01.00Steve Bailey : SEO Freelance Services
What Search Services Do I Offer?
Explore each specialised SEO service below or use the search box to find specific capabilities like Migrations, Page Speed, Indexation, or Google EEAT.
FREELANCE SEARCHStrategy & Consulting
Freelance Search Services
Direct senior expertise and 20 years of bespoke search performance
Ultimately the aim of search optimisation is to outperform your competitors in search results and that has been my job for the last 20 years. With the introduction of AI search, rather than shrink, this work has grown in scope with new search tools emerging and changing at an incredibly fast pace.
The first, most important step is understanding your business and your needs. Then we can put together a plan to deliver your organic search growth.
As a freelancer I can offer all of the main staples of agency level SEO support with time generally split between:
- Technical SEO
- On-page content optimisation and recommendations
- Competitor analysis
- AI & Search Engine landscape insights
- Tracking & Reporting
I’ve worked with all types of businesses, from start ups to global corporations. The aims remain the same - offering you exceptional value and building a great working relationship.
TAILORED CONSULTANCYDiscuss Search Services
TECHNICAL AUDITTechnical & Infrastructure
Technical SEO Audits
Uncovering search roadblocks in website code across traditional and AI platforms
Auditing websites for technical SEO issues is a staple of SEO work. If you have received a comprehensive audit previously then you may not need another. The aims of these audits is to discover roadblocks to success in search that are contained in your website’s code.
I review sites for a host of technical issues and provide detailed reports that include how to fix any problems discovered across established platforms (Shopify, Magento, WordPress, Sitecore, Drupal, Wix, Squarespace) and modern AI-generated codebases (Claude, Antigravity).
Recently there has been a growth in websites created using AI tools such as Claude and Antigravity. This site is itself an example of that. They can still be audited, and there is an argument that it is more necessary to do so. AI can build a site that looks the part, but it doesn’t always adhere to guidelines for search indexing.
My audits include (but aren’t limited to) the full code and infrastructure scope below, with structured findings and direct developer consultation.
TECHNICAL AUDIT SCOPE & DELIVERABLES
36 AUDIT CHECKS
Indexation Search EnginesCRAWL & BOTS
Full crawlCanonical SettingsFilter HandlingDomain SettingsGSC Indexing ReviewRobots.txtSitemapsURL StructureError HandlingRendering AnalysisHREFLang Analysis
AI AccessibilityLLM VISIBILITY
GeminiGPTOthers on request
Internal LinkingARCHITECTURE
Broken linksOrphaned pagesCrawl DepthMissed Opportunities
Site SpeedCORE WEB VITALS
Core Web VitalsRender BlockingCritical Path AnalysisNetwork DependenciesFont Rendering
Code Bloat (Desktop/Mobile)ASSET WEIGHT
File WeightViewport CSSUnused CSSUnused JS
Resource & DNSNETWORK & CDN
DNS requestsFont requestsCDN usage
Agentic BrowsingAUTONOMOUS AGENTS
Agent-Centric Accessibility
SchemaSTRUCTURED DATA
Business, Product, ArticleSector specific
Image DeliveryMEDIA SERVING
Lazy LoadingImage File SizeMobile SRCSET
TYPICAL DELIVERYCORE DELIVERABLES
Key findings presentation
Executive deck summarizing highest-priority findings and strategic roadmap
Full findings & recommendations spreadsheet
Granular, itemised technical action list for developers
Client/Dev Meetings
Direct walkthrough & technical Q&A with your internal or external engineers
TAILORED CONSULTANCYRequest an Audit
CONTENT STRATEGYContent & Optimization
User First SEO Content Strategy
Conversion-focused content pipelines instead of vanity traffic
I’m a firm believer in user conversion focused content strategy. Chasing traffic is often a vanity project. Your real objective of finding new customers, be it for lead gen or product sales, needs content that has a clear point of conversion.
Your primary content strategy should start and end with developing what you say about your service offering.
Work begins with understanding your customers needs, reviewing what works best in your sector and establishing a detailed understanding of the search landscape.
Different sectors require different solutions. Some are highly regulated and require delicate management of content. Perhaps case studies are highly influential, or testimonials or maybe it is addressing customer pain points to reduce user friction points.
I deliver content strategies that are deeply rooted in your customer needs and the opportunities within your industry. It will lead with your strengths and help to develop your search footprint.
