Keep yourself informed to stay ahead

Sukhjinder says: “Work smarter and stay relevant.

Try to make the best of your time and stay as informed as possible. Work smarter with all the information that you’re collecting about SEO and the fast-paced industry we are in.”

How does working smarter help you stay relevant?

“It’s basically about trying to make the most of your time.

I’ve been working on the agency side for about 15 years, which can be quite hectic and demanding – both in delivery positions and management. You’re chopping and changing and having to compartmentalise things – all the while doing delivery and thinking about strategies and team management. You’re trying to think strategically and broadly about the SEO industry, and trying to stay well-informed, relevant, and cutting-edge.

Finding the time was always a challenge, but there were hacks that I learnt along the way, and I’ve carried them over to being a freelancer. Now, I am busy in a different way, in that I’m focusing on fewer things but I’m the only one who can do them.

Time is a really big commodity and I’m trying to upskill during the day so that I can work smarter and free up that time.”

Have the hacks stayed the same or have they changed since you’ve become a freelancer?

“For the most part, they’ve stayed the same.

On a typical day agency-side, we carve out some time every morning to read Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal, and go through our Twitter feeds and LinkedIn (following John Mueller, Gary Illyes, Danny Sullivan, etc. – a lot of industry experts). We would try to read for at least 15/20 minutes.

Then, as a manager, I would have a top-level review of all the strategies and stay informed throughout the day. I would look to see if there are any algorithm updates, search validation changes, or whatever, and have news alerts and Google alerts set up.

One of the big things that I did miss initially, going into freelance, was a team. We would have team chats every day, and once a week in more detail, where everybody shares their ideas. Everybody had been upskilling, talking, and working on their own campaigns. They’ve got their own news that you didn’t pick up, and their take on the news as well. How did they disseminate that info and apply it to their strategies? What do they think is important and what did they discard? That was really valuable.

I had to recapture that through joining freelancer teams: WhatsApp groups, Slack groups, etc. It’s not quite the same, and it’s not as immediate, but I’m getting there.”

Could that make you overly reactive to algorithm changes or do you need to be up-to-date so that you are informed when clients ask about them?

“That was absolutely part of it. It was a reassurance to them that we had heard about any news. Embarrassingly, when the Google leak first hit, I was really busy that week. I saw all the chatter and I thought it was just another reactionary thing. Then a client mentioned it and I thought, ‘God, how did I miss that?’ It had been a day already, so I had to deep dive into it by reading on the treadmill at the gym.

It’s a combination of staying informed for the clients and also for yourself. Yes, there is a lot of reactionary news, particularly in this industry. It is a little bit inefficient, but I’ve become used to knowing what to discard and what to keep and take seriously.

I build a spreadsheet resource that I can use for clients. With any big thing that happens, I can quickly look it up and reference the link to the source and the main takeaway from my end. This spreadsheet has grown over the last 2/3 years, in combination with big bookmark lists. I can literally find anything. It’s all categorised – AI, EEAT, etc. – but that’s mostly a me thing.”

Can you offer any advice on how an SEO decides what to listen to and what not to listen to?

“Unfortunately, one part of it is having the experience of reading the news and realising there was nothing that significant about it, and it was just editorial.

Algorithm updates meant something when they were announced 4 years ago, but now they’re more frequent – which is fine, but they’re more broad. With core algorithm updates, you’ve got to look at everything involved and not just one thing.

Whenever there is one of those, I’ll have a look at some of the data and everything, but I’m mostly looking at my own clients to see whether we were impacted. It’s usually a quick thing. That comes from the experience of knowing what to take seriously and what to not.

There are a lot more editorial articles than news articles on digital marketing blogs. You can look at the tone of the title and the summary at the top. That is useful, to get a snapshot of that and see whether it’s worth carrying on reading.

I’ve started using a ChatGPT plugin called YouTube Summary with ChatGPT & Claude. It essentially gives you a shortcut. When you want to understand an article or a video, you hit X a couple of times, and it summarises the whole thing for you.

