5 SEO Fixes You Can Make Today (No Tech Expertise Required)

You know your organization does important work. We know your organization does important work. But if people can’t find you online, how will they know?

The answer isn’t necessarily hiring an SEO expert or spending weeks overhauling your website to make meaningful improvements to your search visibility.

In just one afternoon, you can implement these five high-impact SEO improvements that will help more people discover the good work you’re already doing. No technical expertise required. Just a few hours of focused effort and a commitment to helping your mission reach those who need it most.

---

Quick Win #1: Optimize Your Homepage Title and Meta Description

Why it matters: Your title tag and meta description are essentially your “ad” in search results. They determine whether someone scrolls past or clicks through to your site.

Most mission-driven organizations make the same mistake: generic titles like “Welcome to Our Organization” that say nothing about who they serve or how they help. Let’s fix that in under 20 minutes.

How to craft effective titles and descriptions:

1. For your title tag (50–60 characters):
   • Start with your primary service or value proposition
   • Include who you serve
   • End with your organization name
   • Use this formula: “What You Do for Who You Serve – Organization Name”
   • Include your primary keyword naturally near the beginning
2. For your meta description (130–155 characters):
   • Start with an action verb that speaks to your mission
   • Highlight your main value proposition and a specific benefit
   • Include a secondary keyword naturally
   • End with a simple call to action
   • Focus on what makes your organization uniquely valuable

Before and after example:

• Before title: “Welcome to Squirrels for Sustainable Acorn Harvesting”
• After title: “Promoting Sustainable Forest Management Through Squirrel-Led Conservation – SSAH”
• Before description: “The SSAH website”
• After description: “Helping squirrels protect forest ecosystems through sustainable acorn collection techniques, reforestation projects, and community education. Join 500+ bushy-tailed conservationists making an impact.”

Time required: 15–20 minutes

---

Quick Win #2: Perform a Speed Check and Optimize Images

Why it matters: Slow websites frustrate visitors and are penalized in search rankings. Google’s data shows that 53% of mobile visitors abandon sites that take more than 3 seconds to load. Fortunately, one of the easiest ways to improve speed is to optimize your images.

How to do it:

1. Check your current speed:
   • Visit Google PageSpeed Insights
   • Enter your website URL and click “Analyze”
   • Review your mobile and desktop scores
   • Note the “Opportunities” section which identifies specific issues

Warning: This tool might hurt your feelings a bit. Even the most beautiful websites get mediocre scores. We’re just looking for the big issues.

2. Optimize your images – the quickest speed win:
   • Download 5–10 of your largest images (often found on your homepage and key landing pages)
   • Use a WordPress plugin like ShortPixel to automatically optimize them, or compress them with a free tool like TinyPNG or Compressor.io
   • These tools can reduce file size by 60–80% with no visible quality loss
3. Still having speed problems?
   • If you have any auto-playing videos, make sure they’re served from an optimized provider (like YouTube or Vimeo), rather than directly from your web server.
   • Consider replacing image sliders/carousels with a single impactful image

DIY vs. Get Help: Focus on image optimization yourself, but flag these for your web partner’s help:

• Plugin updates or removals
• Complex JavaScript errors
• Render-blocking resource issues
• Server response time problems

Time required: 30–45 minutes

---

Quick Win #3: Create One FAQ Page That Answers Real Questions

Why it matters: A well-designed FAQ page can rank for dozens of search terms while directly addressing your audience’s needs. Google often features FAQ content in “featured snippets” at the top of search results.

How to do it:

1. List 10 questions your organization is most frequently asked. Check emails, social media, and what staff members hear repeatedly.
2. Group related questions together.
3. Write clear, concise answers (3–5 sentences each).
4. Format properly with each question as a heading (usually an H2 or H3) and answer as regular text below.
5. Add internal links from answers to relevant service/program pages on your site.

SEO power boost: Add FAQ schema markup using a free generator like FAQ Schema Generator, which helps Google understand and potentially feature your content.

Example transformation:

• Generic FAQ: “What is your organization’s mission?”
• Optimized FAQ: “How does Squirrels for Sustainable Acorn Harvesting protect forest ecosystems?”
• Generic answer: “We help squirrels collect acorns.”
• Optimized answer: “Squirrels for Sustainable Acorn Harvesting trains local squirrel communities in selective harvesting techniques that ensure sufficient acorns remain for forest regeneration. Our conservation programs establish protected collection zones while teaching sustainable caching methods that improve seedling germination rates. Participating forest areas have seen a 40% increase in oak sapling survival rates while maintaining healthy squirrel populations.”

Time required: 45–60 minutes

---

Quick Win #4: Add Alt Text to Your Top 20 Images

Why it matters: Alt text helps search engines understand your images, improves accessibility for visitors using screen readers, and gives you opportunities to rank in image searches.

How to do it:

1. Identify your 20 most important images (homepage, program pages, about page)
2. Write descriptive alt text using this formula: “Description of image + mission context + organization name if relevant”
3. Keep alt text under 125 characters
4. Include relevant keywords naturally

SEO Pro Tip: Rename your image files before uploading. Instead of “IMG_4289.jpg,” use descriptive filenames like “squirrel-conservation-workshop.jpg.”

Good vs. bad examples:

• Bad: “img_29458.jpg” or “team photo”
• Good: “Squirrel conservation team demonstrating sustainable acorn collection techniques at SSAH’s forest workshop”
• Bad: “Our logo”
• Good: “Squirrels for Sustainable Acorn Harvesting logo featuring an oak leaf and squirrel silhouette”

Time required: 20–30 minutes

---

Quick Win #5: Fix Your Top 10 Broken Internal Links

Why it matters: Broken links frustrate visitors, waste your site’s “crawl budget,” and signal poor maintenance to search engines and users alike.

How to do it:

1. Use a free tool like Broken Link Checker to scan your site
2. In particular, you’re looking for internal links: In other words, links to pages within your own website that may have been moved or retired
3. Your result might include an overwhelming number of broken links. While it would be ideal to fix them all, start by focusing on fixing just the top 10 broken links on your most important pages
4. For each broken link, either:
   • Restore the missing content if it was accidentally removed
   • Redirect to the most relevant existing page
   • Update the link to a working page
   • Remove the link entirely if no good alternative exists
5. Run a quick check to confirm your fixes worked

Pro tip: If you use Google Analytics, check your 404 (Page Not Found) report under Behavior → Site Content → All Pages to see which broken links people are actually hitting.

Time required: 20–30 minutes

---

The Power of Small, Consistent Improvements

Congratulations! You’ve made meaningful progress toward helping more squirrels find acorns. You’ve also helped people find your mission online. In just one afternoon, you’ve improved how you appear in search results, fixed critical technical issues, and set up tools to guide your future efforts.

The most successful mission-driven organizations don’t treat SEO as a one-time project but as an ongoing process of small improvements. Consider scheduling a monthly “SEO hour” to build on this foundation, perhaps focusing on optimizing one important page or creating one new piece of content that answers a common question.

Perfect SEO isn’t the goal. Every small improvement you make connects more people to the important work you do. That’s what really matters.

Ready to level up your SEO efforts?

Schedule an SEO audit with our team to start driving the right traffic to your site.

Connect with our team