r/WebsiteSEO

Hey everyone,
I’m a college student and I’ve been building a small startup called DelhiUniNest. It’s a platform to help students find verified PGs and accommodation near Delhi University.
The website is live, but I’m struggling with SEO. Right now, if someone searches my brand name without typing .com or .in, or searches relevant keywords, my website doesn’t show up the way I expected.
I’ve already connected Google Search Console and I’m trying to learn SEO on my own, but I feel like I’m missing something important.
I’m wondering if there’s anyone here who’s experienced with technical SEO and would be willing to spend 20–30 minutes looking at my website and pointing out what I’ve done wrong. I’m not asking for a full SEO service, just some guidance.
Since this is a bootstrapped student startup, I genuinely can’t afford to hire an SEO expert right now. If anyone is willing to help for free, I’d be incredibly grateful. Your advice could honestly make a huge difference.
Thank you so much for reading, and thanks in advance to anyone who reaches out. ❤️

I Need some Honest Opinions if I'm doing it right

Asking all the experts here, I'll keep it short,

Around 5 months ago i've started working for a big Ecommerce site, How big? they have 1500 Active Categories and Sub-categories. also, around 300K Products on the site. I work as a On-page SEO Specialist and my main job is Category Page Optimization but i also do Technical SEO and Backlinks, because i'm the Only guy in this company who does SEO. Marketing and Content have their own tasks.

It's been 5 months and i do have a Strategy on how to optimize the website but what makes me anxious is how freakin slow everything is going. let me first explain what im doing:

**Category Descriptions:**

* Do Keyword research for each Product category and find best commercial/transactional keywords.

* Analyze my competitors, what keywords they rank on and check their category descriptions.

* Write Category Descriptions with search intent on our product catalogue, the brands we offer, features, why they must buy from us and with a FAQ at the end.

* add anchor links in the text linking to related categories and accessories (No dead-end pages).

* Usual H1-H5 Hierarchy with most important keywords.

* Make sure its all original with duplicate checkers.

* Make sure theres max amount of anchor links to link categories and product pages with eachother.

* Make sure the category text is at least as long as the competitots text (i know, being informative is more important).

* Optimize Product category names (Clear and straight forward keywords).

**Blog Articles:**

Usually, Do keyword research and write "How To" "Guide" and "Top" blog articles about products, add links to our categories. High quality Original Pics keywords on their name and alt tags.

Now, things that are not addressed because the Web Devs are "Too Busy".

**Technical SEO:**

Usual, Lighthouse optimization, Schema markups, addressing slow pages and stuff like that.

One big issue the website has is that with pagination, the category texts keep repeating, so the same category text appears on page 1 and 20.

Find Duplicate category pages and redirect canonical tags to the "dominant" page.

NOTE: If there are two pages with same name but in different category trees, than it doesnt count as Duplicate.

**Backlinks:**

Of course, no onpage SEO is enough to defeat a competitor with 10 Quality backllinks targeting straight to their page, so we need backlinks but so far the budget hasnt been thought of.

**So, Whats the problem?**

So far, i've managed to optimize 80 Categories and most of them like 60% have improved, some big categories like Bathtubs and Construction instruments managed to rank #1 on main keywords and most articles i've wrote are on top 3.

What makes me anxious is how freakin slow everything is going, How many things should be addressed, also idk which to focus on, internal linking? text? blogs? theres so many on this gigantic website, idk how to split my working days. I keep telling my boss how important Technical SEO and backlinks are but he's also very busy and keeps promising that it will all be done.

**What im asking?**

I do have SEO experience but i worked for smaller ecommerce sites, this site is huge and im worried if im doing something wrong, maybe i need to rely more on AI prompts to speed up my work? maybe i 100% need to focus on internal linking first? maybe Tech SEO doesnt really matter that much now.

For service-based companies. Does it work for you to have multiple service pages with different city names? Or does Google mark you down for that?

For example
Service A (hub page)
- Service A City 1
- Service A City 2
- Service A City 3
Etc

Need web hosting for a project where committing to a year upfront doesn't make sense. most of the budget hosts push you toward annual plans with big discounts that disappear on renewal anyway.

Looking for something with decent performance, not just a cheap shared host that's slow, on a genuine month to month basis without a penalty for leaving.

Which web hosting providers are people using on month to month terms that are actually reliable? and is the price premium for monthly billing worth it or are there providers where the monthly rate is reasonable?

We're a small SaaS company and have been investing in content and link building, but I'm looking at other ways to strengthen our SEO over time. I keep seeing press release distribution recommended as part of a broader SEO strategy, but it's hard to tell how much value it actually adds beyond announcing company news.

If you've used a press release for your business, did it contribute anything meaningful to your SEO, or was the biggest benefit simply getting the announcement out there?

