Rewind 90 days. I refreshed Google Search Console (GSC) again. The first impressions from my brand-new website began to register. It felt like a moment. But on reflection, that was the easy bit.
I’ve managed multiple websites across my career in marketing. But I’ve never started one from scratch, with a domain and brand that was new and had zero equity. This was the challenge though, and being an experience marketing practitioner, it was time to get back in the trenches and practice what I preached.
Here's the thing. I've spent a decade in marketing. I've watched small business owners get sold expensive campaigns they don't need. Social media has democratised marketing. You can build a voice through content without spending a fortune. You don't need to pay until you're actually ready to scale.
That's what I wanted Blackhound to prove. That the groundwork is free if you know what you're doing. The challenge is real though. And for any business owners I’d recommend a multi-channel approach, but I wanted to see if it was possible to build not only traffic, but an audience through a website alone. Those days are over surely. There was only one way to find out.
This is a progress update after 90 days, and everything that I learned along the way. I believe even after a decade in marketing there is a valuable lesson in here.
I started with a plan to construct five content pillars. SEO, content marketing, social media, email marketing and website fundamentals.
I'd use AI to write articles efficiently, optimise for keywords, and I’d get them indexed fast. Schema markup, internal linking, meta descriptions. All the technical basics done right.
Timeline expectation? 60 to 90 days to see meaningful traction.
I set up Google Search Console on day one and started publishing. Zero paid tools. Zero paid promotion. Just SEO fundamentals.
A few days after launching, impressions started trickling in. Single digits per day. But they were growing.
I took this as a positive sign and that the first stage in the SEO plan – actually ranking on Google – worked. Google was indexing my content and showing it to people searching for relevant terms.
But…where were the clicks? That is the next step in the plan. Impressions were growing, but clicks weren't. Zero. Consistently zero.
But of course. Getting found and getting clicked are two completely different problems.
By week 8, my five-pillar strategy was clearly too ambitious. I scaled back to three pillars. SEO, content marketing, and social media.
Then I looked at my top performing posts in Google Search Console.
The Small Business Marketing Playbook had 247 impressions and 0 clicks. Best Social Media Platforms for Small Businesses had 238 impressions and 1 click. Advanced SEO Strategies had 92 impressions and 0 clicks.
The pattern was obvious. I was ranking on pages 2 to 4 for relevant keywords, but the titles and meta descriptions weren't compelling enough to earn clicks.
I spent some time rewriting titles and meta descriptions for my top 5 posts. It's too early to see if CTR improves, but impressions keep growing.
When I speak to businesses, the one thing I push on owners is they must be clear on objectives, vision and what they hope to achieve when working on a marketing plan. But around week 10, I had to confront something uncomfortable.
Blackhound was getting impressions. The SEO was working. But the content was forgettable.
Everything I'd written could have been written by anyone. It was helpful enough to rank, but not memorable enough to matter. I could see it in the data. People were seeing my content in search results and actively choosing to click something else instead.
What was uncomfortable? I'd gone against my own principles.
I started Blackhound because I'm frustrated by how the marketing industry convinces business owners they need expensive campaigns when the groundwork can be done for free. Social media has democratised marketing. You can grow your voice through content without a massive budget.
But instead of creating genuinely useful content that reflected what I've learned over a decade, I used AI to churn out generic posts just to prove I could rank on Google.
It worked. But I kind of hated it. And I was annoyed at myself for taking the easy route.
I believe in AI. I use it constantly as a contributor. To help me think, to challenge ideas, to structure thoughts. But not to write complete posts and copy paste them. That's lazy. And it produces content that's optimized for algorithms, not helpful for people.
That's when I decided to stop treating Blackhound like an experiment and start focusing on crafting content that helps people - the thing I actually wanted it to be in the first place.
I launched the 90 Minute Marketing Week ebook this week. A genuinely useful resource for time poor business owners. Not AI generated filler. Real tactical guidance that balances what I know works from years of doing this professionally with what's actually practical for someone running a cafe or a plumbing business. The blog post goes into more detail about the weekly marketing plan that takes 90 minutes (and actually works).
I also rebranded the site. Moved to a more trustworthy, professional colour palette.
The goal now isn't proving SEO works. It's building something that actually helps people market their businesses without breaking the bank.
I'm shifting my content strategy entirely. Moving from "here's how to do X" to "here's what happened when I did X."