CONTENT STRATEGY SCOPE & DELIVERABLES
USER-FIRST & AI INTEGRATED
Sector KnowledgeLANDSCAPE & DISCOVERY
Understanding search landscapeContent ranking review inc competitorOpportunity discovery
AI Considerations ReviewPRE-PURCHASE HIGHLIGHTS
Pre-purchase AI highlights i.e. costs, security, delivery
Meta Data & Key SignalsSIGNALS & STRUCTURE
Meta DataHeadingsURLs
Page OptimisationTRANSACTIONAL & EEAT
Service & Product transactional pagesCase study & ArticlesPage structureDemonstration of EEATCTA review
AI BUYER CONSIDERATIONS
STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE"Even for a basic search AI will often highlight important considerations before making a purchase or choosing a service provider. Content should engage with these highlights."
Conversational AI EngagementPre-Purchase Guidance
USEFUL / REQUIRED ASSETS
PROJECT INPUTSClient briefKey search areasRanking dataGA4, GSC accessCTA / conversion value
Prerequisites & InputsCollaborative Setup
TYPICAL DELIVERYCORE DELIVERABLES
Key findings presentation
Executive walkthrough of sector search landscape & content gaps
Recommendations for existing content
Actionable optimisation updates for transactional & key pages
Content Strategy
Holistic roadmap matching customer intent, EEAT & conversion points
Client Meetings
Collaborative strategy sessions, planning & delivery reviews
TAILORED CONSULTANCYDevelop Strategy
ON-PAGE & AIContent & Optimization
Page Optimisation for Users & Search
Intent matching, copy restructuring and AI overview visibility
A staple of search engine optimisation and one that is also highly relevant to AI assistants and AI overviews. Writing great content involves understanding who you are writing for, what they want to achieve and how to match those expectations.
Page optimisation for search goes way beyond keyword research and dropping in a few optimised sub-headings. To do this right you need someone to review what currently impacts rankings in that search space.
The best way to do this is a pipeline of understanding the user intent, reviewing what appears in search results, identifying gaps in your content, proposing updates to copy, rewriting key elements and potentially restructuring the content to make it more accessible.
It’s a complex process designed to put the user first and it gives your content the best chance at competing for visibility within search results.
I use a variety of techniques to pull information together and apply my 20 years experience to provide clients with highly tailored, sector specific optimised pages.
TAILORED CONSULTANCYOptimise Content
AI SEARCH & AEOAI & Generative Search
AI Search Optimisation (AEO, GEO, AIO)
Positioning your brand for Answer Engines, Generative Search & AI Overviews
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), AIO (AI Overview Optimisation) - there are a lot of new acronyms being used. What they all have in common is they focus on understanding how to position your business in a way that AI will be more likely to recommend your services and do so in a positive fashion.
Being recommended at the point of conversion is the ultimate aim and it has become a critical part of the work that I do.
It is an extension of SEO rather than a replacement and thankfully many SEO techniques lend themselves to the process of optimising for AI search.
I investigate how businesses perform in responses found in AI overviews and AI assistants (Gemini, Copilot and ChatGPT). By looking at query fan out, sentiment, citations and brand visibility we can build up a picture of what matters to AI search tools and get to work on better positioning your business for inclusion in responses.
CATEGORY PENETRATION SCORES
DATASET SHARE FREQUENCYDEVELOPER
66 records out of 120
55%FREQ
HOUSING ASSOCI...
42 records out of 60
70%FREQ
LOCAL AUTHORITY
43 records out of 60
71.7%FREQ
TAILORED CONSULTANCYOptimize for AI Search
MIGRATIONTechnical & Infrastructure
Website Migration Services
Domain changes, mergers, replatforming & 301 redirection
If you are changing domain name, merging websites or replatforming your website to a new CMS you will need someone to manage the technical process of retaining and growing your organic search performance.
Work can include a staging site review for SEO performance, pre-migration URL migration maps, site architecture, implementation of 301 redirection and post launch check to identify and fix any indexing issues once the migration has taken place.
I’ve worked on numerous website migration projects including multi-lingual sites with hundreds of thousands of pages to ten page business lead gen sites.
TAILORED CONSULTANCYDiscuss a Migration
INDEXATIONTechnical & Infrastructure
Site Indexation Analysis
Resolving crawl hurdles, coverage gaps and bot delivery barriers
Using Google Search Console data alongside live crawls of the website we can establish which pages search engines may struggle to index and discover any indexation concerns. This is a high priority audit area.
Some websites may inadvertently block search engines or the content may be delivered using methods that can not be read by their bots.
I provide detailed recommendations on how to fix indexing issues, making sure all the hard work of content creation doesn’t go to waste.