I haven’t used it too much on videos because I tend to just listen to a video at a faster speed. With a massive article, though, it will just bullet point the main takeaways, and you can customise the prompt that it uses to do that. ChatGPT has helped disseminate all of this stuff – particularly with the Google leak, where I was trying to figure out the facts and the takeaways from the experts, and then what my takeaways were.”

How do you select the optimum, most up-to-date technology for you and your clients to use, and how do you stay on top of that?

“I evaluate all the tools I use twice a year. I categorise them by on-site, off-site, technical, keyword research, etc., and I basically have another spreadsheet. I have the main features that I absolutely need, my ‘nice to have’ features, the pricing, and all of that. Then, I evaluate how they all compete. 9 times out of 10, there’s loads of crossover.

Then, I keep my eye out and I have a look at what my colleagues are using. You can ask on WhatsApp or Slack what they are using for what you need, then test them out and trial something every now and then.

I also try to read actual reviews from people about tools. At the moment, for AI overviews, how well do people think they are being incorporated into existing keyword reporting tools? How does it look? Can I get away with the tools I’m already using, or do I need to get something unique?

I’m keeping my eye out, and periodically doing a Google search to look at the tools that are available.

You should also constantly consider your needs and what you’re spending time on to see if there is any opportunity to spend less time on that and just pay for it instead. I’m currently looking at PR and outreach again, so I’m looking for tools to help speed that up – for everything from sourcing the journalists to outreach.

I’m trying to buy a way up. Is there a tool that’s faster than how I would automate it in Gmail? How can I build that into the costing? I have a natural instinct to be quite cheap. I just think, does it make sense on the table? Is it going to make your life easier and still add more value for the client?

You can also do an audit of the tools that you’re currently paying for, and make sure that you’re not paying for anything that you’re not using. It is really easy to let that stuff slide. With these big tools, it’s surprising how they pack so much in to justify the cost. However, if you’re using several tools, then there’s going to be some waste.

Constantly have a look at how often you use those tools and whether or not you can get rid of something that you’re not using. I find it useful to schedule those evaluations, otherwise I forget.”

Are there other ways that you’re incorporating AI into your workflow to make your day-to-day activities more efficient?

“I started paying for ChatGPT before the latest version was released, and it is worth it. There are a lot of other GPTs included for things like programming, creative writing, etc. I use it for most tasks, but mostly research.

When I try to define the audiences that I’m targeting and what they would be searching for, the latest update remembers more. It remembers that I’m an SEO consultant and I’ve got certain clients in certain industries, and I can build on that.

It’s also better at having and building a persona. I’ll feed it a persona and say, ‘I’m a purchasing manager, looking for this product. What would I search for? What information do I need to make a purchase?’ As a research tool, that is very useful – alongside the efficiency of giving it a spreadsheet and asking it to match a column to this, that, and the other.”

Are you concerned about feeding it too much information and that being used within its training data?

“All the time. However, what do you do? If it is just my information, then fair enough – the damage is done. However, with client information, I am careful. It’s mostly data and it’s content that is going to be crawled anyway.

I don’t tell clients exactly what I’m doing with that data in ChatGPT because the content that I’m feeding it would have been crawled anyway. I don’t feed it anything that they would be concerned about. A lot of it is general keyword research and analytical data that has been anonymised. There’s no distinctive information that’s not already crawlable.

I still find that to be a concern, though. I always think twice before hitting submit, even when I upload my own documents.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Think about the important things you need to get done during the day, and what your blockers are. Then, you can start to figure out what you can do to resolve those.

If you have to find time to read the basics every day, carve out X number of minutes and block out that time. Whether you’re agency or in-house, agree on a certain time slot where you’re not interrupted and you can upskill – and also work on your own admin and housekeeping to improve your processes.

Get that time blocked out, and also think about smart ways to get information. I listen to a lot of podcasts while I’m at the gym, and when I’m running. I use plugins to break down articles. I use the Select to Speak function on my phone to read blogs if I want to close my eyes after a long task and have a break and listen to something. There are different hacks you can use.

First, see what’s important and justify the time, then carve out that time.”

Sukhjinder Singh is a Freelance SEO Consultant, and you can find him over at IDoSEO.co.uk.