.jpg)
Three weeks. That is all it took to transform my website from a poorly optimized mess into a clean, fast, search-engine-ready site scoring 84 out of 100.
I am not sharing this to impress you. I am sharing it because when I was sitting at a score of 47, staring at a long list of SEO problems I did not fully understand, I would have given anything to read a real account from someone who had been in the same position and fixed it.
Most SEO advice online is generic. Do keyword research. Build backlinks. Write great content. All of that matters — but none of it helps you when your website has fundamental technical problems that are quietly blocking everything else from working.
This is the honest, step-by-step story of what I found, what I fixed, and what changed as a result. Every tool I used is free. Nothing here requires a developer or a paid subscription.
How I Discovered My Score Was 47
I had been running my website for about five months when I decided to run a proper audit for the first time.
I used the Website SEO Checker on Auditest.online typed my domain into the search box, and waited for the results. The tool checks your website against dozens of SEO factors and returns a comprehensive report within seconds.
The score that came back was 47.
I sat with that number for a moment. Then I scrolled through the report to understand what was pulling it down. What I found was not one big problem — it was a collection of smaller problems across multiple areas that had quietly accumulated while I was focusing on content and design.
The report organized everything clearly into categories — speed, on-page SEO, technical SEO, mobile usability, and security. Each issue was explained in plain language with a clear indication of how much impact fixing it would have on my overall score.
I screenshot the full report, opened a notebook, and started writing down every issue in order of impact. Then I set a three-week plan to work through them.
Week One — Attacking the Speed Problems
The audit report flagged speed as my biggest issue and the one with the most impact on my score. My homepage was loading in 6.8 seconds. That is painfully slow by any standard.
The report identified three specific causes: uncompressed images, two render-blocking JavaScript files, and no caching enabled on my website.
Day one and two — images. I went through every page on my website and downloaded every image. I ran each one through TinyPNG, a free compression tool. The results shocked me. My homepage banner image was 3.1 megabytes. After compression it was 290 kilobytes — a 91 percent reduction with zero visible quality loss. Across all my images combined, I reduced my total image weight from 14 megabytes to just under 2 megabytes.
I also resized images that were larger than they needed to be. Several images were 2000 pixels wide on a page where the content area was only 800 pixels wide. I resized them to the correct dimensions before compressing them. Smaller dimensions plus compression made a dramatic difference.
Day three — caching. I installed a free caching plugin. The setup took about ten minutes. Caching stores a saved version of your pages so returning visitors do not have to download everything from scratch on every visit. It also reduces the load on your server, which improves response time for all visitors.
Day four — render-blocking scripts. The two JavaScript files flagged in my report were loading at the very top of my pages. This meant the browser was waiting for those files to fully download before displaying any visible content to the visitor. I moved them to load at the bottom of the page instead, using the defer attribute. The visible content now loads first while the scripts load quietly in the background.
By the end of week one I ran the audit again. My page load time had dropped from 6.8 seconds to 2.4 seconds. My overall SEO score had climbed from 47 to 63. Sixteen points in one week, purely from speed improvements.
Week Two — On-Page SEO and Technical Fixes
With speed under control, I moved to the on-page SEO issues the report had flagged.
Missing meta descriptions. Four of my most important pages had no meta description at all. This meant Google was pulling random text from those pages to display in search results — text that was not written to attract clicks. I wrote a proper meta description for each missing page — 150 to 160 characters, clear explanation of what the page offered, and a reason for someone to click.
Title tags too long. Three pages had title tags over 65 characters that were getting cut off in Google search results. A truncated title looks unprofessional and loses the keyword context at the end. I rewrote each one to sit comfortably under 60 characters while keeping the main keyword intact.
Missing image alt text. I found 23 images across my website with no alt text. Google cannot see images the way humans do — it relies on alt text to understand what each image shows. I went through every image and wrote a short, descriptive alt text for each one. This took about two hours but it was worth every minute.
XML sitemap submission. My website had a sitemap but I had never submitted it to Google Search Console. A sitemap tells Google every page on your website and helps it find and index your content faster. I found my sitemap URL, went to Google Search Console, and submitted it in under five minutes.
