No Hacks Advisory
A RETAINED STRATEGIST FOR THE AI-ERA WEB.
Decide what to build, what to measure, and what to ignore as AI rewrites how your website is found and used. Bi-weekly strategy calls with Sani, monthly written briefs, a six-month engagement.
Six-month engagement · Five seats total · Application-based
With
SLOBODAN "SANI" MANIC
Founder of No Hacks · 15+ years in web optimisation · CXL-certified · Author at Search Engine Journal
01 · What it is
AN OUTSIDE STRATEGIST ON RETAINER, SO YOU CAN KEEP RUNNING THE BUSINESS.
Every two weeks, a strategy call. Every month, a written brief. Three written audits at the start, middle, and end of the six months.
A running business doesn't have the capacity to track every new protocol, every new scanner, every new report that drops in the AI-era web. Your team has a business to run.
The pace of change makes ignoring it expensive too. Each missed signal compounds.
The advisory pairs you with an outside strategist who tracks this full-time so you don't have to. Every two weeks, on a call and in writing, we decide together, for your specific situation, what's worth building, what's worth measuring, and what's safe to ignore.
I am not your implementation team. The role is strategy, not execution. You still own the roadmap; the advisory sharpens it.
02 · Framework
FOUR PILLARS.
The advisory uses the four Machine-First Architecture pillars as its framework. Audits, recommendations, and written briefs all map back to these four layers. First 60 days lean structural; months 3-4 are implementation review and tactical filtering; months 5-6 measure and plan the next horizon.
IDENTITY
01Canonical business definition, entity graph, Organization schema coverage, sameAs completeness, brand representation across AI search surfaces.
In practice
Entity audit, schema upgrades, brand-mention tracking setup.
STRUCTURE
02Website as a data model. Semantic HTML, URL architecture, schema density, sitemap and feeds, robots and Content Signals policy.
In practice
Structured-data audit, IA recommendations, markdown content negotiation readiness.
CONTENT
03Front-loaded verifiable claims, citation readability, chunking for LLM extraction, H2 and first-sentence patterns, E-E-A-T signals.
In practice
Page-level citability audit, editorial guidelines for AI extraction, heading hierarchy review.
INTERACTION
04Machine-completable transactions. Form and checkout legibility, bot policy, WebMCP tool surfaces, agent-readiness scoring.
In practice
Interaction audit, WebMCP tool candidate identification, bot-access policy review.
03 · Included
WHAT HAPPENS, WHEN.
Eight deliverables across six months. Three boundary packages, twelve bi-weekly calls, and ongoing written value, mapped to when you actually get them.
Week 1
ONBOARDING PACKAGE
Week one. Intake questionnaire and a written starter audit across the four pillars of Machine-First Architecture. Sets the baseline and frames the kickoff call.
KICKOFF CALL
90–120 minutes. Deep dive on the starter audit. We set the direction for the six months.
Across six months
BI-WEEKLY STRATEGY CALLS
60 minutes × 12 sessions. The core rhythm. Each call filters the current news cycle through your specific situation.
MONTHLY WRITTEN BRIEF
One page per month: "What to do. What to ignore." Company-specific filtering of the month's developments.
ASYNC CHANNEL
A dedicated thread for questions, flag-ups, and quick gut-checks between calls. Reasonable-response expectation, not 24/7.
SHARED RUNNING DOCUMENT
A written record of every recommendation, open watch item, and session note across the six months. The full history of the engagement, captured as we go.
Month 3
MIDBOARDING PACKAGE
Month three. Written progress report, re-audit of the starter fields, goals reset for months four through six.
Week 24
OFFBOARDING PACKAGE
Week twenty-four. Wrap-up report with recommendations distilled, renewal decision, and a handoff doc for your internal team if you move on.
Ready
APPLY FOR ONE OF FIVE SPOTS.
04 · Scope
WHERE THE LINES ARE.
Out of scope
NOT INCLUDED
- Implementation work. No dev shop, no CRO agency, no content writing.
- Team training, workshops, or internal all-hands sessions.
- White-label anything.
- Engagements that don't touch AI-era web strategy at all. Traditional SEO and CRO are fair game when they intersect with AXO and the agentic web.
Apply if
GOOD FIT
- You run SEO, CRO, content, or product for a company whose website is a meaningful part of how it reaches customers.
- You already take AXO seriously and want an outside read, not an evangelist.
- You want to know what to ignore as much as what to act on.
- Your leadership is willing to make architectural decisions, not just marketing ones.
Don't apply if
NOT A FIT
- You need an implementation team. Hire a dev shop.
- You want general marketing or brand consulting. Not my specialty.
- You want someone to generate AI-written content at scale. Misaligned.
- You want a guaranteed traffic number in six months. Nobody honest will promise that.
05 · Non-negotiable
EDITORIAL
FIREWALL.
For now, No Hacks runs no podcast or newsletter sponsorships. Sponsors touch the publication (ad reads, "presented by" language, logo placement), and that touch creates quiet pressure to avoid critiquing them. If sponsorship ever enters the model, it will be on terms that keep editorial freedom intact.
The advisor firewall is separate, and it doesn't move. Advisor clients are never named on the podcast or the publication. Advisor clients never influence editorial direction. No ghost-written posts, no favourable coverage.
If you pay for an advisory seat and a month later the podcast covers a topic adjacent to your work, that is coincidence or editorial call on its own merits. The advisory relationship does not shape what I write or record. That firewall is the thing that makes both the publication and the advisory honest.
06 · FAQ
QUESTIONS
ANSWERED.
- How many seats are open right now?
- The advisory is capped at five concurrent clients. When the five are full, applications join a waitlist. I post any openings publicly when they come available.
- What happens after six months?
- At week twenty-four, we decide together whether to continue. Renewal terms for the next six months get finalized with enough lead time before the decision, never as a surprise.
- Do you take two companies in the same space?
- No. One company per competitive niche. If a close competitor is already in, the next application in that space goes on the waitlist.
- Will you pitch my company on the podcast?
- Never. Advisory clients are never named on No Hacks and never influence editorial direction. This is the firewall that makes the whole model work.
- Can we do weekly calls instead of bi-weekly?
- Bi-weekly is the default because it leaves real time for your team to do work between sessions. If there is a specific window where weekly makes sense (an audit rollout, a migration), we can do weekly for a month or two. Not as the default.
- Who handles the invoicing?
- Billing and contracts are handled by a separate entity once the engagement is agreed. The advisory itself is Sani's expertise; the entity exists to handle the paperwork.
07 · Apply
APPLY FOR
A SEAT.
Six short fields. I read every application personally and respond within a few business days, either to schedule a kickoff or with a courteous decline.
What happens next
- 01You submit the form. I read every application personally.
- 02I reply within a few business days, either to schedule a kickoff or with a courteous decline.
- 03If we move forward, we lock the six-month engagement and start with the week-one audit.