SEO: 5 one-hour projects to improve your Google ranking

Day one: Site crawl for technical SEO recommendations

Any successful SEO improvements begin with a thorough site audit. A site crawl, using tools like Google Search Console or third-party applications, helps identify technical issues that could hinder your site's performance in search engine rankings.

This includes analysing your page load speed, looking for any broken links, ensuring proper URL structures and checking whether your site is made for mobile.

Page load speed

• Why fix it: People will leave your website if your pages are taking too long to load. This leads to higher bounce rates – which tells Google not to send people to your website, leading to a lower ranking on search engine results pages.
• How to fix it: Image size is often the culprit here. Check that your images are not too large – a couple of hundred kb is generally big enough. Reduce image sizes where needed (72ppi is enough for most digital applications) and run images through an image optimiser before uploading.

Broken links

• Why fix it: Broken links make it difficult for humans and search engine bots to navigate your site. You want to make that simple.
• How to fix it: Find the right URLs to update broken links and simply remove any that are outdated.

Poor URL structure

• Why fix it: Poor URL structures make it difficult for humans and the bots that crawl your site for search engines to navigate.
• How to fix it: You should generally let your CMS auto-generate URLs/aliases for pages you create based on your H1. If you have tailored your URLs, ensure there are no spaces, underscores, uppercase letters or other characters – only use lowercase letters.

Mobile-first

• Why fix it: Almost 60% of searches are coming through mobile devices and Google also prioritises mobile-first indexing.
• How to fix it: Changing a website that is not mobile-first is beyond the one-hour (and likely the DIY) limit. You might need some help from a developer on this one, but it’s useful to know what you need to ask for. Not mobile-friendly, which is a site designed for desktop but with can be viewed on mobile, but mobile-first.

Day two: Identify ranking keywords and make a target list

Keywords are terms you use on your website and in your content to help search engines understand what your content is about, and using them well improves search engine rankings. Think of keywords as the building blocks of your SEO. Conduct thorough research to understand what terms users are searching for that are relevant to the work you do and the problems you help your clients solve.

Tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush and Moz can help identify high-volume keywords relevant to your content.

Create a target list and rank them by search volume – how many searches they get each month – as well as relevance to your practice and the amount of competition there is for each keyword.

A small firm is unlikely to rank for ‘tax’ as the competition is too great, so focus on long-tail keywords, as they often have less competition and can attract more qualified traffic.

You’re going to use this list to tailor your content to your chosen keywords, which helps your website appear in search results when users type in relevant queries.

Day three: H1s, meta descriptions and search terms

On-page elements play a crucial role in signalling to search engines what your content is about.

• Keyword: In your CMS, you’ll see a field to enter ‘keywords’, ‘search terms’, ‘meta keywords’, ‘target keywords’ or similar. In this field, enter a primary keyword for each page, and 2-3 secondary keywords if relevant.
• H1: Your title, headline, meta title or H1, should provide a clear, concise overview of the content and include your primary keyword as close to the start as possible.
• Subheadings: These break up blocks of text on your page. They can also incorporate related keywords.
• Meta description: In search engine results pages, this is what people see under your headline. It should be no longer than 160 characters including spaces so it doesn’t get cut off. Though it doesn’t have a direct impact on your ranking, it does influence click-through rates, as a good meta description will encourage people to click through. It should be compelling and accurately represent your content, and include relevant keywords naturally to demonstrate content relevance.

Additionally, incorporate your target keywords throughout your content naturally. Keyword stuffing can lead to penalties, so write for your human audience first – readers can tell if you’re trying to include as many keywords as possible.

High-quality, engaging content is key to keeping users on your site and encouraging them to explore further.

Day four: Links and FAQs

Links

• Why use them: Internal links – between different pages on your site – guide users to related content and distribute link equity across your website. Backlinks, or inbound links from other reputable websites, are useful in boosting your site's domain authority, which contributes to your SEO.
• How to use them: Add links between your different pages – for example within an article about tax rates you might link to other resources about tax return preparation. For backlinks, ask your referral partners to include a link to your ‘About’ or ‘Contact’ page.

FAQs page

• Why have one: A frequently asked questions (FAQs) section on your website helps users find answers quickly and provides opportunities to naturally incorporate relevant keywords. Google's featured snippets often pull information from FAQ sections, increasing your chances of being featured prominently in search results.
• How to use them: Use your keyword list to identify topics to address, then think about the questions clients and prospects most commonly contact you about or ask related to those topics. Write short, clear answers.

Day five: Your Google business profile

• What your Google Business profile does: Local SEO is crucial for businesses targeting specific geographic areas. Setting up and optimising your Google My Business (GMB) profile is essential. A complete and accurate GMB profile improves your chances of appearing in local searches, Google Maps and the local pack – the list of businesses that appears alongside a map in search results.
• How to improve your Google business profile: Ensure your GMB profile includes up-to-date business information including address, phone number, website link and operating hours. Encourage customer reviews, as positive reviews can enhance your online reputation and attract more visitors to your website. Prompt responses to reviews also help with rankings.

Week two: Keep it up

SEO is not ‘set and forget’. If you can, continue to spend a few hours each week implementing updates across your site.

Each quarter perform a new site crawl and update your keyword list, and make adjustments based on evolving search engine algorithms and user behaviour.