What do the SEO Agency problem filters mean?

The 15 filters

• Needs SEO (Weak rankings): the site has basic SEO gaps you can fix. Flagged when the homepage takes more than 3,500 ms to start answering, no structured data is found, no blog or news section is linked, or the homepage has no title tag or no meta description. Despite the card's wording, this filter does not look up where the business ranks on Google.
• Weak Title Tag (Weak title tag): the homepage title does not tell Google what the business does. Flagged when there is no title tag, when the title is generic (under 4 characters, just a word such as Home, Welcome or Coming soon, or just the domain name), or when it mentions none of your search keywords and nothing from the business's Google category. Plurals, filler words and common trade synonyms are allowed for, and a title that leaves out the city is not flagged for that alone.
• Missing Meta Description (No meta description): Google has to write its own snippet for the result. Flagged when the homepage has no meta description.
• No Clear H1 (No clear H1): the page's main topic is unclear. Flagged when the homepage has no H1 heading, or more than one.
• Images Missing Alt Text (Images missing alt text): images Google cannot read. Flagged when the homepage has at least 4 images and half or more of them have no alt text.
• Thin Homepage Content (Thin homepage content): too little text to rank for anything. Flagged when the homepage has under 200 words of copy.
• Missing Schema (No schema markup): nothing that helps the business stand out in search results. Flagged when no structured data (JSON-LD or microdata) is found on the pages checked.
• Slow Website (Slow load time): visitors wait. Flagged when the homepage takes more than 3,500 ms (3.5 seconds) to start answering.
• Needs Blog Content (Stale / missing blog): no regular content. Flagged when no blog, news, articles, insights, resources or journal section is linked from the pages checked. How recently a blog was updated is not checked.
• Missing / Broken SSL (Not secure (no SSL)): browsers warn visitors the site is not secure. Flagged when the secure HTTPS version of the site is refused or broken and the site only answers over plain HTTP. If HTTPS simply times out, it is not flagged.
• Not Mobile Friendly (Not mobile friendly): the site may not fit a phone screen. Flagged when the homepage has no mobile viewport tag.
• Invisible to AI Search (No AI-search presence): AI assistants do not recommend the business. When the AI Invisibility Check has an answer for your search, flagged when the AI assistant did not name the business and cleared when it did. Without that answer, flagged when the site has no structured data and no llms.txt file.
• No Analytics (No analytics): the business cannot measure its visitors. Flagged when no analytics tag (Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Plausible, Matomo or Clarity) is found on the pages checked.
• No Video / YouTube (No video presence): no video to build trust. Flagged when the pages checked have no link to YouTube and no embedded YouTube video.
• Domain Expiring Soon (Domain expiring soon): the domain is close to its expiry date, a timely reason to get in touch. Flagged when the domain's public registry record shows it expires within the next 45 days.

Shared with other agency types

• Slow Website, Missing / Broken SSL, Not Mobile Friendly and Domain Expiring Soon also appear under Web Design / Dev.
• Invisible to AI Search also appears under AI Automation Agency.
• No Analytics also appears under Ads / PPC Agency.
• No Video / YouTube also appears under Social / Influencer.

The other 8 cards appear only under SEO Agency (and All Agency Types).

Good to know

• "The pages checked" means the homepage plus up to 3 more of the site's pages, such as its contact, about and booking pages. See Which pages of a website does the audit check?
• Every check on the website itself needs a site that answered. A business with no website, a site that could not be reached, or one that showed a bot-protection page instead of its content gets none of these problems, apart from Invisible to AI Search when the AI answer settles it.
• When the audit cannot fully confirm that something is missing (such as schema, a blog, analytics or an H1), for example because the site builds its pages with JavaScript or a site builder, the problem goes into the lead's Worth a look, not verified box. It still gets the lead onto your list, but it is kept out of the score, your emails and the proof page until a later check confirms it.
• Slow Website, Missing / Broken SSL and Domain Expiring Soon are measured directly, so they are never placed in that box.