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Where we started

Before any SEO work, this is what the custom analytics showed. The numbers are small enough that the problem is obvious: the site isn't being found. Not a conversion problem. A visibility problem.

Live Since upgraded tracking launched 22 May 2026 — loading…
Visits (new tracking)
From search
From social
Avg scroll depth
of those who scroll
Avg time on page
seconds

Baseline data below is from the pre-upgrade period (95 days to 22 May 2026, manual analytics).

74
Total visits
95 days
0.78
Visits per day
avg
5
From Google
6.8% of traffic
4
From Twitter/X
5.4% of traffic
2
From GitHub
2.7% of traffic
2.7%
Mobile visitors
2 of 74

Diagnosis: traffic is essentially zero from search. The site had been live for months with almost no organic visibility. Google was either not crawling the main service pages, or wasn't ranking them at all. We needed to find out which — and fix it.

Traffic sources (95-day window)

What the audit found

We ran a full technical SEO audit across the four main pages: homepage, Agentic Engineering, Automation, and the Websites demo. Here's what came back.

Finding Page(s) Severity Status
3 service pages missing from sitemap.xml — Google may never crawl them AE, Automation, Websites Critical Fixed
No H1 on flagship Agentic Engineering page agentic-engineering.html Critical Fixed
Homepage title 63 chars, truncated in Google SERPs (limit: 60) index.html High Fixed
Meta descriptions over 155 char limit on 3 pages (168, 174, 183 chars) Homepage, AE, Automation High Fixed
Automation H1 ("Small, sharp automations…") contains no searchable keyword automation.html High Fixed
Muted text contrast fails WCAG AA — rgba(241,241,241,0.4) on #000a1a = 3.3:1 (need 4.5:1) Homepage (12 instances) High Fixed
harbour-demo.html has no canonical tag and no schema harbour-demo.html Medium Fixed
Brand name inconsistency: "SolVX" / "SolvX" in schema and meta tags Automation, Homepage schema Medium Fixed
Sitemap lastmod dates all showing 2026-02-15 (stale) sitemap.xml Medium Fixed
Google Search Console not yet set up — no impression or ranking data Whole site High Pending

What we fixed

Nine issues fixed in a single session. These are table-stakes changes — Google won't rank pages it can't crawl, and it won't display truncated titles well. None of this creates traffic on its own, but without it, nothing else matters.

1. Sitemap rebuilt

The sitemap only listed lab and utility pages. The three main revenue pages had never been submitted to Google. Fixed by adding all service pages with current lastmod dates.

2. Homepage title

Before
solvX.uk — Agentic Engineering · Automation · Websites · Accounting
63 chars — truncated in SERPs. Brand-first, no keyword.
After
AI Services for UK Small Business | solvX
41 chars. Keyword-first. Within limit.

3. Meta descriptions trimmed to ≤155 chars

Agentic Engineering — Before
"Agentic engineering is the structured successor to vibe coding. solvX builds production-ready AI systems using orchestrated agents, human oversight, and real engineering discipline."
183 chars — Google truncates at 155.
After
"solvX builds production-ready AI systems using orchestrated agents and real engineering discipline. The structured alternative to vibe coding. UK-based."
152 chars.

4. H1 added to Agentic Engineering page

The flagship page had no H1 at all — headings jumped straight to H2. Added a visually-hidden H1 so Google reads it without disrupting the visual design.

/* CSS */ .visually-hidden { position: absolute; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0,0,0,0); } /* HTML */ <h1 class="visually-hidden">Agentic Engineering — AI Systems for UK Business</h1>

5. Contrast fixed — 12 instances

Low-opacity text (rgba(241,241,241,0.4)) on a near-black background blended to an effective grey that only achieved 3.3:1 contrast — below the 4.5:1 WCAG AA minimum. Raised opacity to 0.6–0.65 across 12 elements.

