As organic search evolves – or appears to go backwards – it’s time to look at other ways to grow a business.
If you’re trying to grow a blog, know that the Google December algorithm update decimated thousands of websites by causing an instant decrease in impressions and clicks. Some companies who’d regularly had 100k clicks/weekly dropped to zero. This site dropped from 300 clicks weekly to 10!
Now, let’s look at one of my client’s websites, a local concrete company. For over a year, I’d focused on writing content that reflected local topical authority. Subsequently, their website has gone from strength to strength since the update.
The algorithm axed its way into affiliate sites, many commercial sites or those it deemed with poor or AI content.
I won’t take personally, Google, but what the heck? I’ve been a successful SEO writer since 2020. I had hundreds of keywords ranking on page one and snippets. Now, most of these have gone. On Moz Domain Authority Checker, pre update I had 293 ranking keywords. Today (February 5th 2026) I have 14. That’s the reaslism. To be honest, I almost closed this site down.
Since then, I’ve evolved into two new areas of business:
- Helping businesses with local SEO – Google Business Profile
- Learning AI filmmaking with a view to teaching others.
I realised that my work as an SEO writer had become unfilling and asked the universe for work that utilised my problem-solving and creative skills. So, as much as I did well with SEO writing, the algorithm situation has killed my passion. Two years of work on this website just blasted away in a week.
Why Filmmaking?
Because, it’s still content creation, but using more creative skills. You can learn how to do powerful ad campaigns and AI UCG videos to represent brands, It’s hugely lucrative and fun.
I joined several paid (very low cost) Skool communities to learn these skills. Within a few weeks, I settled on two. The AI Video Bootcamp community is engaging, support is fantastic and the training is bite-sized and very ADHD-friendly. The feedback on work we share with the community is positive and has helped improve my AI filmmaking skills fast.
The Viral AI Academy is significantly smaller, but I love it there. Stefan is the the Official Academy for the AI System behind 600 million YouTube viral views. He’s friendly and supportive. always gives great feedback, and it’s a great community for beginners.
Filmmaking is lucrative, time-consuming but addictive and can quickly help you to become the go-to specialist in your area or internationally. These communities teach you how to create top-quality marketing videos. For me, it was a no-brainer to switch from blogging to something that Google has no power over.
Learning filmmaking skills can give you back control of your destiny and your finances!
Google Business Profile Management
If you’re interested in working on local SEO, learning how to set up and optimise a GBP is a nice way to make an income. I did a free course with Bright Local. They do an entire range of local SEO courses from beginner to advanced. On average, you can change £500+ to set up a GBP acccount. For management, a monthly retainer of £500 is average.
These prices depend on the business. For example, if a business has a lot of products or services to add, costing the time factor will raise the set up price. After that, it’s a case of adding photos and videos weekly, posting once a week and ensuring everything links up to the business’s website.
You can read more about my experience as setting up GBP as a business service.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, if you’ve come to this website to learn about blogging, there are plenty of articles that were fully relevant up to the end of 2025. That is to say, if you asked me whether it’s worth starting a blog, I’d suggest it isn’t your only plan. Blog for a local business, blog for topical authority, but don’t blog purely for affiliate commission, because it will likely fail. Alteratively, consider learning how to setup and optimise Google Business Profiles. Although local, businesses don’t have to be local you you. They could be anywhere in the world.
Start thinking about alternative ways, such as AI filmmaking, or GBP to generate a decent income.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a commission if you sign up for a program or make a purchase using my link.