Vibe coding has made it possible to create websites faster than ever. Using tools such as AI coding assistants, no-code platforms and prompt-based website builders, businesses can now produce landing pages, company websites and web applications without following a traditional development process and spending hours on development.
The problem is that a finished website is not necessarily an SEO-ready website.
A vibe-coded website may look professional, work correctly and include all the required content, while still containing serious technical SEO issues. Search engines may struggle to crawl the pages, understand the content or identify which URLs should appear in search results.
AI-generated websites can also include duplicated metadata, poor heading structures, content requiring Javascript to fire in order to access the content, missing canonical tags and inefficient code. These problems are not always visible to the person reviewing the design.
Once a vibe-coded website has been completed, it should therefore go through a dedicated SEO optimisation process before it is submitted to search engines.
Here are 15 practical SEO tips for optimising a website that has already been built using vibe coding:
1. Crawl the Entire Website
The first step is to crawl the website using a technical SEO crawler such as Screaming Frog, Sitebulb or a similar auditing tool.
A crawl allows you to see the website in a similar way to a search engine. It can uncover issues that may not be obvious when manually browsing the site.
Crawling tools can look for:
- Broken internal links
- Missing title tags
- Duplicate title tags
- Missing meta descriptions
- Duplicate content
- Redirect chains
- Incorrect status codes
- Missing H1 headings
- Orphaned pages
- Non-indexable URLs
- Validate JSON-LD schema
Do not assume that every page created by the AI tool has been included in the navigation or properly linked.
Vibe-coded websites can sometimes contain unused routes, test pages or duplicate templates that are still publicly accessible. These should either be removed, redirected or excluded from search engines.
The crawl should give you a complete list of URLs and establish a baseline for the optimisation work.
2. Check Whether Search Engines Can Render the Content
Vibe-coded websites are generally built using JavaScript frameworks such as Astro. The page may appear complete in a browser, but the initial source code may not contain all the content, requiring search engines to render JavaScript before they can access it. This can slow down indexing, so ensuring important content is present in the source code before JavaScript runs can make a significant difference.
In order to check if the site is using Javascript to load the content, you’ll need to open the page source by right-clicking on the site and then clicking ‘View Source’. You will then need to search for the main heading or a sentence from the page copy. If the content does not appear in the source, it may only be inserted after JavaScript runs.
You can also use Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to test the live page and view the rendered HTML (before JavaScript), this then allows you to check that Google can see the content.
Where possible, update the website to use server-side rendering, static generation or pre-rendered HTML for pages you want indexed – this will ensure that the content is in the HTML before Javascript is rendered, resulting in search engines being able to more easily crawl the site.
3. Review Which Pages Are Indexable
Once the website has been crawled, review which pages are allowed to appear in search results.
Important pages should normally return a 200 status code and include an indexable robots directive.
Check for pages that have accidentally been given:
- A noindex meta tag
- An X-Robots-Tag: noindex header
- A canonical tag pointing somewhere else
- A block within the robots.txt file
- An authentication requirement
AI coding tools may apply robots settings globally, meaning a staging instruction could accidentally remain in place after launch.
You should also identify pages that should not be indexed, such as:
- Internal search results
- Test pages
- Account areas
- Duplicate filter URLs
- Empty category pages
- Thank-you pages
- Development routes
The aim is not to index every URL. It is to ensure that search engines can access the valuable pages while ignoring low-quality or duplicate URLs.
4. Rewrite Duplicate Title Tags
One of the most common problems on generated websites is duplicated title tags.
The website may use the same title across every page, such as:
“Company Name | Professional Services”
This does not clearly explain what each individual page is about.
Every important page should have a unique title tag that accurately describes its primary topic.
For example:
- Technical SEO Audits | Company Name
- WordPress Website Development | Company Name
- SEO Consultancy in Manchester | Company Name
Avoid stuffing titles with repeated keywords or making them unnecessarily long.
Review the title tags in your crawl report and rewrite any that are:
- Missing
- Duplicated
- Too vague
- Unrelated to the page
- Automatically generated from navigation labels
The title tag is one of the strongest on-page signals available, so it should not be left as an AI-generated default.
