn. Build understanding through education, research and industry knowledge, including how search engines and AI systems are documented to work.
2. Research. Investigate search behavior, competitors, technical structures and emerging developments before deciding what to change.
3. Implement. Apply the chosen strategy to a real website or project, recording exactly what was changed and when.
4. Test. Examine how different approaches perform, isolating changes where possible so their effect can be understood.
5. Measure. Use the evidence available, such as crawl data, indexing reports, rankings, traffic and AI search visibility, to judge the outcome.
6. Document. Record findings, decisions, outcomes and lessons, including the ones that did not work, and publish them where appropriate.
7. Improve. Refine the strategy based on the evidence, and carry what was learned into the next project.

Professional development

I develop my professional knowledge through Rainmakers SEO. The community provides ongoing SEO education, industry discussion and exposure to a wide range of strategies, along with the chance to learn from experienced practitioners and ask for advice if/when needed. The value of that learning lies in what happens next. Ideas from Rainmakers SEO and other industry sources are tested on practical projects, and the results are documented on this site.

Pembrokeshire and Wales

I’m based in Pembrokeshire, a county on the south-west coast of Wales (United Kingdom). My specialisms aren’t tied to a location, but Pembrokeshire takes my interest in search because dominating your local area is a good starting point. My research into the local economy is small, independent and tourism-led businesses that customers find through location-specific searches, map results and business profiles. That makes local search a practical area of study alongside my wider work. Local SEO research.

Profiles

These are my verified profiles.