Website Guides: SEO, Performance, and Audit Tips
SEO fixes, performance improvements, audit walkthroughs, and conversion tips -- written for everyone responsible for a website, not just SEO pros. While you're here, see exactly where your own site stands.
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Featured
Why New Pages Disappear From Your Prerender Pipeline
You add a new marketing page, deploy it, and everything looks fine in the browser. But crawlers and AI fetchers see an empty HTML shell. The page was never added to the prerender route list, and nothing in the build warned you.
Read articleFeatured Series
A multi-part series on AI visibility and making sure your content can be discovered by AI tools.
All Articles
What we've found building a diagnostic tool for the real web, plus practical guides for fixing what's broken.
Inside Stackra
How We Made AI Persona Scoring Trustworthy
Three AI personas (CMO, SEO, CTO) each contribute 30% of their pillar score. That's real influence. We had to earn the right to rely on it.
What We Found When We Audited Our Own Website
We run stackra.app through our own tool regularly. Here is a roundup of the performance issues we found and fixed, with before-and-after numbers for each one.
How We Optimized Stackra for GEO: A Before and After
Before we shipped the GEO audit module, we ran the scan on Stackra's own site. Here is what it found and the four concrete changes we made in response.
Why New Pages Disappear From Your Prerender Pipeline
You add a new marketing page, deploy it, and everything looks fine in the browser. But crawlers and AI fetchers see an empty HTML shell. The page was never added to the prerender route list, and nothing in the build warned you.
Prerender vs SSR: A Decision Guide for Your Team
If your site is invisible to ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity, the standard advice is to migrate to a server-rendered framework. That is sometimes the right call. Often it is overkill. Here is the short version of how to decide.
How We Reduced Our Logo Image Size by 99 Percent
We found a 350KB unoptimized PNG logo on our own homepage. Converting it to WebP and resizing brought it to 2.4KB, a 99 percent reduction. Here is what we did and what to look for on your own site.
The Scroll Animation That Was Hiding Our LCP Element
Mobile LCP of 6-7 seconds. Server response of 72ms. The problem was a scroll animation hiding our primary heading at opacity 0 until JavaScript hydrated. Here is what we found and how we fixed it.
GEO & AI Visibility
Why Doesn't AI Mention My Business?
Most businesses searching this question are looking in the wrong place. Training data cutoffs are rarely the issue. Here is what actually determines whether AI mentions your business.
Is Your Website Blocking ChatGPT? How to Check Your Robots.txt
A surprising number of small business websites are accidentally invisible to AI search. The fix takes five minutes. Here is exactly how to check and what to do if your site is blocking AI crawlers.
What Is GEO? Generative Engine Optimization Explained
AI search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews generate answers from websites they can read and understand. GEO is the practice of making your site one of them.
What Stackra Detects for GEO, and Why It Is Different
Most audit tools show a raw schema list and call it a GEO check. Stackra splits signals into four groups by function: bot access per crawler, schema by purpose, entity clarity with confidence, and supporting infrastructure.
GEO for Small Businesses: What You Can Actually Do
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews pull answers from websites. Whether your site gets cited depends partly on your platform. Here is what you can actually do on WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace.
How Audits Actually Work
Why Most Website Audit Reports Are Useless (And What to Look for Instead)
You ran a website audit and got back 200 issues. Now what? Most audit reports create confusion, not clarity. Here's what to look for in a report that's actually useful.
What Is a Growth Readiness Score?
A Growth Readiness Score tells you how prepared your website is to support real business growth, not just whether it has clean HTML.
Website Audit Tools: Semrush, Ahrefs, and 4 Alternatives
Six tools. Different strengths, different price points, different audiences. Here is what each one does well and where it falls short.
What Is a Good Website Score? Website Grading Explained
Is a 72 good? Is a B enough? Your website score means nothing if you don't know what's behind it. Here's how to read it, and use it to actually improve your site.
Performance
CMS Platform Performance Benchmarks 2026
Your platform sets a performance ceiling before you touch a single setting. Here is where WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, HubSpot CMS, and Duda actually land on Core Web Vitals, and why it matters more than most site owners realize.
Website Performance Benchmarks: How Does Your Site Compare?
