10 Ways to Improve Your Website's SEO Score

Your SEO score isn't a vanity metric. It's a proxy for how well search engines can understand, crawl, and rank your site. A low score means missed opportunities.

Here are 10 things you can fix today — roughly ordered by impact. Most take under an hour. Some take five minutes.

1. Fix Your Title Tags

Title tags are the single highest-impact on-page SEO element. Yet most sites get them wrong.

Common problems:

• Every page has the same title (usually the site name)
• Titles are too long (get cut off in search results)
• Target keyword is missing or buried at the end

The fix: Write a unique title for every page. Put your primary keyword near the start. Keep it under 60 characters. Example: "Running Shoes for Flat Feet | Top 10 Picks for 2025" is better than "ShoeStore.com — Your One Stop Shop for All Your Running Shoe Needs."

2. Write Real Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions don't directly affect rankings, but they affect click-through rate. Higher CTR = more traffic = signals to Google that your page is relevant.

Write them like ad copy. 155 characters. Include the keyword. Tell people what they get. "Free SEO audit tool — scan any URL and get a score across 50+ checks in 30 seconds" is specific and clickable.

3. Compress Your Images

Images are usually the heaviest elements on a page. An uncompressed hero image can be 3-5MB. That alone can push your load time past 5 seconds on mobile.

What to do:

• Convert images to WebP (30-50% smaller than JPEG at the same quality)
• Resize images to their display size — don't serve a 4000px image in a 800px container
• Add lazy loading to images below the fold: loading="lazy"
• Always include alt text (accessibility + SEO)

4. Fix Broken Links

Broken links hurt in two ways: they waste crawl budget, and they frustrate users. Both are bad for SEO.

Run a crawl of your site to find 404s. AuditMySite's scanner catches broken links automatically. Fix them by updating the link or setting up a 301 redirect.

Pro tip: Check your Google Search Console "Pages" report for 404 errors Google has found. These are the ones that matter most because Google is actively trying to crawl them.

5. Add Internal Links

Internal linking is criminally underrated. It helps Google discover pages, understand your site structure, and pass authority between pages.

Rules of thumb:

• Every page should have at least 2-3 internal links pointing to it
• Link from high-authority pages (like your homepage) to pages you want to rank
• Use descriptive anchor text — "our SEO audit checklist" not "click here"
• Link contextually within content, not just in navigation menus

6. Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

Google uses mobile-first indexing. That means Google crawls and ranks the mobile version of your site, not the desktop version. If your site looks broken on a phone, your rankings suffer.

Test your site on an actual phone. Not just Chrome DevTools — a real phone. Check that:

• Text is readable without zooming
• Buttons are tappable (at least 48px tap targets)
• No horizontal scrolling
• Forms work properly

7. Improve Page Speed

Google has confirmed that page speed is a ranking factor. Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS) are part of the Page Experience signal.

Quick wins:

• Enable GZIP/Brotli compression on your server
• Set cache headers for static assets (images, CSS, JS)
• Remove unused CSS and JavaScript
• Use a CDN for global visitors

Read our full page speed guide for more.

8. Use HTTPS

This should be obvious in 2025, but I still see HTTP-only sites. Google has used HTTPS as a ranking signal since 2014. Every major browser now shows "Not Secure" warnings for HTTP sites.

If you're on HTTP, get an SSL certificate. Let's Encrypt is free. Most hosts offer one-click HTTPS setup. Then set up a 301 redirect from HTTP to HTTPS.

9. Add Structured Data

Structured data (Schema.org markup) helps Google understand what your pages are about. It can also get you rich results — stars, FAQs, how-to steps, and more directly in search results.

Start with:

• Organization — on your homepage
• Article — on blog posts
• FAQ — on pages with frequently asked questions
• Product — on product pages (if applicable)

Test your markup with Google's Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results).

10. Create Content That Answers Questions

Google's entire business model is answering questions. If your content answers questions better than the competition, you rank higher. Simple as that.

Find questions your audience is asking:

• Google's "People Also Ask" boxes
• Reddit and Quora threads in your niche
• Your own customer support emails
• Google Search Console (what queries are people using to find you?)

Then write clear, direct answers. Put the answer in the first paragraph — don't make people scroll through a life story to find it.

Where to Start

Run a scan on AuditMySite first. You'll get a score and a list of every issue, ranked by severity. Start with the red items — those are costing you the most. Then work through yellow. Most sites can jump 20-30 points in a single afternoon.