PsychFitnessOne.com Infrastructure SEO Case Study: Speed & Planning Wins shows how smart planning and faster hosting drive ranking wins. |
TL;DR – Quick Wins
First, the hosting upgrade + Cloudflare CDN slashed Largest Contentful Paint from 3.8 s → 1.2 s.
- Next, code‑level optimizations (HTTP/2, Brotli, image lazy‑loading) dropped total page weight by 37 %.
- Meanwhile, a two‑week sprint plan resolved 9 high‑priority technical SEO issues (schema, XML sitemap, 404s).
- Consequently, organic impressions grew 210 % and average position improved from 26 → 11 within 60 days.
- Finally, organic sessions / day jumped from 1.9 → ~100 (+52×) after 60 days.
1. Setting the Scene
PsychFitnessOne.com, led by clinical psychologist Dr. Dariush Fathi, offers evidence‑based strategies for mental fitness. However, despite the great insights, the site was sluggish and Google Search Console was screaming about Core Web Vitals. Therefore, Dr. Fathi asked me to diagnose and fix the bottlenecks – fast. PsychFitnessOne.com Infrastructure SEO Case Study: Speed & Planning Wins, and here’s how we begian.
Pain Points We Found
- Firstly, shared hosting limited to 1 vCPU – traffic spikes caused TTFB > 1 s.
- Secondly, render‑blocking JS & unused CSS bloated first paint.
- Additionally, there was no staging pipeline – any change risked downtime.
- Finally, the old XML sitemap was missing ~30 % of live URLs.
2. Infrastructure Overhaul (Week 1)
| Tactic | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Low‑tier shared cPanel | No change (big speed improvement opportunity in phase 2) |
| CDN | None | Cloudflare Pro (HTTP/2 + caching rules) |
| Compression | Gzip only | Brotli + WebP format for images |
| TLS | TLS 1.2 | TLS 1.3 + HSTS |
As a result, Time to First Byte fell from 1200 ms to 180 ms. Google PageSpeed Insights (mobile) score jumped from 58 to 92.
3. Planning the SEO Sprint (Week 2)
To keep things organized, we mapped every technical task into a Zoho Projects board so Dr. Fathi could track progress in real‑time. The backlog included:
- Core Web Vitals fixes (FCP, LCP, CLS)
- Schema.org markup for articles & FAQ
- Robots.txt refinement to remove thin content from crawl budget
- XML sitemap regeneration via WP‑CLI cron job
- Internal link sculpting using topic clusters
Furthermore, a weekly 15‑minute stand‑up kept momentum without overwhelming schedules.
4. Speed of Delivery – Why “Done” Beats “Perfect”
Rather than adopting a four‑month waterfall, we shipped MVP improvements every 48 hours. Consequently, each push was measured in Search Console the very next day. This rapid feedback loop allowed us to double‑down on high‑impact tweaks and skip the rest.
Example Fast Win
Issue: Slow hero image (2.6 MB JPEG)
Fix: Convert to 180 KB WebP + lazy‑load
Impact: LCP ↓ 41 %, CLS steady
Time spent: 35 minutes
5. The Numbers That Matter
| Metric | Day 0 | Day 60 |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile LCP (p75) | 3.8 s | 1.2 s |
| Total Keywords in Top 10 | 4 | 28 |
| Organic Sessions / Day | 1.9 | ~100 |
| Bounce Rate | 68 % | 49 % |
(Data pulled from Google Search Console & GA4 – July 2025)
Organic Search Baseline Snapshot (Apr 25 – May 31 2025)
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total Organic Sessions | 70 |
| Avg. Sessions / Day | 1.9 |
| New Visitors | 58 |
| Weighted Bounce Rate | 64.3 % |
| Pages / Session | 1.56 |
| Avg. Session Duration | 1 m 45 s |
(Source: Google Analytics Channels report, Apr 25 – May 31 2025)
6. Lessons Learned
- Most importantly, infrastructure is the foundation. Speed fixes at code level mean little on throttled shared hosting, and off‑the‑shelf solutions may work for some; however, your competitors are doing more.
- Equally important, planning beats guessing. A clear sprint backlog kept scope creep at bay.
- Moreover, ship small, ship often. Rapid iterations let Google re‑evaluate pages quickly, and Search Console monitoring plus re‑indexing is key, and reviwing Google’s Core Web Vitals docs offers a great starting point.
- Finally, automation frees creativity. Dr. Fathi now focuses on writing, not wrestling with CMS quirks, and the structured content formatting will only get better with time.
7. Replicating This Playbook – Step‑by‑Step
- First, run a Lighthouse audit on your core templates.
- Next, benchmark hosting limits (CPU, I/O) and migrate if TTFB > 200 ms.
- Then, add a CDN (Cloudflare free tier is fine to start).
- After that, create a two‑week Kanban board: group tasks by Core Web Vitals, crawlability, content.
- Subsequently, automate sitemap & schema generation (Yoast, RankMath, or custom scripts).
- Thereafter, deploy in 48‑hour cycles and watch metrics in Search Console Coverage + CWV.
- Finally, rinse and iterate – prioritize tasks that move the metric needle.
If you need help with any of these, please book a 30‑minute discovery call with me here: https://calendar.app.google/79o3RNXywymTHk8f8
8. Final Thoughts
In summary, infrastructure, planning, and delivery speed form an SEO flywheel. When your tech stack hums, and when your roadmap is clear, then your releases become frequent, so Google rewards the experience – and your readers feel it instantly. Hopefully you found this PsychFitnessOne.com Infrastructure SEO Case Study: Speed & Planning Wins article interesting!
▶️ Curious about the details? Check out PsychFitnessOne.com and let me know which tweak you find the most surprising.
Written by Korey Rideout – Fractional CTO obsessed with turning milliseconds into ranking wins. Check out my projects at https://KoreyRideout.com