5. Improve the Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions may not directly determine rankings, but they can influence whether a user clicks on your website in search engine results pages.
Vibe-coded sites often use the same meta description across multiple pages or generate descriptions by copying the first sentence of the content.
Write a unique description for each important page.
A useful meta description should explain:
- What the page provides
- Who the service or information is for
- Why the visitor should choose the business
- What action they can take
For example:
“Discover technical SEO services designed to improve crawlability, website performance and organic visibility. Request a tailored SEO audit today.”
Avoid writing descriptions that simply list keywords. They should sound natural and give searchers a clear reason to visit the page.
6. Fix the Heading Structure
AI-generated designs often use headings for styling rather than page structure.
A page may contain several H1 headings because each section title has been designed to appear large. Alternatively, the main title may be built using a <div> because the AI tool focused on appearance rather than semantics.
Each page should usually contain one clear H1 heading describing its main subject.
The rest of the headings should follow a logical structure:
- H1 for the main page title
- H2 for primary sections
- H3 for subsections within those sections
Do not skip heading levels purely to achieve a certain font size. Use CSS classes to control the design.
A clear heading hierarchy helps search engines understand the content and makes the page easier for visitors using assistive technology to navigate.
7. Optimise Thin or Generic Content
Vibe-coded websites frequently include polished but generic content.
The wording may sound professional while failing to provide enough depth, evidence or originality to compete in organic search.
Review every commercial page and ask:
- Does this page fully answer the searcher’s likely questions?
- Does it explain the service in meaningful detail?
- Does it include examples, processes or outcomes?
- Is the copy specific to the business?
- Could the same text apply to almost any competitor?
Replace vague statements such as “We deliver innovative solutions” with specific information about what the business does, how the service works and what customers can expect.
Include useful sections such as:
- Service benefits
- The working process
- Frequently asked questions
- Relevant industries
- Case studies
- Pricing considerations
- Expected timescales
- Accreditations or experience
Do not add text simply to increase the word count. The content should make the page genuinely more useful.
8. Improve Internal Linking
A completed website may have a navigation menu but very few contextual internal links.
Search engines use internal links to discover pages, understand relationships between topics and assess which pages are most important.
Review the content and add links between relevant pages.
For example:
- Blog posts can link to related service pages
- Service pages can link to relevant case studies
- Location pages can link to the main service
- Informational guides can link to related resources
- Related services can link to one another
Use descriptive anchor text rather than generic wording such as “click here”.
For example:
“Learn more about our technical SEO audit service.”
Make sure important pages are not buried several clicks away from the homepage.
Pages with no internal links pointing to them may be treated as orphaned pages and can be difficult for search engines to discover.
9. Fix Image SEO
Vibe-coded websites often contain large, visually impressive images that have not been properly optimised.
Start by checking image file sizes. Large PNG or JPEG files can significantly affect page speed, especially on mobile devices.
Convert images to modern formats such as WebP or AVIF where supported. Resize them to the maximum dimensions required by the design rather than uploading unnecessarily large originals.
Every meaningful image should also have suitable alternative text.
Alternative text should describe the image’s purpose and content. It should not be used as a place to insert a list of keywords.
Decorative images can use an empty alt attribute so that screen readers ignore them.
Also check that image filenames are descriptive. A filename such as technical-seo-dashboard.webp is more useful than image-4827-final-v3.webp.
Use lazy loading for images below the fold, but do not automatically lazy load the primary hero image if it is likely to be the Largest Contentful Paint element.
10. Improve Core Web Vitals
AI-generated websites can include excessive JavaScript, large libraries, animations and unnecessary components.
These can make the website feel modern while harming performance.
Test the site using PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse. Pay particular attention to:
- Largest Contentful Paint
- Interaction to Next Paint
- Cumulative Layout Shift
Common improvements include:
- Compressing images
- Removing unused JavaScript
- Reducing third-party scripts
- Preloading critical assets
- Deferring non-essential code
- Using appropriately sized fonts
- Reserving space for images
- Reducing large animations
- Avoiding unnecessary sliders
- Improving server response time
Do not install performance tools without first understanding the source of the problem.
