liam hayward's seo skills.

The work I do, the thinking behind it, the skills I've developed and the tools I use.

what i work on

I help businesses get found online, whether that's through traditional search, AI-driven discovery, or the emerging world of agentic search.

The aim is a website that is easy to crawl, understand, and trust, for both people and search systems, turning "why is it not working?" into a clear list of practical fixes, opportunities and a strategy for long-term, stable growth.

SEO can deliver measurable results on its own, but it works best woven into the wider digital strategy, with nothing working in isolation and every channel pulling in the same direction.

seo strategy
Approaching SEO not as a checklist of best practices and nice-to-haves, but as an investment that needs to deliver measurable value. From prioritising the most valuable fixes to securing visibility and market share in evolving search landscapes, I ensure every SEO effort serves a clear business purpose.

technical seo
Auditing, fixing, and improving the technical foundations. From crawlability and indexing to site speed, schema implementation for richer search results, and identifying technical misconfigurations that hinder discoverability, I remove blockers so search systems can access, understand, and trust a site.

on-page seo + site architecture
Shaping how content is written, structured, and connected. From optimising headings, meta data, and page copy to align with search intent, to building logical internal linking structures and information architecture that guides both users and search engines clearly through a site.

measurement + reporting
Analysing user behaviour & site performance with search and analytics tools to uncover what is working, what isn't, and why. I diagnose friction points, translate data into actionable steps, and report on performance over time, helping prioritise fixes and inform precise improvements that drive measurable results.

ai + semantic search
Preparing websites for modern discovery. From AI crawler access and content that holds up without JavaScript, to the entity consistency and off-site corroboration that shape how a brand is understood, I make sure a site carries the kind of evidence AI systems quote, and is ready for the agents that increasingly search on our behalf.

migrations, launches + rebrands
Domain changes, new builds, and platform moves handled with technical precision. Planned methodically, monitored closely, and guided by data. By building search-ready foundations and protecting equity during migrations and rebrands, I minimise organic risk and keep performance stable before, during, and after launch.

my approach

The (ever-evolving) way I think about SEO.

Built-in, not bolted on

SEO works best when it's considered from the start, but there's almost always room to improve and strengthen an existing site.

I've seen great, often expensive websites struggle to get found because SEO was treated as an afterthought rather than something built in from the start. By the time search is considered, design and development decisions have already limited what is possible.

Search performance is rarely just a technical issue in isolation. It is usually a reflection of how clearly a business communicates what it does, who it is for, and how well its digital foundations support that message.

Strong foundations

Technical structure and information architecture support long-term search performance, rather than relying on short-term tactics or quick wins.

SEO is gradual and cumulative. Strong results are built on solid technical and structural foundations, not isolated tactics. Quick wins are often possible by fixing broken or missing fundamentals, but meaningful visibility growth usually comes from consistent, long term improvement.

Visibility on its own is not the goal. The aim is to attract the right audiences, support meaningful journeys, and contribute to measurable business outcomes.

Growth + protection

SEO drives growth, but also involves ongoing maintenance to protect existing visibility and prevent gradual performance decline.

Sometimes SEO is about growth. Often, it's about protection. In competitive industries, much of the work is defending the visibility you've already earned and preventing a gradual decline.

It's the unglamorous but vital maintenance: untangling redirect chains, resolving keyword cannibalisation, and catching those 5MB uncompressed images that inadvertently drag a site down.

A large part of technical SEO is risk management. Site changes, redesigns and platform migrations can undo years of progress overnight if they aren't handled with care. I focus on building stable foundations and guiding change so you can protect your existing rankings while moving forward.

Technical SEO is invisible

When technical SEO is working properly, it supports performance behind the scenes without getting in the way of the user experience.

When technical SEO is done well, it stays out of the way. Users won't notice it, but search systems certainly will. When it is neglected, it quietly undermines content, links, and every other marketing effort. I see it as the infrastructure that allows every other channel and tactic to perform properly.

A big part of my role is simplifying complexity, turning messy technical issues into clear priorities, practical actions, and explanations that teams can implement with confidence. Good technical SEO results in performance that holds up over time, and builds the kind of clarity and structure that modern, more semantic search increasingly relies on.

skills + tools

What I can do, what I do it with, and the bits I've built myself when nothing else quite fit.

core competencies

  • Technical SEO Audits + Improvements
  • Crawling, rendering + indexing optimisation
  • Structured Data + Schema Markup
  • Core Web Vitals + Performance
  • Site Architecture + Internal Linking
  • Site Migrations + Risk Management

ai native

  • Optimising for AI Overviews + LLM answers
  • AI-assisted workflows + automation
  • llms.txt + AI crawler directives (GPTBot, ClaudeBot)
  • Entity + Knowledge Graph optimisation
  • AI visibility auditing
  • Separating evidenced AI-search practice from GEO/AEO folklore

technical literacy

  • Comfortable reading + modifying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
  • Python for SEO and data automation
  • Working with search and data APIs
  • Managing large, complex datasets
  • GitHub, VS Code + Cloudflare deployment
  • Writing dev-ready briefs + reviewing fixes on staging

digital toolbox

  • Google Search Console + GA4
  • Looker Studio (Reporting + Dashboards)
  • Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, Semrush + Sitebulb
  • WordPress, Shopify, Storyblok + more
  • Chrome DevTools, Lighthouse + PageSpeed Insights
  • A growing shelf of self-built custom tools (some public, some not)