/* The contrast ratio formula */ ratio = (L_lighter + 0.05) / (L_darker + 0.05) /* rgba(241,241,241,0.4) on #000a1a */ effective colour ≈ #606670 → contrast: 3.3:1 ✗ FAIL /* rgba(241,241,241,0.65) on #000a1a */ effective colour ≈ #939EA8 → contrast: 7.1:1 ✓ PASS

Tracking from here

These technical fixes take 1–4 weeks for Google to re-crawl and process. The next update will include:

Next update scheduled

19 June 2026

4 weeks after fixes were deployed. Enough time for Google to re-crawl and data to stabilise.

The 10-point SEO checklist for sole traders

This is the same checklist we ran on solvX.uk. If you have a business website, run through these in order. Each one either passes or fails — no expertise needed.

  1. Is every page listed in your sitemap.xml? Find your sitemap at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Every page you want Google to index should be in there. If you don't have a sitemap, Google is finding your pages by luck.
  2. Is your homepage title 50–60 characters, keyword first? Count the characters in your <title> tag. Over 60 and Google truncates it. "Plumber in Bristol | Joe Smith" beats "Joe Smith — Certified Plumber, Bristol, Emergency Callouts".
  3. Is your meta description under 155 characters? Check <meta name="description"> on each page. Over 155 chars and Google cuts it off mid-sentence in search results. Aim for 140–155 chars with a clear reason to click.
  4. Does every page have exactly one H1, containing your main keyword? Right-click a page, View Source, search for <h1. There should be one. If there's zero, Google has less signal about what the page is for. If there are three, the signal is diluted.
  5. Does your H1 contain a phrase a real customer would search? Not your tagline ("Built with passion for excellence"). What does your customer actually type into Google? That phrase — or something close — should be in your H1.
  6. Does your page have schema markup? Right-click, View Source, search for "application/ld+json". If you find nothing, you're missing structured data that helps Google understand your business. At minimum: Organization or LocalBusiness.
  7. Do all images have descriptive alt text? Search your page source for <img. Any image without alt="" or with alt="" that's not decorative is invisible to Google. Describe what the image shows: "plumber fixing boiler in Bristol home".
  8. Does any text fail contrast? (The disappearing text test) Look at your page on a bright screen. Can you read every line of text easily? If any text looks faded, check the colour against the background at webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker. Minimum ratio: 4.5:1.
  9. Does your page have a canonical tag? Search your source for <link rel="canonical". It should point to the page's own URL. Missing canonical tags can cause Google to index the wrong version of a page.
  10. Is Google Search Console set up? search.google.com/search-console — free, and the only tool that shows you exactly what Google thinks about your site. Without it you're flying blind. Verify your site, submit your sitemap, check for crawl errors.

Want someone to run this for your site?

We audit small business websites and fix the issues we find — same process as above, done for you. Free 15-min call to start.

Book a free call Back to solvX

Updates

Every change made to the site — and the reasoning behind it — logged here in chronological order.

22 May 2026
Initial audit — 9 fixes deployed

Started tracking the site properly and ran the first full technical audit. The core problem was visibility: three service pages had never been added to sitemap.xml, meaning Google may never have crawled them. Also found a missing H1 on the flagship Agentic Engineering page, over-limit title and meta descriptions on multiple pages, and 12 instances of text failing WCAG AA contrast.

All 9 fixable issues were resolved in the same session. Google Search Console reconnection is pending — it was previously verified but fell out of use.

sitemap.xml rebuilt H1 added titles trimmed contrast fixed analytics upgraded
Next entry due 19 June 2026 — 4 weeks after fixes deployed. Will include Google Search Console data and traffic comparison.

Run this audit on your own site — free

Everything documented on this page is reproducible. The same checklist, the same contrast formula, the same schema templates — packaged as a free, open-source skill for Claude Code. You install it once and it runs on any website project you point it at.

The whole process takes about 10 minutes to set up. After that, a full 10-step audit is one command.

What you need
Claude Code subscription

Claude Code is a CLI that runs an AI agent alongside your code files. A subscription is required — a free tier exists but has limited usage. The Pro plan resets your usage every 5 hours.

Your site's HTML files

The skill reads your actual files — not a URL, not a pasted snippet. If your site is in a folder on your computer or in a Git repo, you're ready. On managed hosting (Wix, Squarespace, etc.)? See the section below.

