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Technical SEO audit for Pepitone Law

Scope

In early 2025, small business lawyer Dan Pepitone approached me to conduct a professional SEO audit. Based in NYC, his boutique legal practice provides guidance for therapists and private practices, and his online presence was strong—but could be improved. With a history of solid content and high visibility for terms like “PLLC formation,” he wanted a clear-eyed, expert evaluation of his performance and positioning.

What he needed: an audit and an actionable, human-centered SEO strategy that wouldn’t flatten his voice or feel too “marketing-y.”

The scope included:

Full technical SEO audit using Screaming Frog
Indexing, sitemap, and crawlability review
Analysis of top-performing pages & queries
Google Business Profile review & optimization guidance
Competitive research (mental health law SEO landscape)
Style-aware SEO content writing guidelines
Walkthroughs, follow-ups, and plain-language deliverables

Tools used

Squarespace – Client’s website content management system
Screaming Frog SEO Spider – for full-site technical crawl
Google Search Console – keyword tracking & diagnostics
Google Analytics – user behavior & page-level engagement
Google Business Profile – visibility and optimization checks
Google Docs + Otter.ai – for documentation and meeting transcripts
Plain-language SEO style guide – custom-built for in-house usage

Section of Pepitone Law’s homepage outlining client agreement services and featuring a painting of a couple at night. — Section highlighting contract support services. Copy edits ensured legal language stayed approachable and SEO-friendly without diluting meaning.

Screenshot of a service section about business formation and legal compliance, with ceramic artwork displayed on the side. — Business formation page. Internal linking and content tagging were refined to strengthen relevance for searches like “PLLC formation NYC.”

Homepage of Pepitone Law featuring headline “Here to Help” with subtext about supporting private practices. — Homepage hero section. Dan’s expertise is clearly framed for licensed professionals launching private practices — a strong starting point for optimizing clarity and SEO.

Screenshot of Pepitone Law website footer showing contact information, location, and navigation links. — Footer from pepitonelaw.com, displaying key contact and navigation elements. After the audit, I added essential links like Sitemap and LinkedIn and ensured they were properly indexed.

Full view of Pepitone Law’s sitemap page, listing all key pages, legal guides, and blog categories. — Visual of the new HTML sitemap. After audit, I ensured this page was indexed and linked in the footer for improved crawlability.

Need an SEO audit that doesn’t mess with your tone? Let’s talk →

Solution

Rather than overhauling everything at once, I focused on high-impact, sustainable changes that aligned with Dan’s goals: improving visibility for PLLC-related searches, cleaning up site structure, and boosting overall site health without disrupting his clean, professional aesthetic.

Here’s what I tackled:

URL & site structure improvements
- Updated the main blog URL from /guides-law-advice to /legal-guides and implemented 301 redirects to maintain traffic flow.
- Cleaned up long, clunky blog slugs and replaced them with concise, keyword-relevant URLs (e.g., /legal-guides/new-york-independent-contractor-law).
- Reviewed sitemap and redirect indexing in Google Search Console to ensure all changes were properly registered.
On-page SEO & content refinement
- Audited and improved H1 title structure sitewide—removing duplicates, shortening overly long titles, and making sure each one was unique and scannable.
- Ensured every blog post had clear SEO-friendly categories and tags for improved content discoverability.
- Flagged thin content areas on key pages (especially service/category pages) and offered guidance on where to expand for better relevance.
Performance & speed fixes
- Compressed and re-uploaded key images to reduce load times without losing quality.
- Investigated Squarespace’s script-heavy backend, which limits speed optimization, and opened a ticket with Squarespace Support to explore options.
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) improved dramatically from 10.9s → 3.8s, though some bottlenecks remain due to platform constraints.
Technical SEO fixes
- Identified 404 pages with past traffic and set up 301 redirects to the most relevant current pages, preserving search value and avoiding user drop-off.
- Created structured breadcrumb navigation across blog pages to improve internal linking, UX, and crawlability.

Screenshot of the SEO audit spreadsheet showing site speed issues, indexing status, and technical checks for Pepitone Law. — Core SEO audit results. The initial technical review revealed performance issues on mobile and missing sitemap content — both resolved during implementation.

Results

We’re continuing to monitor long-term progress, but early outcomes from the first month post-implementation (March–April 2025) are already showing strong momentum:

Search visibility for PLLC keywords remained strong, maintaining top-ranking positions for “PLLC formation New York”–related queries.
Google Search Console data showed measurable growth:
- Total clicks increased from 170 → 192
- Total impressions grew from 11.8k → 13.3k over a 28-day comparison period
Dan now has an SEO-aligned internal content framework. The custom SEO guidelines equip him to edit and publish future blog content confidently—without compromising clarity or tone.