The Website We Don’t See: An SEO Self-Audit

I thought I had done a good job creating the Lucky Jumper Films website. Then I ran a crawl with Screaming Frog and realised how much of a website WE DON’T SEE as humans. The pages could look clean and easy to navigate while still leaving questions underneath.

My September 2025 self-audit identified several things to investigate: descriptions, titles, media, structured data and the relationship between old and current URLs. It was a snapshot of the site at that point, and it gave me a practical list of improvements to check.

Missing meta descriptions. My crawl notes flagged several service pages and the Work page. I wanted each to have a clear, useful description of its purpose. Google primarily creates snippets from page content and may use a meta description when it provides a better summary; adding one does not force Google to display it. The task is to write a relevant introduction to the page, not hit a magic character count (Google Search Central, n.d.-a).

Page titles. A title such as “Event Videos – Lucky Jumper Films” names a service, but I also wanted to consider how a potential client describes the need. “Event Video Production in London | Lucky Jumper Films” was one possible direction, where that service and location accurately match the page. Clear, specific titles are more useful than stuffing every possible keyword into the same line.

Heavy images and video. The visual work is central to a production company’s site, so simply removing it would miss the point. I would compare compressed images, suitable formats such as WebP or AVIF, and a lighter mobile presentation. The question is what helps the page load and work well on the devices people actually use, not whether every file falls below an arbitrary size.

Accessibility belongs in that review too. Meaningful images need useful text alternatives; purely decorative images generally need an empty alt attribute. “Add words to every picture” is not the same as making the page understandable (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, 2024).

Structured data. My notes did not identify the business and video markup I expected to find. Relevant, accurate structured data can help establish eligibility for supported search features, but it does not guarantee a rich result. I would check which types suit the actual content, add the required information and validate it, rather than assume that a schema label automatically wins a prominent listing (Google Search Central, n.d.-b).

Redirects and canonicals. An old service URL also prompted a closer look. I would check the redirect destination, the live page’s canonical URL and internal links together, so that they indicate the same preferred page. A crawl warning needs investigation before deciding what to change; redirects and canonical annotations are signals that work best when they are consistent (Google Search Central, n.d.-c).

My action plan was to clarify titles and descriptions, improve the media experience, validate relevant structured data and resolve URL inconsistencies. Alongside that technical work, the service pages needed useful substance: what the process involves, examples of the work and answers to prospective clients’ questions.

The biggest shift was in how I judged the website. A good-looking page is the beginning. The work underneath should help people find it, understand it and use it—and those improvements need checking, not just a promise of better rankings.