How to Fix Your SEO Score: Actionable Steps for Every Issue
Your SEO score came back. It's not great. Now what?
Most people look at their audit results and feel overwhelmed. There are dozens of issues, no clear starting point, and vague advice like "improve your content quality." That's not actionable.
This guide is different. We analyzed 116 real website audits — average score 64/100 — and identified the most common issues. For each one, you'll get the exact fix, the expected score improvement, and how long it takes.
No guesswork. Just fixes.
Why Most Sites Score 64/100
Out of 116 completed audits on AuditX:
- Average SEO score: 64 (range: 50-83)
- Average AISO score: 28 (AI search readiness is way behind)
- Most common issues: Missing meta descriptions, broken links, no schema markup, slow performance
The good news: most of these issues are fixable in under an hour each. The better news: fixing just the top 5 issues can jump your score by 15-25 points.
Fix #1: Missing Meta Descriptions
Found in: 78% of audited sites
Average impact: +2-4 SEO score points
Time to fix: 30 minutes
Every page on your site needs a unique meta description under 155 characters. It's the snippet that appears in Google search results — and it's one of the highest-leverage quick fixes.
How to fix it:
- Run a free audit at AuditX to get a complete list of pages missing meta descriptions
- Write a unique description for each page following this formula:
[Action verb] + [what the page offers] + [key benefit]. Example: "Find and fix every SEO issue on your site in 60 seconds. Free audit tool with prioritized fix list." - Add each description to your page's
<head>section:<meta name="description" content="Your description here"> - If you use a CMS like WordPress, install Yoast or Rank Math — they'll flag missing descriptions automatically
Common mistake: Writing the same meta description for multiple pages. Each one must be unique.
Get your complete meta description fix list →
Fix #2: Broken Links (Internal and External)
Found in: 65% of audited sites
Average impact: +3-5 SEO score points
Time to fix: 45 minutes
Every broken link is a dead end. Google's crawler hits it, wastes time, and lowers your site's trust score. Users hit it and bounce.
How to fix it:
- Your AuditX report lists every broken link with its exact location
- For broken internal links: 301 redirect the old URL to the closest living page, or update the link to point to the correct page
- For broken external links: Replace the dead link with a working alternative, or remove it
- For 404 pages receiving traffic: Create proper 301 redirects to relevant content — never leave a 404 hanging
Prevention: Set up a monthly link audit. Broken links accumulate over time as external sites change or go offline.
Fix #3: No Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Found in: 72% of audited sites
Average impact: +2-3 CTR improvement (not direct score impact, but huge traffic impact)
Time to fix: 1-2 hours
Schema markup tells Google exactly what your content is about. It's the difference between a plain blue link and a rich result with stars, FAQs, and event dates.
How to fix it:
Add JSON-LD structured data to your pages. Here are the most impactful types:
Organization schema (add to your homepage):
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Your Company",
"url": "https://yoursite.com",
"logo": "https://yoursite.com/logo.png"
}
FAQ schema (add to any page with Q&A content):
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "What is an SEO audit?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "An SEO audit analyzes your website to find issues that hurt your search rankings."
}
}
]
}
Article schema (add to blog posts):
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Your Article Title",
"author": {"@type": "Person", "name": "Author Name"},
"datePublished": "2026-04-30"
}
Why this matters: Pages with FAQ rich results get 20-30% higher click-through rates. That's free traffic without ranking changes.
Fix #4: Slow Page Speed (Core Web Vitals)
Found in: 58% of audited sites
Average impact: +5-10 SEO score points
Time to fix: 2-4 hours (depending on your stack)
Core Web Vitals measure real user experience. Google uses them as ranking signals. Here's what to target:
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) — Under 2.5 seconds:
- Compress all images to WebP format
- Lazy-load images below the fold
- Use a CDN for static assets
- Eliminate render-blocking CSS/JS
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) — Under 200ms:
- Minimize main-thread JavaScript
- Break up long tasks with
requestIdleCallback() - Defer non-critical scripts
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) — Under 0.1:
- Set explicit width and height on all images and videos
- Avoid dynamically injecting content above the fold
- Use
font-display: swapfor web fonts
Quick win: If you're on WordPress, install a caching plugin (WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache) and enable lazy loading. This alone can fix 60% of speed issues.
Check your Core Web Vitals score for free →
Fix #5: Missing or Duplicate H1 Tags
Found in: 42% of audited sites
Average impact: +2-3 SEO score points
Time to fix: 20 minutes
Every page needs exactly one H1 tag that clearly describes the page's content. Not zero. Not two. One.
