The simplest SEO fix we’ve made this year

Tom here from SEO Growth.

There’s a myth in SEO that everything has to be complicated.

AI tools. Content clusters. Backlink outreach strategies.

But half the time, the thing holding a site back is stupidly simple.

A few weeks back, we took on a new client, a local business, a good team, and a clean-looking site. But they weren’t getting any leads.

No red flags in Search Console. No site errors. Just... nothing happening.

So we dug in.

The problem? No proper heading on the homepage.

What looked like a nice big heading at the top of the site wasn’t a heading at all. It was just a paragraph tag with some styling.

To Google, it basically read like body text.

We swapped it for a real H1 and used the main service + location:
“Roof Restoration in Newcastle”

That’s it. No 2000-word blog. No link building. No AI wizardry.

What happened next?

Within 3 weeks:

• Their impressions doubled

• A couple of top-10 rankings appeared

• Three new enquiries came through the site

All from one tag.

Why it worked

Google relies on signals. It needs to know what your page is about. If your homepage doesn’t clearly state that, especially in a proper HTML heading, you're making its job harder.

We see this all the time:

• Homepages with no H1s

• Headings hidden in sliders or images

• Paragraphs pretending to be headings

And it’s not just a technical thing. It’s a clarity thing.

If your site doesn’t know what it’s about, why should Google?

Quick things you can check

If you want to do a quick check on your own site, here’s what to look at:

• Does your homepage have a proper H1 tag?

• Is that H1 using your primary keyword and location?

• Are there multiple H1s competing for attention? (There should only be one)

• Are you using headings to clearly structure your content? (H2s and H3s can help)

You don’t need fancy tools for this; just right-click the page and inspect the code, or use a browser extension like Web Developer or Detailed.

Might help you too.

Cheers,
Tom

Bonus: Is your homepage easy to read?

If your H1 is clear, great. But what about the rest of your copy?

We use a free Reading Age Checker to determine if the content is comprehensible at a glance to both humans and Google.

Most high-performing pages sit around Year 7–9 level.
If your homepage reads like an academic paper, it’s time to simplify.

You can test your site here:
Reading Age Checker