Welcome to Protocol
Read this to understand how traffic and attention actually work, and why some businesses get seen whilst others don't.
Protocol is a newsletter for people who want more attention, reach, and traffic—and are looking to understand more clearly how it happens.
Marketing isn’t easy. Getting your work in front of the right people isn’t easy. Often it feels like we’ve tried everything—and to no avail. So, why aren’t things working the way they should be?
If you’re running a business and struggling to get traction, this is probably for you.
The mission statement
I recently made a huge transition in my life.
I spent over a decade (far too long) as a software engineer. In that time, I became exceptional at “technical” thinking. But the career never sat well with me. So, when the time came to make a leap, I jumped ship. I entered the world of Search Engine Optimisation as a solo practitioner.
The switch was…not as elegant as I’d hoped.
The reality? The shift has been amazing. It’s shown me the blind spots I’d developed through years of building software and outsourcing big decisions/marketing to others. But trying to get eyes on my work for the first time was jarring. It’s taken experimentation, hundreds of hours of reading and writing, and—most of all—time, for things to start making sense.
My mission is to make these systems legible so our efforts stop feeling random.
There won’t be any quick wins or hacky solutions to anything here. This is purely about focusing our effort on building the right systems for the right people over time.
You’ll get deep explanations, unusual takes, and personal experiments. You’ll get stories of my own growth as a digital marketer.
Here’s the simple promise:
The more time you spend with my writing, the more differently you’ll think about attention, marketing and why so much of it is so badly misdiagnosed.
My promise
In this Substack, I’m going to share:
How to think about getting the right people into your business. 10 of the right people will always trump 1,000 who don’t care.
Why many obvious methods to get more traffic don’t always work, and how optimising the wrong things can mask problems instead of fixing them.
The hidden filters we usually neglect that prevent people from buying. Most decisions are made before a visitor ever reaches an offer.
Stories of trial and error. SEO experiments, creative projects and real moments of learning.
I’ll give you every part of my mind, through ideas, mistakes and frameworks that have changed how I operate in this space.
In return? I just want to make you think. I want to push you to examine your blind spots. And if anything I write has made you think differently, even for a moment, then I’m doing my job well.
So, sign up now so you never miss a single edition of Protocol.
If something in your marketing feels broken, this is a good place to start.