I'm new to eCommerce and researching different website builders for an online store.

Shopify seems to be the platform everyone recommends, but Im looking if there are better alternatives in 2026, especially when it comes to SEO.

For those who have actually used Shopify or platforms like WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, BigCommerce, or others, what has your experience been like? How do they compare in terms of SEO, ease of use, customization, costs, and overall performance as a store grows?

If you were starting a new online store today, would you still choose Shopify, or would you go with something else?

Feels like there's been a constant stream of google algorithm updates over the past year and every time one drops my twitter feed turns into a panic spiral of people claiming their traffic tanked or recovered.

I try to stay informed but it's hard to separate signal from noise. half the "analysis" i read is just people pattern matching their own traffic data and calling it a confirmed update impact.

What's your actual process for tracking and responding to algorithm updates?

And do you make immediate changes when an update drops or wait to see how things settle before touching anything?

Helping a small business owner who is set on either shopify or godaddy for their online store and i'm struggling to give them a clean answer. Godaddy has come a long way as a website builder but i still have reservations about it for anything serious from an SEO and ecommerce standpoint.

Shopify feels like the obvious answer for ecommerce but the monthly costs add up quickly for a store that is just starting out and not yet generating consistent revenue.

What would you actually recommend between shopify and godaddy for a small store that is just getting started?

And are there situations where godaddy is actually the better call or is shopify almost always the right answer for ecommerce?

So, we were making regular blogs for some time, we used template for them. Saw great growth and nice impressions (but clicks rarely grew). Since this feb ending, our growth has been going down, rn, its 80% down, we are freaking out. We are correcting landing pages that lost he most impressions and clicks, slowly rewriting blogs and redirecting them. Its weird we dont even see a single upward trend, not even for a week. Im super worried and need some advice, ideas, checks, possible issues, etc.

Sorry for my typing and sentences, been trying to do all and everything but im just getting very confused.
I also found that this reduced growth also concides with the google's new update around EEAT. I'm suspecting its something related to content being detected lacking depth. But should I also focus branded mentions, new content, aggressive social media, UGC, etc.

Do you think it's still worth investing your time and effort in SEO? Since AI Overviews and Gemini are pulling authoritative answers and sources directly into the first result, the incentive for users to click through seems drastically lower, I'm guessing even the #1 organic results aren't getting the traffic they used to.

​What do you guys think? SEO no longer works, or just evolving?

One thing freelancing has taught me:

Almost every business owner asks, How long will SEO take?

Very few ask, What should we fix first?

The truth is, I can't answer the first question without answering the second.

Before discussing timelines or pricing, I always want to understand:

• What technical issues exist?
• Is the site structure right?
• Which pages have the biggest opportunity?
• Who are the real competitors?

A quick audit usually tells me far more than a long sales call.

Every website is different, and so is every SEO strategy.

How do you approach new SEO projects?

Hi guys! So I am currently optimising my website’s homepage and I have a blog article section in the homepage. Does having descriptions for each blog card help in terms of SEO/AEO/GEO? Like provide genuine impact? And is it okay to use that blog card description section instead to put my keywords? Instead of having other sections where I can put keywords do avoid it being cluttered?

And will having blog card descriptions help my homepage get cited/ranked?

Need your guys advice thanks!

So, for SAB - how do you strategize the homepage layout?

How many sections and what are they?

Is it YouTube, Wikipedia, PR mentions, entities, schema, site authority, or just being everywhere? If you’ve noticed your brand show up more, what changed?

Do you use Claude for SEO? If yes, in what ways?

I’m researching SaaS link building agencies and the market feels noisy

A lot of providers still lead with “high DR backlinks”, but for SaaS that feels too shallow. I care more about contextual placements, category relevance, anchor strategy, and whether the links help target pages actually move..

What I’m looking for:

• relevant SaaS/category placements
• no PBNs or link farms
• backlink audit before outreach
• natural anchor mix
• transparent reporting

some understanding of AI visibility and brand mentions. GoPeak is one I came across because they seem more focused on contextual SaaS link building and AI visibility rather than just bulk links...

Has anyone worked with them or similar SaaS-focused agencies?

What would you check before signing?

Hi,

We all know generic advice : "write high quality content" and "optimize your meta tags".

But what is the one specific, data-backed SEO tactic or minor tweak that actually triggered massive, noticeable spike in your traffic?

I'm talking about the stuff people rarely mention - like a specific internal linking structure, a crawl budget cleanup, or schema markup trick, or a shift in how you target keyword intent.

Let's skip the basic beginner fluff. What was the single game-changer for your site, and what kind of impact did it have?

Except Ahrefs, Semrush which tools you are using to chcek the rank