Manchester & the North West hello@whatisseo.co.uk
Free Audit
"ppc company manchester" — £24.72/click on PPC"ppc agency manchester" — £15.91/click on PPC"seo expert manchester" — £10.76/click on PPC"seo agency manchester" — £9.60/click on PPC"seo company manchester" — £8.70/click on PPC"local seo manchester" — £4.01/click on PPCFree SEO + AI Visibility Audit → whatisseo.co.uk/free-seo-audit"ppc company manchester" — £24.72/click on PPC"ppc agency manchester" — £15.91/click on PPC"seo expert manchester" — £10.76/click on PPC"seo agency manchester" — £9.60/click on PPC"seo company manchester" — £8.70/click on PPC"local seo manchester" — £4.01/click on PPCFree SEO + AI Visibility Audit → whatisseo.co.uk/free-seo-audit
Home / Guides & Tools

Guides & Tools

Everything here is free to read and act on yourself — no email wall. If you'd rather we just did it, the free audit is the fastest way to hand it over.

Guides

Learn how SEO actually works

Beginner

What Is SEO? A Plain-English Guide

What search engine optimisation actually is, how Google ranks pages, and why "SEO" covers technical, on-page and off-page work — not just keywords.

Practical

The SEO Audit Checklist

The exact checklist we run through on every audit — technical, on-page and off-page — so you can spot the obvious issues yourself before you ever talk to an agency.

Practical

How We Do Keyword Research

The actual process — not just "use a keyword tool" — for finding search terms with real commercial value and a realistic chance of ranking.

Beginner

What Is GEO / AIO? AI Search Explained

ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews now answer questions directly. Here's what Generative Engine Optimisation and AI Optimisation actually mean, and why blocking the wrong bot in robots.txt can shut you out entirely.

Practical

How Much Should SEO Cost in Manchester?

What actually drives SEO pricing, why "how much for SEO" has no single answer, and the questions worth asking before you sign anything.

Practical

Freelance SEO Consultant vs. an Agency

Both can do good work. Here's the honest trade-off between hiring a freelance SEO consultant and hiring an agency, so you pick based on your actual situation, not a sales pitch.

Beginner

Want to Learn SEO Yourself? Start Here

Not every business needs to hire this out. If you'd rather learn to do your own SEO, here's a realistic starting path — and where the line sits between DIY and "now you actually need help".

Intermediate

Technical SEO Essentials

The technical fundamentals that quietly cap your rankings if they're broken — explained without needing a developer background to follow.

Tools

Check your own site

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Are these guides really free, or is there a catch?

Genuinely free, no email wall, no gated PDF. The business model is that some readers will want the work done for them after reading — not that the guides themselves are bait.

Do I need any SEO background to follow these guides?

No — they're written in plain English deliberately, starting from "What Is SEO?" for complete beginners through to more technical topics for those with some experience.

How often are the guides updated?

Whenever the underlying facts change — a Google algorithm shift, a new AI-crawler standard, updated pricing data. Evergreen content that goes stale is exactly the kind of thing the audit checklist would flag on someone else's site.

Can I use the free audit tool without reading the guides first?

Yes — the tool and the guides are independent. Some people want to understand the "why" first; others just want the scan results.

Do the guides cover AI search (GEO/AIO) as well as traditional SEO?

Yes — see What Is GEO/AIO? alongside the traditional SEO guides, since both disciplines increasingly overlap.

Is there a guide on how much SEO should cost?

Yes — How Much Should SEO Cost in Manchester? covers what actually drives pricing and the questions worth asking any agency.

Should I hire someone or do SEO myself after reading these?

Depends on your situation — see Freelance vs. Agency and Want to Learn SEO Yourself? for the honest trade-offs either way.

Is the free audit part of the "tools" section, or something separate?

Part of it — Guides & Tools covers both educational reading and the live audit tool, since we see them as the same job: giving you what you need to judge SEO work properly, whether you do it yourself or hire it out.

Do you plan to add more guides over time?

Yes — new guides get added as genuinely distinct topics come up, rather than padding the list with near-duplicate content on the same subject.

Can I suggest a guide topic you haven't covered?

Yes — get in touch with what you'd find useful and we'll consider it for a future guide.

Get Your Free SEO Audit

See exactly what's holding your rankings back — no obligation, no jargon.