SEO can feel like a club with its own secret language: AEO, GEO, LLMO and more. Every week there is a new acronym and a new tool that promises to fix everything. Here is the good news: most of the ranking gains I see come from boring fundamentals, not tricks.
To prove it, I audited my own website. At the time, my Google Search Console impressions were stuck at just 56. I used one free tool to find the basic problems, fixed them, and wrote down what I learned. These five truths are the result, and you can use them on your own site this week.
1. Your most useful SEO audit tool is free
You do not need an expensive subscription like Ahrefs or Semrush to start. Screaming Frog SEO Spider crawls your site the way a search engine bot does and reports on structure, content and technical health. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs, which is enough for most small business sites.
Run a crawl and look first at page titles, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text, response codes and thin pages. In an hour you will have a to-do list that would take much longer to find by clicking around.
2. Write for humans first, and search engines will follow
The most counter-intuitive truth in SEO is that you should not write for the algorithm. If you try to fool the machine by stuffing keywords, you will lose. If you make a page clear and useful, you usually win.
Screaming Frog also shows a readability score for each page. As a rough guide, scores above 80 are easy to read, around 60 is normal, and below 50 is hard. A low score is a sign to use shorter sentences, simpler words and a clearer structure. That is not about dumbing down your expertise. It is about helping a busy reader understand you quickly.
Watch my walk-through here: SEO audit on YouTube.
3. Write for the new gatekeepers: answer engines
Featured snippets, Google’s AI features and chat assistants now decide which sources to quote. They favour content that is well structured and answers a question directly. A clear heading hierarchy helps both people and machines:
- One H1 per page: the main topic. I recommend a single H1, so the page theme is unmistakable.
- H2 headings: the main sub-topics, phrased like the questions people ask.
- H3 and H4 headings: finer details and lists inside each section.
After each heading, give a short, direct answer first, then the detail. This one habit makes your pages easier to quote.
4. Treat search engines as if they cannot see
A search engine cannot look at an image the way you do. It depends on the text you provide. Two small habits make a big difference:
- Descriptive file names:
black-dog-playing-fetch.jpgtells a crawler far more thantwo.jpg. - Useful alt text: describe the image plainly, for example “a black dog playing fetch in the park”. It also helps people who use screen readers.
Screaming Frog will list images that are missing alt text, so you can fix them in one sitting.
5. Fix the foundations most sites ignore
Big gains often hide in small details. These are the fixes I check first:
- Thin content: pages with only a few lines (under about 100 to 200 words) look low-value. Expand them with genuinely useful information, or merge or remove them.
- Page title length: aim for roughly 50 to 60 characters, so the title is not cut off in results and still includes your keyword.
- Missing meta descriptions: write a clear summary of about 150 characters that makes people want to click.
- Heading structure: pages with no H2 lack structure, and repeated identical H2s can signal sloppy or auto-generated content.
A simple plan for this week
- Crawl your site with the free Screaming Frog version.
- Fix titles and meta descriptions on your five most important pages.
- Add alt text to every image on those pages.
- Restructure one key page with clear H2 headings and a direct answer under each.
- Check Google Search Console in four weeks and compare impressions.
Frequently asked questions
Is Screaming Frog really free?
Yes, the free version crawls up to 500 URLs. Paid plans remove the limit and add features, but most small sites do not need them.
How long until I see results from these fixes?
Technical and on-page fixes can show up in Search Console within a few weeks, but real ranking growth usually takes two to three months or more.
Do I need to worry about AEO and GEO?
The labels change, but the advice does not: clear structure, direct answers and trustworthy content help in classic search and in AI answers.
Can you check my site for me?
Yes. I offer SEO audits and ongoing SEO, and a free 20-minute check-up call.
Keep learning
Read next: my website audit checklist and data-driven strategies for SEO, SEM and social. Prefer a guided path? See my courses or free videos.
What is the first small fix you will make this week? If you want a second pair of eyes, book a free call.