Fonthip Ward

International SEO Consultant - Scaling B2B & B2C Companies through Organic Growth 🌳.

Sustainable growth starts with visibility and trust.

I help purpose-driven businesses grow organically through SEO strategies rooted in transparency, adaptability, and long-term thinking.

My approach isn’t about chasing trends or quick wins. 

It’s about building durable visibility that evolves with your brand and the ever-changing digital landscape.

I bring a strategic yet human-first mindset to every project. 

I partner with founders, marketers, and small teams who want more than traffic.

They want aligned growth, loyal audiences, and clarity in a space that often feels confusing.

My clients stay for years because we grow together. 

As algorithms shift and technology changes, our strategy adapts always anchored in your values, goals, and voice.

If you're ready to build a smarter, more sustainable SEO foundation, I’m here to help. :)

SEO Director

Search Studio is a boutique SEO agency in Thailand servicing clients both onshore and offshore.

Search Studio is where you will find seasoned SEO professionals who are as serious about optimising your website as you are about your business. 

In a sea of agencies claiming to be ‘gurus’ and ‘experts,’ but prioritising sales over SEO, we aim to stand out by keeping it simple. 

We’re the SEO nerds who value actions over smooth sales pitches—it’s all about execution, not just promises. 🌱

Back with my Brisbane SEO crew… and my social skills 😅🧡

This was my first local SEO event since having a baby, and honestly? 

I didn’t realise how much I missed in-person nerding out over all things search.

Huge thanks to SEO Collective Brisbane for bringing the community together and to Natalie Slater for her talk on website migrations… aka

“that thing that sounds simple until it gives everyone mild SEO trauma” 😂

Loved catching up with familiar faces and meeting new ones. 

If you’re in Brisbane and working in SEO, content, or marketing, 

I recommend getting along to the next one. 

Special thanks for the organisers;

Sally Mills 
Yacine K. 
Lauren Schwartz
Bre Davis 
David Tait
Carter Douglas
Nik Ranger 
Peter Macinkovic
Regan McGregor
Dejan Mladenovski 
Peter Mead
Paula Glynn
Ryan Chilton

A passionate SEO specialist with 10+ years of experience performing highly-competitive SEO campaigns in different industries using best SEO practices.
I have all the technical skills, insightful analysis, and creative thinking competencies needed to drive SEO success. I am always up to date with what’s going on in SEO world.

*Key Skills and Competencies*

Professional;

- Managing advanced SEO strategies for high-value clients.
- Knowledge and understanding of the architecture and infrastructure of large-scale websites.
- Knowledge of current SEO practices and contemporary techniques.
- Can work as part of a team and individually as a sole agent.
- Experienced in a range of CMS platforms.
- Understanding of HTML, CSS and web standards.
- Organised and able to prioritise important tasks effectively.
- Able to work independently and take ownership of projects.
- Excellent understanding of search engines and the relevant SEO tools such as Ahrefs and SEMrush.

Personal;

- Thrive on solving problems and have a knack for getting things done.
- Calm disposition and able to continue working in the face of interruptions.
- Maintaining good personal relationships with work colleagues.
- Challenging myself to do better every day.

SEO Strategist - 13+ Years Scaling Results Across Industries in Thailand & Australia

The number of times I've blocked Francis Yang…

New email.
New domain.
Same pitch.

He keeps coming back like it’s a personal challenge. lol

(Francis, if you're reading this...)
Respect the persistence.
But also, please stop.

This is your reminder: cold email is NOT always a numbers game.

 It’s a relevance game. A timing game. A trust game.

Otherwise, you’re just noise in a crowded inbox and we’ve all got enough of that. 😅

SEO is changing fast. If we feel overloaded inside the industry… imagine our clients or our boss.

Some marketers use that chaos to sell fear. 
Don’t be that person. 
Lead with education. 
Lead with integrity.

If you don’t know, say: 

“I don’t know yet - here’s how we’ll find out.” 
That builds trust.

Why client education matters

☑ Better decisions: 
Clients back smart moves, not shiny tactics.
☑ Realistic expectations: 
Less “overnight win” pressure.
☑ Faster approvals: 
Clear plans cut the back-and-forth.
☑Stronger retention: 
Trust survives algorithm updates.
☑Cleaner results: 
Everyone agrees on what success means.

Normalise uncertainty

Use this script:
“Here’s what we know. Here’s what we don’t. 
Here’s the test we’ll run. Here’s when we’ll decide.”

Then run the test. 
Report the result. 
Adjust the plan.

If you sell SEO, sell clarity.
If you buy SEO, ask for explanations you can repeat to your team in two minutes.