How to fix it:
- Your AuditX report shows which pages have missing or duplicate H1s
- For pages with no H1: Add one that includes your primary keyword naturally
- For pages with multiple H1s: Keep the most relevant one, change the rest to H2s
- Make sure each H1 is unique across your entire site — no two pages should have the same H1
Fix #6: Thin Content
Found in: 55% of audited sites
Average impact: +2-4 SEO score points
Time to fix: Varies
Pages under 300 words provide little value to search engines. They dilute your domain's overall authority.
How to fix it:
- Expand thin pages that target valuable keywords — aim for 1,200+ words for pillar content, 800+ for supporting pages
- Consolidate similar thin pages into one comprehensive resource with 301 redirects
- Delete pages that serve no purpose (tag pages with one post, empty category pages)
- Noindex pages you can't improve but need to keep (search results, filter pages)
Fix #7: No XML Sitemap
Found in: 40% of audited sites
Average impact: +2-3 SEO score points
Time to fix: 15 minutes
Your sitemap is a roadmap for Google. Without it, Google has to discover pages through internal links — which means thin or orphaned pages may never get indexed.
How to fix it:
- Generate a sitemap (most CMS platforms create one automatically — check
/sitemap.xml) - Include only canonical, indexable pages
- Submit it to Google Search Console
- Update it automatically when content changes
Fix #8: Missing Open Graph Tags
Found in: 68% of audited sites
Average impact: +1-2 points on social CTR
Time to fix: 30 minutes
When someone shares your page on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, Open Graph tags control the preview. Without them, your link appears as plain text — no image, no description. That kills click-through rates from social.
How to fix it:
Add these tags to every page's <head>:
<meta property="og:title" content="Your Page Title">
<meta property="og:description" content="Your page description">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://yoursite.com/og-image.jpg">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://yoursite.com/your-page">
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
Fix #9: Keyword Cannibalization
Found in: 35% of audited sites
Average impact: +2-4 SEO score points
Time to fix: 1-2 hours
When two or more pages target the same keyword, they compete with each other. Google picks one and ignores the rest. You're wasting your own authority.
How to fix it:
- Export all your title tags and H1s into a spreadsheet
- Sort by primary keyword — look for duplicates
- For duplicate pages: consolidate into one comprehensive page, 301 redirect the others
- Or: differentiate each page to target a different search intent (informational vs transactional)
Fix #10: No AI Search Optimization (AISO)
Found in: 85% of audited sites
Average impact: Massively increases AI citation rate
Time to fix: 1-2 hours
The average AISO score across our audits is 28/100. That means most sites are invisible to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overview — the fastest-growing traffic sources in 2026.
How to fix it:
- Create a
/llms.txtfile listing your key pages with brief descriptions - Add FAQ schema to your most important pages
- Write content in clear, citation-friendly formats (definitions, comparisons, step-by-step instructions)
- Build E-E-A-T signals: author bios, credentials, source citations
- Ensure your content answers specific questions directly — AI engines prefer concise, authoritative answers
Check your AISO score for free →
The 80/20 of SEO Fixes
If you only have 2 hours, do these five things:
- Add meta descriptions to every page (+2-4 points)
- Fix broken links (+3-5 points)
- Add FAQ schema to your top 5 pages (+2-3 points CTR)
- Create an XML sitemap and submit it (+2-3 points)
- Fix your H1 tags (+2-3 points)
That's +11-18 points in 2 hours. From 64 to 75-82.
Stop Guessing. Start Fixing.
You've seen the data. The average site scores 64/100. The fixes are known, specific, and prioritized. The only thing standing between your current score and 80+ is a clear action plan.
Run your free SEO audit and get a prioritized fix list →
Want the full report with every issue documented? Upgrade to the $49 Full Audit for a comprehensive PDF with prioritized recommendations, competitive analysis, and 30-day monitoring.
Based on analysis of 116 real website audits. Average starting score: 64/100. Most sites can reach 80+ by fixing the top 5 issues.
FAQ
How much can I improve my SEO score?
Most sites scoring 64 can reach 80+ by fixing the top 5 issues. The highest-leverage fix is almost always broken links and missing meta descriptions.
How long does it take to see results?
After you make fixes, Google needs 2-4 weeks to recrawl and re-evaluate. Re-run your audit after 3 weeks to measure improvement.
What's a good SEO score?
80+ is strong. 90+ is excellent. Below 70 means you have clear, high-impact fixes available. Run a free audit to find out exactly where you stand.
Do I need to be technical to fix these issues?
Fixes #1-5 (meta descriptions, broken links, H1 tags) can be done by anyone with CMS access. Fixes #6-10 (schema, sitemaps, AISO) benefit from some HTML knowledge. Your AuditX report provides specific instructions for each.