Stop Paying for Ads: 5 SEO Wins for £0
We get it. Watching money drain out of your business account into the pockets of massive ad platforms feels awful. You spend hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds a month, and the moment you turn the tap off, the traffic stops dead. It is exhausting, and quite frankly, unsustainable for most growing British businesses.
There is a better way. It involves building something that lasts, something that keeps working for you while you sleep, and best of all, it doesn't cost a penny to start. We are talking about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Now, before your eyes glaze over at the mention of "algorithms" or "backlinks," stop. We aren't asking you to learn code or spend six months studying technical manuals. We believe in practical, immediate action. So, put your wallet away. Here are five simple, high-impact changes you can make to your website this very afternoon to start climbing the rankings.
1. Speak Human, Not Robot
One of the biggest mistakes we see small business owners make is overthinking their keywords. They try to sound clever or "professional" by using industry jargon that nobody actually searches for. Or worse, they stuff their text with so many keywords that it reads like a broken sat-nav.
Google is smarter than that. In 2025, search engines care about intent. They want to know if you are answering the question a real human being is asking.
Go through your homepage and your main service pages. Read the headlines out loud. Do they sound like something a customer would say to a friend? If you sell bespoke cakes in Manchester, don't just say "Premium Confectionery Solutions." Say "Bespoke Birthday Cakes Made in Manchester."
It sounds simple, but clarity wins. When you write naturally for your customers, you are accidentally writing perfectly for Google.
2. Claim Your Digital Shop Window
If you haven't claimed your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business), you are leaving money on the table. This is the single most powerful tool for local SEO, and it is completely free.
For many of you running coffee shops, salons, or local consultancies, people aren't just searching for "best accountant." They are searching for "best accountant near me."
Take twenty minutes today to update your profile.
- Check your hours: Are they accurate for the upcoming Christmas break?
- Add photos: Real photos of your team, your shop floor, or your products. Avoid stock images; authenticity builds trust.
- Get reviews: Ask your three happiest clients from last week to leave a quick review.
This signals to search engines that you are active, legitimate, and ready for business. It is a quick win that puts you on the map—literally.
3. Fix Your Broken Links
Nothing annoys a potential customer (or a search engine bot) more than clicking a link and hitting a "404 Error – Page Not Found." It’s like walking into a shop and finding the shelves empty. It looks neglected.
When search engines crawl your site and find broken links, they assume your site is outdated or poorly maintained. This hurts your ranking.
You don't need expensive software to find these. There are plenty of free broken link checkers available online. Run your website URL through one of them. If you find a broken link, you have two choices: remove it or redirect it to a working page that is relevant.
Cleaning this up makes your site easier to navigate, which keeps visitors around longer. The longer they stay, the more search engines trust you.
4. Rename Your Images
Most people upload images straight from their phone or camera. This means your beautiful product photos are probably named something like IMG_8834_edit.jpg.
Google cannot "see" images the way we do. It relies on the filename and the "alt text" to understand what the picture is. If your file is named IMG_8834.jpg, Google has no idea if it’s a picture of a sausage roll or a suspension bridge.
Go into your website's media library. Rename those files to describe what they actually are. Change IMG_8834.jpg to handmade-leather-tote-bag-brown.jpg.
This is a tiny tweak that helps your images show up in Google Image Search, which can be a massive driver of traffic for retail businesses. It takes seconds per image but builds up a lot of SEO credit over time.
5. Answer the "People Also Ask" Questions
This is our favourite trick because it is effectively cheating on the test. Go to Google and search for your main service. For example, "dog grooming Leeds."
Scroll down a little bit. You will see a box that says "People also ask."
- "How often should a dog be groomed?"
- "How much is dog grooming in the UK?"
- "Do dog groomers bathe the dogs?"
These are the exact questions your potential customers are typing into their phones right now. Google is literally handing you the content strategy on a silver platter.
Pick three of these questions and write a simple, helpful blog post or FAQ section on your site that answers them. Don't try to sell immediately; just be helpful. When you answer the questions people are actually asking, you position yourself as the expert.
Consistency is Key
We know you are busy running the day-to-day operations. You’re handling staff, sorting out stock, and trying to get home at a reasonable hour. But these small tweaks don't require a marketing degree or a massive budget. They just require a little bit of time and a bit of care.
We founded this company because we saw brilliant business owners struggling to get noticed despite having amazing products. We realised that while you can do these manual fixes yourself (and you should!), the real challenge is keeping it up week after week.
Creating consistent, high-quality content that ranks is hard work. That's why we built a system that does the heavy lifting for you. We use AI to analyse your specific industry landscape and generate content that sounds exactly like you—friendly, professional, and unique.
If you tackle these five steps today, you will be ahead of 90% of your competitors. But if you want to turn that trickle of traffic into a flood without spending hours at a keyboard every week, we can help you take the next step.
You don't have to navigate the digital world alone. Let's get your business seen by the people who need you most.