What’s one thing you do to make SEO less confusing for clients or your boss?

Learning is the easy part.
Unlearning is where it gets hard.

Every SEO has muscle memory.
Old tactics. Old patterns. Old “rules” that used to work.

But search has changed.
How people search has changed.
What works in search has changed.

If we keep doing what used to work,
we get in our own way.

So growth today isn’t JUST about learning more.
It’s about letting go.

Let go of assumptions.
Let go of “we’ve always done it this way.”
Let go of the comfort of being right.

This isn’t just about keeping up with SEO.
 It’s about making space for better thinking.

Stay sharp.
Stay curious.
Stay willing to rethink everything.

Are you holding on to what worked 
or making room for what’s next?

Small-budget SEO? 

Do less, on purpose.

When you’ve run enough campaigns, you stop trying to “do everything.” 

Experience shows you which moves actually drive growth and which just pad a report.

A few principles I live by:

- Output ≠ outcome. 
More tasks doesn’t mean better results.

- Constraints create clarity. 
Smaller budgets force sharper choices.

- Sequence > volume. 
The right things in the right order compound.

- Evidence > activity. 
Decisions should come from data and intent, not from filling a timesheet.

I encourage clients to judge us by results, not the length of a task list. 

Focus looks quiet on paper but it’s loud in the bottom line.

________

What’s one thing you stop doing on small budgets and what do you do instead?

Semrush analysed 230K prompts and 100M+ AI citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. 

Here’s what stood out to me from their data.

☑ LinkedIn is one of the most-cited domains in AI answers. 

In October 2025, it sat right behind Reddit across LLMs. 

After Reddit and Wikipedia dropped on ChatGPT in September, LinkedIn’s citations kept rising.

AI tools don’t rely on one “source of truth.” 
They mix Reddit, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Medium, YouTube, Forbes, and others depending on the question. 

What this means if you run a business or lead marketing:

☑ Treat LinkedIn as a search channel.
☑ Your posts can now show up indirectly in AI answers, not just in the feed.
☑ Publish like an expert, not a broadcaster. Share specific problems, real examples, and clear explanations. 

Diversify your “AI footprint.”

Don’t rely only on Google rankings. 

Use LinkedIn, your blog, YouTube, and PR to get your brand cited in more places AI already trusts.

If SEO feels confusing, try changing the question from

“How do I rank on Google?” to
“How can I share my expertise so it’s easy for people and AI tools to find and reference?”

Are you treating LinkedIn as part of your search strategy yet, or still “just” social?

You can read the full SEMRush study in the link in the comments.

You don’t need more traffic.

You need the right traffic.

More buyers. Fewer browsers.

More intent. Less fluff.

That’s what smart SEO does:

It brings the right people to your business.

New AI feature in Search Console that actually saves you time 👀

Google just added an “AI configuration” button in the Performance report.

Instead of clicking through filters forever, you can now just type what you want.

Examples you can ask for:

“Show queries with ‘booking’ on mobile in the last 3 months”
“Compare traffic to /blog this quarter vs last quarter”
“Show CTR and position for Spain in the last 28 days”

The AI will:

- Add the right filters
- Set comparisons
- Pick the metrics (clicks, impressions, CTR, position)

You still need to check the filters (it’s not perfect), but it’s a nice shortcut when you’re not sure how to build a report.

Would you use this, or do you prefer full manual control in GSC?

The hardest part of modern SEO isn’t keyword ranking or gaining more traffic. 
It’s expectations.

I love big dreams.

But one of the most important parts of SEO is still… expectation setting.

As an SEO strategist, I sit in the middle of:

☑ Your vision (scale, freedom, more of the right clients)
 and
☑  Reality (budget, competition, current website, content, time… and now AI search too)

If I only cheerlead your dreams, I’m not doing my job.
If I only talk about limitations, I kill your motivation.

My job is to balance both.

Here’s what I wish more people understood about SEO (and AI search) expectations:

1. It’s not a quick fix - in any channel

If you need leads this week, organic search and AI visibility aren’t the answer.
SEO is the “build an asset” channel, not the “emergency sales” channel.
We’re building trust with search engines and AI answer engines over time.

2. You can’t out-rank reality

☑ A brand-new site won’t outrank a 10-year-old competitor in 30 days.
☑ A tiny budget won’t dominate a hyper-competitive industry.
☑  One blog post won’t suddenly make AI tools recommend your brand.

And that’s okay - we just design a strategy that fits your reality.