A large JavaScript bundle should ideally be reduced at the code level rather than hidden behind multiple caching plugins.
11. Add Canonical Tags
Canonical tags identify the preferred version of a page.
Vibe-coded websites may generate several versions of the same URL through parameters, filters, trailing slashes or alternative routes.
Each indexable page should normally contain a self-referencing canonical tag.
For example:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.example.com/seo-services/”>
Check that the canonical:
- Uses the correct protocol
- Uses the preferred domain
- Matches the final URL
- Does not point to a redirect
- Does not point every page to the homepage
- Is included in the page’s <head>
Dynamic pages should generate their own canonical URLs rather than inheriting a global value.
Incorrect canonicals can cause search engines to ignore otherwise valuable pages.
12. Create and Validate an XML Sitemap
The website should have an XML sitemap containing its important indexable URLs.
Review the sitemap rather than assuming the platform generated it correctly.
It should not include:
- Redirected URLs
- Error pages
- Noindexcan pages
- Duplicate URLs
- Staging URLs
- Account pages
- Parameter variations
The URLs should use the correct protocol, preferred domain and consistent trailing-slash format.
Once the sitemap has been checked, submit it through Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
An XML sitemap does not guarantee indexing, but it helps search engines discover important pages and allows you to compare submitted URLs against indexed URLs.
13. Add Relevant Structured Data
Structured data can help search engines better understand the website’s content and entities.
The appropriate schema will depend on the type of website, but common examples include:
- Organisation
- LocalBusiness
- WebSite
- WebPage
- BreadcrumbList
- Article
- Product
- Service
- FAQPage
- ProfilePage
Do not add every available schema type simply because the AI tool can generate it.
The structured data must accurately represent the visible content on the page.
Validate the markup using Schema.org’s validator and Google’s Rich Results Test.
Pay particular attention to:
- Incorrect URLs
- Missing required fields
- Placeholder company information
- Duplicated schema
- Content not visible on the page
- Invalid nesting
- Conflicting entities
Structured data should support the content, not attempt to misrepresent it.
14. Check the Mobile Experience
A website may look excellent on the desktop screen used during development but perform poorly on smaller devices.
Review every important page on mobile.
Check for:
- Overlapping elements
- Cut-off headings
- Buttons that are too close together
- Horizontal scrolling
- Menus that do not open
- Text that is too small
- Pop-ups covering the content
- Tables that break the layout
- Images with incorrect dimensions
- Excessive animation
Search engines primarily evaluate the mobile version of a website, so mobile content and functionality should not be treated as secondary.
Make sure the mobile version contains the same important content, headings, metadata, links and structured data as the desktop version.
15. Set Up Ongoing Monitoring
SEO optimisation should not end once the initial issues have been fixed.
Vibe-coded websites can change quickly. A small prompt asking the AI tool to update a component can unintentionally alter metadata, remove links or create new indexable URLs.
Set up Google Search Console and review:
- Indexing reports
- Crawl errors
- Sitemap status
- Core Web Vitals
- Manual actions
- Security warnings
- Search queries
- Page performance
You should also schedule regular technical crawls and compare the results over time.
Monitor important pages for:
- Changes to title tags
- Missing canonical tags
- Accidental noindex directives
- Broken internal links
- Incorrect status codes
- Removed structured data
- Significant content changes
Where possible, include SEO checks within the development process so that problems are identified before updates reach the live website.
A vibe-coded website should be treated in the same way as any other website after it has been developed.
The design may have been generated quickly, but the technical SEO work still requires careful testing, validation and human judgement.
The most important first steps are to crawl the website, confirm that search engines can access the content and review which pages are indexable. From there, you can improve the metadata, headings, internal links, content, images, performance and structured data.
AI coding tools can also help fix many of the issues identified during an audit. However, each change should be reviewed and tested rather than accepted automatically.
The goal is not simply to make the website appear optimised. It is to create a website that search engines can reliably crawl, understand and index while delivering a fast, accessible and useful experience for visitors.
By applying these 15 SEO tips, you can turn a visually impressive vibe-coded website into a stronger foundation for long-term organic growth.
