Guides that lead to a clearer site
Guides that lead to a clearer site.
Featured · Scores
What a good SEO score actually means
A letter grade is a band over a weighted score, not a promise that you will rank. Here is how the number is built, and what to do with it.
On-page
One H1, and why the headings under it matter
The H1 is the page title in the HTML. The headings under it are the outline. One clear H1, then H2s, is enough.
On-page
Alt text: say what the picture shows
Alt text is the sentence a screen reader speaks when it reaches a picture. Describe the picture. Do not stuff the field with keywords.
Content
When a page is too thin to be useful
Under 300 words, an indexable page is flagged as thin. Add the facts a visitor came for. Do not pad the page with filler.
Indexing
The pages nobody can reach
An orphan page is published, but nothing on the site links to it. One link from a page that is already crawled is the usual fix.
Indexing
Give the site one address
http and https, with www and without, are different addresses until you pick one and send the others there.
Indexing
What robots.txt actually blocks
robots.txt is a gate for crawlers. A disallow of the whole site keeps pages out of Google even when they look finished in a browser.
Technical
Broken links, and the pages that 404
A 404 is a page that is not there. A broken link is a menu or a paragraph that still points at it. Fix the link, or redirect the old address.
On-page
The preview people see before they click
When someone pastes your URL into a chat or a social post, the preview comes from Open Graph tags. Title, description, image.
AI search
Schema that says who runs the site
Schema is structured text that names the business, the logo, and where to find you. It does not replace the words on the page.
AI search
The words a crawler never receives
If the words appear only after a script runs, the raw HTML is empty. Crawlers that do not run that script never see the page.
Scores
How to read an SEO report if you are not an agency
You do not need to work through every row. Start with the grade reason, then the issues that stop a page being found or clicked.
Indexing
Why a finished site can still be missing from Google
The design can be fine. If a crawler is blocked, told not to index, or sent to a different URL, the page will not show up.