WHY PAGES AREN’T INDEXED
Pages that aren't indexed can't be served on Google
GSC COVERAGE
| Reason | Source | Pages |
|---|---|---|
| Alternate page with proper canonical tag | Website | 348 |
| Crawled - currently not indexed | Google systems | 256 |
| Page with redirect | Website | 214 |
| Not found (404) | Website | 29 |
| Blocked due to access forbidden (403) | Website | 7 |
Identified Coverage ExclusionsTOTAL EXCLUDED: 854 PAGES
TAILORED CONSULTANCYAnalyze Indexation
PERFORMANCETechnical & Infrastructure
Page Speed & Core Web Vitals
Optimising load speeds, interactivity and Core Web Vital thresholds
Slow websites and those that fail Googles Core Web Vital metrics can suffer in search results. Users expect fast loading content that they can quickly engage with.
This work focuses on that user experience with an output of code fixes and recommendations intended to solve often complex site speed issues.
I use a variety to tools to explore what may be causing issues with CWV metrics (largest contentful paint, cumulative layout shift, interaction to next paint) and provide code solutions for developers to implement.
TAILORED CONSULTANCYAudit Site Speed
ARCHITECTURETechnical & Infrastructure
Website Architecture & Navigation
URL taxonomy, internal linking and user journey structuring
These two go hand in hand. The architecture of your site refers to how you structure your URLs. For example do your services sit in a /services/ sub-folder or sit in the root of the domain. How article content is organised and so on.
TAILORED CONSULTANCYReview Architecture
STRUCTURED DATATechnical & Infrastructure
Schema & Meta Data
Behind the scenes classification, entity signals and rich results
The site content your visitors can see is only one part of the story. Schema and meta data are ‘behind the scenes’ signals that can be used by search apps to help them classify and qualify the content they are reading.
Schema for example can help search engines understand what the content represents (a service, article, contact details) and link up your work to your wider business social accounts.
The first step is auditing what you have, establishing what sector specific recommendations you can add and then implementing them.
ORGANIZATION SCHEMA (JSON-LD)
VALID SCHEMA.ORG
schema-organization.jsonld
application/ld+json • UTF-81
<script type="application/ld+json">
2
{
3
"@context": "https://schema.org",
4
"@type": "Organization",
5
"name": "Search Performance",
6
"url": "https://searchperformance.co.uk/",
7
"logo": "https://searchperformance.co.uk/assets/searchperformancelogo.png",
8
"sameAs": [
9
"https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-bailey-seo/"
10
],
11
"contactPoint": {
12
"@type": "ContactPoint",
13
"telephone": "+44 7515 986809",
14
"email": "sjbaileyseo@gmail.com",
15
"url": "https://searchperformance.co.uk/contact",
16
"contactType": "General Enquiries"
17
}
18
}
19
</script>
ENTITY: Organization•
Rich Results ReadyTAILORED CONSULTANCYImplement Schema
AUTHORITY & EEATAuthority & Quality
Google EEAT Recommendations
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness & Trust for search & AI
Google EEAT was first introduced in 2014. It’s nothing new but it is much more impactful on search in the era of AI. Experience, expertise, authority and trust are essentially components of Googles quality guidelines designed specifically to review and judge if your service is reliable and trustworthy.
There are many influencing factors published in Googles 182 page Quality Rater document which can be viewed as a structural framework for building online credibility and that credibility is high on the agenda of AI search.
I’ve worked within very complex sectors such as health care, legal and financial - all of which truly benefit from EEAT audits.
The aim is to identify where credibility can be improved and provide solutions. Every business can benefit in some way and if you haven’t looked at this side of search before then it is likely that you need to.
TAILORED CONSULTANCYRequest EEAT Audit
COMPETITOR AUDITINGAuthority & Quality
Competitor Analysis
Benchmarking content gaps, backlink profiles, authority signals and growth opportunities
Competitor analysis can feed into your projects in different ways. It can be used to identify gaps in your own content, PR activities resulting in backlinks, trust and authority signals that you may be lacking and ultimately why they may be outperforming you in search. Identifying competitor ‘wins’ helps to inform search strategy and is often built in at the beginning of the search strategy process.
The complexity of a sector and number of competitors obviously impacts the cost of a quality competitor audit. Experience plays a big part in understanding what to look at and where to find it to maximise value.
The rewards can be notable and help inform website content, marketing efforts and uncover critical business decisions that have driven organic search growth.
Almost every client I have worked on has received a competitor analysis audit in some fashion. Sometimes as a comprehensive standalone piece of work but parts of it naturally fit into EEAT audits and AI optimisation.
TAILORED CONSULTANCYRequest Competitor Audit
SENTIMENT & SWOTAI & Generative Search
AI Sentiment Analysis (SWOT, PUGH and Net Sentiment)
Conversational narrative discovery, Net Sentiment scoring and PUGH competitor profiling
Conversational search breaks away from the traditional search scope. AI wants to know who is searching and why - you need to understand that too and discover which customers you may be failing to engage with.
