You do not need an expensive SEO audit to find out whether your website is doing the basics right. Most UK business websites fail on the same fundamental points — and most of those points are straightforward to fix once you know what to look for.

Here is a ten-point checklist you can run through right now. If your site fails on more than three of these, it is almost certainly losing rankings it could have.

1. Every Page Has a Unique Title Tag

Each page on your site needs its own title tag that describes what that page is about. The title should include your primary keyword for that page, ideally near the front, and stay under sixty characters. Your homepage title should not be just your company name — it should describe what you do and where you do it. Check every page. If any two pages share the same title, fix it.

2. Every Page Has a Meta Description

Meta descriptions do not directly affect rankings, but they affect click-through rates — which does affect rankings. Each page needs a unique meta description under 155 characters that tells the searcher exactly what they will find on that page and gives them a reason to click. If you leave meta descriptions blank, Google writes its own, and it rarely does a good job.

3. Every Page Has One H1 Tag

Each page should have exactly one H1 heading that clearly describes the page content. Not zero. Not three. One. The H1 should include your target keyword naturally and match what the page is actually about. Subsequent headings should use H2 and H3 tags in a logical hierarchy. This is basic HTML structure, but we see it done wrong on the majority of sites we audit.

4. Page Speed Scores Above 70 on Mobile

Go to Google PageSpeed Insights and test your homepage and two or three key pages on mobile. If any score below 70, you have performance issues that are hurting your rankings. The most common culprits are unoptimised images, too many third-party scripts, and slow hosting. Images should be in WebP or AVIF format, served at the correct dimensions, and lazy-loaded below the fold.

5. The Site Is Fully Mobile Responsive

Google uses mobile-first indexing. That means it primarily uses the mobile version of your site for ranking decisions. If your site does not work properly on a phone — text too small, buttons too close together, horizontal scrolling, content cut off — you are losing rankings. Test on an actual phone, not just by resizing your browser window.

6. Canonical Tags Are Set Correctly

Canonical tags tell Google which version of a page is the original when duplicate or similar content exists. Every page on your site should have a self-referencing canonical tag pointing to its own URL. If you have pages accessible at multiple URLs — with and without trailing slashes, with and without www — canonical tags prevent Google from treating them as duplicate content. Check your page source for a link rel="canonical" tag in the head section.

7. Schema Markup Is Implemented

Structured data helps Google understand what your content is — a business, an article, a product, a FAQ. At minimum, your homepage should have LocalBusiness or Organization schema, your blog posts should have Article schema, and any pages with frequently asked questions should have FAQ schema. Test your pages with Google's Rich Results Test tool. If nothing shows up, you are missing out on enhanced search listings.

8. Internal Links Connect Your Pages

Your pages should link to each other with descriptive anchor text. Blog posts should link to relevant service pages. Service pages should link to case studies. Your most important pages should have the most internal links pointing to them. If pages on your site are only reachable from the main navigation, your internal linking needs work. Every time you publish new content, link it to at least two or three existing pages.

9. Google Search Console Is Set Up and Monitored

If you do not have Google Search Console connected to your site, set it up today. It is free. It tells you which queries your site appears for, which pages are indexed, what errors Google has found, and how your performance changes over time. Check it at least once a month. Look for crawl errors, pages that have dropped out of the index, and queries where you rank on page two — those are your quickest wins.

10. An XML Sitemap Exists and Is Submitted

Your site needs an XML sitemap that lists every page you want Google to index. It should be submitted to Google Search Console and referenced in your robots.txt file. Most content management systems generate sitemaps automatically, but check that yours is working, that it is up to date, and that it does not include pages you do not want indexed — like thank you pages, staging URLs, or duplicate content.

Run the Checklist

Go through these ten points one by one. Be honest about where your site falls short. Each item you fix improves your chances of ranking — and none of them require a developer to understand, even if some require one to implement.

If you want a professional eye on your site, Brilliant offers a focused SEO audit that covers these points and more — with clear priorities and no jargon.

Want to know exactly where your site stands? Book a call and we will run through it together.