Blog Post

Let’s face it: SEO diagnostics don’t get people jumping out of their chairs. But they should—because when done right, a technical deep dive can transform a website from underperforming to outperforming.

Over the years, I’ve completed dozens of these detailed reviews for companies across real estate, health, law, eCommerce—you name it. These aren’t generic tool exports or canned PDFs. I’m talking about hands-on, manual evaluations that led to real improvement.

What you’re about to read isn’t theory. It’s the reality of what happens when issues get uncovered, priorities are sorted, and fixes are implemented correctly.

• A peek into common technical problems that keep websites stuck
  
• What gets fixed—and why those changes matter
  
• How businesses actually benefit when tech performance is prioritized
  
• A few honest lessons from my side of the screen (plus some chuckles)

Linden Homes had a strong national presence but a messy local setup. With over 140 developments across the UK, they had dozens of Google Business listings—but very little visibility for each individual location. Their site was also packed with underperforming content that wasn’t helping anyone, least of all search engines.

I ran a location-level visibility review and noticed gaps in their internal linking and content alignment. We consolidated similar pages, aligned content around user intent, and optimized their location-specific metadata. I also helped map their Google Business entries to relevant landing destinations—because what’s the point of 140 listings if none of them convert?

• Local traffic to development pages increased by 38%
  
• Bounce rate dropped on mobile
  
• Pages finally aligned with user searches like “new homes in [city]”
  

Curious how location structure impacts discoverability?
Read my guide on how to structure audits effectively.

A smaller sibling of Linden, Bovis Homes had fewer developments but a similar issue: a bloated site, lots of thin content, and internal cannibalization (no, not the creepy kind—just pages fighting over the same search queries).

I carried out a full content cleanup. That meant identifying underperforming pages, merging duplicate themes, and refreshing top URLs with clearer signals. Internally, we removed orphaned links and improved crawl logic so search engines could better navigate important sections.

We also spent time boosting mobile speed scores, which were tanking on product-heavy pages.

• 27% gain in non-branded impressions
  
• Mobile performance increased dramatically on key landing destinations
  
• Better indexing consistency across priority URLs
  

For more on cleaning up weak links and duplicate themes, check out this breakdown of technical vs. content audits.

As a leader in fitness and nutrition education, Future Fit had great content and UX—on the surface. But deeper analytics showed drop-offs in user flow and landing pages that weren’t pulling their weight in conversions or rankings.

I ran a comprehensive evaluation (a 70-slide beast, for those counting) that included a full funnel review, landing page audit, and performance tracking. We identified content gaps, updated page templates, and realigned the site hierarchy based on actual user behavior.

I also flagged major opportunities for topic expansion based on competitor positioning—something they hadn’t considered previously.

• Conversions improved by 19%
  
• More users completed the full course application path
  
• Organic reach expanded to include new, high-intent keywords
  

Want to decode your own traffic path? Learn to read SEO reports like a pro.

Medino, an online pharmacy, was scaling fast. But that growth led to problems. New product pages weren’t showing in search results. Duplicate categories and redirect chains were confusing crawlers. Their robots.txt was also blocking several useful sections. Oops.

I performed a complete crawl audit, repaired redirect loops, optimized their sitemap, and retrained their internal team on how to prevent repeat issues. This wasn’t just about fixing—it was about teaching. We also rewrote templated product content that wasn’t serving real search intent.

• More than 900 product listings indexed
  
• 42% increase in non-paid search traffic within 8 weeks
  
• Team gained confidence to implement SEO fixes directly in sprints
  

Quick tip: Your sitemap isn’t “set it and forget it.” Revisit it regularly. Here’s more on SEO audit frequency.

Migrating from Magento to Shopify isn’t a simple flip of a switch—especially when you have thousands of product pages, blog posts, and media assets. ColorWowHair needed to preserve rankings, structure, and product discoverability… while cleaning up the junk.

We built a full pre-migration strategy. That included URL mapping, redirect planning, content pruning, and performance testing across staging. I developed a “keep, redirect, remove” framework that made the whole move smoother than a fresh haircut.

• No ranking drop post-migration
  
• Organic traffic actually increased by 18%
  
• Improved technical scores across CLS, FID, and load performance
  

Planning a migration yourself? Avoid common pitfalls with these SEO audit mistakes.

Let’s be real—every site is different, but the same types of problems show up over and over:

• Sites grow too fast without organizing their structure
  
• Content piles up with no strategy
  
• Internal links go missing, or worse, point to broken locations
  
• Performance is ignored until something tanks
  

When I get called in, it’s often after someone’s plugin or internal tool said “everything is fine.” Spoiler: it wasn’t.

If your site’s traffic has plateaued, or your new content is mysteriously invisible in Google, then yes—it’s probably time for a deeper check.

Some people think these evaluations are only necessary during redesigns or migrations. That’s like only going to the dentist when you’ve got a toothache. I recommend reviewing your site health at least twice a year—especially if you’re adding new content or making technical changes.

Need to schedule your next one? Start with this guide on how to perform a full review.

Each brand I’ve worked with had different goals—but what made the biggest difference was their willingness to fix what wasn’t visible at first glance.

It’s not always glamorous. You won’t see the confetti drop when you fix a canonical tag or rewrite robots.txt—but you will see results in your analytics. That’s the real win.

Want to get started but not sure where to begin?
This article explains exactly what a proper audit looks like.

No fluff. No recycled PDFs. Just real work that delivers.