3. Rankings ≠ success (and mentions matter now)

Being “#1 for a keyword” means less if:
- It doesn’t bring in qualified leads
- Your brand never shows up in AI-generated overviews
- People find you, but don’t take the next step

Realistic expectations focus on:
☑ Qualified traffic
☑ Conversions
☑ Revenue and pipeline
☑ And increasingly: how often your brand is surfaced, cited, or echoed in AI answers

4. We can still dream big - in stages
 I’ll never tell you to stop dreaming.
 What I will do is turn:

“We want to triple organic revenue”
 into:

90-day quick wins (fixing foundations, easy opportunities)
6–12 month momentum goals (content, authority, internal links)
2–3 year big-picture vision (owning your niche across search + AI)

Big dream, realistic roadmap. That’s the sweet spot.

If we work together, I’ll probably say things you don’t often hear in SEO:

“That goal isn’t realistic yet - here’s what needs to happen first.”
“Given your budget and timeline, here’s what we can achieve.”
“This is what SEO can do -  and what it can’t fix, even with AI in the mix.”

That’s not negativity.
That’s respect for your time, money, and energy.

Because when expectations are clear, decisions get easier
and SEO becomes a lot less stressful.

Be honest: are your SEO expectations truly aligned with where your business is right now?”

Apparently the modern SEO cycle goes like this:

- Invent shiny new acronym (hello, GEO).
- Use it to justify AI-bot-only pages.
- Get wrecked by an update.
- Launch “GEO-Detox packages” next year.

Rinse, bill, repeat.

Meanwhile, the boring folks quietly win by doing the unsexy stuff:
clear content, good backlinks, clean tech, real users.

Tiny PSA: instead of detoxing SEO next year, don’t toxify it this year…
 
Oops, might already be too late for some of you. 😅

How much of your “organic growth” is just people typing your brand name into Google? 👀

Google has FINALLY added a Branded queries filter in Search Console’s Performance report so you can split SEO traffic into:

Branded = people explicitly searching for your brand/products
Non-branded = people searching around problems, topics or solutions

Why this matters:

☑ See real SEO growth
Non-branded shows how well you’re capturing problem/topic searches

☑ Sharper strategy
-Strong branded, weak non-branded → create more high-intent, BOFU content (comparisons, use cases, FAQs, “best X for Y”)
- Weak branded, strong non-branded → improve your brand story & on-site experience

☑ Cleaner reporting
“X clicks from branded searches, Y from non-branded.”

Try it:

Search Console → Performance → Search results → Branded queries

Then ask: “What should I do differently for each group?”

Do you know your branded vs non-branded split yet?

Keyword Volume ≠ Revenue
Chasing big numbers is a trap.

☑ Prioritise intent over volume
☑ Build for buyers first; support browsers with helpful guides
☑ Map content to stages (problem → solution → proof)
☑ Measure leads, pipeline, and sales, not just traffic

Saturday with my favourite tiny human.

Building a business is important.

Building a life it supports is more important.

Hope you’re offline for at least part of today. 😊

“Don’t use words too big for the subject.” -  C.S. Lewis

Jargon doesn’t make you sound smart.

It makes your reader feel dumb.

Want more clicks, leads, sales?

Use plain language.

Try: Replace 3 buzzwords with plain English.

Q: What’s one buzzword that instantly turns you off? 😅

Your best web pages are assets. Assets depreciate - especially in AI search.

Not because you did something wrong.
Because the search world moved on.

And now there’s a new accelerant: AI search.

Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT-style answers, and “answer-first” experiences can reduce clicks even when you still rank well.

So depreciation today can look like:

Old-school SEO depreciation (rankings):

- You drop from #2 to #9
- Competitors publish fresher/better content
- Search intent shifts

AI-era SEO depreciation (visibility + clicks):

- You stay in the top results… but traffic dips
- Users get the answer without clicking
- Your brand isn’t mentioned in AI summaries, even when you’re relevant

3 signs it’s happening to you:

- Impressions stable, clicks down (CTR falling)
- Conversions drop before traffic does
- You’re “ranking” but not being chosen (or cited/mentioned)

5 quick fixes to fight SEO depreciation (and win in AI search):

☑ Update the intro to match today’s search intent
☑ Upgrade “helpfulness”: examples, steps, screenshots, templates
☑ Strengthen E-E-A-T signals: author bio, proof, experience, references
☑ Add FAQ blocks (real questions, real answers) to match AI extraction
☑ Refresh internal links so your best pages keep authority and context

SEO isn’t “set and forget.”

It’s more like maintenance on your best asset.

What’s one page on your site you know needs a refresh—but keeps getting pushed down the list?

Today we released the December 2025 core update to Google Search. 

This is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites. 

We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://lnkd.in/gm_Kw67U

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