I’ve developed tools to review sentiment, frequency and more to provide detailed marketing reports including SWOT, Net Sentiment Scores and PUGH matrix competitor profiles.
These can be focused on specific operational aspects of a business and are excellent at detailing what AI has to say about them. From there we can work towards changing any unwanted narratives and building more trust with AI search assistants.
AI SENTIMENT & NARRATIVE INSIGHT
MARKET PERCEPTION SYNTHESIS“
"While Arnold Clark and Evans Halshaw are massive retailers with high overall Trustpilot scores, they also receive more mixed feedback regarding after-sales communication due to their size."
MARKET ANALYSIS INSIGHT
37.6%NET SENTIMENT
101SAMPLES
Conversational Search SynthesisMODEL: PERCEPTION & SENTIMENT INDEX
TAILORED CONSULTANCYAnalyze AI Sentiment
TRACKING & REPORTINGAnalytics & Reporting
Reporting & Tracking Results
Topic cluster tracking, competitor benchmarking and custom automated dashboards
Ultimately the aim of search optimisation is to outperform your competitors in search results be they search engine or AI results. Traditional tracking focuses on individual keywords, and individual terms can become an obsession. Tracking thousands of keywords is not the gold standard of search tracking that it used to be.
There is greater value in a hybrid model that leads with topical tracking (using clusters of keywords) and comparing your performance against direct competitors. This focuses reports on your performance against others in your sector. It frames data in performance gains vs competitors, not results pages (SERPs) which can be incredibly volatile.
I use Brightdata for recording search results/AI responses and have built tracking dashboards that are tailored to client needs and significantly lower costs to the client.
CLIENT VS. TOP 4 COMPETITORS
Total Page 1 visibility (Top 10 + AI Overview citations) comparing the Client Brand against the Top 4 Competitors
⭐ CLIENT BRANDClient Brand(clientbrand.co.uk)
Top 3: 474-10: 44AI Text: 14AI Links: 44AI Feature: 35
TOTAL: 184⚔ COMP # 1Competitor Alpha(comp-alpha.co.uk)
Top 3: 214-10: 16AI Text: 2AI Links: 19AI Feature: 13
TOTAL: 71⚔ COMP # 2Competitor Beta(comp-beta.co.uk)
Top 3: 34-10: 13AI Text: 1AI Links: 15AI Feature: 7
TOTAL: 39⚔ COMP # 3Competitor Gamma(comp-gamma.co.uk)
Top 3: 14-10: 16AI Text: 1AI Links: 8AI Feature: 3
TOTAL: 29⚔ COMP # 4Competitor Delta(comp-delta.com)
Top 3: 34-10: 5AI Text: 5AI Links: 7AI Feature: 4
TOTAL: 24TAILORED CONSULTANCYReview Tracking Solutions
AI PHILOSOPHY & USEAI & Generative Search
How do you use AI?
Secure data handling, custom task-specific workflows and human-first insight
Data privacy, specialised additive processes, and protecting genuine human craftsmanship - understanding how AI should (and should not) be deployed in modern search.
Data: No sensitive client data is ever shared with AI tools. Most of the work I am involved with involves public domain content - that which is published on websites.
Highly specific tasks: I’ve created apps that are additive to my processes with LLMs trained on my processes and thinking to generate insightful outputs that I have rigorously tested for accuracy. These apps weren’t created to cut corners or shorten delivery time - they have been built to achieve tasks that have been incredibly expensive or out of reach for most SEO work.
Not for copy: Some people use AI to give them a ‘framework’ to work from and whilst it can provide some inspiration it often erodes the human touch - your expertise, knowledge and personal insights. That isn’t good for search and I don’t like it representing my work either.
TAILORED CONSULTANCYDiscuss AI Integration
COPYWRITING & CONTENTContent & Optimization
Do you offer Copywriting Services?
Content rewriting, on-page guidance and user-first framing without artificial shortcuts
Part of SEO has always been rewriting content to better optimise it for users and sometimes there is a need to demonstrate to a client what good content should look like. I do both of these things but I do not write articles for clients, I believe that is a skilled discipline that should be left to professional copywriters or clients themselves.
You shouldn’t take shortcuts with content. There are temptations to use AI to generate copy and I would urge clients to be wary of this.
You want your copy to be unique, insightful and represent your business in the best possible light. AI, due to the very nature of LLMs predictive responses, is not going to deliver on these content goals.
What I can offer is my extensive knowledge of content that will support your user experience, search engines ranking signals and visibility in AI responses alongside a robust content strategy.
TAILORED CONSULTANCYDiscuss Content Strategy
