Writing
Things I measured, including the ones that did not work
I write when I have counted something, not on a schedule for its own sake. Everything here has its method attached, and corrections go on the page rather than into a quiet edit.
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September 20, 2026
Google answers the industry question, not the local one
Eleven Canadian hiring searches, three runs each. Five of six industry searches returned an AI answer every time. All five city searches gave a map pack.
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September 20, 2026
What an SEO consultant costs in Canada
The most asked question on Canadian SEO hiring searches is price, and almost nobody answers it. My prices, the ranges I see, and what the ad auction says.
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September 20, 2026
SEO consultant vs agency: an honest comparison
Google's best answer to this question is a Reddit thread, not a vendor page. I sell one of the two options, so here is my interest declared and the real trade.
What counts as worth publishing
There is an enormous amount of SEO writing and very little of it contains a number that anybody checked. I try not to add to the pile. A piece gets published here when it has at least one of three things in it: something I counted, something I got wrong and corrected, or a method somebody else can run to get their own answer.
That rule has a cost. It means there are weeks with nothing, and it means some of what is here is duller than the industry standard. It also means that when I tell a client the median business in their market has fifteen reviews, I can show them the count.
Corrections
When a figure here turns out to be wrong, the correction goes on the page with a date on it, not into a silent edit. One of the pieces below documents a measurement I had to throw away within two hours of making it, because I checked it again and it did not hold.
Reusing any of it
Quote it, chart it, republish the figures, with credit and a link. If you want the underlying data for something here, ask and I will send it. If you re-run one of the measurements and get a different answer, I would genuinely like to know, because that is more useful to me than agreement.
The longer studies live on the agency site: the Collingwood Review Index and the Canada AI Visibility Index are both free and both carry their method.
Start with a 15 minute call
No deck and no discovery phase. Tell me the site and the problem, and I will tell you whether I can help and what it would cost. If I am the wrong person, I will say so on the call.