What to fix first when you inherit a messy SEO setup

Taking over someone else’s SEO is a bit like moving into an old building. On paper, it has everything you need. In reality, there are loose wires, half finished jobs and decisions that made sense three years ago but now work against you.

That situation is common for marketing and digital managers in Ireland and across Europe, particularly where Enterprise Ireland support or EU projects are involved. You inherit an SEO setup with a history and mixed results, and are expected to improve performance without rebuilding everything from scratch.

The way through is to put changes in a sensible order so search engine optimisation becomes stable, predictable and clearly linked to the outcomes you care about.

Get a clear picture of what you have

Before changing anything, understand the site you have inherited.

Gather access to analytics, Search Console and any SEO tools in use. Scan previous audits and reports to see which issues were raised before and what has already been tried. Talk to people who rely on the website. Ask sales teams which pages they send to prospects, project partners which sections they use for reporting and support teams which pages they wish worked better. Then search for your brand and key services, programmes or project themes, click through from real results and follow the path into the site.

The aim at this stage is not to fix, but to see patterns and agree where the main problems sit.

Fix the issues that block visibility

The first practical priority is visibility. If search engines cannot reach, index or trust your pages, nothing else you do with content or structure will matter.

Start with Search Console. Look for large numbers of pages that are not indexed, persistent error messages or security warnings. Check whether important pages have been accidentally marked with noindex tags or blocked by robots rules. Look for duplicate versions of the site, such as both “www” and “non www”, and ensure everything runs over https. Test a sample of key journeys for broken links. Make sure the site loads in a reasonable time and is usable on mobile screens.

If you manage several domains or project microsites, check each one. You are aiming to remove obvious barriers, not to chase perfect scores in every performance tool.

Tidy structure and focus on key pages

Once your pages can be crawled and indexed reliably, turn to structure.

Older SEO setups tend to collect content over time. Sections are bolted on for each programme, funding call or campaign. Old pages stay online because nobody is sure if they can be retired. The result is a site that is technically visible but confusing for both users and search engines.

Start with the journeys that matter most. For most SMEs and project teams, that means a small set of service pages, key programme or course pages and a few high value resources or project results. Check whether these pages are easy to reach from navigation and from your home page. Look at their URLs and headings and ask whether they would make sense to someone outside your organisation. Where you find overlap or near duplicates, choose a primary page, improve it if needed and redirect weaker versions to it.

This gives search engines a clear signal about which page should rank and gives visitors a simpler path.

Improve the content that is nearly doing its job

With structure under control, focus on content that is already close to working.

Use analytics and Search Console to find pages that get impressions but low click through, or that attract organic traffic but lead to few enquiries, applications or downloads. These pages are visible but not persuasive. They are your fastest opportunity to improve results.

Read them as if you had just clicked from a search result. Does the opening make it obvious who the page is for and what problem it addresses. Is the language concrete and specific, or made of general promises. Is there enough detail, proof and guidance for someone to feel confident about taking the next step. Often, you can lift performance with relatively light edits. Sharpen the headline and first paragraph. Bring key information higher on the page. Add a short example or case study. Make the main call to action clear and reduce competing links around it.

Here, search engine optimisation and content strategy work together. You are still thinking about topics and queries, but you are also giving visitors a better experience.

Decide what you will measure

Inherited SEO setups often come with heavy reporting. Dashboards and monthly decks can list dozens of metrics, many of which are interesting but not useful.

Rather than expanding the data, step back and ask which outcomes truly matter. That might be qualified export enquiries, applications to a flagship programme, downloads of a key toolkit or visits from priority countries to an EU project site. Once outcomes are clear, pick a small set of SEO metrics that connect to them, such as impressions and click through rates for important pages, organic traffic into key journeys and the share of leads that begin with search.

Put light governance around SEO

The final step is thinking about how SEO will be managed from now on.

Messy setups usually grow in the gaps between teams and suppliers. Everyone does a little work on search engine optimisation, but nobody looks after the whole picture. You do not need complex governance. You do need clear ownership and a few habits.

Decide who is responsible for technical health and who owns the main content areas. Give people who create pages a short checklist covering titles, metadata, headings, internal links and basic readability. Set a regular review rhythm, even if it is just once a quarter, to look at performance on your most important journeys and agree a small number of improvements. If you work with agencies or multiple partners, share your SEO priorities for the year so that work on content, campaigns and technical changes points in the same direction.

Taking over a messy SEO environment will always involve some untangling. When you approach it in stages, the work feels less overwhelming and more like a series of clear steps. By fixing visibility, tidying structure, improving the content that is nearly doing its job, focusing your measurement and adding a little governance, you turn SEO from a legacy headache into something that steadily supports growth, partnership and impact across your work in Ireland, Europe and beyond.

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