My hypothesis? Content rooted in real experience with specific data will be more compelling than generic advice, even at similar ranking positions.
It's the difference between "5 SEO Strategies for Small Businesses" and "I Tested 5 SEO Strategies on Blackhound, Here's What Worked."
One is instructions. The other is proof.
Google Search Console shows 1,100 impressions, 5 clicks, 0.45% click through rate from November 5 to February 3. Average positions were 21 to 45. Page 2 to 4 territory. Top performing post? 247 impressions, 0 clicks. See for yourself.
Here's what matters in that data.
Over 1,100 times, real people searching Google saw my content in their results. 5 times, they clicked through.
Those 1,100 impressions prove SEO fundamentals work. And here's the important part for anyone reading this who thinks SEO is expensive or complicated. I've done this with zero paid tools and zero paid promotion. Google Search Console is free. The techniques I'm using are free. The only investment is time and consistency.
The 5 clicks? That proves I'm not compelling enough yet. My content is showing up, but it's not standing out. The titles aren't intriguing. The meta descriptions aren't persuasive. And the positions aren't high enough. Page 2 to 4 means most searchers never even see me.
That's the gap I'm working to close.
The systematic technical SEO worked. Schema markup, internal linking, proper site structure. Google indexed my content quickly and started showing it in search within days. None of this cost money. It just required knowing what to do and doing it consistently.
Targeting low competition keywords worked. That's why I'm ranking on pages 2 to 4 instead of page 10.
Publishing 25 posts in 90 days worked. Roughly 2 posts per week. Consistent output matters more than perfect posts.
What didn't work? AI generated content gets impressions but doesn't convert clicks. The posts rank. They show up in search. But they're forgettable. People see them in results and scroll straight past. This was my biggest learning. You can optimize content to rank, but if it's generic and soulless, nobody clicks. I’m in the process of reviewing and updating these now, adding real-life insights I’ve picked up along the way in my 10 years + of marketing, adding data when I can.
Five pillars was too ambitious. Trying to cover everything meant going shallow on all of it.
I wasted hours updating website pages one by one, tweaking things that didn't matter. That time should have gone to creating genuinely useful content.
And I assumed impressions would naturally convert to clicks. They don't. Even when people see your content in search results, if your title and description aren't compelling, they'll click someone else's.
I'm done creating generic content. If I can't add genuine experience or specific data from my decade of doing this work, I'm not publishing it.
I'm going back to enhance my top 5 posts with real insight. Specific examples, actual numbers from Blackhound's journey, honest assessments of what worked and what flopped. Keep an eye on them.
I'm documenting the build process as content. Posts like this one. Real data, real struggles, real learnings. Content no one else can create because it's my specific journey.
If you're interested in the practical side of getting found online, our keyword research guide shows how to find what your customers are actually searching for.
I'm using AI the way I actually believe it should be used. As a contributor to help me think through ideas, structure arguments, and challenge my assumptions. Not to write content for me.
I'm shifting focus from impressions to click through rate. Impressions will keep growing with consistency. The leverage now is converting those impressions into clicks by making the content genuinely useful instead of just SEO optimised. This is what we mean by content marketing that supports SEO - creating real value, not just keyword-optimised filler.
I'm testing updated titles and meta descriptions on my top performers. Tracking CTR obsessively to see if better positioning in search results changes behaviour.
SEO works. You don't need expensive tools or paid campaigns to get found. The fundamentals are free. Consistency and patience are what matter.
But getting found isn't enough. You need to be worth clicking. The only way to do that is to create content that's genuinely useful, rooted in real experience, and differentiated from the sea of generic advice.
I proved I could rank with AI generated content. But that was never the real challenge. Anyone can do that now.
The harder thing? Building something real that helps people while staying true to what you actually believe. Not compromising on quality just because AI makes it easy to churn out content.
Social media has democratised marketing. The tools are free. The reach is there. You don't need to pay until you're ready to scale. But you do need to put in the work to create something people actually want to read.
I'll update this at 6 months with new data. My prediction? Impressions continue growing steadily. Clicks should start following now that I'm focused on being genuinely helpful instead of just ranking.
In the meantime, why not check out the 90 Minute Marketing Week guide. It's the framework I'm testing in real time, built from what I've learned works over a decade in marketing.