Every developer I know spends weeks on the product and about 20 minutes on SEO.
Then they wonder why Google isn't sending traffic.
Here are the six things that actually determine whether your site ranks — and the one fix for each.
1. Page speed (LCP)
Google's ranking signal is Largest Contentful Paint — the time until the biggest visible element loads. Target: under 2.5 seconds.
The fix: Compress your images. Uncompressed PNGs and JPEGs are responsible for more slow sites than any other single cause. Convert to WebP and run them through Squoosh before uploading.
2. Meta tags
Your <title> tag is the clickable link in Google results. Your meta description is the two lines under it. Both determine your click-through rate, which feeds back into your ranking.
The fix: Unique title and description on every page. Title under 60 characters, description 120-155 characters. Don't copy-paste the same description across pages — Google ignores it.
3. Heading structure
One <h1> per page, matching the page topic. <h2> for major sections. Google uses this to understand what your page is about and how authoritative it is on that topic.
The fix: In most CMSes your post title automatically becomes the <h1>. The mistake is using <h1> tags in your theme header or sidebar — that's a duplicate H1 and it confuses crawlers.
4. Image alt text
Google can't see images. Alt text is how it understands what you're showing. Missing alt text means your images are invisible to search.
The fix: alt="red ceramic coffee mug on wood table" is useful. alt="img1" or no alt at all is not. If you have a lot of images, a quick grep of your HTML will surface the gaps fast.
5. Internal linking
Links between your own pages pass authority and help Google understand your site structure. A new post linked from your homepage gets crawled faster and ranks sooner than one that's orphaned.
The fix: Pick your five highest-traffic pages. Add two or three links from each to related content on your site. Use descriptive anchor text — <a href="/pricing">see our pricing</a> not <a href="/pricing">click here</a>.
6. Mobile friendliness
Google indexes the mobile version of your site first. This has been true since 2019. If your site breaks on a phone, your desktop rankings suffer too.
The fix: Load your site on your phone. Scroll around. If anything requires horizontal scrolling, has text too small to read, or has buttons too close to tap — fix it. Most modern frameworks handle this, but older themes often don't.
Checking all six at once
If you want to see where your site actually stands across all six before you start fixing things, PageGrader checks them automatically and grades each one A-F. It's in beta right now — free while it is.
Worth doing before you start guessing at which issue to fix first.
What SEO issue has bitten you hardest at launch? Drop it in the comments.
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