You know your website should be fast. But how fast is fast enough? Here are the actual benchmarks that matter, and where most small business websites fall.
Why Is My Website So Slow? How to Fix It Without a Developer
If you've ever wondered "why is my website so slow?" the answer is probably simpler than you think. Here are the most common causes and fixes you can do yourself.
How to Read Google PageSpeed Insights: What the Scores Mean
PageSpeed Insights gives every website a score and a long list of recommendations. Here is what the score actually measures and which fixes move the needle.
SEO & Mobile
16 SEO Truths Most Small Business Owners Never Get Told
A field guide from one week of real SEO and AI search work. No fluff, no agency upsell. The sixteen things most small business owners are never told and would benefit most from knowing.
How to Fix SEO Issues on Your Small Business Website
If your business isn't showing up on Google, the problem is usually a handful of fixable SEO issues. Here's what to look for and exactly how to fix each one.
Internal Linking Strategy for Small Business Websites
Internal links are one of the few SEO levers you fully control. Here is how to connect your pages so search engines and customers can find what matters.
How to Make Your Website Mobile Friendly for SEO
Google ranks the mobile version of your site first. That has been the default since 2020. If your pages are slow, hard to tap, or break on small screens, you are losing rankings before a visitor even sees your offer.
What Small Businesses Get Wrong About SEO
Most SEO advice is written for big companies with big budgets. Here's what actually works for small businesses, and the common mistakes that waste your time.
Schema Markup for Small Business Websites: What It Is and What to Add
Schema markup is the structured data that helps Google and AI systems understand your business. Here is which types small businesses need and how to add them.
Google Business Profile: The Highest-Leverage Local SEO Move
If you serve customers in a physical place, your Google Business Profile probably drives more search traffic than your website does. Here is the complete setup, what to fill in, what to skip, and the posting cadence that actually moves rankings.
Conversions & Growth
How to Know If Your Website Is Costing You Leads
Your website might look fine to you. But if visitors aren't turning into customers, something is broken. Here's how to spot the warning signs.
10 Quick Website Fixes That Actually Increase Conversions
More traffic doesn't help if your website isn't converting. These 10 fixes focus on turning the visitors you already have into actual customers.
How to Improve Your Website Without Starting Over
Before you spend thousands on a redesign, try these improvements. Most small business websites don't need to be rebuilt. They need a few key fixes.
Analytics & Measurement
What Is Google Analytics 4 for Small Business
GA4 is Google's free analytics platform. Here is what it actually tracks, which two reports matter most for a small business, and how to get started without a marketing background.
What Is Google Search Console for Small Business
Google Search Console tells you how Google sees your site: which pages are indexed, what queries are bringing visitors, and what technical errors are blocking your rankings.
How to Read Google Analytics Without a Marketing Degree
The GA4 dashboard is overwhelming the first time you open it. This guide cuts through the noise and shows you the four reports and five numbers that give you a complete picture of how your site is performing.
GA4 and Google Search Console Setup Checklist
Two free Google tools, one hour of setup, permanent visibility into who visits your site from search and what they do when they get there. This checklist walks through every step.
Is AI Sending Traffic to My Website?
As of May 2026, GA4 tracks AI-driven traffic in its own channel. Here is how to check your numbers, why they are probably an undercount, and what makes a site more likely to get cited by AI tools.
Google Analytics Now Has a Dedicated AI Traffic Channel
On May 13, 2026, Google Analytics added a dedicated channel for AI-driven traffic. Here is what changed, what the three new identifier values mean, and how to read the number your account is actually showing you.
Search Console, GA4, and Bing Webmaster Tools: Setup and Features Guide
Three free tools cover where your traffic comes from, what visitors do, and how search engines see your site. Here is what each one does, how to set it up from scratch, and how Stackra uses them.
Checklists & Basics
Website Audit Checklist for Small Businesses
Think of this as a website health check you can do yourself. Most small business websites have fixable problems hiding in plain sight. This checklist helps you find them.
Website Health Check: What to Look for and Why It Matters
You take your car in for service. You get annual checkups. Your website needs the same attention. Here's what a website health check actually covers.
7 Website Mistakes That Cost Small Businesses Customers
These 7 mistakes show up on the majority of small business websites we've analyzed. Every one of them is costing you customers, and every one is fixable.