Step 1 — Install Claude Code

Install the CLI via npm (requires Node 18+):

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Then start it and log in:

claude

This opens a browser login flow. Sign in with your Anthropic account. Once authenticated, Claude Code is ready in any terminal session.

You'll also need the GitHub CLI — for installing the skill and (optionally) contributing improvements. Paste this into a Claude Code session to have it install it for your OS:

Tell me how to install the GitHub CLI on my system, then install it.

On Mac it uses Homebrew. On Windows, winget or the MSI installer. On Linux, apt or rpm. Claude Code detects your OS and handles it.

Step 2 — Install the SEO skill

Skills live in a folder in your home directory and are available across every project. Open a Claude Code session and paste:

Create the directory ~/.claude/skills/seo/ if it doesn't exist, then download https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tradewithmeai/claude-seo-skill/main/SKILL.md into it.

Or manually:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/seo curl -o ~/.claude/skills/seo/SKILL.md \ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tradewithmeai/claude-seo-skill/main/SKILL.md

Step 3 — Run the audit

Open a Claude Code session in the folder containing your HTML files and type:

/seo

Or target specific pages:

/seo audit all pages /seo run audit on index.html and about.html /seo check contrast on homepage

Claude Code reads your files, runs all 10 checks, and outputs a findings report with severity levels and concrete fixes. To apply the fixes: "fix the critical and high issues" — it edits the files directly.

On Wix, Squarespace, or managed hosting?

You don't have HTML files to audit — you have a locked platform. Claude Code can fix that. It mirrors your live site, rebuilds it as clean HTML/CSS, and creates a GitHub repository you own. Once that's done, you run the audit on the clean files and you're free to host anywhere.

Usage note

Rebuilding a full site uses more of your 5-hour window than a normal audit — potentially half or more for a large site. It's a one-time cost. Once the repo exists, every future session costs a fraction of that. A site with 5 pages or fewer will use well under half a window.

Paste these prompts into a fresh Claude Code session, in order:

1 — Mirror the live site
I want to mirror my website at [yoursite.com] into a local folder so I can rebuild it as a code project. Use wget to download a full offline copy with all pages, images, CSS, and JS. Save it to a folder called site-mirror. Tell me if wget is not installed and how to install it first.
2 — Review and clean
Look at the site-mirror folder. List all the HTML pages you find. Identify any platform-specific scripts (Wix/Squarespace trackers, builder classes) and any pages that look like system pages rather than real content. Give me a summary before touching anything.
3 — Rebuild as clean HTML/CSS
Rebuild the site as a clean, self-contained HTML/CSS project in a folder called site-clean. Keep all real content exactly as it is. Remove platform tracking scripts, builder classes, and unnecessary external dependencies. Create a single styles.css for shared styles. The result should look identical to the original in a browser.
4 — Create the GitHub repo
Initialise a git repo in site-clean, create a GitHub repository called [your-site-name] under my account, and push the code. If I haven't authenticated with GitHub yet, prompt me to do that first.
5 — Run the audit
/seo audit all pages in site-clean

Benefits beyond the audit: you own the code, can host anywhere, can make any change directly, and have full version history in Git.

Step 4 — Contribute your findings

If the audit misses something on your site, finds a false positive, or you've improved a check — raise a pull request. The skill gets better with real-world use from real sites.

PR rule: no evidence, no merge

Every pull request must include before/after audit output from a real site showing the improvement. For contrast changes, include the computed ratios. Opinion-only PRs will be closed.

Ask Claude Code to handle the PR for you:

Fork https://github.com/tradewithmeai/claude-seo-skill, create a branch called fix/[description], make my changes to SKILL.md, then raise a pull request. Include the before/after audit output as evidence in the PR description.

View the skill on GitHub

SKILL.md, CLAUDE.md contributor guide, README — all open source.

View on GitHub

Want us to do it for you?

No time or subscription? We can run the audit and apply the fixes — or rebuild your site from managed hosting into a proper repo you own.

Book a free 15-min call