Redirect chains. The audit had found two redirect chains — old URLs that were redirecting to another URL that then redirected to another URL before reaching the final destination. Each extra hop wastes crawl budget and slows down the process of Google finding your real content. I updated both to redirect directly from the old URL to the correct final destination in one single step.
Robots.txt check. I opened my robots.txt file by typing my domain followed by /robots.txt in my browser. I found one line that was accidentally blocking a category of pages I actually wanted Google to crawl. One line corrected. Problem solved.
Mixed content warnings. My SSL certificate was active but the audit showed several images were still loading over HTTP instead of HTTPS. I updated those image URLs to HTTPS. The mixed content warnings disappeared.
At the end of week two I ran the audit again. My score had moved from 63 to 76. Another 13 points from methodical on-page and technical fixes.
Week Three — Mobile, Schema, and Final Polish
The remaining issues were smaller but still meaningful. Week three was about closing every remaining gap.
Mobile usability. Two pages had mobile problems. On the first page, text was too small for comfortable reading on a phone. I increased my base font size from 14 pixels to 16 pixels in my theme settings. On the second page, navigation links were packed too tightly for accurate tapping on a touchscreen. I increased the padding around each link so they were easier to tap without hitting the wrong one.
Schema markup. I had no schema markup on my homepage at all. Schema is a piece of structured code that gives Google extra information about your website — your name, your organization, your logo, and what your site does. I generated basic Website and Organization schema using a free online schema generator and added it to my homepage through my SEO plugin's settings. I then verified it was working correctly using Google's Rich Results Test tool.
Content gaps. The audit also flagged two pages with very thin content — under 200 words — that were not giving Google enough information to properly understand what those pages were about. I expanded both pages with an additional three to four paragraphs of useful, relevant content. Not filler — genuine information that added real value to those pages.
Final check — broken links. I ran the Broken Link Finder on Rankests — rankests.com — as a final sweep. It found three broken links I had missed. I fixed all three. Clean sweep.
At the end of week three I ran the full audit one final time. My score had reached 84 out of 100.
Read more articles:
What Happened to My Website After the Fixes
SEO results do not appear overnight. But the changes started showing within four weeks of completing the fixes.
My organic traffic grew by 38 percent compared to the same period the previous month. Three pages that had been sitting on page three of Google moved to page one within six weeks. My bounce rate dropped from 73 percent to 46 percent — meaning far more visitors were staying long enough to actually engage with my content.
Google Search Console showed a significant increase in pages being crawled and indexed. New content I published after the fixes started appearing in Google search results within days instead of the weeks it had taken before.
None of this required a developer. None of it required a paid tool. Every single fix was made using free tools and the clear, prioritized guidance from the Rankests audit report.
Your Three-Week Action Plan
Based on my experience, here is the plan I would recommend to anyone sitting at a score below 60.
In week one, focus entirely on speed. Compress every image on your site. Enable caching. Fix render-blocking scripts. Run the speed checker tool before and after so you can measure the improvement clearly.
In week two, work through your on-page and technical SEO. Write missing meta descriptions. Fix overlong title tags. Add alt text to every image. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console. Clear redirect chains and fix robots.txt mistakes.
In week three, address mobile usability, add schema markup, expand any thin content pages, and do a final broken link sweep. Then run your full audit again and work through whatever remaining issues the report surfaces.
The Conclusion
A score of 47 felt overwhelming when I first saw it. The list of problems looked long and complicated. But working through it category by category, one fix at a time, made it completely manageable.
Three weeks of consistent work moved my score from 47 to 84. The traffic and ranking improvements that followed made every hour spent on those fixes worthwhile.
Check your website's SEO score right now for free at rankests.com. Find out exactly where your website stands, identify every issue pulling your score down, and start working through them the same way I did.
Your score can make the same journey. You just need to start.
Check out related articles:
Top 5 Free Color Picker Extensions for Chrome
About the Author
Kester Terna is an SEO specialist and founder of Rankests, where he helps website owners identify technical SEO issues, improve search visibility, and grow organic traffic.